Archive | March, 2010

1 CONSERVATIVES VS UNIVERSITIES 1 Sounds like the feds are serious about killing First Nations University. Good timing seeing as it’s finally been fixed. I dunno, maybe next election Saskatchewan should vote in some Conservatives because the current government never does anything for our province except break stuff. (CBC)

2 FUN IN RUSSIA More bombs, death and sadness. (Guardian)

3 SCHOOL’S OUT The Canadian Council on Learning delivers its final report to the government that defunded it. Its conclusions: Canada isn’t doing enough to promote lifelong learning — and that’s making us weak and uncompetitive. (Globe And Mail)

4 TROUBLED AGENCY’S FIRED MANAGERS SAY THEY WERE HARASSED AND SILENCED More woe with the arm’s-length federal agency Rights And Democracy, with has been riven by political battles between pro-Israel, Conservative-appointee  board members and staff. (Toronto Star)

5 NO NEW RESEARCH REACTOR Canada won’t replace the Chalk River facility. Far from an expert but seems like if (if!) medical isotope production is something Canada should be doing, the government that failed on this would’ve been Chretien’s Liberals, because a replacement reactor should’ve been in development 10 years ago. (Calgary)

6 DRILL, BABY, DRILL U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration proposes more offshore drilling. (New York Times) Just curious–after we strip every last bit of  this planet’s resources leaving it a ruined, over-heated, polluted husk that can’t support our species let alone our civilization(s), is that when the rapture comes? Because things here won’t be so good.

For all the SCN-haters out there, and general anti-government types who, judging from the comments they’ve been posting on various websites in relation to the SCN story, want a personal veto on every tax dollar spent by governments in Canada, you might want to check out the lead story in today’s Leader-Post sports section. It’s on preparations that are underway in Regina and across Saskatchewan to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders centennial in 2010. In his article, Ian Hamilton notes, and I quote, that a one-hour documentary on the Roughriders had been in the works, but “its status has been muddied by the recent closure of SCN.”

Gee, maybe SCN isn’t quite as irrelevant and inconsequential in our million channel TV universe as you’ve made it out to be? Here’s a link to Hamilton’s story. And don’t forget, there’s a rally at noon today in front of CBC on Broad St. to protest the station’s closure.

Okay. I swear this started out as a Six In The AM at about 7 this morning, then somebody woke up and decided that there would be no blogging this AM. So, instead of six you’re getting four not-so-surprising news stories.

1. WHO COULDN’T SEE THIS COMING? In an effort to reduce wait times, the Sask Party government is looking into using private clinics to help them reduce the surgery backlog. The Sask. Party government trying to sneak some healthcare privatization in through the backdoor you say? Really? Colour me gobsmacked. (Leader Post)

2. OKAY, WHO COULDN’T SEE THIS COMING? The U.S. is publicly calling for Canada to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2011. Really? They need us to stick around? You don’t say. What’s The Harpster going to do now? Risk pissing off the Socialist to the South or stay in the fight for a few more years? I’ve no idea. I’m all on tenterhooks.

3. WHAT ABOUT THIS? YOU CAN’T TELL ME YOU SAW THIS COMING! Okay, this news is five days old so maybe you heard about it already but it never made it onto dog blog and I was SOOOOOO surprised by it I had to include it today. Apparently, a couple professors did their own little feasibility study of a retractable dome stadium in Regina and confirmed what some folk in Fargo told the prairie dog last year: take any claims of great GDP gains from a sports stadium with a big ol’ grain of salt. Turns out this independent study suggests that some of the findings in the official feasibility study (the one we paid a million bucks for) were a little, shall we say, optimistic? (Leader Post)

4. OKAY, I CONFESS, I DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING AT ALL: Seems there’s a chance we could see the NHL moving the Coyotes back to Winnipeg. Seeing as I don’t follow hockey at all, if it hadn’t been for Whitworth e-mailing me at the crack of dawn saying, “You have to blog this!” I’d have had no idea any of this was going on. They had hockey in Winnipeg, you say? Colour me gobsmacked. (Winnipeg Free Press)

1 THE HERB TARLEK OF HARVARD After a weekend policy conference the Liberals say that now they’re all about scrapping corporate tax cuts and spending cash on social programs like health care — in contrast to the Tories, who, I suppose, favour cutting business taxes to keep driving up structural deficits so they have an excuse to cancel more programs. Here’s the poop. One thing going for them: Canada’s executives apparently think taxes need a-raising. Meanwhile, a retired diplomat who survived an al Qaeda kidnapping says pshaw, the Liberals will do anything and say anythingto get into power. Reeeeeeeally? (Globe And Mail)

2 SUBWAYS ARE NOT MILITARY TARGETS At least thirty-seven civilians are dead in Moscow after two suicide bombers detonate themselves. (Guardian)

3 NDP WRAP UP SASK. CONVENTION Link wants rural votes. Also, Jack Layton says he wants some NDP MPs from SK. (CBC)

4 HEY, HOW ABOUT THAT BIGOTRY? Haroon Siddiqui tears apartQuebec’s recent Islamophobia rampage. (Toronto Star)

5 G8 MINISTERS TALK NORTH RESOURCES; IRAN Foreign ministers from G8 countries are meeting in Quebec today and tomorrow. I’m assuming niqabs aren’t welcome. (CBC)

6 THE RULES AREN’T COMPLICATED Go ahead — be a dirty old man. Have open relationships, walk around naked in your yard and be backyard hot-tub Casanova. That’s all legal and none of anyone’s business (and we don’t want to know anyway). But FF sake, don’t get the babysitter drunk and touch her genitals. (Leader-Post)

Charlie Pratt think’s he’s been hard done by (CBC Sask). I hope it goes to trail in civil court … it would be pretty entertaining.