Category Archives: Uncategorized
The Red Cross Torture Report
Mark Danner is well known journalist and professor of journalism at Berkeley. He has written dozens of articles for the New York Review of Books, and has, in my mind, provided the definitive reportage on the Serbian massacre of Muslims at Srebrenica. His latest article is a thorough yet blistering summary of the “ICRC Report […]
My Musings on STV
As we approach the upcoming referendum on the multi-member STV (Single Transferable Vote) system, I face a dilemma. Frankly, I favour neither the current First-Past-The-Post system nor the proposed STV method. FPTP is surely past its time. In an age where deference to authority is on the wane, and everyone rightly expects his or her […]
Debts and deficits lead to higher taxes as night follows day
Jeffrey Simpson is one of those typical right-wing columnists who ensures The Globe and Mail’s firm commitment to the I’m-all-right-Jack philosophy that pervades Canada’s corporate media. Nevertheless, he is sometimes capable of refreshingly honest and atypical commentary. Here he talks about the inevitability of higher taxes that must follow a period of high debt. What […]
Michael Ignatieff’s Latest Book
Though I remain undecided about Michael Ignatieff’s leadership abilities, his family history and intellectual credentials are undeniably fascinating. The following is a recent article in The Globe and Mail, in which Michael Valpy reviews Ignatieff’s latest book, Four Generations in Search of Canada. The book focuses on Ignatieff’s maternal family, the Grants, and it appears […]
Torturing Democracy
The following is one of the best documentaries I’ve seen about the Bush administration. I first saw “Torturing Democracy” on PBS, but it’s now available as a three-part streamed video. We may all be tired of the Bush era, but this concise, chilling and very well-documented exposé of the Bush’s War on Terror is a […]
A Lapse of Truth in the Gaza War
The recent Israeli campaign in Gaza officially began on December 27, 2008. It started with many days of aerial bombardment of the Gaza territory, and then intensified on January 3, 2009, when the Israeli army invaded. 13 Israelis and over 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, which finally ended on January 21, 2009, when […]
The giant Ponzi scheme that is Florida
Florida used to be the golden child of free-wheeling neo-liberal capitalism: low taxes, little regulation and scant attention paid to the future. But now that people need help from their government, Floridians are reaping what they (didn’t) sow. Here’s a selection from a recent article: …………………….. By Neil Macdonald CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/03/10/f-rfa-macdonald.html … Gary Mormino, […]
B.C.’s highest court rules that Adbusters Media Foundation can sue CBC and Global TV
By Charlie Smith April 4, 2009 www.straight.com Vancouver-based Adbusters Media Foundation has won an appeal in B.C.’s highest court to add the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a defendant to a lawsuit against Global Television Network Inc. and Global Communications Limited. In a unanimous three-member decision released Friday (April 3), the B.C. Court of Appeal […]
With capitalism on its derriere, the left still gets no respect
Though it’s nothing new to those who analyze Canada’s media industry, the right-wing and pro-business nature of Canada’s media may not be understood by the average Canadian. The following is a fairly surprising op-ed from Lawrence Martin, a stalwart with BCE’s The Globe and Mail (which, as Canadian political scientist Rand Dyck has observed, “tends […]
The American Debt
If you’ re not scared by the American debt, you should be. The Frontline documentary below shows the scale of the problem, and how it will hamper the Obama administration’s attempt to revive the American economy… and Canada’s. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tentrillion/view/ Posted by Colin Welch at 7:33 PM Edited on: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 8:14 PM Categories: […]