Thanks to Robert Westbrook for this photo, taken from his Port Hawkesbury, NS, driveway about 11:15 p.m., Atlantic Time, using a "Canon t2i, iOptron SmartEQ Pro tracking mount, and an 80mm aperture 900mm focal length refracting telescope." What a gorgeous sight! Robert has a string of beautiful images in sequence on his Facebook page. [Photograph ©2015 by Robert Westbrook. Used by permission.]...
On their best days, the 2015 Blue Jays seem to possess Yankee-like invincibility of the sort that tormented Boston Red Sox and Brooklyn Dodger fans for decades. Their lineup is a Murderers' Row stretching to the horizon, offering opposing pitchers no respite from terror. Their pitching staff includes half a dozen men who—on good days—resemble mowing machines. The Jays' worst days make you wonder how they will fare in the post-season. With 16 regular season games to play, the Jays have clinched a playoff berth, but what are their odds of winning the World Series? The Age of Sabermetrics has bred battalions of...
[caption id="attachment_15269" align="alignwrap" width="550"] Mario Beauregard (CP)[/caption] I first met Elizabeth May when she was 21 and I was 30. Together we fought a government plan for spruce budworm spraying in Cape Breton in the late-1970s, a plan we helped scuttle. If we both live to be 110, I will find it hard to forgive May for her leading role in prolonging the destructive, 20-year debate about the Sydney Tar Ponds, an ugly controversy that enhanced her career even as it sapped Sydney's capacity to find a way forward after the death of its steel industry. Perhaps paradoxically, I nevertheless regard May as...
David Frum has posted a rebuttal to my rebuttal of his rebuttal of Stephen Marche's New York Times op-ed against Prime Minister Stephen Harper's nine years in office. It's thin gruel, unworthy of a response except that it typifies the smugness and intellectual dishonesty that often characterize Frum's style of argument. He suggests my piece betrays embarrassment over Marche's heated commentary among "upholders of Canada’s liberal orthodoxy." No. I thought Marche's piece was great, as did hundreds of Canadians who commented thoughtfully and gratefully on the Times website. Frum doesn't trouble to counter any specifics in the case against Harper except for a...
In a National Post column about the recent spate of candidates fired for past misdemeanors and errant views—or views opposition mischief-makers could portray as errant—Andrew Coyne decries the assumption party leaders should be all powerful: The only reason we accept that a leader should have the power to “fire” the duly-nominated representative of the riding association of Someplace-Whereveritis is that we have also accepted he must be held personally accountable for every slip of the lip or peccadillo committed by every candidate for his party in every riding in the country. And the only reason we accept that is that we have...
In August, Toronto-based Esquire columnist Stephen Marche wrote a New York Times op-ed excoriating Stephen Harper's nine-year tenure as prime minister. This drew a rebuttal on The Atlantic's website from the Canadian-born conservative pundit David Frum, who pooh-poohed Marche's catalog of grievances as exaggerated, and the upset they inspire as delusional. Yesterday, The Atlantic published my response: Frum, a sometime advisor to the Conservative Party, expresses befuddlement at Marche’s failure to appreciate Harper’s calming grip on the Canadian tiller. Given Harper’s many offenses to the country’s long tradition of political and social liberalism, it’s hard to believe Frum’s mystification is sincere. He...
Newspaper editor turned civil servant turned citizen journalist Bill Turpin scraped data from the CBC website on the history of Canada's federal debt and produced the following summary: In nine years, Harper ran up $131 million billion in new debt, while Martin and Chretien took half again as along to run up just $60 million billion. (Martin's contribution to this total was $17 million billion in debt reduction.) Yes, Harper had a historic recession to manage, but the history of debt accumulation under Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, and Kim Campbell vs. John Turner and Pierre Trudeau would show a similar pattern—as does the history of federal...
Last summer, disability rights activist Gus Reed, a member of the Minister’s Advisory Panel on Accessibility, helped draft a provincial discussion paper on proposed accessibility legislation [pdf]]. Last December, Reed reviewed all the submissions the government received in response to the paper, including a disappointing one from Dalhousie University. Written by University Provost and Academic Vice-President Academic Carolyn Watters, Dal’s submission followed what might be called the HRM model of accessibility policy: earnest declarations of fealty to the principle of inclusion, followed by myriad excuses why the university can’t possibly be expected to do anything that advances accessibility on campus. [caption id="attachment_15237"...
Genesee & Wyoming, owner of the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway, has been fighting two levels of government and Cape Breton's business community for the right to shut down the Point Tupper-to-Sydney end of the line — virtually all of the railway in Cape Breton. Speculation is G&W wants to pull up the CB track, much of which is in good shape, and use it to replace crappy, worn out rails on the Truro-to-Pt. Tupper end of the line. The company has been gradually hauling cars and engines from depots and sidings in Cape Breton, so they won't be...
Several brave Cape Bretoners talk about the impact of opiate addiction on their lives and their families. The video is the work of The Lighthouse Church and Undercurrent Youth Centre in Glace Bay. They are seeking more emphasis on addiction prevention in the form of greater support for youth centres. H/T: Stacey Pineau...