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Archive for the 'Political' Category
Any Excuse For A Toast
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010As a former resident of Nova Scotia, I believe it is within my remit to raise a glass today and toast the 247th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Seven Years War.
Among other things, the treaty essentially saw the French hand over claims to Canada–particularly Nova Scotia and Cape [...]
So, did you read about Hugo Chavez accusing the US of causing the Haiti earthquakes with HAARP weaponry? I saw some discussion of that story, and thought it was a sign that Chavez had gone off the reservation… but it appears that it’s that the story is the result of some shoddy journalism and the Internet echo-amplification, not anything factual. Now the paranoid part of my brain is wondering if someone could cook up something like this on purpose specifically to reduce Chavez’s international credibility.
(5 Comments)Looking at politics here, and in our neighbour to the south, I am starting to think that there’s maybe something to the depressive realism proposition. I am too rage-fatigued to post about today’s particular stories, but as usual Ferocious J has it covered, saying what I would probably say if I had the energy left to rant.
(2 Comments)Over the last decade I’ve become increasingly cynical about, and frankly afraid of Americans. Not all of them–I know they’re not all the same, and there are lots of them I love–but Americans in the aggregate. I had some hope that things were changing there last year, but when I read statistics like 58% of US voters favour the use of torture in gathering information–specifically in a case where there is no ticking bomb–I am more scared than ever. Factor in that the rate is even higher for younger people and I’m left wondering if there will be anyone left who understands that this isn’t how things should be. Those numbers about how many people think the US legal system is too worried about individual rights make me despair for humanity, and for the American voting public’s ability to read.
(3 Comments)Peter Watts on Daily Kos, and Just Worlds
Thursday, December 24th, 2009Nice to see the Watts story get some coverage on one of the larger political blogs.
I quite like this bit:
It’s ironic, though, that the same day I was arrested one Mary Callahan, chief privacy officer for Homeland Security, was up here in Canada reassuring us that the border isn’t so bad a place after all, [...]
When The Black Wind Blows
Monday, December 14th, 2009I’ve been very busy the last few days, with a combination of post-moving stuff (hey, look, we’re close to family now, and it’s the holidays), and with some important changes at work (on which I shall write a very journal-y entry shortly). Which explains why I haven’t already written about an utterly unacceptable, and miserably [...]
A short comment on the US Health Care Debate
Monday, December 7th, 2009I’ve been mostly keeping my nose out of the US debate–I don’t understand the debate, since I look on a certain level of access to quality health care as a right of all me–but I do want to point out the comments of John Gary Maxwell, a 40 year veteran surgeon.
You should read the whole [...]
Exceptional In Many Ways
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009What you’re looking at there are the results of the 2009 Global Peace Index. (The full ranking is available online, as are details of the methodology used.)
Canada is #8, and for the third year running is “the most peaceful country in the North and Central America and Caribbean region”. That’s a kind of exceptional [...]
The power of lowered expectations
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009What you’re seeing there is the first panel from a strip in Feiffer’s Explainers. Click to read the rest of the strip.
Then marvel at how exactly on point is appears to be for the current world (OK, that reference to the Soviets needs to point to China or somewhere, but setting that aside), considering that [...]
To add to the list of things I’m really unhappy with the Obama administration about: letting the torturers get away with blatant destruction of evidence. It’s one thing not to prosecute, it’s a completely different thing to de facto endorse the obstruction of justice, and consequently send the message that it’s OK for things to operate this way; business as usual. Gordon Hewart must be rolling in his grave.
(0 Comments)I love effective visualizations, and the Billion Dollar gram is a very simple and effective way to help normal people understand the relative sizes of some of the ridiculously large dollar values attached to various government, corporate, and public initiatives. As someone who enjoys data visualization I appreciate it. As a human being, I can’t get past that items across the top row without feeling a combination of almost blinding rage and terrible, terrible shame.
(2 Comments)I should note that I still quite like Feingold, even if he is doing the cutesy acronym thing.
(0 Comments)I’m not going to get my hopes up too high yet, but if it turns out that putting Sotomayor on the court was the start of the end of corporate personhood… well, let’s just say I don’t see myself having a problem with that.
(0 Comments)Not up to par
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009Like many other liberal people, I pinned a lot of hope on the dramatic change from a Bush administration to an Obama one as being the end of several policy directions that I saw as abhorrent.
Unlike many people on “the left”, I was consciously being rational about my expectations. I knew that Obama intended to [...]
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