In an irate column Feb. 2, National Post columnist Barbara Kay denounces a letter to the editor penned by Penni Stewart, president of the Canadian Association of University Students, and Katherine Giroux-Bougard, national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students that justly pointed out the idiocy of a Jan. 26 Post editorial that rejoiced in the demise of “Womens’s Studies programs” (sic). Kay clutches at her pearls and attempts to defend the unsigned editorial, which she very likely penned, and sets out, as usual, to prove that feminists and other liberals are bad. But the …
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It's not enough that most of us work long, hard hours for crap wages in a dying industry that is constantly criticized by people who don't know what they are talking about most of the time, or that we are constantly being pushed to lower our professional standards, dumb down coverage or devote time to writing about idiotic crap instead of real news.People in the news business with those problems are the lucky ones. In a lot of places, writing the truth about what is going on around you, can get you killed.As depressing as this story is, the comments are downright frightening.Journalist deaths …
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Would someone kindly light a fire under Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe and explain to them that they don't have to let Stephen Harper steal their lunch money and give the entire country a wedgie? Word is now that Stephen Harper is going to try to progue Parliament again until after the Olympics rather than submit to an order by the House of Commons to turn over uncensored documents in the Afghan prisoner investigation. Doing so would allow the Conservatives to take control of the Senate in the new year, so while it would mean a few of their bills die on the order paper, it …
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Subway etiquette is important in Tokyo. No matter what happens, no matter how crazy the situation you must not react. A stoic countenance must be maintained. You must not complain or you will be the nail that sticks up. As a result, some people get away with murder on the trains. Molesting women is not as common as it once was, but it is still such a problem that some train lines in Tokyo have "Women Only" carriages during morning rush hour. And almost no one ever gives up their seat for the elderly or the heavily pregnant.Poor subway etiquette and people's reluctance to complain has lead to …
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the General shows us someone who knows how to best handle the teabagger/minutemen xenophobic dingbats, with mockery. …
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It looks like curtains for the Canada's most right wing national rag. As much as I bleed ink and hate the thought of another newspaper closing down, I will not shed a tear for the National Post - I only hope the courts refuse to allow the Aspers to tie this anchor around the collective neck of their other newspapers, which like most other papers have enough financial trouble to deal with already.The National Post was started by Conrad Black to attack the governing Liberals after Prime Minister Jean Chretien refused to grant Connie a waver and let him become a British aristocrat while remaining …
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I hope everyone gets what they want for their birthday - the party to celebrate my being another year closer to death is over at the Woodshed …
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If you are a clergyman, you can pick and chose the people for whom you are willing to perform wedding ceremonies. If a couple comes to you and you don't think they should get married you are well within your right to refuse to perform the service or give the couple the blessing of your church, temple, mosque, shrine, coven or soltice circle. Catholics are under no obligation to allow gays or non-Catholics to marry in their church. Orthodox Rabbis can refuse to marry goyim. Druids can decline invitations to sanctify the handfasting of one of their congregation to a Republican. Churches are …
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Another couple of responsible gun owners killed.I suppose we should be grateful it happened at home and not at one the kids soccer games to which Mom regularly brought a sidearm.How long before the firearms fetishist choir declares "she'd still be alive if she'd spent more time on the range practicing her quick draw" or "if the kids had been packing too, they could have stopped Dad!"crossposted from the Woodshed …
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Lots of fuss in the blogosphere about Steverino's big singing debut. Pale makes some nice points with a pop-up version of the video here.Last year, big gala's were "elitist" and Steverino was hot and heavy to chop all the arts funding he could get away with. Now, he's appearing on stage with Yo Yo Ma at the National Arts Centre Gala? Well, his wife is the honorary chair of the event, so I suppose it makes some sense, but just to be clear about his feelings for the arts, Steve left the building before the event was over and went tieless to the blacktie event. When was the last time you saw him …
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They can't read the health care bill, they can't behave in public meetings - hell, they can't even count - but they sure are angry. And ignorant. And racist.The 9/12 movement - typical conservatives: A day late and a clue short.Please America, don't let these modern-day know-nothings bully the rest of you into going along with their pig-ignorant me-firstism. Let them know that elections have consequences and that they lost the election by a huge margin. Most of these geezers will be dead of old age and apoplexy in ten or twenty years anyways if meth addiction, gun accidents and other forms of …
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Okay, this post is late and for that I apologize, but I've been busy down at the Ministry of Truthoffice rewriting the translations of what all the conservative movers and shakers think of the Japanese election. The consesus is that they are against it.Doom and gloom is widely predicted by the right and less than 24 hours after the centerist Democratic Party of Japan signed a coalition with the leftish Social Democratic Party and the quasi-populist centerist/conservative People's New Party, headlines in the conservative press were announcing that cracks were already appearing in the tripartate …
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So, I'm doing my usual morning news surf finding the usual stuff - war, famine, disease and politics and I notice this story about a memorial for Walter Cronkite at the Lincoln Center: Obama spoke and called for journalists to do a better job. Bill Clinton talked about Walter offering to take him sailing during the media feeding frenzy of the Lewinsky scandal. Katie Couric and Tom Browkaw, neither of whom should be considered qualified to carry Cronkite's lunch for him on an assignment, both paid tribute as did moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, professional curmudgeon Andy Rooney, CBS honcho Les …
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I've never been a big fan of Michael Ignatieff, but I do need a job that would let me move back to Canada...Ignatieff’s big problemSusan Riley, CanwestPublished: Tuesday, September 01, 2009One thing Michael Ignatieff needs, if he is ever to succeed, is a quick and savage response team - twitchy, obsessive partisans with no personal lives, no particular need for sleep and a pathological loathing of Conservatives.Lets see..."twitchy, obsessive partisan" ?Well, "twitchy" might be a little strong, but check. "No personal life" ?Aside from the family (and blogging), mostly check."No particular …
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As a person who spends a lot of time dealing with the insufficiency of the Roman alphabet in differentiating the subtle shades of pronunciation that can change meaning in a foreign language, I can actually sympathize with the recent error made by the flunky of Prime Minister Stephen Harper who misspelled the name of a town on the PM's itinerary. Mistakes do happen sometimes. But when dealing with a transcription and Romanicization of a language that you are unfamiliar with, surely it behooves (yeah, I said "behooves" and I wasn't calling you "Shirley") the person preparing the document to …
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There a general election at the end of the month here in Japan so the parties are busy running around trying to show how on top of things they are and how they have every possible contingency covered in their little policy books. Naturally, the papers have been full of policy stuff for weeks, much of it pretty vague and dry, but I did find this little nugget of awesome at the bottom of a very long article on defense policy in today's Daily Yomiuri:One of the major policies proposed by New Party Nippon is to reorganize the SDF and launch a study to establish an organization--tentatively called …
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Stop the presses!The President had a beer with a professor and a policeman! Why is it that I can't read these stories without this song going through my head?Meanwhile, back in the American heartland, in the shining city on a hill, there is good news as the the latest minimum wage increase kicked in last week. The federal minimum wage is now $7.25 per hour (about $15,000 a year based on a 40 hr week) Of course some states don't even have minimum wage laws. About 13 percent of the population of the United States lives below the poverty line (set in 2001 at $18,000/year for a family of …
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