Maybe people who had survived the Great Depression and World War II were a little more wary, spent a little more time looking over their shoulders. The postwar years gave rise to a period of insight and enlightenment that was abruptly arrested in the late 70’s, early 80’s with the
Continue readingAuthor: The Mound of Sound
The Disaffected Lib: No Use Suing Over Spilled Wine, Eh?
This one’s going to pull at your heartstrings. It concerns an overlooked group of victims of Hurricane Sandy who may have suffered enormous losses into the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars from the deluge. Can you feel the pity welling up yet? Who are these people? They’re
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Feral Hogs of High Finance
The Toronto Star’s Richard Gwyn chronicles how the masters of high finance have fallen low. Today the status of the professions of banking and of financial management is nearer to that long occupied — most times quite unfairly so, in fact — by used car dealers. A couple of weeks
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: This is How We Look to the Neighbours
Here’s a fascinating photograph showing how Earth appears from Saturn. The image was taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. We’re that blue dot just below the bottom ring. We are indeed the “pale blue dot” mentioned by Carl Sagan in 1990. Here’s another, black and white, of Earth and our moon
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: In the Belly Of The Whale – Two California Swimmers Almost Go the Way of Jonah
They were just out for a little whale watching
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Speaking of Boiled Frogs, Here’s Paul Beckwith
Just in case you’re not familiar with the blog, PostArctica, there you’ll find a piece written by Paul Beckwith, a climate scientist at the University of Ottawa. Paul has just put up a post, “The Great Arctic Flush” which, if you haven’t read it, you really should. Beckwith introduces us
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Canada’s Boiling Frog Government
I’ve said it before but Gwynne Dyer seems to say it better so, here goes: If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, so they say, it will hop right out again. Frogs aren’t stupid. Well, okay, but they’re not that stupid. However, if you put a
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Of Royal Births, Past and Present.
I can imagine the lockdown in place for the birth of the next future heir to the British throne. It must be miserable for journalists trying to be the first with the story. When I was a pup, I went through something similar. Only the hospital was the Ottawa Civic,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: She Didn’t Deserve a Pardon. Dubai Owed Her an Apology.
Norwegian Marte Deborah Dalelv won’t be going to jail in Dubai for the crime of being raped. Of course to those twisted bastards in Dubai the actual crime was having extra-marital sex. You see, unless you’re married to your rapist, it’s a crime for you to be overpowered and raped.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: When Extending Life Becomes Prolonging Death
There was an item recently in the Vancouver Sun about how a lot of the current crop of young people will live 100-years or longer. Wow, one hundred years. If I recall right, as the 19th century came to a close average lifespan was in the 45-50 year range. In
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Obama’s Climate Change Policy a Plot Against Red States
You know, Red States – high unemployment, low education, high crime, shorter lifespans, constantly at the trough for federal handouts – those Red States. Well, according to a “scholar” at the prestigious American Enterprise Institute, president Obama’s climate change policy is a plot to redistribute wealth from dirt poor Red
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Peasants’ Magna Carta
A working group of the United Nations Human Rights Council met in Geneva last week to begin formulating a draft U.N. Declaration on the rights of peasants and other rural workers. The era of permanent food shortages, foreign land grabs and multinational industrial agriculture has seen the peasantry beset by
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Why I Worry So About Canada’s Middle Class
All you need to do is take a hard gaze south of the 49th to understand why Canada’s political apparatus is failing our middle class and what lies in store if we don’t confront this failure very soon. The United States has undergone “Brazilification,” a term coined to describe the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Do Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau Have in Common? Plenty.
It strikes me that if you want to avoid trouble it’s probably best not to look the other way while it approaches. There’s something about taking one upside the head unnecessarily that seems counter-intuitive. So why are we doing just that on so many fronts? Why do we keep turning
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: 19 Things We Can’t Say About Afghanistan
Canada’s indulgence in martial boosterism has come and gone. We’re no longer all that keen on kicking Taliban ass in Afghanistan. Like our American counterparts we hardly even mention the place any more. That goes in spades for the former Hero of Kandahar, Steve Harper. Remember the days – oh,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Farmer’s Lament
I think that, at some level, most progressives “get” what this Brit farmer is saying. Food, especially cheap food, is on the mind of many Britons this week after the head of supermarket giant, Tesco, warned that the days of cheap food are over. Around the world there is more
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Krugman Warns of China’s Unstable Economy. Will Ottawa Listen?
Maybe Steve Harper picked a bad moment to bind Canada’s economic future to China’s. The way Paul Krugman sees it, China has a structural time bomb within its economy and it’s ready to blow: China …seems to invest only to expand its future ability to invest even more. America, admittedly
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Legendary White House Correspondent, Helen Thomas, Dead at 92
She covered every administration from Kennedy to Obama and ruffled a few feathers along the way. Helen Thomas, whose bottomless curiosity and unquenchable drive made her a prominent White House reporter at a time when men dominated the profession, died Saturday at her apartment in Washington. She was 92. Her
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The End of Growth
It’s not the custom of people my age to go back and re-educate themselves on economics and I know why – ugh! I thought I understood economics from three or four Econ courses I did in undergrad (psst, I did really, really well on them too). Here’s the thing. In
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Obama’s Finest Moment
This is the face of leadership. Barack Obama delivers an unscheduled address on Trayvon Martin to the White House press corps.
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