News of the Screws, Screws of the World, you can call Rupert Murdoch’s former weekly tabloid newspaper whatever you like. News of the World was the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world up until it printed its final paper last week, amid a high profile phone hacking and corruption scandal. While the world seems shocked at the depths of the allegations, I for one am not surprised. The 168 year old News of the World was bought by Mr. Murdoch and News International in 1969. At the time it was a regular weekly newspaper that covered actual news…
Author: Quiet Mike
Time for America to Pay Off its Credit Cards
For the past few months the two American political parties have been in talks on how to handle America’s growing debt problem, and the ceiling that was initially adopted almost a hundred years ago in order to limit government borrowing and spending. In 1980 the U.S. federal deficit ceiling was a little less than a trillion dollars, and then America was introduced to Reaganomics; In Reagan’s eight years in office the deficit almost tripled to three trillion. Unfortunately the next two Republican Presidents…
To Gaza with Little Love
A year after the first freedom flotilla set sail for the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of nine activists at the hands of the Israeli IDF, the world awaits the departure of Freedom Flotilla II. The flotilla of ten boats includes two cargo ships transporting nearly three thousand tons of aid, and eight other passenger boats with citizens of dozens of different countries. It was supposed to set sail at the end of June. Over the last week or so, it has been mired in sabotage…
Labour unions under attack
On Saturday, the House of Commons led by Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party passed back-to-work legislation in order to force urban postal workers to return to work. I’m not opposed to back-to-work laws in general; virtually all unionized public workers are susceptible to these types of laws when there is a prolonged failure to reach a bargaining agreement. However, I am a little bitter at the speed and manner with which it was imposed this time around…
Smile for the Riot Camera!
George Orwell was right when he said Big Brother was watching us, but it doesn’t seem to be the government as much as ourselves. This past week, social media has proven that we must be careful in what we do and say. We can become the laughing stock of the world or capture its imagination…
Monsanto: The King of Corporate Evil
According to a new report released last Tuesday, industry regulators have known for years that Roundup, the world’s best-selling herbicide produced by the U.S. based Monsanto Corporation, causes birth defects. The report, “Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?”, says that industry regulators have known since as early as 1980 that glyphosate, the chemical on which Roundup and other herbicides are based, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals. Why am I not surprised…
The War on Drugs is Lost
On June 17, 1971 United States President Richard Nixon officially launched the “War on Drugs”. Forty years later the American government alone has spent between one and two and a half trillion dollars to combat drug users, dealers and manufacturers. Millions of otherwise innocent people have been incarcerated as a result…
Netanyahu: Not a Man for Peace
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it abundantly clear last week in his speech to the American Congress that he has no desire to negotiate for peace. Although Bibi’s talk drew several standing ovations in front of American lawmakers, few were smiling back in Palestine or Israel. In his speech Netanyahu quickly dismissed virtually all key Palestinian demands for peace. He first shunned…
On Israel: Obama is Right and Wrong
Last Thursday, US President Barack Obama gave a stirring speech on the “Arab Spring” and America’s policies toward it. Unfortunately the only part of it that made headlines was his comment calling for any peace deal between Israel and Palestine to be based on the 1967 borders. His annotations angered Zionists, Republicans, right wing Jews and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What Obama said however was nothing new; negotiations based on the lines of 1967…
Leave Them Kids Alone
What an election, huh? Quebec went from light blue to orange, Ontario went from red to dark blue and British Columbia now has a shade of green. If I were a religious man I’d say it’s a sign of the apocalypse. The Conservative Majority aside though, the biggest surprise was obviously Quebec’s orange crush. I thought the NDP would do well, but going from 1 to 59 seats is unheard of.