July 2010

Edmonton mayor must grow up

July 31, 2010 Politics

On Friday, Mayor Stephen Mandel blasted Wildrose Alliance Leader Danielle Smith for jumping into the debate over the planned closure of Edmonton’s City Centre Airport. He wasn’t angry because he disagrees with her push to keep the airport open. No, he was infuriated by the mere fact that she’s from Calgary. “Many Edmontonians, and myself included, [...]

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Higgins for Mayor – or are Calgarians nuts?

July 30, 2010 Politics

With long-time mayor Dave Bronconnier deciding not to run again, the race for mayor in Calgary has deteriorated into a circus. I have to admit that the number of (real and joke) candidates has grown so huge that I am no longer really following the news. For the time being, that is. I’ll pay closer [...]

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Proof that government stimulus and bailouts don’t work

July 28, 2010 Business

General Motors workers in Windsor, Ont., punched out for the last time Wednesday as the automaker closed its only remaining plant in the border city. The closure of the transmission plant puts 500 people out of work and ends GM’s 90-year relationship with Windsor, once the heart of Canada’s automotive industry. via www.cbc.ca GM took [...]

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The iPad really is the saviour of newspapers

July 26, 2010 Media

The Wall Street Journal has generated more than $2 million in ad revenue from its iPad application, the Austrian daily Die Presse reports. The WSJ was among the first newspapers to come out with a professional app for the iPad, and it seems to have paid off. Users get access to the full content of [...]

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Canada is a third-rate banana republic with unethical news media

July 23, 2010 Media

These days I feel ashamed to be Canadian. I’m not very proud of our news media either. The whole kerfuffle over Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to eliminate the mandatory long form of the census is utter nonsense, and I’m beginning to wonder if our opposition politicians and the news media are only pretending to [...]

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The day that ended Ignatieff’s dream of becoming PM

July 22, 2010 Politics

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff might just as well pack his bags and move back to Harvard University now. His dream of becoming Canada’s next prime minister is gone, kaput. After today, just about anyone can see the attack ads the Conservatives will be running in the next election campaign: they will feature prominent footage of [...]

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Cameron and his Big Society

July 22, 2010 Politics

The British prime minister David Cameron has set up a program called National Citizen Service, a voluntary program for teenagers to spend time together and engage in community activities. This is part of the prime minister’s Big Society idea. Truth be told, the whole concept smacks of the usual left-wing social engineering hocus-pocus, and Labour [...]

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The Economist agrees with Harper’s census reform

July 22, 2010 Politics

The recent “indignation” exhibited by opposition parties over Stephen Harper’s changes to the census (“long form”) has been yet another example of how devoid Liberals and the NDP have become of ideas. Instead of spending their time productively, for example, by focusing on actual problems, they have been talking about the census and how important [...]

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Austrian iPad data plans extremely generous

July 21, 2010 Politics

Apple’s iPad is finally coming to Austria. The world’s most popular and most useful device goes on sale in the Alpine republic on July 23. But what is truly remarkable is the pricing of the data plans revealed by the major providers. For example, iPad users can get a monthly data plan for 19GB for [...]

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Don Gray: keep government out of our lives

July 21, 2010 Politics

Mr. Gray sees himself as a classical liberal, who believes in the liberty of the individual and who wouldn’t have government running anything in anyone’s life (“not what church you go to, or what you do in your bedroom”). In the same vein, “the economy is far better off if the people who make the [...]

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