On the WE Scandal: When Parental Disappointment rears its head
As a parent, I have three modes of anger. The first and most basic level of my parental anger can be described as me just being “mad”. This most basic…
Uncategorized
Hey, Edmonton. Put down that beer and grow up
Edmonton doesn’t have much to celebrate these days. The Oilers of the NHL exited the faux Stanley Cup playoffs in almost the fastest manner possible. There is no CFL team…
“A Special Place in Hell…”
As Canadians, the last four years have been difficult dealing with our neighbours in the United States, or at least with the administration in charge. Sure we’ve always had moments…
The Sloan Question
Now that the Conservative Leadership campaign is in the rear view, folks are looking ahead to things still to come in Canadian politics. We have a Throne Speech coming in…
Teletubbies Falwell Likes To Watch
If you’re old enough, and into American odd news, you’ll remember Jerry Falwell saying he thought the purple Teletubbie was gay. His son carried on in the family tradition of…
Winners and Losers: The Conservative Leadership Race
Now that the votes have been cast, the points assigned and the winner declared in the Conservative Leadership race, it’s time to read through the entrails of what just happened…
The Morning After: O’Toole Wins
Last night we saw a leadership campaign unlike any other in Canadian history come to an end and in a sense, the ending was somewhat fitting for 2020. Thanks to…
Can Trump’s environmental mischief be undone?
Of all the damage that Donald Trump has managed to do in the last four years, the most serious is his assault on the environment. Aside from pulling his country…
Toxic Deadly Gaming Culture
One of the strangest things about modern tech is that you can easily hear what a dead murderer thought of himself and others. There are hours of video of this…
Whoops! We overshot … again
According to the Global Footprint Network, August 22nd was Earth Overshoot Day. The day “marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds…
Healing the world through gardening
“Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” – Bill Mollison, permaculture co-originator Many things are required to heal our world. Removing the corporate…
New Normal Is A Continuation Of The Old War Machine – For The Common Good, Of Course
The Democrats face the same problem as the Republicans – they are corrupt, and owned by Wall St. That includes, of course, the big banks, Big Oil, Big Tech, the…
Covid Journal, August 22, 2020
Nature, food and cures.
Plague Update: Fixation on Ventilators morphs into Ventilation
“There’s no perfectly ‘safe’ level of ventilation because we don’t actually know what ‘safe’ is, since we don’t know how much exposure leads to transmission,” Angela Rasmussen, a Columbia University…
The Simpsons And Presidential Politics
They had Marge Simpson respond directly to a real political actor referring to the Democrat VP candidate’s voice as if it sounded like the cartoon character voice acted by Julie…
A Sea Change in Manufacturing
During this global pandemic we’ve seen some pretty stark changes and experienced things that we thought we might never experience. We’ve seen some things that were talked about in great…
Democratic Socialism
I would call myself a left libertarian democratic socialist, but with the emphasis on libertarian democrat. However, no one of reasonable intelligence, with any slight idea of what our history…
Adieu, Dr. Foth
In my checkered 40-plus year career in and out of the newspaper business, I’ve written hundreds of opinion columns. I started at the Fort Saskatchewan Record (sports, amazingly), spent many…
De-registering Dissent at Queen’s Park
For good reason much of our attention has been drawn to the political drama playing out in Ottawa, drama that still continues despite the resignation of Bill Morneau. The stories…
“Conspiracy Theory”
Remember what Chomsky said, summing it up perfectly: “The term “conspiracy theory” is used to poo-poo institutional analysis.” Exactly. And what does that mean? It means the phrase was coined…