I go away for a while and all sorts of nastiness breaks out. I’d hate to think that I was a voice of moderation around these parts. At any rate, John and Mason and Lynda and Paul S are going to have to keep carrying the pail for the time being. After multiple false starts, […] More »

“Why the hell can we send troops to Iraq and give Bush a blank check after 9/11 and not save the people of New Orleans?”—Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, today, throwing away his political career to try and help dying people on the streets of his city. Here’s some more: “They don’t have a […] More »

New Orleans media watch update—I saw this post on both bookninja and boing boing today. Wire service photos showing post hurricane activity in New Orleans spot black people “looting,” and white people “finding” groceries and supplies in the flood-ravaged city. More »

The US president takes it on the chin this morning in an editorial from the NYTimes. No surprises there, what with the Times being the figurehead for “liberal” bias in the American media. Fox News, on the other hand, leads today with a surreal story about Bush flying over New Orleans in Air Force One, […] More »

Oh yeah, not only do those annoying small humans have to return to school this week, the networks are rolling out their new fall schedules. This is my favourite TV time, and the late summer of 2005 has been a doozy. The CBC lockout has been playing near havoc with my Sunday mornings (4.5 hours […] More »

Things are heating up in the Dominion. The Council of the Federation meeting wrapped up in Banff a couple of weeks ago, ending with a loud call for the feds to do something radical, like Fix Education for a Generation. Back in May, they struck an advisory council on the very important, though totally imaginary, […] More »

Ignatieff comes to UofT … those close to Mr. Ignatieff acknowledge he wants to get involved in the public debate in Canada after decades of living and working in England and the United States, and spending only a small part of the year in Canada. But they say he is not yet sure whether he […] More »

Just keeping y’all updated on that little argument we had a while back about whether or not poverty is a problem worth addressing in the world. Yes, people actually argue about that. Here’s a BBC report about the latest UN findings (I know, I know, how can we trust the UN, and have we taken […] More »

Check it out in the podcasting section of your iTunes music store (under CBC Unplugged). Just listened to an interesting cast from the picket lines in Regina. You can also get them from Tod Maffin’s blog, cbcunplugged.com Hmmmm, what does it say about management’s position when the locked-out workers can easily produce the company’s product […] More »

Norman Spector missed this one today, so I’ll help him out: Clouds part for Bombardier Business jet sales help firm post $117-million profit but investors wary — Globe and Mail. Bombardier expectations crash Share price falls 8%: To have lowest flagship jet delivery in 13 years — National Post More »

A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for the Post about an Ottawa art exhibit about shit. In passing, I made a few snide remarks about some comments that MP Chuck Strahl had made regarding the show, assuming Strahl was just another humourless paleo-conservative. Strahl wrote a good-natured and quite funny reply to […] More »