A range officer waves me forward into the shooting bay. The semi-automatic rifle he places in front of me is surprisingly light in my shaking hands. “I’m probably going to get this all wrong,” I nervously shout, the only way to communicate thanks to the heavy-duty ear muffs strapped over our heads to protect our hearing. […] More »

Two years ago, some friends and I started our own private chat room on a service called Slack to talk about baseball. We did it because our non-baseball-loving friends on Twitter were tired of us yammering about bat flips and Moneyball and Troy Tulowitzki. I can’t overstate how well used this chat room is. We are […] More »

ASSIGNMENT Watch the fledgling Sun News Network, infamously nicknamed “Fox News North,” for eight hours. Note distinguishing characteristics, rate credibility and journalistic bona fides, and measure decibel levels of hosts’ shouting. Hypothesize audience size and composition. Compare and contrast with American forerunner Fox News. Administer wine as needed. 4:00 PM The Caldwell Account with host […] More »

Conservative provocateur Ezra Levant suggested in a Calgary Sun column last week that, according to Section 467.1 of the Criminal Code, Greenpeace should be prosecuted as a criminal organization. That section of the Code defines a “criminal organization” as a group numbering more than three people in or outside Canada that “has as one of its […] More »

Last night, I wondered whether it was worth writing about Ann Coulter. When I think of her at all — which isn’t too often, actually — I think of her as being a deeply vile but mostly irrelevant self-promoter. (It would be going too far to call her an ideologue, because that would imply ideas, […] More »

So our website bit the big one on Friday morning, which kind of cramped our plans for Legalization Week’s big finish. Everything seems to be working again, our apologies for the interruption. Without further ado, here it is, the call for legalization that I think might be the most controversial in the issue: Laura Kusisto […] More »

The fight for free speech is not the work of angels. Academics love Evelyn Hall’s famous saying, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In the age of promiscuous online speech, the sentiment of two university protestors seems more apt: “Free speech for all. […] More »

A provision governing hate speech in Canada is under the microscope this week, after a tribunal of the Canadian Human Rights Commission concluded that it violates the right to freedom of expression guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This body doesn’t have the power to strike down Section 13(1) of the Human Rights […] More »