Wealth gap in the U.S.—100 years of progress lost
A lost century—inequality in the U.S. is more extreme than it has been in almost 100 years. The gap between the ultra-rich and the poor and middle class has widened…
Bill Longstaff
Former Iranian Guard commander to become OPEC boss
Now this is interesting. Brigadier General Rostam Ghasemi, a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, has been approved by Iran's parliament as the country's next oil minister. This automatically…
The "most Catholic country" slips away
Pope Paul VI once referred to Ireland as "the most Catholic country in the world." Now it seems the Irish are slipping the Vatican's leash. Abortion on demand remains illegal…
Crime—the declining problem
Down, down, down it goes. According to Stats Can's latest report, our crime rate has dropped again, down five per cent from 2009 to 2010, now in decline for 20…
The energy ministers’ Orwellian statement
The news release and action plan issued by the provincial energy ministers following their recent conference in Kananaskis stepped rather lightly over environmental concerns. Perhaps this is not unexpected at…
Canada’s growing income gap: It isn’t the size of the pie, it’s the size of the pieces
According to the Conference Board of Canada's report How Canada Performs, we are becoming a more unequal society. Although, in the period 1976 to 2009, all Canadians were better off…
It all began with Maggie and Ron
The modern march to free market supremacy is often thought to have begun with the ascendancy of the conservative regimes of Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. and the Ronald Reagan…
China leads spending on green energy
"Global investment in renewable energy jumped 32 per cent in 2010, to a record $211 billion," reads the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011 report. The report, commissioned by…
UK media mess—once again self-regulation fails
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has admitted it. He recently declared that press self-regulation in Britain had failed and a new body, independent of the media and the government, is…
Why we should not hold a referendum on proportional representation
It seems that every time the subject of changing the voting system comes up, we automatically assume that a change must be sanctioned by a referendum. I increasingly feel this…
Canada’s not entirely harmless romance with "Will & Kate"
Calgarians, indeed Albertans, will often tell you that this is a place where you are judged by what you do, not by who you are. I doubt this was ever…
British Columbians love their carbon tax … so far
As British Columbia's carbon tax celebrates its third birthday, the province's residents seem to have grown rather fond of it. According to a Pembina Institute report, 69 percent of British…
The Arab spring—seeking a deeper democracy than ours?
Catherine Ashton, high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, recently stated that the EU called for "deep democracy" in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt…
Petraeus’s imaginary Taliban
In Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls, his protagonist Chichikov seeks to purchase serfs who have died but are still registered against their owners as taxable assets. By relieving the owners…
On trashing the long form census—Stats Can on my tail
Shortly before the Canada Post lockout, Statistics Canada mailed me a copy of the 2011 National Household Survey, formerly known as the long form census, to dutifully fill out. I…
Pakistanis really don’t like the U.S. They really don’t
That the United States is unpopular in Pakistan is common knowledge. But just how unpopular is surprising. According to the Pew Global Attitudes Project, 73 per cent of Pakistanis hold…
Impeaching Ahmadinejad
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, has a problem. He wholeheartedly supported incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential election, and now it turns out the flaky Ahmadinejad is being…
Americans tire of war spending
Americans have for some time seemed to have an insatiable appetite for military spending. Defence was the sacred cow of their federal budget. Now it seems they are losing that…
Why the dolphins are smarter than us—recently revealed
Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, animal advocate and a very funny man, once observed that, "Man always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins…
Sports—tribalism in full cry
The now infamous Vancouver hockey riot has done a pretty good job of smearing the city's reputation around the globe. Shocking as it was, it wasn't entirely surprising. Rioting seems…