Assorted content for your Canada Day reading.- Oh, how nice it would be to be able to take pride in Dan Gardner’s message about Canada’s true identity:The level of civility seen every day at fourway stops across Canada is unheard of in countries around…
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Climate Change Denialist Outed – (along with Exxon)
Willie Soon is a darling of the climate change denialist community. He’s a very rare commodity indeed – a genuine scientist with peer-reviewed studies who stoutly disputes the entire theory of anthropogenic global warming.A rare commodity indeed….
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Decolonizing Trans As Allies
I’ve mentioned alliance when dissecting the problems with umbrella thinking in transsexual and gender diverse activism, in “The Death of the ‘Transgender’ Umbrella” and “Why The Umbrella Failed.” It’s easy to pull something apart — the more challenging question now becomes: how do we do activism if not as a single umbrella community? Why do 
The Sixth Estate: New Documents: A Record of Abandoned Promises: Election Platforms Since 2000
This week’s Sixth Estate Document Collection update is a record of futile and abandoned promises: the major political parties’ election platforms of the past ten years. Election platforms are not, or at least not always, a summary of the actual political beliefs of a political party’s leadership. Instead, they’re a statement that those leaders think […]
Continue readingFestive Left Friday Blogging: Canadian, Please!
Julia Bentley and Andrew Gunadie bring it on: How to become Canadian: “Step 1 — Lose the gun. Step 2 — Buy a canoe. Step 3 — Live multiculturally. Step 4 — You’re ready. There is no more!” And in spite of Harpo and his embarrassing corporatist pandering (oil, nukes and asbestos, anyone?), this country […]
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Ex-IMF Head May Have Been Set Up
I detected a smell in the air when the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Khan, was arrested for supposedly sexually assaulting a hotel chamber maid in New York. The story just didn’t seem to add up. His…
Continue readingJust Another Willy Loman: Apply Canada Day
This has become my annual Canada Day post. I thought about creating a new one, last year and again briefly this week, but it seems that I will spend this year’s Canada Day as I have the three or so before, being a typical, non political, over worked, C…
Continue readingCanada’s largest mental health institutions: Prisons
Decades ago recognizing that the institutionalisation of the mentally ill was cruel,unjust and counter productive, we started closing these facilities and embarked on a policy of community care.Well it appears that we have come full circle.The numbers …
Continue readingthe woodshed: Enough with the uniform fetish already
“Wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross” indeed.Didn’t thousands of brave Canadians die in World War Two just so we could avoid exactly this kind of creeping militarism and fascist-style soldier worship? It really is just a matter of time before St…
Continue readingwmtc: red sox "it gets better" video
“Once you make it through the hard parts, the rest of life is so much more fantastic than anything you can imagine.” I agree. The hard parts don’t go away, but they’re the same hard parts everyone goes through, not a punishment inflicted especially on …
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Fraser Institute Editorial Advisory Board Largely Dead
I have noticed this in a previously with other right-wing think tanks, but as the gentleman at The 6th Estate has noted on several occasions, several people on the The Fraser Institute editorial advisory board have long passed…
Continue reading350 or bust: Extreme Weather Events: Brought To Us By Big Oil & Gas
Happy Canada Day! What a week it’s been on the climate/weather front. Here in northwestern Ontario we’ve been experiencing a lovely June, although firefighters say it’s the driest summer in five years (which means they’ll have a…
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: OpenMedia.ca at the Canadian Telecom Summit: It Takes Three to Dance the Telecom Tango
It’s been just over a month since this year’s Canadian Telecommunications Summit — the invitation-only event for Canada’s leaders in telecommunications — and already its influence can be seen in the hackneyed proceedings of the CRTC’s verti…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: To Vote Or Not To Vote
Next to Stephen Harper achieving a majority government, for me the deepest disappointment in the recent federal election was the relatively poor voter turnout. Despite some really creative efforts to mobilize young people to become participants in the…
Continue readingAndy Lehrer's Firebrand blog: Stupid Quote of the Day
This gem comes from an interview with Robert Finch, Dominion Chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada in today’s New York Times: “The fact that the queen can’t change her hairstyle because she has to look like the person on her money, that’s an example of a big sacrifice,” Mr.
Continue readingAndy Lehrer: Stupid Quote of the Day
This gem comes from an interview with Robert Finch, Dominion Chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada in today’s New York Times:
“The fact that the queen can’t change her hairstyle because she has to look like the person on her money, that’s an example of a big sacrifice,” Mr. Finch said.
Canadian Firebrand: Stupid Quote of the Day
This gem comes from an interview with Robert Finch, Dominion Chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada in today’s New York Times: “The fact that the queen can’t change her hairstyle because she has to look like the person on her money, that’s an example of a big sacrifice,” Mr.
Continue readingAndy Lehrer: Stupid Quote of the Day
This gem comes from an interview with Robert Finch, Dominion Chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada in today’s New York Times: “The fact that the queen can’t change her hairstyle because she has to look like the person on her money, that’s an example of a big sacrifice,” Mr.
Continue readingwmtc: pupdate: good news for squirrels
My poor little Bo! Earlier this week, Tala wasn’t able to put any weight on her right hind leg. I suspected a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament, i.e., main knee ligament). It’s a not-uncommon injury in larger dogs, something we went through with our…
Continue readingTrashy's World: Happy CANADA Day!
NOT Dominion Day!
Today is to celebrate the birthday of a great (though currently politically misguided) and independent country. While our Constitution may refer to the land as a “Dominion”, the term is about as anachronistic as Christians turning Leviticus in the old testament for guidance… it just doesn’t “work” in modern times.
And technically, yes, we […]