Halifax engineer Jeff Pinhey thinks Contrarian's attempt “to find political intrigue in childrens' lunch bags is beyond petty, it's almost creepy.” Pinhey first advanced this view in a clever message whose irony sailed right over Contrarian's head: I am outraged at all the obviously NDP sponsored vests being worn by almost every single construction worker in Nova Scotia! And when I looked into this I found that not only are they all NDP orange with some yellow - get this - they are forced to wear them by a LAW!  We actually have been legislated to show our support for the...

25 February, 2012

Labor lawyer Ron Stockton, who is also president of the Lunenburg NDP Association, protests that the insulated lunch bags distributed to Grade Primary students in Nova Scotia  the Annapolis, Cape Breton-Victoria, South Shore, and Strait regional school boards this month and next (and pictured here) do not appear to be NDP orange, but rather, red with orange trim. If the government were Liberal would you have levelled the same criticism?  If a PC government put out materials that were blue (admittedly a much more commonly used colour) would you have criticized them?  At my age I like things to be as colourful as...

24 February, 2012

A Contrarian reader asks: Does it not seem to you that there is a major conflict of interest in the Savage-for-Mayor camp? [AllNovaScotia.com, the online news service]  lists Don Mills as one of Savage's top supporters. Since  Mills operates Corporate Research Associates, the major polling firm in the province — one that just recently reported Savage with a big lead — why would one trust anything CRA has to say on the race? A fair question, and we put it to Mills, who replied: Corporate Research Associates has been since its inception a non-partisan polling company. It is one of the reasons our...

23 February, 2012

This week month and next, as part of the Nova Scotia Department of Education's Early Learning Campaign, the Dexter government distributed a variety pack of learning materials  — books, a CD, construction paper, plastic animals, bubbles, clay, scissors, and sundry other education-related items — to every Grade Primary student in the province Grade Primary students in the Annapolis, Cape Breton-Victoria, South Shore, and Strait regional school boards. Best of all, the goodies all came packaged in a handy insulated orange lunch bag, suitable for use throughout the school year. Subtle, eh? Early education for today's families, you could call it. No, the lunch bags do not...

23 February, 2012

Locate your twitter contacts on an interactive world map with this simple mashup. Let your cursor hover over the bottom right corner of the map (not the one above, which is just a screenshot, but the interactive map linked to here) and a Twitter Account sign-in dialog will open. H/T: Nathan Yau...

23 February, 2012

Our friend and fellow contrarian Christine Comeau, a writer who makes movies in Nova Scotia and Quebec, seems an unlikely marathon candidate: The project is a fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada.  ...

23 February, 2012

PostMedia's Stephen Maher, whose blog post on the Toews contretemps I featured moments ago, has weighed in with a critique of Contrarian's first two posts on the subject. Here's what he wrote (and then let's close the subject for now): In your post on the Parliamentary Press Gallery, you say the gallery met @vikileaks30 with a "frenzy of denunciation," but provide no examples. You do not accurately describe the gallery's reaction to @vikileaks30. The journalists I know found it to be a matter of lively interest. Nobody reacted with anger, fear or embarrassment. Also, to point to the failings of the gallery, you...

21 February, 2012

Parliamentary scribe Stephen Maher, formerly of the Herald and now with PostMedia, offers a different view on why the Press Gallery all but ignored Vic Toews’s infidelity prior to #vikileaks30. (Previous views here, here, and here.) Maher's blog post is the more refreshing for its inclusion of updates from people who disagree with him. It rewards  reading in full. I actually agree with most of what he says. Generally, I have little stomach for exposing the private lives of public figures, let alone their sex lives. But unlike Maher and his colleagues, I think there are clear grounds for an exception in Toews's case. Maher wrote: If [a] secretly...

21 February, 2012

In response to my critique (here and here) of the national news media's handling of the @vikileaks3o dustup last Friday, CBC's Kady O'Malley has offered a more thoughtful rebuttal (more thoughtful than this): Here's the major flaw in @kempthead's thesis re: "Hill journos" allegedly enraged at having "the news cycle snatched from their grasp"...

21 February, 2012

Press gallery' tweets in response to this and this (best read from bottom to top): My favorite response was Glen McGregor's question, "Do you know any journalists?" Yes, Glen, I have two National Magazine Awards, one Michener Award (out of three times as a finalist), and when I left journalism, I had more Atlantic Journalism Awards than the province of Prince Edward Island. No offense, though. I'd never heard of you, either. And for the record, I did not call Kady O'Malley anything. My criticism was directed to the Ottawa press pack generally, and neither attempted nor purported to assess any individual reporter's...

21 February, 2012
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