Putin resembles Hitler as he suggests Russia needs to "cleanse" itself of homosexuality
How horrible it must be to be LGBT in Russia these days. My heart truly goes out to all LGBT people living in Russia and their allies. Next month’s Sochi…
January 2014
‘My Prairie Home’ documentary about transgender musician from Alberta makes it to Sundance Film Festival
I’m excited about seeing this documentary this year, the only Canadian feature to make it to the Sundance Film Festival, which opened this past week. ‘My Prairie Home’ follows a…
Neil Young is Right
“Take a second to really look at what you hear.” – Neil Young, singer/songwriter Neil Young knows how to rile up a crowd. In a 15 minute press conference* to…
james frey: author, liar, sweatshop boss
Today I break one of my own rules, and write about a book I didn’t enjoy. Not only that, but I trash the author, too. But perhaps author is the…
Walmart: Skirting Around Labour Laws
Excerpted from a slide on how management should speak to employees to discourage union talk. As reported by ThinkProgress, the above is but one of the ‘clever’ strategies for ensuring…
MIT report contests US intelligence on sarin attack: Lloyd – "The Syrian rebels most definitely have the ability to make these weapons"
Top: Fighters from the Free Syrian Army’s Saif al-Umayyad brigade prepare to launch a rocket towards regime forces in Ghouta, east of Damascus January 1, 2014. Bottom: Spent rockets from…
Lost or Breaking Bad? What do you think our wireless market is more like.
Telecom expert Peter Nowak isn’t asking you about your favourite show – he’s talking about mid-season plot twists in our wireless market. From Peter Nowak’s blog: This past weekend, Breaking…
The unholy trinity of the Alberta tarsands industry,…
The unholy trinity of the Alberta tarsands industry, the Conservative Party and the right-wing media has gone all-out in its attacks on Neil Young for his stance against their destructive…
Shale gas expert drills 50,000 holes in BC LNG plans
Fracking operations in BC’s Horn River Basin (Two Island Films) A new report from geoscientist and shale gas expert David Hughes offers a big reality check for BC’s proposed liquefied…
Jan. 19: volunteerism
A striking thing about New Brunswick is the frequency of photos in the press of smiling people (volunteers) holding cheques, sometimes giant ones, to hand to smiling recipients. These photos…
California: Instead of rain or snow the state is getting wildfires in the dead of winter
California has a serious drought, it did not get such a weather in over a century. Drought is causing serious problems for farming besides other uses of water. Drought is…
The 2013 Great Gatsby
Watched the 2013 film of The Great Gatsby last night. The first half was spectacular, grandiose and captivating, if somewhat over the top. Like Busby Berkeley meets The Fifth Element.…
A Candian Snow Job
While Neil Young was reminding Harper and Co. that they had obligations to Canada’s native peoples, John Baird was in Washington, trying to extract a promise from Barack Obama and…
Saturday Photo: Summer, Summer, Summertime….
Bridges are great symbols, connecting and separating, promising things to come, inviting daydreaming. These two bridges are particularly interesting to me now because they are harbingers of our plans for…
Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Leo Panitch reminds us that the term “reform” was once understood to represent efforts to bolster the public interest against unbridled market…
The Hair takes a full Airbus to Israel.
We hear that Prime Minister Harper filled his A310 Airbus for his historic trip to Israel. This marks a new trend in tourism for the Prime Minister. Until the trip…
The Harper Legacy: Empty Mantras And Empty Ideology
I hope readers don’t think I have grown lazy or burnt-out when I reprint letters from The Toronto Star. It is just that their observations and ideas are frequently so…