They’re Dirty Filthy Liars
November 24, 2011 | 10 Comments
News agencies have been picking up on a new report on child, err toddler, education. The Early Years Study 3 has made some waves as the researchers propagandists behind it make the claim that children as young as 18 months need to be dumped into schools where they can start learning. The report is garbage. This [...]
Snow Falling on Civil Disobedience
November 23, 2011 | 4 Comments
Early this morning, just after 2:00, Police removed the participants of Occupy Ottawa, enforcing the eviction notice served on Monday. Eight Occupiers were arrested, and one was transported to hospital (for, apparently, a pre-existing injury aggravated by the forcible removal). The morning brought us Ottawa’s first snowfall, and I’m a little disappointed to awake to [...]
Bob Rae made me eat my dog
November 16, 2011 | 8 Comments
Oh to be young and conservative in Ontario in the 1990s. Sure, you had to live through the Kim Campbell debacle, but then, after much incompetent rule, you could hop on the Common Sense Revolution and enjoy a couple of landslide wins as Mike Harris became the most (simultaneously) beloved and reviled Premier I can [...]
Umm… asking appointed judges to change our voting system ain’t democratic, either.
November 15, 2011 | 7 Comments
It’s been a while since we’ve tackled electoral reform here at the Commons, so, with an assist from the Green Party, let’s dive right back into what has been, so far, a pointless endeavour: Members of the Association for the Revendication of Democratic Rights, represented by the accomplished constitutional Montreal lawyer, Julius Grey, will file [...]
Will Bob Rae Pull a Dick Cheney?
November 12, 2011 | 6 Comments
Rewind to the summer of 2000. George W. Bush had knocked out John McCain from the Republican presidential primaries, and Al Gore had defeated Bill Bradley in the race to lead the Democrats. Both Bush and Gore were now focused on selecting a running mate. Bush asked Dick Cheney to lead his search for a [...]
From sacrifice and tragedy, can yet come freedom and light.
November 11, 2011 | 1 Comment
Europeans and Asians who lived under the nightmares and horrors of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese, including the Germans and Japanese themselves, were able to regain their freedom because of the sacrifices our soldiers made. Africans and Asians who had suffered for decades and even centuries under colonial tyranny were able to regain control of [...]
The Fallacy of ‘Security’ and the Israeli-Palestinian Question…
November 9, 2011 | 15 Comments
Recently UNESCO accepted Mahmoud Abbas’ bid for the recognition of the Palestinian state in the United Nations. The bravery that surrounded the bid, its tactical astuteness and the bravery of the nations that actually voted in favour of Palestinian recognition cannot be overstated ( it resulted in the loss of 28% of UNESCO’s funding with [...]
Capitalism will eat itself
November 8, 2011 | No Comments
I have a piece up at The Mark titled, Occupy Can Save Capitalism (please feel free to click through – and, yes, this is my shameless attempt at driving traffic). The title is perhaps misleading (though accurate). I’m not arguing that the Occupy movement will save capitalism, or that saving capitalism is their goal. My contention [...]
PR Lessons from Ottawa’s Transit Workers Union
November 7, 2011 | 1 Comment
Ottawa is buzzing with a recent scandal on one of our beloved OC Transpo buses. A driver went on an obscenity-laced tirade, threatening a rider with a mild form of autism (according to the rider). Here’s the video: This is, without a doubt, pretty damning. We don’t see the whole thing, so we don’t know [...]
Freedom of Expression and Sun TV
November 7, 2011 | No Comments
There’s some chatter in the blogosphere about author Mark Bourrie’s cancelled appearance on Michael Coren’s show, The Arena, on Sun TV. Apparently, weeks after the appearance was booked, it was cancelled without an explanation (though it did follow Mr. Bourrie berating Sun TV on Twitter). Dr. Dawg notes the absence of uproar by “The Speech Warriors”. [...]