Category: GeneralFebruary 9th, 2010

From The Star:

Tim Hortons bans man for dissing its decaf

Don’t like our coffee? Take your business elsewhere.

That’s Tim Hortons’ advice a day after the story of a New Brunswick man getting slapped with a lifetime ban for complaining about “bad coffee” went viral and elicited hundreds of comments online.

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Category: GeneralDecember 11th, 2009

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From last night’s At Issue:

Chantal Hebert: I’d say the vanishing Elizabeth May. Remember the Green Party, this time last year, Stephane Dion was hinting he might let her in to a coalition cabinet. Now byelections came and went, and the Green Party barely made a dent in all four seats.

It’s hard to see how she will recapture the dynamics that gave her prominence and brought her to the leaders’ debate in the last election.

Peter Mansbridge: And it will be interesting to see whether or not she can get back in to a leaders’ debate. She only got in to that one because they had one seat technically.

Category: GeneralSeptember 21st, 2009

In Canada, neoconservative is a dirty word, and when used as an accusation, is difficult to refute since most folks can’t say what it means. In other words, “I know it when I see it”.

The best known definition may be Irving Kristol’s: “A neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality.”

James Q. Wilson, in a remembrance of Kristol, coins another definition:

I chaired a White House task force on crime for the president. It was a distinguished panel but after much effort we made very few useful recommendations. It slowly dawned on me that, important as the rising crime rate was, nobody knew how to make it a lot smaller. We assumed, of course, that the right policy was to eliminate the “root causes” of crime, but scholars disagreed about what many of those causes were and where they did agree they pointed to things, such as abusive families, about which a democratic government can do very little.

The view that we know less than we thought we knew about how to change the human condition came, in time, to be called neoconservatism. Many of the writers, myself included, disliked the term because we did not think we were conservative, neo or paleo. (I voted for John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey and worked in the latter’s presidential campaign.) It would have been better if we had been called policy skeptics; that is, people who thought it was hard, though not impossible, to make useful and important changes in public policy.

(And now, for no apparent reason, here is FPinfomart offer number 138207291195 .)

Category: MediaSeptember 18th, 2009

Hulu is already beta testing a subscription based video service internally and is working out all of the technical details for the offering.

Dan Rayburn, The Business Of Online Video

Possible scenario: Hulu launches a subscription product, with options including

  • U.S. network programming: The Office, CSI, Lost
  • premium cable shows: Entourage, Mad Men
  • live news and sports: CNN, ESPN
  • premium sports packages: full seasons of NFL, MLB, NHL
  • the ability to watch on different devices: laptop, TV, iPhone

What would happen if this Hulu+ product were offered in Canada for, say, $30 month?

How many Canadians would sign up?

How many would keep their cable TV subscriptions?

What would happen to the Canadian television business, as it currently exists?

Category: PoliticsSeptember 18th, 2009

Warren Kinsella, writing about Michael Ignatieff, March 27, 2006 (ellipsis mine):

It is not very often that one gets to witness a “leadership frontrunner” immolate his own candidacy so blithely, so recklessly… He is done — and if he isn’t, he should be.

I objected to the manner in which his supporters trampled on democracy in a Toronto riding — literally locking out opponents. I objected to his support of George W. Bush’s illegal war in Iraq. I objected to the fact that he mocked Canada during the three decades he was abroad, and that he likened Israeli policy to the fascism of apartheid. I objected to what I perceived to be breathtaking arrogance — calling Canada a “herbivorian boy scout” one day, then jetting up here to run it the next.

Via: Alberta Ardvark, who presumably found this cached somewhere.

So where is Warren Kinsella today? Heading the Ignatieff war room!

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