This week, Craigslist, the online classified ad service,  shuttered the erotic services sections of its US websites, replacing them with a black banner reading, "Censored." Canadian Press reports that the RCMP want Craigslist's Canadian section to follow suit, and block access to its adult services section. If the Mounties get their way, the main result will be more suffering by vulnerable women. Some prostitutes will be forced back onto the streets; more will be deprived of a way to screen potential clients in their dicey occupation. The one thing that won't stop is prostitution. I can't put this better than a recent post by...

08 September, 2010

[caption id="attachment_6492" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Tanya Davis"][/caption] Sandbar Music of Charlottetown, PEI, has released a soundtrack MP3 of  the hit YouTube video, How To Be Alone. Tanya Davis wrote and performed the poetry and music at the heart of the piece; Andrea Dorfman directed the film, which had been viewed just over 600 times when featured here July 30. (Find a partial account of its viral progress toward the current 1.4 million hits here.) It's plain that, aside from one crankypants Globe and Mail reviewer, lots of people want to hear music and poetry like Davis's, and see moving pictures like Dorfman's. The traditional distribution...

08 September, 2010

Until its cave-in to Verizon last month, Google was the most prominent corporate advocate of net neutrality—but only for others, not for itself. Recently, Google has applied self-serving filters to its search results in a manner reminiscent of, say, China. Late in July, Google searches began filtering out any results for the website bestofyoutube.com, an aggregator of videos from the Google-owned video site. I can understand why Google might have a problem with bestofyoutube, which, it could be argued, infringes Google's intellectual property by poaching YouTube content. Mind you, it would be a brazen case for Google to make, given that YouTube itself...

08 September, 2010

When John "Jack" William Carew, 82, of  Shores Cove on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula, died Saturday, his family faced the usual quandary of whether to accept flowers or request donations to a favorite charity. Mr. Carew's obituary in the St. John's Evening Telegram offered a uniquely Newfoundland solution: Blueberries and bakeapples will be accepted in lieu of flowers. A relative of yours, Stan? Hat tip: JP....

02 September, 2010

David Alexander Harley, a.k.a. Gen. J. C. Trail, reports that the Cape Breton version of the Long-Form Census has only two questions: 1.  How's she goin? and: 2.  What's your father's name?"...

02 September, 2010

Contrarian reader JS writes: Most if not all news accounts of such accidents provide no information about the factors involved. From your account it is clear that  a) slowing down during bad conditions; b) having proper approved child safety restraints; and c) operating a vehicle with a good safety rating are the right ingredients for safe driving with a family.  This account is far more valuable to the world in general than a news report that simply says a head-on collision sent five to hospital with non life-threatening injuries and the driver of a second vehicle was killed. I am a motorcyclist,...

01 September, 2010