Why I’ve Come to Back Proportional Representation.
No, it isn’t because “first past the post” allowed a quarter of the eligible voting public to saddle Canada with a lying, secretive despot. Well, it is that but just…
The Mound of Sound
Well, This is Certainly Discouraging
Guess what’s making a comeback thanks to e-books? If you guessed Mein Kampf, you win. I just checked Amazon’s Kindle listings where you can find Der Fuhrer’s handiwork in more…
The Perilous State of America’s Military-Industrial Aviation Complex
The United States is pushing hard and quite successfully to get its allies signed up to order the F-35 stealth light bomber. Despite all of its flaws, its inflated costs…
Risky Business – War in 2014?
Brace yourself. We don’t get much of this at all in our media but there’s an incredible amount of talk in international journals and papers about war in 2014. Oh,…
In the Isolation Bubble
I had company over the weekend, my daughter and her beau. They caught the ferry back to the mainland Sunday morning. Tuesday morning he awoke with the flu. His doctor…
More Research – Same Conclusion
From The Guardian comes a summary of three new studies into the link between human activities and global warming. Here’s The Guardian’s summary of the summaries (follow the link for…
Scotland the …Brave?
Being a half-Scots mongrel myself, I roared with laughter at this.
Sign Up, Do It Now. Do It for Canada. Do It for Yourself.
Fair Vote Canada has set up a petition calling for proportional representation voting in Canada. They’re hoping to get 100,000 of us to sign on by 2015. We’re already close…
Runciman Blows a Fuze
Former Ontario solicitor-general now senator, Bob Runciman, is furious at ne’er-do-wells getting near the prime minister. He thinks it should be made an indictable offence for shady types to get…
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.
For some time there has been speculation that large territorial jurisdictions such as the European Union, Russia and the United States could face internal, regional challenges due to climate change.…
After Lac Megantic, After Plaster Rock, Just How Volatile is Athabasca DilBit Anyway?
It seems like we’re producing a lot of unusually volatile oil products these days. Massive explosions of derailed oil tankers wiped out a big chunk of Lac Megantic and took…
Vortex Retreats, Was It Really a Fluke?
When Calgary was inundated last summer by its second “once a century” flood in eight years, Conservative federal and provincial politicians parroted the line about how ‘no one could have…
A 50-State Sweep
Now this is one for the books. All 50-American States – Hawaii, Florida and California included – recorded below freezing temperatures today. Hawaii, California and Florida, states that normally bask…
When You Elect a Lunatic Prime Minister
Stephen Harper’s new BFF, Australian prime minister and fellow climate change denialist, Tony Abbott has wasted no time in dismantling his country’s climate change apparatus and policies. He’s done this…
Remember This, Next Time You Put Out the Trash
A sobering insight courtesy of Skeptical Science. While attending the recent AGU conference, some of us were struck by a statistic presented by Professor Richard Alley: On average, a person’s…
It’s Just Physics, That’s All
Did we really think we could warm the Arctic twice as much as the rest of the planet and not be directly affected ourselves? Did we really think that the…
We’re All At Risk When We Become Hiveminded.
In a recent opinion piece in Harper’s magazine, Thomas Frank explained how the dangers of the hivemind in which we adopt an increasingly narrow, self-reinforcing conventional wisdom. It renders us…
The Middle East Stood on Its Head
Who would have imagined that the United States and Iran would find common cause so abruptly after decades of estrangement? It seems to be a “my enemy’s enemy” sort of…
I’m Afraid
I’m worried that, over the next ten years, twenty almost certainly, we will discover just how resilient or fragile our society is in the face of climate change impacts. How…
The Politics of Giving Up
Since the ascendancy of Stephen Harper I have been utterly demoralized by the lacklustre effort shown by the opposition parties. Dion came out with the “Green Shift.” Ignatieff was a…