On September 11th, 2001, Osama Bin Laden's carefully laid plans came to fruition and the mecca of world economy came tumbling down like a house of cards. The end result on the West's economy - beyond George W. Bush's devastating tax games and the Iraqi money pit - was not altogether terrifying ( Read more... )

Montreal is quite possibly the most beautiful, most diverse city on the planet. The people here are inviting, hospitable, eccentric and funny. They're also on two seperate sides of one of the longest lasting cultural wars the world has seen ( Read more... )

Ah, the news media, how do we loathe thee ( Read more... )

It is the end of the reign of the Terrible Clarkson, the Governor-General who reinvented the practice of overspending tax-dollars. By the same token, Paul Martin doesn't seem very long for his position (he's more solidly positionned this month before Parliament adjourned for the summer, but still) and he needs votes in Quebec. Lucky for him, we ( Read more... )

The war on terror, it's a world thing now. I've heard the term "World War III" tossed around a few times to describe this rather pointless, ultimately futile conflict. The ideals of liberty for all individuals and the prevention of heinous acts by individuals are mutually exclusive. The only thing that can be accomplished by the war is that ( Read more... )

Arthur Schopenhauer is a bit of a mindfuck (I'm currently reading his essays "On the Suffering of the World") and unfortunately all that he says has made itself readily applicable to my current situation ( Read more... )

Ok, so I agree with her in principle: the Canadian government has been promising to do something about hospital waiting lists and overflow for too long and getting nothing done for even longer. I find it unlikely, however, that she and I would be in agreement as to the proper method with which to correct this fact ( Read more... )

Ding-Dong the witch is dead!Bernard Landry, the most vocal - and recognized - proponent of sovereignty in Quebec since Jacques Parizeau, has left politics (supposedly never to return) based on a confidence vote held by his party some two or three weeks ago (he retired immediately, I'm just slow in putting these things together). Interestingly ( Read more... )

Ken MacLeod has, in his latest BLog posting, brought to attention the new pro-war movement within the far left of the European Union's political lobbies (communities, groups, whatever). While, as the author of more than a few post-WWIII novels has pointed out, this is not entirely unexpected, the prospect of a new World War, pitting the United ( Read more... )

Peter F. Hamilton's novel The Naked God has proven one thing to me: there is such a thing as too much "waiting to know". The entire premise, to start with, is the anti-thesis of everything I believe, when you have me blindly stumbling down the first two-hundred pages, I get kind of agitated ( Read more... )