New Media

So much for sticking to sewers and potholes. Vancouver’s activist city council is spending political capital on some big green challenges that lots of folks think are way beyond our politicos’ pay grade. We’re going to see a more big-government approach to these issues – and that’s a good thing if we’re going to fix them.

That sustainability challenges like climate change and resource depletion are global in nature doesn’t let local governments off the hook to focus on sidewalks and animal-control bylaws. Voters will demand local actions to prevent or diminish local symptoms of global problems.

Read my full article at Granville Magazine, Green Roads and Risky Paths

A view from inside Iran’s propaganda apparatus, courtesy of a former Press TV employee:

The running joke at Press TV is that the channel’s logo, a rip-off of BBC-style block letters arranged after an oversized globe that looks like an ‘o’, reads “Opress TV.” Every day, when a fleet of shuttle cabs drops employees off at the Tehran headquarters – located on a quiet residential street in the northwest district of Saadat Abad, just blocks from Evin prison – they pass under the huge neon sign looming over the building’s entrance. The irony is not lost on anyone…

Do Canadian prison guards get any training at all?

Three reports of different prisoners on the lam.

Orange-clad prisoner escapes from Mounties

Inmate escapes from Alberta prison

RCMP hunt escaped Bowden inmate

Feeling safe and secure?

God damn you Walter! You fuckin’ asshole! Everything’s a fuckin’ travesty with you, man! And what was all that shit about Vietnam? What the FUCK, has anything got to do with Vietnam? What the fuck are you talking about?
- The Dude in “The Big Lebowski”

It’s not Vietnam.

Best argument I’ve heard all week for staying committed to Afghanistan?

This fuckhead and all of his aid-worker killing, hostage beheading, schoolchildren-murdering friends asked us nicely to leave.

Hat tip to the Torch, taking our Canadian politicians to task for not having the guts to so much as discuss Afghanistan with the home front while the soldiers on the front lines stay committed to the mission.

Why is it that so many Americans today display the dubious habit of only being able to comprehend their President in comic book character terms? A few examples of the deep rot in America’s collective brain:

Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ

No, wait. He’s a communist

Superhero?

Some advice for that segment of our American cousins who insist on acting like intellectual midgets: grow up. The rest of us can’t afford for the USA to descend any further into Idiocracy.