My operating assumption is that Tim Hudak’s “Progressive” Conservative party of Ontario will win the next Ontario election and form the next government. I hope I’m wrong, but it’s certainly the safe bet after events drove McGuinty out of power and Horwath’s NDP haven’t managed yet to convince voters they’re
Continue readingAuthor: Daniel
Autonomy For All: Dirty Tricks Politics Goes Local With Rob Ford Ouster
In the wake of an Ontario Judge ruling that Rob Ford violated the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act and was subject to its mandatory penalty of being removed from office, I’ve been following the #TOpoli stream on Twitter (which behaves remarkably like the old usenet political debates used to). So
Continue readingAutonomy For All: Is Peter Kent Trying to Move Harper on Climate Change?
This starts with a tangent: I’ve been trying to understand why the World Bank’s climate report is big news. It’s just a rehash of long available science. The World Bank is not my idea of some kind of recalcitrant climate denial shop, but obviously they have some reason to be
Continue readingAutonomy For All: The Census is not 100% Accurate
Judging by reading the #tcot twitter stream (“top conservatives on twitter”) and sites like this one (claiming 50,000 hits in less than 2 days online), it appears rather than learning that reality > ideological fantasy, conservatives are intstead opting to double-down on ideological fantasy and are busy constructing an even
Continue readingAutonomy For All: Tim Hudak Proposes to End Overregulation with More Regulation
Ontario PC Leader, and most likely our next Premier Tim Hudak has released his predictable rehash of the Harris “common sense revolution.” Massive tax cuts are of course there, but it seems Mr. Hudak can’t quite decide how best to shovel money at rich people, immediately under his top priority
Continue readingAutonomy For All: Climate Change having "Natural Causes" is Far More Alarming
It strikes me that the set of climate deniers who say “yes the earth is warming, but it is natural causes not human behaviour” think somehow this is a sufficient and comforting explantion. Actually it would be a far far more alarming explantion for the phenomena if one considers it
Continue readingAutonomy For All: The Voter Fraud Dog Not Barking
In all the talk of voter fraud, there is one obvious absent sign of rampant voter fraud that we don’t see much discussion of: Voters complaining that someone else voted for them. In particular when we are talking about in-person voter fraud, the kind that requiring photo ID could actually solve,
Continue readingAutonomy For All: Labour Organizing As Warfare
Matt Stoller tweeted a link to this excellent piece on recent changes to the US labour organizing strategic landscape. In one of the most remarkably under-reported stories I’ve ever seen, Walmart workers across 12 cities in 9 states staged a series of wild-cat strikes in early October and unlike almost
Continue readingwRanter.com: Slicing through ignorant anti-circumcision rhetoric
Share this: Every once in a while, the subject of circumcising male newborns and boys rears its ugly head – no pun intended – and the discussion rarely takes long to veer into ethnocentrism, if not outright intolerance. With the best of intentions, and without realizing it, many people who
Continue readingwRanter.com: Church settlement boycott becomes interfaith train wreck
Share this: This past August, the General Council of the United Church of Canada, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, adopted a motion urging its members to boycott goods produced in West Bank settlements. The proposal was part of a larger, rather one-sided report prepared by the church’s Working Group on Israel/Palestine
Continue readingwRanter.com: Why seek validation from the IOC? Instead, flip it the bird
Share this: I love the Olympics, but not for the reasons you might think. It can be truly inspiring to watch the best athletes in the world – and the best Canada has to offer – compete against one another at the highest levels of sport. And I’m proud when
Continue readingwRanter.com: Steve Nash wins, and poor Jose Calderon loses – again
Share this: So it turns out that all-world point guard Steve Nash isn’t going to be a Toronto Raptor next year. Boo hoo. Wonky back and all, the 38-year-old received a contract offer from the Raptors reportedly worth $36 million over three years, but ultimately signed with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Continue readingwRanter.com: Adventures in parenting, Part 3: Time flies
Share this: My wife and I sent our boys off to sleepover camp last week, and while we’re excited to have 3-1/2 weeks of kid-free alone time, the house is eerily quiet without them. I woke up the other day thinking about how quickly time passes when you’re busy doing
Continue readingwRanter.com: Attacking public sector workers is a bad idea
During economic downturns, people have a tendency to turn on one another. We blame victims and eat our own. I’ve been alive long enough to have seen it more than once before. It’s wrong, but I get it. The urge to help one’s fellow human during times of trouble gets
Continue readingwRanter.com: Why I like the CFL, and you should, too
As my beloved Raptors wind down yet another lost season, and with the Leafs mercifully having been put out of their misery a few weeks ago, it’s time to turn my attention to the sports of summer. Here in Toronto, that means Blue Jays baseball – it’s hard not to
Continue readingwRanter.com: Sixth graders are too young for middle school
My wife and I knew something was awry when Primo lost his lunch box less than two weeks into the fall term. We were pretty annoyed that we were out $10 in what seemed like record time, even for one of our boys, who both periodically misplace various school supplies.
Continue readingwRanter.com: Adventures in parenting, Part 2: Longing for some sleep
I’m writing this post while in a bit of a haze. Actually, I’ve written all the posts on this site while in a bit of a haze. So if you find any typos, please excuse them, because I’m a dad of longstanding. Let me explain. All the books and advice on
Continue readingwRanter.com: Generation X gets shafted – again
A recent study by PwC Canada of the Canadian banking sector found that Generation X – roughly defined as people born between 1961 and 1981, after the Baby Boom – are being squeezed in the financial industry by Boomers who aren’t retiring and by Boomers’ “Generation Y” offspring, who are entering the workforce
Continue readingwRanter.com: Why Thomas Mulcair gets it when it comes to Israel
Not surprisingly, Thomas Mulcair won the NDP leadership last month, replacing Saint Jack Layton as the man social democrats hope can rally left-of-centre voters to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Here’s hoping he’s successful, but as I argued in an earlier post, it seems unlikely that he will be, because
Continue readingwRanter.com: Things that make me go arghhhh! Part 1
I figure that this wouldn’t be a true blog without random kvetching about nothing in particular. So in that spirit, I present semi-aimless carping about disconnected aspects of modern life, or, with apologies to Arsenio Hall, what I like to call “Things that make me go arghhhh!”: • When a
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