Quebec NDP MPs stay silent on their political past The Star emailed every Quebec MP in the NDP caucus — excluding Interim Leader Nycole Turmel — a short questionnaire last week soliciting their opinions on the political future of the province and whether they had changed over time. They were also asked if they had ever held a membership in another political party at the provincial or federal level, how they voted in the Quebec referendums, whether they ever cast a ballot for the Bloc Québécois and whether they considered themselves federalists, sovereigntists or believed another term would best describe their beliefs. … One week later, not a single NDP MP from Quebec had agreed to participate. If this exercise was all about "sparking a greater discussion" as the article claims, why not prepare a questionnaire that could be sent to all 308 MPs? If the focus was to be on the opinions of those from Quebec, why not send it to Quebec MPs from all the parties? Why limit it to the NDP caucus unless the hoped for discussion was about the failure of Dippers to respond or to pass a purity test?…
Continue readingBene Diction Blogs On: Faytene is ready for her close-up
By Rick Hiebert. All Rights reUsed By Permission. Faytene Grasseschi is apparently an actress. Yes, really. The former Faytene Kryskow is mentioning on her Facebook Wall this week that she has a part in a short film being made over … Continue reading →
Continue readingReal Fun With Maps….
AllTheDemographicsThatFitLotuslandiaRisingVille
Here’s something you may or may not know, but….
I am not a real Gazetteer.
And while I don’t even play one on the TeeVee, I do like to throw weird locations into the subheader of these posts, even if th…
Miss Vicky's Offhand Remarks: Last Movie night!
Tonight the last Hintonburg Movie night of the season! Head over to the Community Centure for Toy Story 2 at 7 and Ferris Bueller’s Day off at 9. Second show is outdoors -bring blankets or chairs.
Continue readingEconomics for Dummies: Mike Ruppert on provocateurs and the British riots
Mike Ruppert, a former drug-enforcement cop from Los Angeles who helped expose the CIA’s role in drug smuggling to the US, analyzes the London riots. These riots have an economic root, and it’s NOT what the conservatives of the British parliament would have us believe. This is actually global in nature, and the Arab Spring […]
Continue readingLeDaro: Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil, welcomes Harper for a photo-op
By now we know the story of how Stephen Harper threw a potty tantrum because he wanted a photo-op before dinner. The reason was that he wanted to have the toast before the dinner, because during and after the dinner photographers and newspapers were …
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: See the Cover!
I’ve been MIA this week as summer took over. Less than a month left and so much to do with kids and Web of Angels. Do you like the cover? I’m really happy with it! I got the page design last week and it’s just lovely. Before my first book came out, I had no […]
Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.
– Armine Yalnizyan discusses how inequality is no better for business than it is for society at large:
Just a few months ago, two IMF economists, Andrew Berg and Jonathan Ostry, showed that the more equitably…
@marcusbgee calls Ford on his bullshit, but who helped put him there? | #TOpoli
So a few people – Thor and Nancy for starters – are linking to this piece from the Globe’s ideologically reliable urban affairs curmudgeon, who’s arguing, not without reason, that Mayor Stupid should have known all along that he couldn’t guara…
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Quebecor Destaffing Newspapers To Keep Fox News North Afloat?
After the T.O. Sun’s last round of layoffs, I speculated wildly that the point of it all might be to keep Ezra in grease-paint. Turns out I might have been not so far off the mark:Another insider says the cuts were made to add funds to the …
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday PHoto: The Beauties of Mount Royal and the Cemetery
The gates to Mount Royal cemetery don’t look like this now. About a year and a half ago fissures were found in the mortar holding the big stone blocks–put in place in the 1860s–together. Since then there have been various steps at correcting the pr…
Continue reading350 or bust: End of the World Curriculum: Armageddon Vs. Global Warming
With tongue firmly in cheek, here’s a recent clip from the satirical news site The Onion: If you’d like to watch more from The Onion on global warming, click here.
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Putting a Myth To Bed
A particularly potent myth has been circulating for about a decade. It is that the world’s economic problems began with the fall of the World Trade Center. But, as Jennifer Wells writes in this morning’s Toronto Star, it was “greed, not Osama” which wr…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Hamilton Libraries: Something To Answer For
The other day I wrote a post called Hamilton’s Vindication, with a link to a story detailing Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina’s invitation to author Margaret Atwood to tour the Central Library facilities. I suggested that Hamilton was enjoying a burgeoning …
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: It is the Inequality, Stupid. – Mother Jones Hits Nail on Head
Inequality tears societies apart. The concentration of wealth in Western societies is getting out of hand. The fact that our democratic institution have been bought out and now represent only elite monied opinion bodes ill for society. The sort of inequality represented below represent a great threat to the social fabric of the United States […]
Pushed to the Left and Loving It: When in Doubt, Blame the Poor
British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has responded to the rioting in London over his budget, by blaming parents and kids who live in social housing. He promises to evict, and allow landlords to evict these “criminals” to teach them a lesson.Across th…
Continue readingTrashy's World: Dog people versus non-dog people…
… I fall into the latter group. Disclaimer – the following should not be considered to be blanket statements about all dogs and dog people. I address this specifically to friends and family who for some reason, that is completely a mystery to me, think dogs are just super. It’s not that I hate ‘em […]
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Conference Board of Canada Warns Tax Cuts Don’t Pay For Themselves
I regard the Conference Board of Canada with deep suspicion. It plagiarizes reports and opposes universal healthcare. Which is why I was so impressed to see an op-ed by its economist, Glen Hodgson, arguing that it is high time we started treating tax breaks like the government expenditures they really are: not spending per se, […]
Continue readingImpolitical: If it seems too good to be true, it usually is
Rob Ford is giving election promises a very bad name right about now: When he was running for mayor last year, Rob Ford made two explicit promises to the voters of Toronto. The first was that his plan to trim spending and “stop the gravy train” wou…
Continue readingMorton's Musings: NDP MPs refuse to answer questions about separatism
http://bit.ly/r8zUQc Hmm, sounds like a direction from the Centre to me — and the allegations of witch hunt is rather like a careful misdirection… . The NDP is learning from the CPC… .
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