Ottawa NDP Leadership Debate Thoughts
The debate was good. Exciting even. After several months of being forced to sate my political appetite on the Republican leadership contest, the NDP leadership debate in Ottawa provided a…
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GOP Leadership Contest: The Likeability Factor
Pundits seem to love to profess multitudes of differing explanations for the see-sawing GOP leadership contest that has seen, respectively, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Newt Gingrich…
The four ways to defend religion
Sam Harris A year or so ago, I was exposed to prominent atheist Sam Harris’ outline of the three basic ways in which religion is commonly defended. It seemed like…
Emphasizing neutrality with respect to the progressive/regressive spectrum
Deficit neutral bills are a stalwart tool of the savvy politician. They allow for the sidestepping of the often raucous and partisan debates about the size of government and the…
The Authoritative Conservative-to-English Dictionary
Conservative-speak can be confusing for the less practice ear. I know, I know, it sounds like English, but perhaps it is just a different dialect? And it just all sounds…
Lessons from the ancient Greek island of Delos
I had the chance to visit the amazing archeological site that consists of the entire Greek island of Delos. Beyond the aesthetic appeal of such a large, ancient, and naturally…
Black Friday: Searching for community in a consumer world
Can’t Black Friday, one of the most consumer centered days on the calendar, just be about consumerism? Sure, on Boxing Day we can pretend it is really about lofty ideals…
Lessons from Uzbekistan
The Central Asian states such as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan often don’t get too much attention in the west. However, the region is both important from a geostrategic perspective as well…
Media Coverage of Occupy Wall Street and Wikileaks
There are two major ways that the Occupy movement can be covered in the media. One can either tell stories about the movement itself, or one can tell stories about…
Lessons from Kyrgyzstan
A year before the Arab Spring, Kyrgyzstan experienced a populist uprising of its own complete with violent conflict, from both the state and between ethnicities, and resulted in a change…
Quebec and Israel’s changing political narrative
When there is a single issue which dominates the politics of a jurisdiction for decades, it is often the case that progress on other issues is inhibited by the myopic…
GOP Foreign Policy Debate: Iran, Covert Ops, and Sanctions
While most of the CBS GOP Presidential Nomination debate on foreign policy in South Carolina was predictably following the standard script, there was one issue that somewhat surprised me. That…
Equality and Education
We live in a society that now ostensibly accepts equality and egalitarianism as a normative moral basis for our society. Not just the founding principles of classical liberalism with equal…
The myopic terrorism lens
One of the main failures of western understanding of the Middle East and South Asia, and the subsequent failures of actions taken by the west in these regions, stems from…
The tone deaf Christmas tree tax
The US Department of Agriculture has announced it is imposing a fifteen cent tax on all live Christmas trees. The 2 million raised from this tax will be spent to…
Prop Betting and Hedging Bets
As a poker player, talking about betting with non-poker friends often illustrates some pretty basic misconceptions with the process. Correcting some of these misconcep...
Social Media, Part II: The Value of Social Media
Like it or hate it, social media is now a potent force in society that is legitimately changing the way people interact with information, with news and politics, with each…
US, Israel and Canada’s response to Palestine’s UNESCO membership
When Palestine overwhelmingly got approved to be a member state in UNESCO, a long standing congressional trigger was activated which entirely defunds the US contribution to UNESCO (about a fifth…
Social Media, Part I: Information Flows
It is truly an empowering experience to live at at time with our neary effortless access to unprecedented amounts of information. More than just this, however, we are able to…
Peggy Nash announces candidacy for NDP leadership
Peggy Nash, the NDP incumbent for my riding of Parkdale-Highpark and the candidate I voted for, has just announced that she is running to be the next NDP leader. I…