If you work in business, government, politics, communications, journalism, or marketing, and you'd like a five minute primer on how not to botch a public policy issue, read CCL Group chairman Steve Parker's column in Thursday's Halifax Chronicle-Herald. I've been critical of the histrionics, self-righteousness, and personal attacks deployed by fracking opponents (see posts here, here, here, and here), but the truth is, Big Oil's behaviour in the fracking debate has been equally reprehensible, as Parker cogently explains: The seeds of the fracking ban here lay in the attitude and actions of industry who failed on two fronts: for years positioning fracking as essentially harmless and failing to respect and respond to the...

12 September, 2014

Dr. Dan Reid is a graduate of Dalhousie Medical School, a medical doctor, a general practitioner in both Pictou and Dartmouth, a former chief of staff at the Sutherland Harris Memorial Hospital, a former member of the Nova Scotia Legislature for Pictou West, a former Minister of Fisheries in the Gerald Regan government, a Liberal partisan, and a longstanding critic of the Northern Pulp Mill in Abercrombie. At a free concert Tuesday night to raise awareness about the emissions from the mill, Reid saw fit to attack former premier John Hamm for sitting on the board of Northern Pulp. He went so far...

11 September, 2014

Over at the Halifax Examiner, Tim Bousquet has a brief discussion on the history and extent of slavery in Nova Scotia, with links to an interesting monograph, images of ads from Halifax newspapers seeking the return of slaves who escaped from their Nova Scotia owners, and a book that touches on the subject. [caption id="attachment_14219" align="alignright" width="300"] (Click image for larger version)[/caption] When I first came to Nova Scotia, I spent time with older neighbours on Boularderie Island, many of whom were great storytellers and singers. One man, Donald MacDonald, known as Donald Bugle, a native Gaelic speaker, sang a song with a verse that went something...

10 September, 2014

Exactly how big was that Dreadnoughtus schrani, the titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur discovered recently in the Argentinian portion of Patagonia? The BBC offers this handy chart: The BBC story is here. The first scientific paper documenting the massive discovery is in the journal Nature's Scientific Reports. H/T: Flowing data....

09 September, 2014

Ian Jones, the MUN professor urging removal of horses from Sable Island, offers a rebuttal to the skepticism I voiced in a post this morning: You need to correct some parts of your blog post...

08 September, 2014

Eco-provocateur* Ian Jones, a seabird biologist at Memorial University in St. John's NL, is demanding Parks Canada remove the fabled feral horses of Sable Island on the factually correct grounds they are an exotic, invasive species that has seriously altered the island's ecology. The CBC quotes Jones as saying Parks Canada is obliged to remove them because of a stipulation in part 3.2, section 11 of the Canada National Parks Act: All practical efforts will be made to prevent the introduction of exotic plants and animals into national parks and to eliminate or contain them where they already exist. [caption id="attachment_14192" align="alignright" width="250"] Biologist Ian Jones[/caption] If making Sable...

08 September, 2014

Tim Bousquet on the joint Halifax Regional Police-RCMP raid of a compassionate use marijuana club that operates openly in Halifax: Continuing to arrest people for pot is ridiculous and counter-productive: arresting backyard gardeners puts the entire trade in the hands of organized crime. We all know that use of marijuana will be legal or decriminalized in a few years, and yet we continue to ruin people’s lives for a victimless crime. I will continue to ridicule the police for making pot arrests because they deserve ridicule. This is an evil—yes, evil—use of police powers, the very antithesis of serving and protecting. They should be...

07 September, 2014

On the outskirts of River John, Nova Scotia, my grandson Josh spotted one of his favourite things in the world: ...

31 August, 2014

Q: When is a candy store no different from a surf shop? A: When HRM’s planning department wants to avoid enforcing accessibility standards. Just over two years ago, Halifax developer Mickey MacDonald caused a scandal by opening a Chicken Burger restaurant in a completely inaccessible building on Queen St. in downtown Halifax. HRM's Planning Department gave MacDonald an occupancy permit despite his flagrant disregard for the Canada Building Code. As a result of this negligence, no disabled person could patronize Chicken Burger, let alone work there. It was as if Mickey MacDonald, Mayor Mike Savage Peter Kelly*, and all the members of HRM Council had slapped a sign on the building...

28 August, 2014

A few months ago, an email from the Atlantic science blogger Alexis Madrigal introduced me to the word lagniappe, pronounced LAN-yap. It means a small bonus a merchant bestows on a customer, "something given over and above what is purchased" (Oxford English Dictionary). It's akin to the 13th donut in a baker's dozen, or those promotional mini bottles the Liquor Commission sometimes attaches to the necks of 40-ouncers, except it's proffered only after the sale has been completed and paid for. In current use, it's mainly confined to the New Orleans area, where such petit gratuities were once a local tradition, albeit one resented by shopkeepers, who...

28 August, 2014
Show more
Loading...