For the most part, Cal, Earl and Ron viewed the off-season moves in a positive light. And in the weeks that followed, the Riders made even more moves, highlighted by the resigning of former all-star defensive end John Chick.

In last Friday’s pre-season game in Edmonton the Riders got off to a decent start with a last-minute 31-24 victory over the Eskimos. Especially impressive was the performance of the defense, which recorded four interceptions, with two of the picks being returned for TDs, along with several sacks. On offense, all four QBs moved the ball well through the air, although the running game did struggle, and there were some costly turnovers. As far as special teams go, the kicking game is still somewhat up in the air, with three punter/placekickers in the running, and no one having really stepped up.

Tonight, the Riders take the field at Mosaic Stadium for their final pre-season game against the Calgary Stampeders. The Stamps  opened their pre-season at home last Friday with a 31-29 loss to the B.C. Lions in a game in which starting QB Drew Tate struggled mightily while second-stringer Kevin Glenn shone.

Following the game, both teams will trim their rosters and start preparation for the regular season. That starts for the Riders with a return engagement against the Eskimos in Edmonton on June 29. Prior to that game, look for another installment of Rider Fan Forum where Earl, Ron and Cal assess the training camp and pre-season and offer their thoughts on how the Riders stack up against their CFL rivals.

Game time tonight is 8 p.m. And it doesn’t look like it’s on TSN as it’s showing game seven of the NBA final between the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat.

Around 7pm, I dropped by Artesian — that’s where Regina Water Watch volunteers gathered to collect petitions and tally the signatures — and at that time they reported they’d already passed the 22,000 signature mark.

That means they’ve easily surpassed the 19,310 signatures needed to force a referendum on the waste water treatment plant redevelopment.

This is all assuming, of course, that the city clerk’s office gives the petition their stamp of approval. They’ll have 30 days to go over the list of names and make sure everything is in order. And if the city clerk doesn’t find any reason to strike 3,000 plus names off the petition, city council will have to go ahead with a referendum on the waste water P3 within nine months.

Incidentally, Regina Water Watch has also passed the 20,742 signature mark that would have been required had the province agreed to the city’s request last week to raise the referendum threshold. But provincial government relations minister Jim Reiter turned the city down so the group will be bringing their stack of petition sheets to city hall tomorrow confident they have a much safer buffer.

Another benchmark to note: when I showed up, a volunteer pointed out to me that Regina Water Watch has also gathered more signatures than Mayor Michael Fougere earned in votes in October’s election. I double checked and Fougere was elected with 21,685 votes. And in fact, the total votes cast for everyone on council — that’s all 10 wards — is just 22,024.

Kind of puts into context the amount of discontent that’s brewing out there for the city’s P3 waste water plan. And doubtless, by now, the signature tally will only have increased.

Regina Water Watch will be handing off their stack of signatures to city hall tomorrow afternoon.

Sad news. Three-time Emmy winner James Gandolfini has died, reportedly of a heart attack. The actor was in Italy attending a film festival. Gandolfini will be forever remembered as Tony Soprano, the complex, panic attack-prone mafiosi in The Sopranos.

Gandolfini’s most recent film, the excellent rock & roll drama Not Fade Away bombed at the box office. Look it up. It features the actor at his very best and seemed to confirm Gandolfini’s brilliance in The Sopranos could transition to feature films. Huge loss.

Dan Savage sits on an anti-bullying committee and bullies Christians. Yea he’s great One Great Big Effing Hypocrite

Lack of relevance to the topic at hand aside, Brian’s comment is wrong-headed because it unreasonably equates Savage’s frequent criticism of anti-gay public figures and powerful institutions with the terrorizing of LGBT youth BY said figures and institutions.

Dan Savage does NOT bully Christians. He DOES criticize and mock bigots, particularly bigots in positions of power and authority (who, incidentally, are very BAD Christians). Savage isn’t telling vulnerable Christian youth that they’re going to burn for eternity in a lake of fire, or pressuring them to change things about themselves that are core to who they are, or otherwise driving them to kill themselves.

What Savage does, and what REAL bullies do, is DIFFERENT. It’s important to recognize that.

Now everybody watch this.

2 BYE, BOB Career politician Bob Rae has quit. Global has a timeline of his life and work to date. Remember when he was the first NDP premier east of Manitoba? I don’t, because I’m basically a child, but still. It happened!

3 LAND OF THE TOTALLY NOT PRIVATE AT ALL ANYTHING The United States government has, according to the director of the FBI, used drones for surveillance on American soil. Hooray! Unfortunately I can’t find the Barack Obama/drone fanfiction I saw once where the President meets his faithful companion, a drone, outside the White House for a tender conversation between old friends, so instead have this Star Trek fanfic where an Enterprise captain uses drones. Very American.

4 SPEAKING OF PRIVACY Murray Mandryk’s column on the Saskatchewan government’s decision this spring to legislate what’s basically a corporate right to privacy is nuanced, thoughtful, and utterly damning. Go read it!

Which brings me to Pat Buchanan. In 1983, Buchanan wrote a vicious column for the New York Post about the emerging AIDS crisis. Buchanan gloated and celebrated a disease that had already killed hundreds and would go on to kill millions. Buchanan’s reaction wasn’t unique; almost all social conservatives at the time welcomed the AIDS epidemic with unconcealed glee. God’s judgment had come at last, and it vindicated everything the TV preachers had been saying since Stonewall. Homosexuals were sinners, the wages of sin is death, and now the homosexual sinners were dying. Praise the Lord.

The last line of Buchanan’s acid column was etched into my brain the day I read it: “The poor homosexuals—they have declared war on nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution.”

That line—17 words—stung more than all the anti-gay sermons thundering down from the pulpits of all the American churches combined. Writing this piece, I didn’t even have to look it up. I could recite it from memory. We had long been told that gay sex was unnatural—that we were unnatural—and now nature was moving to exterminate us.

Every time I read about fires in Colorado or rising seas or Canadian tar sands or Native villages already being washed away in Alaska or preparations for the next hurricane that slams into New York City, a slightly modified version of Buchanan’s vicious line about AIDS plays in my head. We have declared war on nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution.

We have declared war on the water we drink and the air we breathe. We have declared war on the forests and the oceans. We have declared war on the honeybees. All of us have—liberal, conservative, independent. Some of us, however, are ready to start making the changes that must be made if we want to survive in this world.

The Stranger ran another spectacular feature on the menace of global warming last year that you should also read.

This is top of mind for me because this morning I edited (well, proofread) the upcoming issue’s David Suzuki column, and it’s essentially about the same topic: the dimwitted, frightened, angry, corrupt and complicit villainy of the sort of fools and tools who insist there’s nothing wrong when evidence clearly contradicts that.

The fools and tools are mistaken and we must change their minds. And if we can’t? Then we must fight! Roar!

The study released late Tuesday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Save the Children Canada found that the poverty rate of status First Nations children living on reserves was triple that of non-indigenous children.

In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, 62 and 64 per cent of status First Nations children were living below the poverty line, compared with 15 and 16 per cent among non-indigenous children in the provinces.

Poverty rates among status First Nations children are consistently higher across the country.

Co-author Daniel Wilson cautions that for many of them, “the depth of the poverty … is actually greater than the numbers themselves tell you.”

“Imagine any typical First Nations child living on a reserve,” said Wilson, a former diplomat and policy consultant on indigenous issues. “They’re waking up in an overcrowded home that may have asbestos, probably has mould, is likely in need of major repair, that does not have drinking water and they have no school to go to.”

The study is based on the 2006 census, the most recent data to provide a detailed portrait of poverty among all Canadians, at least until more of the 2011 census is released. The annual survey of labour and income dynamics typically used to assess poverty rates excludes those living on reserves.

You can read the CCPA report here. The CBC story goes on to report that conditions are much worse for First Nations people who are under federal jurisdiction — which reminded me of this 2006 political decision:

The Harper government is scrapping the five-year, $5.1-billion Kelowna accord to improve the lives of aboriginals, while coming up with its own two-year plan — at less than one-quarter of the cost. The Conservative plan appears to be worth about $225 million a year in new expenditures, as opposed to $1 billion a year in new spending under the Kelowna accord.

More on that here. The Conservatives should not have ignored the Kelowna Accord, which was supported by First Nations leaders, the other federal parties and the premiers (including my hero, Ralph Klein). More than any other federal leader, Stephen Harper’s politics lead him to ignore problems and the consequence is that children are hurt. And that’s something we all pay for.

Throughout his career Lang’s explored the genres of country, folk, jazz and roots rock. On this tour, and on an album or three before this, he’s teamed up with a couple of  University of Victoria music grads Jeff Poynter (clarinet) and Alex Rempel (string bass) to explore the genre of western swing jazz.

Tonight’s show should get going at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15. To give you a taste of what it will be like here’s the trio playing “I Lost My Gal In The Yukon”: