A REPLAY from March 1, 2011 ER doc takes a coffee break CBC News item: Staff at Royal Columbian Hospital near Vancouver were forced to turn the facility’s Tim Hortons outlet into an emergency room on Monday night because of a shortage of beds. Deputy Premier, Minister Responsible for Small
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Northern Insights / Perceptivity: Comparing football and baseball
In an event that proceeds so slowly, it may not end until next week, America celebrates couch potatoes and gladiators. It is a good time to remember George Carlin:
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: REPLAY: Liberal plan of action
Reader Lorne Finlayson provided this to us a year ago. However, he didn’t indicate when the change would take place. Is the time growing close? Being in either a realistic, or pessimistic state of mind this morning – take your pick – I foresee the following events unfolding for this
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song – Byron
CBC Programming To Highlight “New” Standards? Harv Oberfeld, Keeping it Real
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Sign of the apocalypse
Twinkies maker Hostess seeks bankruptcy protection, Associated Press, January 11, 2012 “NEW YORK — Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, is seeking bankruptcy protection, blaming its [labour costs] and tough economic conditions. “The filing on Wednesday comes just two years after a predecessor company emerged from bankruptcy
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Police Squad – from the Encyclopedia of Wildlife
Another replay, recycled from April 2010: Police are an extremely social animal. They exist as a social unit called a squad. Police travel and hunt in a group and perform almost all other activities in the company of fellow police. The squad, basic unit of police social life, is usually
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Are you suffering today?
Headache, body ache, nausea, periorbital hyperalgesia, sensitivity to light and noise, diarrhea, thirst, lethargy, dysphoria and guilt. Those are symptoms I don’t have today after a quiet New Year’s eve. However, drawing from international sources, I provide a few cures for those with systems that reacted badly to the dust
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Culture Shock
Culture Shock by John Korn He’s sitting in his armchair with his solar powered light He’s sitting in the desert so the bulb keeps burning bright He’s sitting in his armchair and his standard lamp is on The vultures are approaching for the genius has gone The cactuses just
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Jeremy Hardy’s take on Christmas
From The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4, Dec. 23, 2011
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Better served by bird brains?
Our friends at the Blog Borg Collective noticed The Province displaying either low-class ignorant journalism or sophisticated and subtle humour. Apparently the newspaper was uncertain if the current session of the Legislature began with a “thrown speech” or a “throne speech.” Blogger North Van’s Grumps also tweaks governments for policy
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Bad Santa
From Reuters Editor’s Choice
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Wish I could write like that department
Roger Ebert, reviewing The Artist, a film by Michel Hazanavicius: “At a sneak preview screening here, a few audience members actually walked out, saying they didn’t like silent films. I was reminded of the time a reader called me to ask about an Ingmar Bergman film. “I think it’s the
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: On getting the news
Bill Bailey is an English comedian, musician, actor and TV presenter who often appears on Stephen Fry’s long running panel game show QI, an award winning celebration of the obscure. Bailey’s comedy is always intelligent and topical, and sometimes strange. He claims to have attended Bovington Gurney School of Performing
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Breaking news from the DFO
Statement from the Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Keith Ashfield, on Negative Infectious Salmon Anaemia Test Results in British Columbia Salmon “After Canada’s reputation has needlessly been put at risk over the past several weeks because of speculation and unfounded science, additional in-depth, conclusive tests, using proper and
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: "We’d be in shallower shit now if…"
One of my favourite Brits is actor/writer/comedian/social commentator David Mitchell. He’s been mentioned here before probably because, while I may not share his rapier wit, I do share his cynical disposition and contempt for pomposity, even while occasionally displaying touchs of that quality. In his weekly Guardian column, Mitchell takes
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: News from the 21st century
H/T to Susan Musgrave, Laila Yuile and Judy Tyabji
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Sharing urban roads
Photo Courtesy of FlightAware.com
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Spin Cycles recycled
First published here in April 2009, this piece contains a couple of classic clips from a program about political comments. One before spin-masters were invented and another that demonstrates spin of heroic proportion. The current British Columbia election provides frequent examples of modern politicians avoiding unpleasant and uncomfortable issues. Through
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