Choosing the right battle

“What do you read my Lord? Words, words, words.”
— William Shakespeare.
It looks like the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. The revelation of leaked Pentagon documents by the Wikileaks whistleblower website is doing more to end the West’s entanglement in the Afghani and Iraqi quagmire than the vaunted smart technology and a couple of [...]

Our elected elite

“Folly, [O.Fr, folie, < fol, FOOL.] lack of understanding or good judgement.” Webster Dictionary
All one has to do is watch and read the daily news to become totally underwhelmed by the complete futility of what our great leaders at the provincial and federal level understand, if anything at all.
Here’s Premier Campbell, just having delivered [...]

Lessons from socialism

“The trouble with socialism is that one soon runs out of other people’s money to spend.” —Margaret Thatcher.
Europe had long been a leader in style, fashion and plain coolness with its picturesque countryside, magnificent cities and good food. Going for a holiday there is a must for most travellers. One had better go sooner rather [...]

Whose country is it?

“Arizona, take off your rainbow shades.” — Mark Lindsey.
There’s no doubt as to the energy, the athleticism or, for that matter, the intellect of Barack Obama. Since taking office, he’s tackled Wall Street shenanigans, Motor City meltdown, health care reform and Great Depression era jobless numbers with Nixon-esque doggedness and a rookie’s zeal. Apart from [...]

Our precious planet?

“If a tree falls in the forest, can you hear it?” — Bruce Cockburn
They say an environmentalist is a guy who has a cabin in the woods while a developer is a guy who wants to build a cabin in the woods. There’s the rub. Who has rights? Governments the world over worry about [...]

What’s one to do?

“What can a poor boy do, ‘cept for sing in a rock and roll band?” – Rolling Stones
Now that rising to the top of the incompetency scale has been reached by both Prime Minister Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, given recent mundane occurrences such as parliamentary recall and relentless congressional tea party style accountability, [...]

All about the Games

“I can’t get no respect.” Rodney Dangerfield.
In the true Olympic spirit, here’s little Canada, doing the best it can to put on a fair event, rules emplaced, let’s leave the rest to the players and hope for a dose of high drama type of contest plus actually pulling it off, while having to listen to [...]

Kandahar to Port-au-Prince

“To be or not to be? That is the question.” William Shakespeare.
It’s easier to explain to an inquiring child why the sky is blue in a scientific sense than explaining to most of us the mechanics behind the political and economic world. Apparently, there are more questions than answers.
The numerous aid workers and agencies in [...]

Newsmakers of 2009

“All the news that’s fit to print.” New York Times Masthead.
Time magazine named Ben Bernanke as its Newsmaker of 2009 ostensibly for his role in “rescuing the American economy,” but in reality simply urging people to spend their way out of debt to “stimulate” the country into overall prosperity again. Any sane person would spend [...]

Sending mixed signals on sustainability

“Red sky at night; sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning; sailor take warning.” – Seaman’s adage.
There’s plenty of bad news coming our way courtesy of the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. Already world leaders are being briefed on how to respond to a few “little points” like handing over all the money in circulation [...]

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