Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Armine Yalnizyan highlights the fact that while the Cons fight for ever more inequality, even business groups are noting the risks of that direction: That (the Conference Board of Canada and the Intern…
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Here We Go Again
A Tory MP plans to introduce legislation as early as Friday calling for the repeal of a section in the federal human rights code banning hate speech over the Internet.My guess? Once again, almost every journalist in the country will sup…
Continue reading350 or bust: The World Loses Wangari Maathai – It’s Time For All Of Us To Heed Her Call To Become “Hummingbirds”
Green Belt Movement founder and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Dr. Wangari Maathai passed away on Sunday September 26th. A fierce yet humble advocate for the poor, particularly poor women, she was an inspiration to those of us who are working to build a bett…
Continue readingTea Party in Ontario? Big deal, it’s been bubbling under the surface in BC for ages.
The BC Conservative party gets a big hug from the Vancouver Sun but it cannot escape the perception that it is an outdated evangelical soup of wingnuts. I guess it has to be so extreme, considering how conservative the BC Liberal party has become.Anoth…
Continue readingOn a personal note…
I had my spinal surgery yesterday. There were odd complications, which puzzled the surgeon (and one doesn’t like to see a doctor puzzled), but they passed off and I was given a second MRI just to be on the…
Continue readingSketchy Thoughts: Hungerstrike Resumes in California Prisons! (Slingshot article)
This is an article i wrote for Slingshot – it was a bit of a rush job (i only found out about it a few hours before the deadline), so hopefully i didn’t goof on anything:By the time you read this article, prisoners across California will have embarked …
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: New Book Explores the Legacy of Colonization and Decolonization for Native American Rights
New Book Explores the Legacy of Colonization and Decolonization for Native American Rightsby Scott Neigh (originally published at Left Eye On Books)There is enough book here – an arm-wearying 934 pages – that it is no great trick to find plenty to …
Continue readingwmtc: wolf puppies!
When we visited the Haliburton Wolf Centre in March – our second time there, to see the wolves in their winter coats – the alpha female was pregnant. In April, four healthy pups were born: two males (one black, one gray) and two females (one black, one…
Continue readingBlunt Objects: Other provinces have elections too: Newfoundland Edition
Over on the Rock, the Tory dynasty is strong – so strong, in fact, that even the loss of its personable leader, replaced with a monotonous cabinet minister who probably orchestrated the entire thing, can still get their party over 50% of the vote.Kathy…
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: Ontario Leadership Debate
Shorter version: Blah, blah, blah, blah… I have to confess to finding these “debates” to be incredibly tiresome affairs. After listening to an hour and a half of dubious promises and contradictory gainsaying by the various leaders, one doesn’t really … Continue reading →
Northern Reflections: The Contempt Continues
After last spring’s election, the optimists among us hoped that — with a secure majority — we would see a kinder, gentler government. Those optimists hoped for more mutual respect among the parties. But Jack Layton’s death was a harbinger of things t…
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Girl Talk
Hey there, ladies. Women? Gals? Broads? Just… not girls, okay? We all stopped being girls a long time ago. Calling ourselves girls once we were old enough to menstruate was a slight stretch. Calling ourselves girls once we were old enough to vote was a bit ridiculous. But calling ourselves girls, perpetually? Grown women calling […]
Continue readingCheney speech: c’mon Calgary, you can do better than this
Only about 50 protesters showed up to Cheney’s Calgary speech, a dismal showing compared to the far more sizeable crowd at his Vancouver speech the night before. I realize Calgary is a conservative city but with Nenshi, I thought things were changing.E…
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: My work here is done #nlvotes #nlpoli
The Telegram quoted Kathy Dunderdale on Tuesday: "We have to find the cheapest way," she said today while campaigning on the west coast. "Muskrat Falls is that way unless somebody else is able to prove to us the analysis is flawed…
Continue readingMounties try to strong arm BC
I say, screw ’em. If you’re a law enforcement agency and you try to ‘blackmail’ a province, you can go fuck yourself.Hardball federal negotiators have demanded that B.C. accept Ottawa’s last offer for a new 20-year policing deal by Nov. 30, or RCMP s…
Continue reading"Warfare by any other means"
Isn’t this what fascists do?Queen’s University Professor Ned Franks used the term on Tuesday after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) imposed closure on its controversial 100-page omnibus crime bill and Conservative MPs on t…
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: Chris Christie Answers Questions…
Following his speech about American Exceptionalism at the Reagan Presidential Library in California last night, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie answered questions from the audience, most of which (predictably) concerned speculation about him possibly running to the U.S. President in … Continue reading →
Blunt Objects: This is Pre-Debate Ontario
Pre-debate Ontario has the Ontario Liberals sitting with a minority government, down 21 seats; the Hudak PCs win 37 seats, up 11; and the Horwath NDP win 20, up 10.At this point in the game, it looks pretty good for Premier McGuinty and co., especially…
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