[caption id="attachment_15485" align="alignwrap" width="600"] "Pookie," out on a tick-gathering mission. (Not exactly as illustrated.)[/caption] A discerning Toronto friend, a woman with exceptional research skills, recently discovered a tick on her pet cat, "Pookie*." After taking Pookie to a vet, she posted the following PSA on Facebook. Make sure to check your pets—both cats and dogs—for ticks! [Pookie] uses monthly, topical anti-flea medication, but it does not have any effect on other parasites. In Ontario, the tick population is, apparently, especially high this year and [Pookie]  had one on her neck. I'm hoping her blood tests come back clean and that she's happy...

23 November, 2015

If you are near Halifax this week, consider taking in the 10th annual (well, almost annual) Sable Island Update organized by the naturalist and longtime Sable resident Zoe Lucas. After a year's hiatus, Lucas returns to Saint Mary's University this Wednesday evening with what looks to be a great lineup of illustrated talks on the most beguiling real estate in Nova Scotia. Parks Canada Senior Archaeologist Charles Burke will present the results of the first-ever archaeological survey of human artifacts on the island, including its notorious shipwrecks and sporadic attempts at human settlement dating back to the 16th century. Burke will...

22 November, 2015

Department of Modification and Rectification, Maclean's Magazine edition: For the record, Leslie has 10 fingers; Statler and Waldorf have a combined total of 16....

21 November, 2015

Halifax Mayor Ron Wallace Edmund Morris Mike Savage was on CBC Radio Wednesday, taking calls about small business property taxes when Liz Crocker, owner of Woozles Childrens Bookstore, the yellow building pictured above, rang up with a complaint. Like Savage, Crocker is a life-long Liberal, and she's strategic enough to be polite when lobbying a politician. But you could tell she was annoyed at various burdens the city places on small business. "When I got my tax bill this year, I was surprised to see an 'encroachment fee' for the wheelchair ramp I installed." Believe it or not, this is standard operating procedure...

20 November, 2015

Thanks to two Contrarian readers called Richard for pointing out that, while that the words corda de varal may mean “let’s reach into the core” in Turkish, they mean “clothesline rope” in Portuguese. From there it took but a few Google searches to locate the workshop that produced ingenious contraptions for recycling plastic soda bottles into twine and brooms featured here yesterday in Jaru, Brazil, a small city in the western Amazon state of Rondônia. The maker is Alceu Rocha, better known to his Jaru neighbours as “Gyro Gearloose.” From the Hackaday website: Not a word of English is spoken in the video,...

20 November, 2015

A bit of clever, grass-roots engineering borne of necessity: The source of this video, which is getting lots of traction on Facebook, is unclear. Posted on YouTube by Moez Hassen, it was re-posted to Facebook by Radio Gaza, although it's not clear the makeshift recycling facility is located in the Palestinian exclave. Toward the end, it bears the stamp of Yok Böyle Birsey, a whimsical Turkish website which translates as "no such thing." The package of twine shown at the end bears the label corda de varal, which is Turkish for something akin to, "Let's reach into the core." Portuguese for "clothesline rope." My...

18 November, 2015

A wise friend wondered on Facebook whether it was prudent for President François Hollande to visit the Bataclan concert hall so soon after the shooting stopped. It's good he went. The sooner people behave normally after an attack like this, the better. The threat was almost certainly over once the shooting stopped. Usually, in the hours, days, and weeks afterwards, we pretend we are in much greater danger than we are. The strange modern compulsion to form an empathetic connection with ghastly news events swings into action. We wring our hands and declare, "Everything has changed." We cede yet more power to...

14 November, 2015

As I argued last week, the Andrew Younger mess points to the unintended consequences that arise when legislators and policy makers rush to solve real social problems by means of sweeping, arbitrary rules. Murky as the details of this case are, it serves as a useful thought experiment, since the gender stereotypes that gave rise to the iron-clad rules are reversed, making their application problematic, if not perverse. Had events followed the course demanded by media scolds, the probable outcome would have seen a promising young woman's career destroyed on an alleged point of "principle," over a private matter neither party...

12 November, 2015

Sydney resident Rory Andrews posted these charts to the community website GoCape Breton, but something very similar could be drawn for each of the four Atlantic provinces. And to make the point even clearer: Short of taking a reverso-page from China's book and implementing a Ten-Child Policy, the only solution is immigration. Ad hoc, community-based efforts to encourage foreign students attending Nova Scotia universities to settle here should be rolled into a major provincial government effort with appropriate resources. And beyond welcoming university students, Stephen MacNeil should put himself at the head of the queue for accepting the Middle Eastern refugees Prime...

09 November, 2015

I no longer subscribe to the mass email service that let me contact the 1,800 people on the old Cape Breton Island Film Series mailing list, and sending an email message to 1,800 recipients is a good way to get yourself banned as a spammer. So I'll count on Sydney area readers to pass this information along: On Wednesday, Nelson MacDonald and the Atlantic Filmmakers' Coop present an evening of short films produced in Atlantic Canada—including two made in Cape Breton. As the poster says, the screenings take place 7 p.m. Wednesday at Sydney's Highland Arts Theatre. The movies include: 4 Quarters -...

09 November, 2015
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