… snowy December day edition… Good article in the Citizen{yes, I used good and Citizen in the same phrase} yesterday about the ridiculousness of our quad education system in Ontario. The issue of the wastefulness of our quadruplicated system of education seems to pop its head above the water twice
Continue readingThe Pantsafire Chronicles
Gazebos and chandeliers, false rumours, now fishing trips…Tomorrow? Who knows. But Harper’s cabinet promises endless new material. Enough for an on-going series? Why, yes, I do believe so. Today Peter MacKay, whose pants have been burning merrily since the days of the Canadian Alliance-Progressive Conservative Anschluss, is in the news
Continue readingThe Skwib: Sad Spaceman doesn’t read Nietzsche
More Sad Spaceman here. Alltop reads Nietzsche. It just doesn’t understand it.
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: CIJA Goes Soft On Section 13!
Asked if the Jewish community would benefit from the retention of Section 13, [CIJA CEO Shimon] Fogel stated: “What was intended as a shield against hate has become a sword. Certainly in its day, it was helpful in confronting the challenges related to the likes of [Holocaust denier] Ernst Zundel…
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Interesting Stuff In Gay History: Cinema
Gay-themed films are pretty commonplace nowadays. Nearly every major city (metropolis, if you will) has a GLBT film festival, and pictures that would previously have been restricted to exactly these sort of venues have slowly found their way into mainstream cinemas. Some, like Brokeback Mountain and Milk, are Oscar-winning successes.
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The politics of quackery #nlpoli
Comedian Dara O’Briain has a routine someone has posted to youtube in which he lambastes advocates of ideas that have no foundation in facts. He lampoons the irrational. On that latter one, O’Briain could be lampooning the provincial New Democrats, and specifically Dale Kirby. Kirby presented a brief to the
Continue readingHoles in MacKay’s credibility
Oh, Peter MacKay. After claiming that the helicopter ride he took from a fishing lodge to a waiting Challenger jet was part of a pre-ordained search-and-rescue exercise, new documents have shown that no, that was not indeed the case, that military officials warned him against taking the helicopter, that the landing area
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Where the money goes – ICBC top 50 – 2010
Salary Expense Total 1 SCHUBERT, Jon President & CEO 449,201 55,570 504,771 2 KIRKNER, Art V-P, Field Services 315,824 188,681 504,505 3 PRIOR, Geri Chief Financial Officer 461,710 7,839 469,549 4 HORTON, Craig Senior V-P, Claims 406,379 12,633 419,012
Continue readingMorton's Musings: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, KCVO, DL is often misquoted in that line. But misquoted or not Lord Acton was right. What's startling is how quickly the corruption has spread to the Conservatives. My sense is they are tired — having gotten a majority, having rammed through their
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Lies, Tell Us Lies, Tell Us Sweet Little Lies…
Source: CTV News: Emails Contradict MacKay on N.L. Chopper Flight Does anyone else remember when we talked about the issue of Challenger jet flights? Good, that will bring us all up to speed then. After Canada’s Top General got caught using a challenger jet to fly down to the Caribbean
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Free market, Canadian style
From J-Source.ca “New Brunswick is about to become the first place in Canada where readers must pay for local news. “The Irving-owned Brunswick News Inc. has decided that the era of free content is done. As early as next week, the company will shut down free access to websites for
Continue readingeaves.ca: Using Open Data to Map Vancouver’s Trees
This week, in preparation for the International Open Data Hackathon on Saturday, the Vancouver Parks Board shared one neighborhood of its tree inventory database (that I’ve uploaded to Buzzdata) so that we could at least see how it might be leveraged by citizens. What’s interesting is how valuable this data
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: "No ISA in BC" says BC Liberal Don McRae
Link to Super Heroes 4 Salmon Here
Continue readingcmkl: Attawapiskat: laying out the numbers
This excellent explanation of what happened to the so-called millions sent to Attawapiskat all over my little corner of the internet, but I want to share it anyway. Another inbound hyperlink can’t hurt, eh?
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Ideological perfection, Fraser Institute style: why democracy must be destroyed in order to save it
A neo-Con think tank gets ready to save democracy by crushing democracy. A “fellow” of the Fraser Institute stands to the far right. Who’s to say if this is not exactly as they appear? Below: Preston Manning (a Fraser Institute fellow himself) with Stephen Harper, in happier times; the Fraser
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: the cast of alberta politics: the motion picture.
Politics in Alberta is not always easy for outsiders to understand. Forty years of uninterrupted Progressive Conservative majority governments have given the province a reputation of being a politically homogenous monolith. The myth of Alberta as a western frontier where tarsands-rich oilmen and rugged cowboys rule the plains, perpetrated by an
Continue readingSongs In The Key Of My Kid’s Life
TheIncredibleBrightnessOf BeingVille The following five minutes that keeps on giving came to me, unexpected and out of nowhere, as an unexplained Email link… .
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Peter MacKay and the Outraged General
Well if you remember, when we last left Peter Dumbo Mackay he was happily buzzing over Newfoundland, on his way back from a fishing trip, and claiming he was late for a military demonstration. But wait. What’s this alarming new development? Mackay —- Air Tax Payer to tower…Mayday…Mayday. Tower ——Tower
Continue reading