July 2007
Happy Canada Day
July 2, 2007 - 00:47 — gauntlet
I've been somewhat absent from the blogosphere, recently. I'm reading, I'm just not finding anything that makes me want to write. That might be because I've drastically reduced the amount of news I'm consuming. Non-fiction books are my new time-waster.I am a happier, healthier person for it.
Books: The Tipping Point
July 6, 2007 - 08:43 — gauntlet
I reviewed Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" recently, and decided that I needed to read his earlier book, "The Tipping Point." I picked it up three days ago. Let me give you the rundown.
"Simple" logic.
July 6, 2007 - 20:57 — gauntlet
So the basic story is this: The Harper government introduced a piece of legislation that was designed to eliminate a loop-hole in the campaign finance laws. The campaign finance laws require that donations to political campaigns be under a limit, and that they only come from individuals. However, for some reason, the campaign finance laws did not count a forgiven loan as a donation.
Our Embarrassment
July 17, 2007 - 17:51 — gauntlet
I was at the airport last night picking up my folks, and I picked up the newspaper to pass about half and hour. Unfortunately, the last thing I read was a Letter to the Editor from Gen. Hillier. First of all, it was the strangest letter I've ever seen, because fully 2/3 of it was quoting from a release by his Deputy Minister. Second, the 1/3 that he did write said absolutely nothing. Third, the message fails so badly to pass the sniff test that I'm surprised Harper's obsessive communications people let it out.
On 308 Riding Strategies
July 17, 2007 - 19:21 — gauntlet
There was a lot of talk at the Montreal convention, after the speech by Howard Dean about his 50-state strategy, about a 308-riding strategy for the Liberals. This was good internal party politics, because there are a lot of Liberals in Canada, yours truly included, who are constantly frustrated at the lack of support they receive from the national party at the local level.
Dangerous Ideas
July 30, 2007 - 17:45 — gauntlet
Freakonomics is really tearing it up today. They have an article about a book of "dangerous ideas." I read through them, and like Levitt, I don't find anything in the list that's particularly blood boiling. A lot of it is controversial, or counter to our existing understandings, like the suggestion that homosexuality is the result of a disease, but I'm not offended by any of it. Questions, I suppose, are never offensive. Incorrect answers are offensive.I got to thinking - what would my dangerous idea be?
Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Jason Morris. The views expressed herein are those of the author. Views expressed in comments are those only of the commenter, and are not endorsed by the author. Nothing herein necessarily represents the opinions of any organizations with which the author may be associated.
