Jim Nunn announced his retirement from the CBC tonight. It's a big loss for the Nova Scotia News at Six, which has climbed steadily in the ratings since Jim retook the helm last year after a 12-year absence. His last show will be the June 9 election special. It's a great way for him to go out because, simply put, no one on earth does elections better. His command of Nova Scotia politics is without equal in journalism. I will be one of Jim's color commentators that night, a role I used to share with Harry Flemming. We'll have a ball....

19 May, 2009

Somewhere among our tweaks this afternoon, we did something that made the jump pages render incorrectly (and unreadably) in certain browsers. It works OK in Firefox and IE, but not in Safari, Chrome, or Opera (my own browser of choice). So I have reverted temporarily to displaying each post in full on the main page until I can sort this out. Ah, computers! [UPDATE] I think these issues are all fixed now, thanks to Mike Targett....

19 May, 2009
Years ago, a neighbor dropped into Baddeck's Alderwood Guest Home to visit Dolly O'Toole, a longtime Kempt Head resident who was in her 99th and final year of life. The TV flickered in the background, with the sound off, and at some point the visitor noticed that CBC's First Edition had begun. "Do you ever watch Parker debating with Harry," she asked. "Oh yes, never miss it," said Dolly, who lived just down the road from me. She paused before continuing. "I don't always bother to turn up the sound—but I can always tell who's winning." This is my test for who's winning a political debate. Voters may or may not be swayed by arguments and debating points, but they definitely tune in to get the measure of the candidates. Turning off the sound offers uncanny insight into how they are coming across.
19 May, 2009

"The gravest threat to our environment is climate change," says the NDP election platform. So why is Darrell Dexter promising to subsidize electricity consumption by $28 million? That's what it will cost taxpayers to remove the provincial share of the HST from electricity bills. Seventy-five percent of Nova Scotia's electricity is created by burning coal, the dirtiest fuel we have. Subsidize wind power, sure, or tidal, or mass transit. But a $28-million tax break for burning dirty coal at a time when climate change is "the gravest threat to our environment?" That's cynical and irresponsible. Worse, it assumes voters are stupid,...

18 May, 2009
I admire a blog or two, or three or four, and lately, for the first time in years, a backlog of grumbles about the state of the world has been clamoring for air. The Nova Scotia election seemed an apt time to get my own blog in gear. First gear, that is. I have a notion of what I want contrarian: the news today, oh boy! to look like, and how I want it to function. The site in its present state resembles these notions about much as a shower stall rendition of Layla resembles Derek and the Dominos. Expect adjustments. Contrarian uses WordPress blogging software, modified by the Shades of Blue theme from StudioPress. I use its built-in customizing features, but have not yet attempted to edit its stylesheets to change things at a more basic level. Editing stylesheets is the 21st century equivalent of boring the cylinders on your little deuce coupe. I'll get help with that bye and bye, but it will be a while before she's ported and relieved, and stroked and bored.
18 May, 2009