Taegan Goddard wants to revive the political term snollygoster, n., classically defined by a passage from the October 28, 1895, edition of the Columbus Dispatch (as cited in the OED): [A] fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnancy. Harry Truman sparked a previous revival in 1952, when he used the word in a whistle-stop speech at Parkersburg, W. Va.,  complaining about about politicians who make a show of public prayer: I wish some of these snollygosters would read the New Testament and perform accordingly. Alas, the OED has entries for...

30 July, 2010

Halifax filmmaker Andrea Dorfman brings Halifax poet Tanya Davis's words to the screen. Produced by Walter Forsyth. Watch for the Hitchcockian cameo by Dorfman....

30 July, 2010

Friends and admirers gathered in the Midtown Tavern's antiseptic new digs Thursday evening to honor journalist-businessman David Bentley's 50 years of afflicting the comfortable. Among the crowd were foot-soldiers of the late, lamented Halifax Daily News (née: Bedford-Sackville News), the once salacious Frank magazine, and the meaty, fact-packed AllNovaScotia.com, which today ranks Nova Scotia's premier newsgathering organization. As Frank might put it,  all three began life as Bentley organs. In 1974, Bentley, his wife, and two partners founded the weekly B-S News, modeling it after the sordid tabloids of his native England. Five years later, he took the enormous gamble of moving the paper downtown, transforming it into...

30 July, 2010
Gus Reed really hates the long census questionnaire:
I admit to some disappointment that you have so totally and uncritically capitulated to the Forces of Social Planning on the census issue. Contrarians need to be contrary. Apart from the indisputably careless design of the long form (or the sloppy posting of an unedited version), there are a couple of things that rankle: Many of the questions are sort of inherently interesting, but that doesn't mean they should be asked. What government policy hinges on knowing the birthplace of my parents (#25)? I like this statement attached to the race/ethnicity question: "This information is collected to support programs that promote equal opportunity for everyone to share in the social, cultural and economic life of Canada." It would be good discipline to have such a statement attached to each question, or at least each section. If the statement is not succinct and understandable, then it's a good indication that someone's just fishing: "We want to know where your parents were born because your government is considering a system of preferential immigration based on national origin."
More argument, and Contrarian rebuttal, after the jump - photos included!
29 July, 2010

Contrarian reader Gus Reed has found a mistake in Census Canada's long form questionnaire — or at least in the sample that appears on the agency's website. It seems to me that at the top of page 5 the columns should be labeled "Person 3," "Person 4," and "Person 5" - continuing the logic of page 4. Is it my PDF reader that's wrong, or did StatsCan send out 2.4 million errors? StatsCan hasn't sent out anything yet, and there's still time to fix the error, along with the much more serious mistake of making the long form voluntary. But Gus...

28 July, 2010

At the Valley Motel, somewhere east of Manistique, on Michigan's Northern Peninsula, the peripatetic Jane Kansas talked Dave, the proprietor, into a cut rate of $30 for this beauty. Later, Dave and his twin daughters showed up with a dinner of steak, real fries, shrimp, rice, cheese, and olives. "We thought on your walk you might not get many home cooked meals," Dave explained. Before bedtime, the girls returned with a banana and a doughnut for dessert. To the people Jane encounters on her epic walk across the American Midwest, she must seem the oddest of strangers: a short, sunburned woman in late middle age,...

27 July, 2010

I have fallen behind posting reader submissions on the Conservatives' inexplicable attack on the census. Here's a start on the backlog, beginning (in the interests of equal time) with an email in which Ottawa PR guy Tim Powers, whom I slanged as a Harper sock-puppet, turns a cordial cheek: Read your blog about today's Current. I must say I don't think I have never been called a sock-puppet before. A friendly bit of Cape Breton ribbing is good for the soul. Liked the Dewey headline. I always enjoyed your wit when I was a student in Halifax. Keep stirring the pot! My slightly sheepish...

27 July, 2010

Tom Flanagan, the University of Calgary political scientist who once served as Stephen Harper's chief of staff and who has a long history in the Reform, Canadian Alliance, and Conservative parties, tells Meagan Fitzpatrick of Postmedia News he is puzzled by the government's decision on the census: It's just never been an issue in the Conservative movement. It just literally comes out of nowhere as far as I can see...

24 July, 2010

California strawberries on sale at the North Sydney Sobey's, July 23. No fruit anywhere surpasses a ripe, Nova Scotia strawberry, yet in twice weekly tours of the supermarket produce section during the height of Nova Scotia strawberry season, I have not seen a single basket of local berries. I've seen them at the Farmer's Daughter in Whycocomagh. I've seen them at the roadside stand by the Esso station in Bras d'Or. But not once in Sobey's or Atlantic Superstore. C'mon, food giants: Is this really the best you can do? [Update] Shauna Jones of Angry Sheep Designs writes from Whitehorse to say, "Those...

23 July, 2010

Harper spokespeople argue that sending the voluntary census long form to a larger number of people will compensate for any loss of data quality due to the newly voluntary nature of the form. Milan Ilnyckyj explains the fallacy. One of the biggest challenges in statistics is collecting a representative sample: finding a subset of the population that will do a good job of approximating the whole group. When a dataset contains a lot of sampling bias and is not reflective of the general population, it is essentially worthless as a guide. That cannot be fixed by using a larger sample size, nor...

23 July, 2010
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