Warren Kinsella calls this column by Mark Steyn one of the the most “cruel and callous” columns he’s ever read. I’m not so sure. Look, I despise Steyn. I think he’s intellectually dishonest, a poseur, and the master of what Mark Kingwell calls “the reverse sarcasm”. In this piece, he goes after Kenneth Bigley, the […] More »

Upperdate: Here‘s a review of the new disk. Update: We’re going to start this Monday morning. Not enough net traffic on weekends; plus, it’ll be more fun to waste work time talking about the Rheos. Ok kids, the new Rheostatics album 2067 has been in stores since Tuesday, so I’m assuming you all have your […] More »

So another Friday night in the big smoke. Number one curse of this Lady of the Left these days seems to be the lack of love connections. Oh who am I kidding, I’m EXTREMELY picky. So I’ve given up trying and have decided to do the right thing and solicit a marriage of political convenience. […] More »

Update: I picked up a copy of the Wednesday Ottawa Citizen today. The front story was reaction to Stephen Harper’s “trial Walloon” (Wells’ joke, I think) proposing to turn Canada into Belgium. Here’s The Headwaiter, doing his finest Churchill impression: “I think the role of the prime minister of Canada is not to build a […] More »

It’s always nice to get a shout-out in the Globe and Mail. So I was initially pleased to see Russell Smith reference The Rebel Sell in his column in today’s Globe (sorry, Russell’s behind the new Globe firewall). Smith was talking about the new American Apparel store on Queen St. in Toronto, making the point […] More »

Conrad Black famously described journalists as “ignorant, lazy, opinionated, intellectually dishonest and inadequately supervised hacks”. I think he was at least 1/5 correct. For example, I see that that the slumbering beast that is the National Press Corps is gradually awakening to the unhappy realities of The Headwaiter’s regime. Back in the summer, when Paul […] More »

Turns out a courageous contender from Massachusetts made history yesterday by coming from behind to beat a strong and resolute incumbent champion. Hmmmmmmm. More »

In the 8th inning of last night’s American League championship game 6, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees found himself staring at an inevitable tag-out on his way to first base. His solution—reach over and swat the ball out of the glove of the Boston pitcher. Initially, Rodriguez was called safe at first on […] More »

Prospect magazine in the UK recently published their list of Britain’s top 100 public intellectuals, then had a write-in poll and a vote, the results published in their next issue. I’m trying to get my online account working so I can link here for you and I’ll update later. So if the Greatest Canadian exercise […] More »

Interesting column from Richard Gwynn, in which he questions the conclusions of Michael Adams’ book Fire and Ice. You will recall that Adams’ book fired the hearts of nationalist Canucks last year when he claimed that polling data showed that our basic values are actually diverging from those of Americans. Gwynn cites a new academic […] More »

Bored? Nothing to do but sit at home and watch the Greatest Canadian? Come out to the Drake Hotel tonight for the (third) official launch of The Rebel Sell, the book I co-wrote with Joseph Heath. All are welcome. 6-8pm 1150 Queen St. W Toronto, Ontario More »