Big news just now as we have our second umpire for this Saturday's vintage base ball tournament signed up. You have to get imports for these things, you know. One Rochestarian and one Sackets Harbor-on-ian. Dandy. Steve, up there with the bat, will be there, too. We should have two games this year …

Speaker Milliken's decision yesterday has put all parties on notice:  •  Mr. Milliken has made it clear that the very legitimacy of Parliament rests on such an outcome. “It seems to me we would fail the institution if no resolution can be found,” he said. Failure will come in the form of a bitter …

I have no idea where the idea is coming from that the public has no interest in the Guergis-Jaffer scandal. It's a great scandal. A beefy morality play as well as low risk of that the core of the Tories will actually be implicated... although Mr. Prentice's staffer is trying. The polls are not …

Stories are now abounding that what the UK really needs is a different way to vote seeing as this election is looking like it's leading to a minority or hung Parliament. The greatest disappointment in the race so far, the Conservatives who should have walked away with this election on no other …

Sunday is the seventh anniversary of Gen X at 40 and I am so excited that I bet I don't even post something on the day. And blogging has indeed become, as I predicted a few days after the first post here, the CB radio of today - a hobby done by a few for a few. When new columnists have a web …

And maybe throwing in "a few" now and then? Today the Globe and Mail ran the headline "Muslims, Christians challenge Ontario’s more explicit sex ed" which made me think that maybe "Some Muslims, Christians challenge Ontario’s more explicit sex ed" was a bit closer to the truth as I know that me … read more »

Apparently Canada's minority Parliament technically was unable to handle the recession just past... even though it did rather nicely. You see, the work in the UK is that a Parliament witohut a majority means DISASTER!!!  •  George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, and Ken Clarke, the shadow business …

Maybe it's the gases out of Iceland but things may be going wonky in the UK election with the third place centrists actually leading in the polls:  •  Just 2½ weeks before Britons go to the polls, a surge in support for the traditionally third-place Liberal Democrats has put the party out front in …

Apparently, the angering of Thor is now proof that the internet does not work: "We shouldn’t have to rely on Twitter for the sort of information that could come directly and immediately from the sources themselves." But don't "the sources" have actual work to do other than informing all people all …

Very happy with the new Doctor Who, not least of which is Space repeating the episodes a few times so that you are guaranteed a chance not to miss it even if the weekend is busy. Being reasonably obsessed, I was also happy to see that there were more than a few references to other earlier episodes …

This back. I wonder if it goes at the same time every year? Needs replacing. I refer to it in the third person when it gets like this. It's not "my back" it's "it." Reading occurred. Did you know that there is a difference between being an attorney for constituents and a virtual representative …

Has the counter intuitive actually occurred? Has the Internet really saved and preserved and even help define the particulars of each of us all as well as we and ours?  •  It’s a widening realization, I think, that globalism, beyond banking, climate change and warfare, has always been a dubious …

I look forward to our Federal Government's impending program to attract men to the workforce. I have no idea what it would look like but surely it is time:  •  With women filling executive jobs in the public service at historic levels, it's time to reconsider whether they should continue to get …

I picked up a copy of this 1960s Pulitzer prize winner when I was last over in Watertown, NY and I am glad I did. It is a history of the pamphleteering that preceeded or rather framed the American Revolution. It makes one very interesting point - that the American Revolution was concluded by the …

Being Canadian is sometimes like being on a committee no one notices, often for good reason. We read of this phenomena this very morning:  •  The U of T team determined the problem, then figured out the delicate manoeuvres needed to bring the astronauts back to Earth safely. Forty years later, the …

The prospect of a two day weekend has me depressed. The March break morphing into Easter weekend has practically meant a month of part weeks and long napping opportunities. How will I manage my time, fitting in some doing of things with all that not doing of things?  •  What about the Scots … read more »

I used to watch BBC World all news station but packed that in when I realized I just didn't care that much about what was going on in New Zealand and Peru. There is just too much world out there sometimes. Same thing with the BBC World Service shortwave radio, sound track of my teens. Plus with …

OK, I have UK Right of Abode and could get a passport but I am in a dip as far as my interest in current things UK goes. Except Doctor Who I suppose. Someone somewhere has earned a bun and a cup of tea on the profits from my money that has ended up in the UK from Doctor Who DVD, magazine, book and …

Actually it is mainly wonderful. Except for the frigging robins. In March you think "hey, there's a robin at 5:30 pm - how nice." In April you think "hey, there's a robin at 5:30 am - where is my gun?" Who the hell designed the damn things to be cheery at dawn anyway? Why can't robins be wrens … read more »

All a-giggle with the coming big day of all days. Plus it's going to be something like 127 F today. Plus I don't have much to do other than my 2009 taxes, parging one foundation wall, redoing all the bathrooms, driving to Ottawa and back, finish raking the yard, playing all day with four kids …

I have a Joe Morgan card. I probably have more than one but I have one from that great black trimmed baseball card series from the early 70s when he played for the Reds. Had I known he had the greatest voice of all time I would likely have paid more attention to the card like I have the Hank Aaron …

...but then I remembered this was a Yankee we were talking about. So what if he is hitting better than 90% of players on 40% of the teams. Don't get distracted from the point:  •  Because Weber plays baseball to support his wife and two children — he cannot afford to lose even a minor league … read more »