Archive for August, 2011

Sobering up to NB’s fiscal reality

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 Posted in Economy | No Comments »

The finance minister of a cash-strapped province is not unlike the bartender at last call: You don’t appreciate him until the next morning when, head pounding and throat parched, you ... Read more..

Is too much thinking a bad thing?

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 Posted in Education, Humour | No Comments »

One of the foundational concepts of western philosophy is the cartesian proposition, in latin, “Cogito ergo sum”, which, when loosely translated into english, means, “I think, therefore I am.” It ... Read more..

Come to “Cando” country

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 Posted in Humour, Politics | No Comments »

“The federal government wants to update its brand image for the modern social-media world, keeping symbols like the ‘Canada’ wordmark but competing better in a more crowded market of images ... Read more..

Government’s sorry record on fracking

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 Posted in Economy | No Comments »

Margaret Ann Blaney says she’s sorry she blamed the Conservation Council of New Brunswick for “escalating the level of emotion” around the issue of hydraulic fracturing in the province. In ... Read more..

Where the grass is greener

Friday, August 26th, 2011 Posted in General, Humour | 1 Comment »

Every so often, somebody from my distant past drops me a line, asking me if I’d be willing to return to Toronto and take over some small principality of a ... Read more..

Thinking the unthinkable

Thursday, August 25th, 2011 Posted in Politics | No Comments »

If politics is, after all, the art of the possible, how improbable do the independent futures of the New Democrats and Liberals now appear? And does the once preposterous now ... Read more..

A nation salutes a true native son

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 Posted in Politics | No Comments »

It came with all the suddenness of a thunderstorm looming on a prairie horizon. But, though Jack Layton’s passing on Monday surprised virtually no one who had witnessed his diminished ... Read more..

In the family of troubled times

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 Posted in Politics, Society | No Comments »

The American political system is fractured, its economy in tatters. Rational discourse yields to hysterical dogma as rank opinions vanquish demonstrable facts in the minds of those who parrot their ... Read more..

The real respect our soldiers are due

Sunday, August 21st, 2011 Posted in Society | No Comments »

With one sunny, summertime stroke of genius, the federal government has righted a wrong committed 43 years ago when a less enlightened administration amalgamated Canada’s armed forces into one insipid, ... Read more..

Smile, you’re on the spy channel

Sunday, August 21st, 2011 Posted in Society | No Comments »

To paraphrase the late American philosopher Abraham Kaplan, give a man a hammer and pretty soon he’ll think everything needs pounding. This fairly sums up the world’s infatuation with, for ... Read more..