Buried deep in yesterday’s reaction to my Contrarian post about the debate (I say MI won and SH lost) was this perspicacious comment from reader Heather Holm Ignatieff’s body language and tone of voice matched what he was saying, unlike Harper’s. He showed an internal congruency and authenticity that you just don’t see in Harper. This is what bothers many people about Harper: you can’t read the man. His soothing voice and his passive face mask whatever it is that he is really feeling. Sure Harper “did well,” but it was acting – and from a script. It...

14 April, 2011

Ritchie Simpson writes: I just bet you were the guy behind the Robert Stanfield Banana pic, which was my first taste of negative campaigning. I know, I know it was the media and not the LPC that had its foot on the gas on that one, but then,  as now, it’s almost impossible to distinguish between the CBC and the LPC.  Still I fail to see what ignites your passions for this minor intellectual arriviste. The tragedy here is that the best among this bunch of midgets is nominally a separatist. Another reader is "baffled by Contrarian's ...

13 April, 2011

Contrarian is baffled by the reaction of Ottawa-based press pundits to tonight's debate. Most said Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff failed to score against Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, who, they averred, held his own. I think this is a major misreading, and the polls will quickly show it to be off base. Try the old silent test: watch any portion of the debate with the sound turned down. Harper looked miserable, especially when forced to listen to anyone direct criticism at him. I am not comfortable commenting on politicians' physical traits, but Harper's expression did not serve him well, and likely reinforced...

12 April, 2011

HMS Arc Royal R07 is in stock now! Add to wishlist? Add to cart? Check out now? Alas, the fine print adds, "For items without a price please contact the supplier," Disposal Services Authority, Bicester, Oxon. Act now, and see if Peter MacKay will throw in a few junk submarines. Without torpedoes, of course. H/T: Toby Noskwith...

10 April, 2011

The University of Hawaii's International Pacific Research Center has created an animated simulation of the predicted debris path from the March 11 tsunami in Japan. The image below is a screenshot. Click here for the animation. H/T: Maptd mapping blog...

08 April, 2011

Photograph of the Earth and the Moon, viewed from 183 million kilometers away by the Messenger spacecraft that went into orbit around Mercury last month. H/T: Peter Barss....

08 April, 2011

In the 1979 Canadian federal election, the Liberals thought they had a shot at defeating MP Fr. Andy Hogan. They nominated the popular mayor a Glace Bay and sent a young hotshot cabinet minister, one Jean Chretien, into the riding to campaign. While shaking hands on Commercial Street, Chretien found himself in front of NDP headquarters. Without skipping a beat, he plunged inside and began working the room, greeting the mostly elderly women working the campaign office. In seconds he had them cooing and giggling and shaking his hand. He was utterly charming, and they were utterly charmed. That's what a real...

08 April, 2011

Elizabeth May and I have a long history. In the late 1970s, we worked together in a successful campaign to prevent spruce budworm spraying in Cape Breton. Thirty years later, we fought bitterly over her destructive campaign to delay cleanup of the Sydney Tar Ponds. May was the most prominent and media savvy member of a group that demanded a cleanup, but condemned every actual cleanup method. Her reckless exaggeration of environmental and health issues in Sydney did wonders for her profile and career, even as it devastated the working-class Cape Bretoners she purported to champion. It really is an...

01 April, 2011

In the last few years, I've made several business trips to the Faroe Islands, a rocky archipelago that rises spectacularly from the North Atlantic, about halfway between Iceland and Scotland. The population of 48,917 is about one-third of Cape Breton's; the land area of 1,399 square km barely tops that of Richmond County, NS. Search Google Images for "Faroe Islands," and you'll turn up dozens of photos far more beautiful than the snapshot below, of a rocky point known as Tinganes that sticks into the harbour at Torshavn, the country's* largest town. Tinganes sits two blocks from the hotel where I...

01 April, 2011

(L to R) Damian Moynihan (drums), Larry Björnson (bass), Scott Macmillan (guitar), and Damian Moynihan (drums), and Rob Crowell (saxophone)  played the Economy Shoe Shops's Monday Night Jazz session to a an appreciative but subdued crowd. The bar's co-founder, David Henry, a Halifax fixture, died of cancer Saturday after a brief illness....

29 March, 2011
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