Parks Canada is being completely outclassed in their labour dispute with the Public Service Alliance of Canada. What with the precious summer days of Canada nearing their end, it should be relatively easy for the Parks department to encourage resentment for union action among a public desperate to squeeze in a bit more camping, hiking […] More »

Clive Thompson writes about the use of off-the-shelf video games for the X-box being used as combat simulation for US troops in his recent article for the New York Times Magazine: “…The Army is already preparing plans to ship out copies of Full Spectrum Warrior to soldiers, and its creators envision the game being played […] More »

I love a good publicity stunt. An object lesson in the art of publicity this week from Kevin Drew of Toronto’s Broken Social Scene. In an interview for the cover story of this week’s Now Magazine, Drew lays the “last.show.ever.” thing on a little thicker than usual. Turns out it was a bit of a […] More »

Aug. 31 Update: Tony Blair is back from his holidays, and he’s declared war on yob culture. A few days ago, I came across this article, about the growing problem of binge-drinking in Britain. An excerpt: “Binge drinking — consuming alcohol in a methodical attempt to get blind drunk — is now such a widespread […] More »

I’m not above a little flagrant self-promotion. That’s what guerrilla marketing is all about, right? So nominate This Magazine’s fabulous new website as “Best Website” in Now Magazine’s Best of Toronto contest. Tell your friends too. But please don’t cheat. It says so in the rules. that’s www.thismagazine.ca, of course. By the way, the archive […] More »

Calling all lurkers: Does anyone out there want to read Naomi Klein’s piece “Pillaging Iraq in Pursuit of a Neocon Utopia” in the new Harper’s, and post a review/comment on it? My copy of Harper’s is stuck in Canada Post mail-forwarding limbo. Send me 300-800 words on the piece and I’ll post it. Anonymously or […] More »

According to this article in the Village Voice, Bushwacking is doing wonders for the fortunes of the alternative press: “in this particularly contentious political clime, in which Dick Cheney displays his colorful vocab and Iowa senator Tom Harkin dismisses the veep as a coward, lefty rags have found President Bush to be the ultimate weapon […] More »

Update: Shut up, Ralph In today’s Globe, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein criticized the new appointments, saying that Paul Martin used the nominations to promote the federal Liberals’ left-leaning social policies. So, the Alberta government wants more provincial input in the appointment of Supreme Court judges. Unreal. What possible business is it of the government of […] More »

American Leftie digest Utne celebrates its 20th anniversary in September/October 2004. I love lists, and the issue includes an inventory of themes and stories that they’ve covered (a few: New politics, Is psychotherapy useless? sustainable business, designer god) over the last 20 years. The list is followed by a list of 10 headlines for the […] More »

I went to bed last night intending to post a mock-ha-ha piece asking if anyone had seen the Government of Canada. Didn’t we just elect a new Parliament? Who is in charge in Ottawa anyway? Since no one party has a majority of the seats, it is actually an open question, until the Commons gets […] More »

According to the CBC website at 4:38 EDT today, Canada is ranked 20th overall at the Olympics with 1 gold, three silver, and 1 bronze. Not bad for a relatively small country, population-wise, right? Wrong. (Scroll down the list… we’re waaaayyy down. That’s right, down past North Korea) Aug. 24 Update: In today’s National Post, […] More »