Those Bastards at Bell.
Having once worked for Bell Canada, you find out very quickly why Bell is among the most hated of Canadian companies. It is the arrogance. Bell Canada shares its arrogant…
June 2021
Two defiant UCP ministers tell Jason Kenney to apologize for breaking COVID-19 restrictions at Sky Palace patio party
The good ship United Conservative Party, the vessel carrying Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s ambitions, sprang a couple more leaks yesterday. This time it was two female members of the UCP…
Kolbert’s Under a White Sky
It’s World Environment Day (who knew?!), and the Independent published a collection of hopeful messages despite the world not being on track to keep temperatures below two degrees this century.…
My own comic jam
Realizing I really do miss the comicjams, I dove in. Drawing this prompted by missing the sometimes odd results when an image is handed off led to my completing a…
Rethinking Education
Chomsky is right: in the Western world, what we call our “education” system, is in practice a system of indoctrination. This is its primary result, regardless of good intentions or…
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Aaron Derfel writes about the threat posed by the Delta COVID-19 variant. The Leader-Post and Star-Phoenix editorial boards point out the Moe government’s…
Oh, Canada
Loyal subjects: that is what we have been trained to be – first to the British Empire, then to the American Empire, and now, to Beijing and the global coporate…
Magpie Brûlé Podcast Season 3 Episode 1 – Reconciliation and Closure
After some time away, the Magpie Brûlé is back with a new season. In this episode, I go into the news of the past week from Kamloops, the reaction nation…
Higher penalties for tree poaching proposed for North Cowichan forest reserve
Originally published by the https://sixmountains.ca North Cowichan’s municipal forester is recommending a series of stiffer penalties to combat a rash of tree poaching in the 5,000-hectare Municipal Forest Reserve. Shaun…
A Clear Threat To The World
I know that I probably allot an inordinate amount of space on this blog to the United States. I wish it were otherwise, but the fact that they are the…
Saturday Photo: Adventure in the Middle of the City
Last weekend we spent a glorious Saturday in Parc Agrignon with some young friends. It’s a very large park by urban standards, and has a Métro station at its edge.…
Saunderson: An Affront to Democracy
PC nominee candidate Stella Ambler reported that her competitor, Brian Saunderson was anointed appointed as the party’s candidate for Simcoe-Grey without allowing the members to decide if they want him.…
On the Brink Of Tyranny
There was a time when what is happening would have made for astonishing fiction. Lawrence Martin Martin writes: It is astonishing enough that these Republicans refused to accept the results…
Musings on Shakespeare Guidebooks
Unless you’re an academic who has studied The Bard for your entire career, you really need a guide, a Virgil if you will, to enter the dark forest of Shakespeare…
We’re Baaack!
The new look for Babel-on-the-Bay was not intended. Moving an 11-year-old website to a new server proved more difficult than expected. It took some very good computer professionals to get…
Jason Kenney’s chuckleheaded response to Sky Palace patio party uproar reanimates rebellion in UCP Caucus ranks
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s pandemic patio party at the Sky Palace and his chuckleheaded response to the inevitable criticism of it seems to have loosed the spirit of rebellion again…
Science deniers at the helm
British Columbia produces “the world’s cleanest natural gas.” In the same 2019 press release, Justin Trudeau echoed that statement. The fiction of BC producing clean fossil fuel originated with Premier…
Richard Van Camp’s Moccasin Square Gardens tops Alberta independent bookshops’ bestseller list for week ended May 30
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, May 30, 2021. The lists are compiled…
Musical interlude
Dirty Vegas – Lost Not Found
Trudeau Tags RC Church in Residential School Abuse. What Choice Did He Have?
Could it be that prime minister Trudeau doesn’t want another Catholic church scandal around his neck in a looming federal election? I suppose it’s cynical to suggest a possible linkage…