A catchy little ditty about surveillance of citizens, en français. In partial translation: If you have nothing to hide, then you could put a camera in your bedroom and your bathroom, and publish images on internet. Or if you have nothing to hide, then you can get your login and your password on facebook or in google, publish and everyone can go dig it. Our lists of things to do Our soft sms Our writings of anger And our address books Our favorite pubs Our schedules pool Our sworn enemies And the name of the neighboring Nothing, nothing, nothing to be ashamed of nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing to hide H/T: Bethany Horne...

08 February, 2014

[Video link] The presidential limo is a 1987 VW Bug. The presidential pooch has only three functioning legs. The presidential laundry hangs on the line, washed in water hauled from a well in the yard. The president himself, Jose Mujica, who won a landslide victory in Uraguay's 2009 election, carries six bullet wounds in his body, a legacy of his time with the Tupamaros guerrillas in the '60s and '70s. He also spent 14 years in a military prison, including two confined to the bottom of a well. Mujica donates 90 percent of his $144,000 annual salary to charity, bringing his effective income...

23 November, 2012

Tim Bousquet, pugnacious news editor of the Halifax news and entertainment weekly, The Coast, responds to Contrarian's chiding of local media for failing to cover issues surrounding The Old Mill's closure. Hardly a week goes by that someone isn't asking me — usually angrily — "Why isn't The Coast covering issue X???" There are a variety of reasons. The Coast — which is basically me, plus whatever freelancers I can lure with a minuscule budget, and the occasional intern — isn't covering an issue. Sometimes the issues are too far afield, out of our distribution area, so aren't a priority. Sometimes other media...

18 July, 2012

Saturday's guest post about the closure and pending demolition of The Old Mill, a seedy Wyse Road bar housed in the only surviving part of Dartmouth's historic Rope Works, criticized peninsular Halifax heritage buffs for not trying to save the building. Our correspondent also said a new Sobeys supermarket on the site would lead to closure of the community Sobeys in Woodside, making life harder for impoverished mothers and seniors. Beverley Miller, a member of the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia board of directors, responds: Preservationists can only do something if they know about a pending demolition...

18 July, 2012

Earlier today, I posted a photograph of uncertain provenance showing Nova Scotia as seen from the International Space Station at night, and wondered out loud where it had come from. The estimable Bethany Horne of Halifax Open File pointed us to this Reddit post, and thence to this collection of NASA astronaut videography, where we tracked down the amazing sequence from which our image — a screenshot, as it turns out — was clipped. Check out this gorgeous time-lapse video from the space station's January 29 pass up the East Coast of North America, starting at the southern edge of the Gulf of...

14 February, 2012

Lots of reaction to HRMs forcible eviction of the Occupy Nova Scotia protesters. The best piece of actual reporting comes from a blog post by Bethany Horne, news curator for the recently launched indie website Openfile Halifax. A recent King's grad with a progressive sensibility, Horne didn't flinch from describing some of the incipient problems at the encampment: [I]f the events of November 11 hadn’t happened, I’m not sure how much longer the gathering would’ve lasted. At the November 9 general assembly, tensions were high. The camp’s reputation for accepting anyone, giving them shelter, food and a makeshift community was attracting more...

17 November, 2011

While puffed up pols and media toffs worked overtime this week to present Halifax at its snotty, hidebound worst, one local business demonstrated the city's best spirit. During tonight's Occupy Nova Scotia rally on the Parade Grounds, a carload of free pizza arrived from Freeman's Little New York, together with a note: And how did the Occupy Nova Scotia kids respond? They voted to donate one of the pizzas to the HRM cops. Now that is classy. Photo: Bethany Horne; H/T: Chris Lambie...

16 November, 2011