Unrelated; but news tip, Germany has in a surprise move imposed border controls with Austria, and suggesting they may expand it to the Czech Republic and Poland. The E.U. is gonna have a tense few days.

Perhaps you’ve read it, but Mark Twain’s final work, the “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc” comes to mind.

Mother Jones is pretty compelling. You have to keep their fiscally-conservative bias in mind, but the Economist is also really solid.

If you want a great ‘foreign affairs’ podcast, I’d recommend “Background Briefing” by Ian Masters. He basically deals with the major topic of the day, and then calls a really great…

Meanwhile... in things that apparently aren’t threatening to police: literally pointing rifles at them.

Why is it that the professions who REALLY need to be read clearly have reputations for terrible writing? Doctors, architects, construction workers...

Y’all need to take a page from engineers and write non-cursive in all-caps. Sorry, but they do have a good thing going there.

Apparently the NHS is slated to lose alot of foreign nurses because they won’t make the salary requirements for the visa renewals, and her response was along the lines of “you’ve had a while to figure this out.” :/

Just seems like a nuts situation. I was considering studying in the UK, and even went to see schools, but…

Yeah, I feel like we had much more discussion (in Ontario) about the heroism of the pioneers, which is unfortunate.

That said, the novel “Obasan” was included to discuss Japanese internment during the war, and we did have discussions about the internment of other nationals in the First and Second World Wars. Chinese…

There’s a kinda hilarious but sad phenomena, where German teens go on exchange to a high school in the U.S., and often it’s to a small-town in say Texas... and they come away with insane ideas of the United States. They just see a really rural part of the country and that’s their whole experience....

But when you’ve…

I think it depends on country, but there’s definitely general discrimination in Western Europe against Eastern-Europeans and Russians (“they’re criminals, the women are prostitutes, they’re uneducated,” etc.), and definitely against the Roma people (“they steal from you”). There is of course even stronger…

Lang too had a scandal this past year I think... she was accused of lobbying within the CBC against a story critical of RBC, who she had a financial connection to? I just remember it sounded pretty bad.

While this comment he gave is very nice, Kevin O’Leary was an asshole troll in Canada (“Dragon’s Den”), and now he has unfortunately moved to the US to try to hit it big.

Sorry. :(

Honestly... even as an strong NDP supporter who greatly dislikes Harper, I'd still rather vote NDP and lose than vote Liberal. Trudeau as this legacy politician is pretty gross. :/

I don't necessarily agree with that premise about coalitions... I mean a super partisan American alternative where its a two-party system sounds like a nightmare. I think the rise of the Conservative Party is more complicated too- stemming from the united right-way vs all the other parties in Canada sharing the left,…

Totally- and I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he just somehow demonstrated a kernel of something... but as it stands I kinda can't get over the basic grossness of him being a political "legacy."

Granted, I definitely won't vote for Harper... but Trudeau makes me too cynical to support the Liberals…

I haven't seen it personally in the last few days... but like another poster somewhere else mentioned, it seems to come up every few years. Honestly with the present government and the patriotic culture-war feelings going on, I would guess it has a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting anywhere....

He's a weird figure... like he kinda lives up to every cartoonish stereotype of someone who would be hated by Canadians. I guess there are a few novelty people in Canada who kinda have that obnoxious "telling it like it is" shtick.

Honestly while I'd like Harper to go, a Liberal majority is hardly gonna be a radical change... and Justin Trudeau is a laughably shallow trust-fund kid. To people who have been observing actual parliamentary debate, Thomas Mulcair is the only one asking tough questions, and while his party isn't going to be…

What does that make the public road or a state highway that these freedom cars drive on? Communism?

Maybe a kind of lame parental suggestion, but audiobooks! When I'm doing rote work but want to feel like I'm still learning something.

Light documentary: Jiro Dreams of Sushi.