How small is small? The University of Utah has a guide: [Click to open the interactive graphic, then use the slider below the image.]...

10 November, 2009

Tories knock off Bloc in eastern Quebec - Gazette Tories, NDP make gains in by-elections - Star Tories retake former Nova Scotia stronghold - Globe and Mail Byelection win will boost Tories in Quebec: MP - CBC This is likely a losing battle, but could the national press corp please stop calling the Harper Conservatives "Tories?" The Conservative Party of Canada is not simply a renamed Progressive Conservative Party. It was borne of a hostile takeover by the Reform Party, thinly disguised as a merry merger. Headline writers need short substitutes for party names — Grits, NDP, Bloc, etc. — but that's no excuse for...

10 November, 2009

The big story in the UK today? A British soldier dies in Afghanistan. The PM sends a handwritten a condolence letter, but misspells the soldier's name. The mother makes a stink. The PM calls. The mother records the call. The mother turned the tape over to the tabloid Sun, whose outrage barely masked its glee. The Guardian and the Times have more balanced accounts. There are few things more sacred in journalism, politics, and life than the grieving mother of a soldier killed in action. In this case, however, having listened to the call with rapt horror,  my symathies go to Brown. [UPDATE] Geraint Jones writes check in...

10 November, 2009

How much does class size affect performance on standardized tests? The charts displayed below plot US state-level student-teacher ratios against against the results for three parts of the SAT Reasoning Test (formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test) used in US college admissions. .. .. .. These tables, from the wonderful FlowingData website, obviously use US data, but the results may have implications here. States with higher SAT scores are shown in green, and generally have lower student-teacher ratios. The ratio is not perfect, however. Utah has the largest classes in the US, but maintains better-than-average test scores. Maine has the smallest classes in the...

10 November, 2009

In a fit of foolishness, Elections Canada has decreed that returns from today's Cumberland Colchester Musquodoboit Valley byelection cannot be disseminated until after the polls close—in British Columbia. In a general election, this silly provision serves to assuage the patronizing concern that voters in western time zones might either (pick one): be annoyed that the winning party had been decided before they cast their vote; or be shrewd enough to use the results in eastern Canada to guide their strategic voting decisions. Heaven forefend. On a day with four byelections scattered across our vast country, it serves no purpose whatever, save perhaps to bolster...

09 November, 2009

Parks Canada is looking for a contractor to develop a çoastal beaches stewardship manual for New Brunswick. A posting on the MERX tendering website lists the following mandatory qualifications for the less-than-$25,000 contract: Recent experience (within the last 3 years) conducting research and monitoring activities and writing professional communications documents related to species at risk and ecological issues in New Brunswick. The contractor must demonstrate his/her knowledge of local community issues, as well as his/her knowledge of piping plover ecology and have experience in communicating piping plover and coastal messages in New Brunswick. Gee, do you suppose Parks Canada might have a...

09 November, 2009

Contrarian reader Jon Coates of Halifax has no trouble with the kidnapping, rendition, and indefinite detention without due process to which Omar Khadr, a Canadian juvenile, has been subjected for seven years. He writes: [caption id="attachment_3064" align="alignright" width="231" caption="Omar Ahmed Khadr at age 14, one year before his capture and removal to Guantanamo."][/caption] I believe that Khadr is a prisoner of war and should stay right where he is until the war in Afghanistan has run its course, just like any other prisoner of war. As he is also being charged with criminal activity - killing an American medic, a non-combatant...

08 November, 2009

Josh and Jacob belt out the national anthem: ...

08 November, 2009

A funny thing happened to Jeff White of the Halifax design group Brightwhite during a well-received traveling seminar sponsored by Economic and Rural Development Nova Scotia last month. In Guysborough Town, the seminar took place in the local school. All was going well until White began his presentation on social marketing for small business. [B]ecause we were in a school, all the main social media sites were blocked by the school board firewall! The principal summoned a Grade 7 nerd, who showed me how to bypass the blockage, and off we went. I'll seriously never understand why schools do their best to make...

08 November, 2009

Contrarian reader PC responds to our annoyance at our future king's mispronunciation of the name of Canada's 10th province: I am more troubled by the many Canadians west of the Atlantic Provinces who use the same mispronunciation, including Carol Off on As It Happens just a few nights ago.  How can someone who works for the CBC, where every national program announcement finishes with "half an hour later in ...

08 November, 2009
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