How about those politicians? All of a sudden, there’s a new dance card in Ottawa, where the Reds and the Blues are trying a new version of the tango, called “avoid a summer election”. Personally, I’ve never understood their reticence over a poll when schools are closed.
posted in politics | Comments Off on Yet another voter avoidance dance | 265 words
Why is it that our current government tends to raise the “I don’t trust their motives” hairs on the back of my neck? Oh, right; because I don’t trust their motives. The CBC points out that there is an intention to renegotiate the treaty that set rules for water use from the Great Lakes. Big lakes, shared resource. The treaty has been in place for about a century. What suddenly stung some high-level bureaucrat into action?
posted in economy, politics | Comments Off on Water flows downhill from here | 262 words
Although I have no idea how they actually do it, nuclear physicists can calculate the half-life of an isotope. Remember those calculations from Grade 11 physics class? Something like that. But what about the half-life, or even better, the whole-life of a nuclear reactor? We seem to be having issues with that question up here in the great white North.
posted in politics, science | Comments Off on Isotopes, in the style of a Python cheese sketch | 323 words
Nature abhors a vacuum, and municipal governments abhor empty public space. If there’s a field, then there should be a public park, or a building, or a highway running across (going nowhere fast). If there’s money in a budget, it must be spent. One thing that always raises a polemic is art in the public space.
posted in environment, politics | Comments Off on Presenting a blank canvas | 337 words
This evening we watched the DVD version of Blindness, based on a novel by Nobel prize winner José Saramago. A tough way to spend a couple of hours, because the movie shows a very dark and vicious world. Excuse what may sound like a pun; humans are not always noble (sorry).
posted in health, politics | Comments Off on Seeing is believing | 274 words
Some days, I just don’t even want to answer the door. The dog always gives me away, though. She stares out the window, barks her special variety of welcome and makes sure that a perfect stranger would never mistake our house as abandoned. Time to teach her the art of stealth.
posted in politics | Comments Off on Beauty in the eye of the beholder | 274 words
The Canadian effort began, in a muddled fashion, just over seven years back when three warships set sail for Afghanistan. No matter that the country is landlocked, because in the beginning the whole thing was to be a show of solidarity. When you break a mirror, the bad luck is supposed to end after the ordained period. Our involvement in a so-called foreign war should do the same.
posted in politics | Comments Off on Time to change to a different game | 415 words
This morning, I happened to read an intriguing offer from a politician. Note; this was something I read, rather than heard, because who actually listens to what politicians say, other than journalists? Given that their incentive for listening is that someone might pay for what they write, their motive is already suspect.
posted in politics | Comments Off on In the unlikely case of a true fact | 292 words
It doesn’t take much to get the civilized world excited. The ruling nutter from “North of 38” has fired another of his super high tech missiles into the ocean for the Nth time, while assuring the rest of us that he has launched a new satellite into orbit. Nobody else can see the bird, or hear the bird, but that’s his story and he’s sticking to it. Sad. So much effort to convince the western alliance that he has a big gun and he’ll use it if a) he doesn’t get some respect and b) it doesn’t fall into the water.
posted in politics | Comments Off on Did it fly or simply sink out of sight? | 265 words
Any lie when caught out; that fits the current government. Right now, the minister responsible for culture at the federal level is trying to explain how less is really more, when it comes to investment in anything that falls under his purview. After all, when a country is in tough economic times, the only thing that really counts is Big Business; think banks, automotive manufacturers and oil. Everything else is frivolous. I can barely listen to such inanities, except that the questions are coming from an interviewer that isn’t “strongly onside” with our present gang of goombahs. Maybe, perhaps, enough people will see that the emperor and his retinue really don’t have any clothes.
posted in politics | Comments Off on Goofy government and uncomfortable chairs | 275 words
