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From “Our Rape Blog”: Shooting the Moon

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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="324"] From ‘The Red Tree’ by Shaun Tan[/caption] Have you ever played Hearts? It’s a card game. For our purposes, the important part is this: every card in the heart suit is worth points, and (just like golf) players want to avoid those points. I played a lot of Hearts as a […]

Komagata Maru: The story behind the apology

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By Rod Mickleburgh At long last, a formal apology has been delivered in the House of Commons for Canada’s racist behaviour in its shameful treatment of Sikh passengers aboard the Komagata Maru, who had the effrontery to seek immigration to the West Coast more than a hundred years ago. Not only were they denied entry, they […]

Lynton Crosby: Two can play the attack game

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By Montreal Simon When the story broke that the Australian attack dingo Lynton Crosby was working for the Cons, I was struck by how angrily the political thugs in the PMO reacted. The Con flak Kory Teneycke tried to play down the news, claiming first that Crosby was not here, and then that all he […]

Stephen Harper’s phony regionalism

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By Frank Moher Benjamin Perrin’s testimony on Thursday reminded us that, regardless of what Stephen Harper knew or when, every tendril in the Duffy scandal leads back to the Prime Minister, and his insistence that hapless Mike pretend he lives in P.E.I. When Duffy’s Senate appointment was first mooted, it was Harper, not Duffy, who decided […]

Wright: The Bible told him so

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By Montreal Simon It couldn’t be a more outrageous statement, or if you are a Christian a more blasphemous one. But there was Jesus Harper’s fallen but still faithful disciple Nigel Wright, citing the Bible to defend his actions in the Mike Duffy scandal. A star witness of the Mike Duffy trial cited a Bible […]

Gay allies: Are you really on side?

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By Dave Brindle We’re in the middle of Pride season. The biggest of the top 10 festivals – Toronto, New York and San Francisco – are over now, but that leaves Montreal and Vancouver still to come in Canada, and a host of smaller ones around the world. They’re everywhere these days. Port Alberni, BC, will […]

Afraid of the scaremongers

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By Frank Moher Now that the Conservatives’ Bill C-51 is law, having been boosted over the wall by 44 compliant Senators, it’s time for the RCMP to get to work and start arresting people. They can begin with the Conservatives. Because if any organization has been instilling fear in Canadians lately, for blatantly political and ideological ends, it hasn’t been […]

Think the Quebec student strikes aren’t about you?

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By Alison@Creekside A one minute time lapse of the start, last week, of the student strike against austerity in Montreal: Austerity — that’s when your government impoverishes its citizens by decimating public services like education and health in order to balance its lining of corporate pockets with tax breaks. “Our services are worth more than your profits” is the slogan […]