For anyone who feels like equal rights have been regressing, here’s a bit of encouraging news. According to a report from the University of Chicago, the world is steadily becoming more and more gay-friendly. Virtually every country studied has reported a greater acceptance of people with different sexual orientations over previous polling periods, with only four exceptions: […]
Continue readingTag: Uncategorized
Slap Upside The Head: Anglican Church Finally Approves Same-Sex Blessings
The Anglican Church in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island approved a motion last week that would allow for individual churches to bless same-sex couples. The Anglican Church offers blessings for various things, including weddings, births, graduations, and even inanimate objects like boats and pets, but until now same-sex couples had been an issue of […]
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Gas Prices Are Too Low
Everyone loves to talk about gas prices, but few can agree what to do about them. Pointless boycotts of local stations have no real impact on the price of gasoline because they are very temporary and not widespread despite organizing attempts on the Internet. It’d be almost like trying to control how much water is […]
Pop The Stack: The Chomsky/Norvig — Classical/Statistical AI Brouhaha
I’ve written an article on my other blog Computationally Thinking summarizing an ongoing fascinating discussion on the state of Artificial Intelligence research. It should be accessible to technical and non-technical but I’ll add more to it as the discussion heats up. For political nuts you might be surprised to learn
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Don’t worry, cell phones still cause cancer
The latest in this epic struggle: Experts say cellphones are possibly carcinogenic. There’s obviously no clear answer, but given there’s some evidence both ways, wouldn’t it be prudent for any heavy cell phone user to minimize their exposure with something like a bluetooth headset? They don’t look great, but considering there’s some evidence wired headsets […]
Continue readingTaylorOwen.com: Liberals and a new political centre
Below is an oped for the Toronto Star written with David Eaves. We wrote a longer exploration of the state of progressive politics for the LRC a couple of years ago, which sounds many of the same themes, and can be found here. If the Liberals want to be the progressive center – they are […]
Continue readinggritchik: Somebody needs a nap
It must’ve been a hell of a convention: penis postings, allegations of Pokemon shenanigans and now a Tory MPP thinks Tim Horton will lead his party into this fall’s election.
Platform? Did somebody release a platform this weekend?
Slap Upside The Head: Another Russian Gay Pride March Ends In Violence
For the sixth consecutive year, Moscow has forbidden a peaceful gay rights demonstration from happening within the city, and for the sixth consecutive year, equal rights advocates have defied the ban—with violent consequences. Sadly, this isn’t a surprise. Homophobia runs very deep in Russian culture, so the same story returns year after year. An otherwise […]
Continue readinggritchik: Weinergate – NSFW
Okay, I have to be honest: when I first heard about this, I thought it was a joke. And then a friend sent me the pictures. There were, indeed, tweets of Lepp’s private bits. Taken late last night before being scrubbed – although we all know by now, the internet is forever. The Sun exposed […]
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: In Winnipeg
It’s not often I have so many days go by without blogging, but it’s been a busy week. Along with buying a motorbike, we had a trip to Winnipeg for the U2 concert to undertake. We didn’t want to take our Sunfire to Winnipeg until it got some service, so we rented what was supposed […]
gritchik: Tories are smrt
I knew Hudak couldn’t add, turns out he can’t spell either.
Continue readinggritchik: I bet they won’t be voting for Tim
Women just aren’t that into him.
This is what’s going on in the same place as the PC convention – swear to God, I saw it with my own eyes. And they outnumbered Tories about 20:1.
gritchik: Mike Harris is prominent figure at PC Convention
Sitting in the front row, I hear. Why? Because he taught Timmy everything he knows. Below, I’ve cut and pasted a post from October 17, 2010… They’re right – it wasn’t much of a protest. Particularly when the location they chose was behind 2 chip wagons and a tour bus on Queen Street. But go ahead, […]
gritchik: Timmy wants to be premier
It’s all fun and games until there’s a convicted criminal working in the school yard!
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Trivia question for the day: hint, Bonacieux
Ok, total lightness time – nothing serious whatsoever here. Today’s trivia question: are you ready? Pencil in hand? Alright then, here `tis. Four gold stars for anyone who get this question right – and two extra if you can name the au…
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Toronto Approves Pride Funding, With Caveats
Despite threats from Toronto’s mayor to pull its funding, a city council committee has unanimously voted to continue supporting the city’s annual Pride festival. Toronto Pride is Canada’s largest Pride celebration—a massive tourist draw, and one of the city’s largest festivals overall. Mayor Rob Ford had threatened to pull all city funding from the festival, […]
Continue readinggritchik: Back to it
I’ve taken a bit of a break from posting since the election – haven’t been terribly inspired by anything. But I, as a liberal Liberal, sure haven’t been spending my time moping about the #elxn 41 results. Fuck it. We’ll come back, we always do. Democracy’s messy and while my greatest fear came true – […]
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Economic Hitman Confesses
This is how I see the economic system of the world operating, and it’s the basis for many of my feelings about the economy in Canada and in Saskatchewan. It’s why I work to make things better however I can. Capitalism may be the best economic system we’ve run into thus far, but it’s not […]
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Gender As Afterthought
It’s not so strange to want children to be safe from bullying. It’s also not strange to want children to grow up whoever they want to be. One thing many people take for granted is that a person’s gender matches their sex organs. Obviously for millions of people around the world (homosexuals, transgendered, two spirited), […]