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POTASH DEAL PASSES TEST (Martin)

OCTOBER 26-NOVEMBER 1 EDITION

Spinning the fairy tale of secession  (Johnson)

Distorting the SCC secession reference decision/ignoring the ICJ's

Life was so much simpler when CBC could distort with impunity

Climate change and the challenge to build any kind of consensus  (Newman)

One of the big reasons for this is that more and more people are getting their information from the internet.

And while websites like this one operated by established news organizations apply the same journalistic standards they use for their broadcasts or newspapers, many sites don't. They are often highly readable and watchable. Just not accurate.

There is an old saying, pre-dating the web, that someone who shares your prejudices is a genius.

In the current age, it seems, more and more people are searching online for "geniuses" to reinforce their own views, rather than to help them truly figure out what is going on.

As a result, consensus-building is going to be very difficult these days and it is not just global warming that we need to be concerned about.

We need a national consensus as well on health care, the economy, energy policy and a host of other important issues.

The challenge for all of us — politicians, policy experts, communicators and concerned citizens — is to figure out how to keep a national dialogue going. Or even how to get one started.

OCTOBER 9-15, 2010 EDITION

Sucking and blowing on Canada-China relations

Hébert: Few friends inclined to take up Canada's UN bid

Surely Canada did not expect China — with whom the Harper government got off to a very poor start in its first mandate — to be enthusiastic about its bid. No amount of fence-mending on the prime minister’s part can change the fact that he initially led the least China-friendly Canadian government in decades….

The day after the UN bid, Harper resurfaced to stand shoulder to shoulder with China’s envoy to Canada at a celebration of the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Just last week Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for his courageous pursuit of human rights. For that, he remains in detention and will almost certainly not be allowed to travel to Oslo to receive his prize. Against that backdrop, the Prime Minister still had nothing but lavish praise for China.

These columns just suck

Why do we fund these bra burners? | Eric Duhaime

Being correct, being right (Kennedy)

SEPTEMBER 25-OCTOBER 1

Dinesh D'Souza - Why Barack Obama is an anti-colonialist

Un référendum tous les 15 ans | Michael M. Fortier

And the reviews are in!

Ex-Harper minister: Many Quebec referendums

You’d think that one of the lessons would concern PR

Lessons from Sweden  (Citizen)

Another lesson…

Burkas to be banned in Dutch deal to reward Wilders for support

You can bet Stephen Harper is rooting for Hillary

L. Martin/January 2008

The last thing the Stephen Harper Conservatives need is Barack Obama. …

While the formidable Hillary Clinton is of the old guard, Senator Obama represents a liberal generational shift. As such, he is one of the biggest threats to conservatives on this continent in a long time.

Why isn't Ignatieff courting Obama?

L. Martin/August 2009

A puzzling feature of a puzzling Michael Ignatieff is his failure to date to court Barack Obama and to weigh in on the future of a jittery Canadian-American relationship.

Anti-intellectualism: Political venom moves North  

L. Martin/September 2010

Remember two years ago when the liberal Obama tides were sweeping the U.S.? Many of us thought there would be a wash-over effect into Canada, an infusion of liberal idealism of the type of a John F. Kennedy or a Franklin Roosevelt. Barack Obama would stir the Canadian political imagination. Younger generations would be politically awakened. Old conservatism would fade into Bushian disrepute.

To the surprise and disillusionment of northern liberals, there has been no such reverberation. Remarkably enough, something closer to the opposite is in play. Mr. Obama appears to be helping Canadian conservatives.

Lessons learned from the greening of China  (Mason)

Here’s a better take:

China's 'green economy' will have to wait  (McManus)

Chris Selley: Leave the shenanigans to Ezra. Sun News is important l

Sun Media made the smart move of bringing in former Calgary Sun columnist Ezra Levant, who’s become the company’s most prominent opinionated face....

Sun TV News needs to be fun to succeed. But adding a new, politically incorrect voice to the Canadian media landscape is important business, too. I very much hope they succeed. So leave the shenanigans to Mr. Levant. He’s good at it.

Er,,,

The gun registry: we still need the real debate  (Francoeur/Le Devoir)

The problem in Canada is that the right to bear arms is not constitutionally guaranteed, which means that every additional control is seen by many as one more step towards outlawing weapons…In the US, they entrenched this right in the Constitution to give the people the power to depose, by force if necessary, a despot who’s thwarting the democratic system…Why would we not do the same?…Have we not experienced here in Canada, in the events of October 1970, a military occupation that was both dubious and excessive?

Adding to confusion about coalition government--and about how we are governed

A coalition? Don’t we have one already?  (Wells)