On Raising the Minimum Wage
So, the argument goes something like this: If you raise minimum wage, corporations will pay for that cost by raising prices, thereby increasing inflation, and we’ll all be poorer for…
Marie Snyder
On Solar Panels
By request – how well does using solar panels work? Well, it’s hard to say. I covered my roof with panels under the Ontario MicroFIT (Feed-in Tariff) program that ends…
Just Legalize it Already
I spent a lovely extended weekend in Awenda and fell in love with Penetanguishene through a scenic bike ride. The sun filtered through the trees on either side of the…
On Categorization of Behaviours and Abilities
People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will change everything. There is no single magic bullet. – Temple Grandin Some people are quite upset about the recent…
On a Four-Hour Workday
Stephen Elliott-Buckley echoes Bertrand Russell‘s idea of the 4-hour workday. Russell in brief: Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia.…
Sammy Yatim: When is a Cop Justified in Using Fatal Force?
There’s a “justification” piece in the National Post on behalf of the cop who shot Sammy Yatim. It doesn’t offer much to go on beyond that we shouldn’t trust a…
Raising Gable Ends Alone
It’s more physically demanding than raising kids alone, yet no less fraught with peril. I’m just documenting my morning of partial success on my studio construction. I was ecstatic to…
On Liberty and Death
One of the reasons I advocate for restrictions on personal freedom as a means to save our species from extinction is that I need my own behaviours to be externally…
Too Stupid to Live – Literally
Mound of Sound has a post at Disaffected Lib about the likelihood of doubling GHG by 2100. If we don’t do something very quickly and very intentionally, then, based on…
On Chomsky
I think everyone should read Chomsky. He’s brilliant, yet far less dense and inaccessible as some people think. He’s a different person than you or me – well, than me…
On Smoking
I took the kids to the beach on Sunday, and there’s new signage everywhere about the problems with using the sand as an ashtray. In hopes for a “butt-free beach,”…
Can Animals Provoke Action?
Whenever I talk about atrocities around the world in class – slavery, oil spills, and the like, and I get the class to talk about what bothers them most or…
Faith that the End is Near
In today’s G&M, Jared Bland writes from a perspective I’ve been taking lately as well. “Despite seeming reasonable in other areas of my life, I believe that we are quite…
On Worry
There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.” ― Montaigne At first I was worried about normal things. Plane crashes. Theft. Okay, maybe kidnapping…
Educating the Differently-Abled
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – widely…
Blogger Rights and Responsibilities
I think of myself as a C-list blogger. Sometimes I wander into B-list territory, but I’m largely unseen by the masses. If I make it into the double digits on…
On Monbiot’s Manifesto
A just world is one in which the labour forces of all nations recognize that they can no longer evade their own problems by demanding the explitation of other people.…