NYU grad student Josh Begley wrote a simple program (technically, a processing script) to capture a Google Earth arial image of every prison in the United States, then used the images as tiles to build a huge mosaic he calls Prison Map. The complete image is so vast, and takes so long to load as a website, Begley's main site defaults to a 700-prison subset of the best images. The United States is the prison capital of the world. This is not news to most people. When discussing the idea of mass incarceration, we often trot out numbers and dates and...

06 June, 2012

CBRM Mayor John Morgan, facing serious opposition* for the first time in 12 years, is scrambling to justify his cash-strapped municipality's snap decision to spend $6 million in tax money to block a private sector development that promised immediate jobs. On just two days' notice last month, CBRM outbid a private sector developer to buy the Greenfield Site, a 400-acre parcel on Sydney's freshly dredged harbour. At the time, Morgan said the so-called mystery developer planned to use the site for a bulk terminal that would permanently preclude its use as a container pier, the Great Big Project Morgan continually upholds as...

05 June, 2012

On Tuesday, members of the Nova Scotia Legislature's Community Services Committee will get a chance to question the bureaucrat who promoted what turned out to be false allegations of sexual misconduct against an innocent priest, and to ask her superiors why they still haven't withdrawn a report containing slanderous innuendo against him. The department's actions led to the closure of Talbot House, which had for 53 years provided safe lodging, meaningful work, and successful treatment for some of Nova Scotia's most troubled citizens. Marika Lathem, Director of Family and Youth Services and the principal author of the error-filled report, will testify. The Talbot...

05 June, 2012

Zhai Huasen, an experimental Chinese artist, used Photoshop to remove the bikes. Amazing how high the cyclists are.   H/T: Alexis Madrigal...

04 June, 2012

Moon over Auld's Cove: Moon over Beinn Bhreagh: ...

04 June, 2012

If Mabou can produce a great family band, why not Port Hood? Jean, Mitch, Gordie and Brennan MacDonald call themselves Company Road, and they recorded their alt-country debut tune Cry at the Rankin's Red Shoe Pub. [Video link] Sweet sound! You can buy it on iTunes. H/T: Heather Mosher via Melanie MacDonald...

04 June, 2012

On Saturday, I wrote that the majority members of the Nova Scotia Electoral Boundaries Commission only pretended to "interpret" their Terms of Reference, when in fact they had openly disregarded them.  Their only ethical choice, I wrote, was to "resign from the commission; or swallow hard and complete their assigned task." Important members of both opposition parties have responded. Liberal MLA Andrew Younger did so in a series of tweets: In fact, Canadian courts have ruled that +/- 25 percent should be the normal limit for variations in riding sizes, but that legislatures may go beyond that limit in special circumstances. It...

03 June, 2012

Chapter Three of the Interim Report of the Nova Scotia Electoral Boundaries Commission is tittled, "Interpretation of the Terms of Reference." It might more honestly be called, "Decision to Disregard the Terms of Reference." That's what seven members of the commission decided to do: overrule the Terms of Reference set down in law by the elected representatives of Nova Scotia. They did so in response to a vociferous lobby by Acadians and African Nova Scotians, anxious to retain the four seats exempted from rep-by-pop to encourage the election of MLAs representing those ethnic groups. The seven members  — Chair Teresa MacNeil,* Johnstown,...

02 June, 2012

John Malcom doubtless didn't enjoy having to respond to a scathing Auditor General's report on his last week as CEO of the Cape Breton District Health Authority. Doing so, however, gave him one last chance to demonstrate the exemplary leadership he displayed in 15 years as head of the authority. Jacques Lapointe released a harsh report on operational shortcomings at the district and provincial levels that contributed to two outbreaks of C. difficile bacteria—infections that caused five deaths. "As CEO, the biggest mistake is my mistake," Malcom told reporters Wednesday, in response to the report. "I under-resourced the infection control department. So I...

31 May, 2012

A couple of day-after comments about Darrell Dexter's cabinet shuffle seem worth passing on: First, a longtime New Democrat writes that, "Having to take Maureen out of Health to backfill Finance indicates a lack of bench strength." Précisément. Second, a friend notes that, as a former paramedic, incoming Health Minister Dave Wilson should put paid to Nursing Union president Janet Hazelton's campaign to featherbed the new Collaborative Emergency Centres. Hazelton has complained the staffing model of one nurse and one advanced care paramedic, with telephone backup from an emergency room specialist physician, is insufficient to meet, ahem, professional standards. Nothing less than two union nurses will do,...

31 May, 2012
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