Cry for help

When I read this terrible story I said to myself, I'll bet that family was Aboriginal.
Yes, they were.
Maybe its unfair of me to generalize when I don't know the circumstances of this particular situation, but damn it all anyway -- why has it always been way too easy to ignore cries for help from Aboriginal women?

Regrets, he'll have a few

Stephen Harper will rue the day that he decided not to reappoit Michaelle Jean as Governor General.
She brough unique charm and grace to an austere and detached institution -- and yes, I'm speaking about both the PMO and the GGO.
Deciding he could do better will turn out to be another moment of hubris for our hubristic prime minister.

NAFTA and Acapulco Gold?

Yes, free trade between Canada, the United States and Mexico is just wonderful, isn't it, but I don't think this was really what Mulroney had in mind.

Nothing to see here, folks

So it was just clumsy police work that was to blame for prosecutors having to drop those serious drug and DUI charges against Rahim Jaffer.
And the plea bargain? Oh, that happens all the time too!
Funny, isn't it, that for some unknown and inexplicable reason, nobody could explain all this a month ago.

Canadian way

There is something quintessentially Canadian about this. Where else would the transit union organize public meetings so the public can bitch about the transit union? What a great idea.
It may not solve problems, but at least both sides will feel that somebody is listening.
And by the way, I could understand the complaints about the strollers on the buses -- I have never seen so many large strollers in my life as the ones we saw parents using in downtown Toronto. But Toronto parents really have no other choice -- you can't be dawdling along holding a three-year old's hand on those busy city streets. And a flimsy little umbrella stroller is just not safe, because some power-walking adult or crowd of texting teens won't see it and they'll trip over it.

Is the world destroyed yet?

Noting the recent news about the success of the Large Haldron Collider, The Editors remind us of Greg Easterbrook's hysteria about this mega-science project:

Are we really sure it is history's greatest idea to be re-creating the conditions that existed when the universe exploded?

Luckily, there is now a website we can check anytime if we want to find out whether the Large Hadron Collider has destroyed the world yet.

Great line of the day

The Jurist points out that the Wall government is doing just a little too much wishful thinking:

Apparently the Wall government's hack-and-slash budget is based on the modest assumption that Saskatchewan will be home to "more than 20 per cent of the world supply of natural resources". No word yet what proportion of that estimate consists of projected exports of magic beans and unicorn meat.

Emphasis mine.

Word of the day

#bustyhookers.
Love it!

Death of the strip mall? We can only dream

Calculated Risk is concerned that the vacancy rate in US strip malls is almost 11 per cent.
Well, I know its not good for the economy, but wouldn't it be great if strip malls actually did bite the dust?
Taken as a group, they are the ugliest part of any city -- boring cindercrete shoeboxes, plastered with garish plastic signage, with cheap plate glass windows, fronted by barren asphalt parking lots, not a tree or a flower in sight.
Bulldoze them all and build some place that people want to go.

Have they no shame?

Is anyone offended by holding a gun rally on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing? Or do they think it is OK to wreck federal buildings now that Obama is president?

Ball season

In tribute to last night's game

It's all in how you look at it

LifeSite News says everyone should find a new perspective on the priest sexual abuse story -- after all, sexual abuse by teachers in the school system "is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."
Well, that's OK then.

Because it's Easter

Enjoy the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus version of The Hallelujah Chorus

Great post of the day

Lance Mannion takes one of the most misogynistic David Brooks columns ever written (and that's saying a lot) as the jumping off point for a profound narration on finding happiness in life:

Life is a gamble. There are no such things as destiny and fate. Whatever the purpose of the life is, if there is a purpose, it is not the happiness of individual human beings. No matter what path you choose in life you are choosing pain and suffering. There is more along that path, wherever it’s leading, that will cause you unhappiness than will give you a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. There are paths that are less dangerous, that are smoother, that include fewer mountains to climb and fewer to fall off, and that will carry you past prettier scenery, but how are you to know you to know which path that is? Even if you could know, how are you to know that you will enjoy traveling along it? It might bore the life out of you. Falling off mountains may be what you need to make you happy.

Another Obama freakout is on the way

Here we go again -- some American progressives are freaking out over Obama's announcement about off-shore drilling.
Now, maybe I'm biased here -- I live in one of the few places in North America which was NOT devastated by the recession and it was Saskatchewan's resource development and related economic activity that was a key factor in maintaining employment here over the last two years.
And I grew up on a farm, where we made our living exploiting the land, so to speak.
So I have just never understood why an economic development activity like drilling for oil gets so identified with a right-wing political ideology, while other types of economic development like farming or building a shopping centre or opening up a factory usually doesn't have to carry such political freight.
Just because the Republican useful idiot Sarah Palin led those vacuous "drill, baby, drill" chants last year, Obama's agreement with oil development becomes some kind of profound betrayal of deeply held Democratic values and principles?
Get a grip, folks -- it's just an oil well.
No President, Democrat or Republican, should be expected to write off an economic development opportunity which would not only support American corporations, workers and communities, but would also have the side benefit of promoting American energy independence. If he did, just because the 'other side' is for it, then this would be a classic example of ideology trumping common sense.