In his game effort to wish away the cheque-writing scandal, Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor posts a telling email from an anonymous Harper MP: When we formed govt the crats stopped bringing cheques to announcements & we were FORCED to cough up the $ to buy our own. Specifically, at [a government department I was involved with] the crats used to like to be in the photo ops giving out chqs, as though it was coming from them. They detested Conservatives being photographed handing out chqs, so they stopped bringing the chqs – when they even bothered to show up for announcements....

20 October, 2009

A group calling itself Know How They Vote is asking the Nova Scotia House of Assembly to abandon its traditional practice of unrecorded votes. A news release from Michael Kennedy, the group's director, points out that, although any two MLAs can request a roll call vote, only one percent of the legislature's decisions in the last six years have been by recorded vote. Moneyquote: The democratic deficit in Nova Scotia is growing. With every unrecorded vote in the Legislature, our MLAs get farther and farther away from our scrutiny. Choosing not to record votes is choosing not to be transparent and accountable...

18 October, 2009

The British High Court has ruled that, pending appeal, it will finally publish seven paragraphs detailing the torture CIA agents inflicted on Binyam Mohamed. The court had earlier redacted the passage from a decision about Mohamed at the request of  British officials, who said it would jeopardize US-UK cooperation on security matters. The Telegraph, a British newspaper, quotes an anonymous official describing the explosive contents of the passage: The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated...

18 October, 2009

A few months ago, a friend and I spent a week in Cuba—not the usual Canadian stay in a beachside resort, but a week spent tramping the streets of Havana seeking out baseball games, opera, and the wonderful music that is the island nation's rightful trademark. We enjoyed the music and the weather, but the overwhelming impression was depressing: grinding poverty, decayed buildings, and the leaden air of a police state. Last week, Yoani Sánchez, a 34-year-old Cuban writer, editor, and linguistics scholar, won the Columbia University's Maria Moors Cabot Prize for journalism that advances inter-American understanding. Cuban authorities...

18 October, 2009

A cautious Contrarian reader writes: A friendly caution about taking pictures inside the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority pre-board screening area: If noticed, likely to attract unwanted security attention. Noted — but isn't this just further evidence that the real purpose of security theater is not to keep Canadians safe but to buttress the puffed-up functionaries charged with upholding these useless, colossally wasteful procedures? [caption id="attachment_2591" align="alignwrap" width="545" caption="Left: Stanfield International Airport 7 a.m., October 15. The security queue extends past the Clearwater Seafoods kiosk to the Air Canada check-in counter. Right: Half and hour later, inside the CATSA security zone. "][/caption] The overwhelming evidence...

18 October, 2009

Five talented office workers with questionable taste in music: ...

17 October, 2009

Stanfield International Airport, 7:24 a.m. Update: Peter Spurway of the Airport Authority explains: "Yup. Possible security breach was being investigated. Pre board screening closed temporarily. Flights held. Hope your disruption not too long." ...

15 October, 2009
faulkner-cJames Fallows, author, Atlantic Magazine writer, and erstwhile speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter, has cataloged with discernment his admiration for several of President Obama's landmark speeches over the last 18 months. So it was surprising to read his prediction that the president's acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize will flop. Fallow's argument is "probabilistic:" Of the hundreds of Nobel prize acceptance speeches delivered over the years, he contends, only one was ever noteworthy:  the three-minute oration by novelist William Faulkner, a man notorious for hating to make speeches. Here is Faulkner's remarkable address, delivered on December 10, 1950:
The full text is after the jump:
12 October, 2009
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