Like me, Contrarian reader Stan Jones voted at one of the continuous advance polling stations his riding (though presumably he did so sans caméra).  These polls were among the innovations Elections Nova Scotia introduced to combat flagging turnout, by making it easier for people to vote. They proved popular, but as Jones points out, they had the unintended consequence of lessening the analytical usefulness of poll-by-poll returns: [I]t does seem to complicate poll-by-poll analysis, since it looks to me as if all those votes are reported with the Returning Office as the poll, rather than some district poll. For example, in Yarmouth, some...

In response to this post, Stan Jones of Yarmouth writes: You said: "I truly believe Darrell Dexter and Denise Peterson-Rafuse are better people than they have shown themselves to be in the last three days." You are wrong. Actually, I think I'm right, but neither politician is giving me much ammunition to make the case for them. They should apologize to Abbass and the Talbot board, remove Lathem and her supervisors from any future involvement with the recovery centre, and name a knowledgable, skeptical authority to take a long, hard look at this badly run department....

Contrarian reader Stan Jones offers further evidence of 21st Century North America's altered perception of weight: Footage of the Benny Goodman Orchestra playing Sing, Sing, Sing in 1937. Those are some skinny musicians. Note especially Harry James, whose solo begins 38 seconds into the tune: (That is, of course, Gene Krupa on drums, and Goodman himself on clarinet.) As a former TV host, Glennie Langille has first hand experience with society's social expectations around weight. She offers a skeptical view of the notion that skinny equals healthful: My first observation is that the original photo of Kennedy makes him appear to have an enormous...

Tim Bousquet's rules for using anonymous sources: The information gained through granting anonymity is not otherwise available. Or, put another way, granting anonymity is not a shortcut to doing the hard work of gathering solid information and good reporting. The anonymous source must have something to lose, should anonymity not be given: loss of a job, etc. Using an anonymous source must result in some positive public good. “Spinning” someone’s view is not a positive public good. Bousquet adds: When I was a reporter at a daily in the states, I had a publisher who wouldn't allow me to use anonymous sources at all. At...