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 »

It’s a Summer Olympic tradition in Canada. Every four years, we watch hopefully but are ultimately disappointed as the Canadian team earns relatively few medals compared with other countries our size. What follows is much soul-searching in the media and a call for the federal government to invest more in our amateur athletes. This year, […] More »

Look, I love the CBC. Radio3 on saturday night got me through my first lonely winter in Peterborough a few years ago, and now I even say “shedule”. But sometimes it takes its mandate as the People’s Radio a bit too far, to the exlusion of simple common sense. Consider the lead item on this […] More »

I dragged myself away from reading Alias recaps on Television Without Pity to read a lively discussion on their discussion boards about Olympic team outfits. I admit I was tantalized by the teaser on the home page–“Speedos”–but was delighted not only to find tidbits about the British team’s white swimsuits, but an interesting discussion of […] More »

Want a quick schoolin’ in how to demolish the religious right with irony, wit, and devastating logic? On the topic of gay marriage, Dan Savage sets his opponents straight. (Caution: this article contains coarse lanaguage and adult situations) More »

Okay Andrew, I’ll bite. What I find equally interesting is that a company that runs a number of private schools in California was recently shut down by authorities for handing out high school diplomas to students after teaching them some wildly incorrect “facts” about the Excited States. In particular the students — most of them […] More »