Rick Santorum—an Antichrist?
Rick Santorum is a disturbing man. The candidate for Republican nominee for president has said things that if I were an American, I would find offensive if not frightening. For…
Bill Longstaff
Syria and the reluctant alliance between al-Qaeda and the West
Al-Qaeda and Western nations agreeing on a policy of critical importance may seem strange, yet such is the case with Syria. Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of al-Qaeda, has publicly thrown his…
News flash—country rejects Olympic Games!!!
Hard to believe, but true—a country has rejected the possibility of hosting the Olympics. Rome had intended to bid for the 2020 Summer Games, but the Italian government has nixed…
2012—International Year of Co-operatives
“Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility.” — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon I heartily agree with…
Stephen Harper and the triumph of ideology over reason
Why did he do it? Why did Stephen Harper suggest we had a public pension funding problem when we don’t? And why did he proclaim his concern at an international…
Ontario shows greatest population growth
Per cents are not people. Per cents don’t hold jobs, buy products or pay taxes. People do. Yet it seems that most of the conversation about the 2011 census report…
Supreme Court Justice says U.S. constitution is dated
This will set the teeth of right-wing Americans on edge. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in an interview on Egyptian television, said she wouldn’t recommend using the U.S.…
Alberta and Saskatchewan vie for pollution title
Alberta is generally considered to be Canada’s pollution champion. And it deserves the honour. With 11 per cent of the country’s population it contributes 34 per cent of the country’s…
The real radicals revealed
The word “radical” is being thrown out a lot lately, particularly from the mouths of certain federal ministers. Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver garnered a great deal of attention…
Anti-American or anti-American empire?
Americans are a militaristic people. That, I suspect, is why President Obama made praise of the military a major theme in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. He…
Rivers drying up in England?
When trout waved lazy in the clear chalk streams, Glory was in me … So wrote poet John Betjeman about his beloved River Kennet. Sadly, the trout have had trouble…
Bully for you, Minister Baird
John Baird has never been one of my favourite politicians. There is too much of the bully about him. Nonetheless, I applaud him for his speech Monday in the UK…
One pipeline down, one to go
So Obama has sunk the Keystone XL pipeline—at least temporarily. He has said Trans Canada can apply again, so perhaps he’s just being an election-year tease. Nonetheless, it’s a victory…
Gingrich drives Christ out of the room
During the latest debate by the candidates for the Republican nomination for president, Newt Gingrich declared, “Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America’s enemies: Kill them.” He got…
A premiers’ meeting with a significant feminine presence … finally
The premiers’ meeting this week in Victoria had a new look. Normally an assemblage of men in suits, this one had a definite feminine presence with four of the 13…
Harper—the prime minister of oil
In the paranoid corridors of Harperworld, opponents of tar sands development are radicals. And the most dangerous among the radicals are those who receive funding from foreigners. This is a…
Corporate chiefs beginning to see the dark side
The world’s capitalists are worried. The World Economic Forum, an organization composed of 1,000 of the world’s most powerful corporations, is concerned that the financial crisis gripping the global economy…
Peacekeeping—"Canada can and should do more"
Sometimes a graph is worth a thousand words. A good example is a graph depicting Canada’s contribution to U.N. peacekeeping that appeared in the December 2011 edition of Mondial, the…
Slowing Harper’s rush to environmental ruin
The federal government, it appears, is in a hurry. We cannot exploit the tar sands fast enough and bad guys are getting in the way. In an open letter to…
A good day for democracy in Montana
One of the biggest blows against democracy in American history occurred in 2010 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case that government could not place limits…