In the ongoing dissection of recent (and future) elections, something has been bothering me about the language around ‘choice’, and I thought I’d put a few preliminary ideas up to help organize my thoughts…

In Alberta, as with all of Canada after the last federal election, some voters seem to be framing their decision to support (or actively thwart) one particular party as if all politics boils down to the intersection of two binaries: you’re a conservative or a liberal/progressive, and these labels apply to ‘Social Issues’ and ‘Economic Issues’. That’s all there is in the world, and all there is in determining how you vote. The most common expression of this idea is this: “I’m SOCIALLY liberal, but I’m a FISCAL conservative”.

Now I’ll admit – that kind of attitude is often used to distance oneself from more ‘severe’ strains of conservatism, and as such I’m quite certain I’ve used those exact words in that exact order at some point in my past. What I find interesting about this kind of ‘defense’, though, is that it leaves a rather major part of the binary unexamined.  Read More

“Now the Irish have a saying, and in it truth will always ring… / 

Don’t matter who you vote for, you always end up with a king.”

          – The Rheostatics, ‘Bread, Meat, Peas & Rice’.

After an evening of (mild) relief and (even milder) surprise, I have a few comments on the Alberta provincial election.

For those who may not know my terrible secret… I’m an Albertan. I know… Me. Albertan. And here you thought I was so well behaved and hygienic.

Nope. I grew up in Calgary, and I still visit my parents each year at Christmas. I like to think I have some insight into the world of Albertan politics, having experienced The Crazy firsthand. So with that in mind, here are my thoughts on yet another Conservative majority… Read More

** Warning: this post is about sports and math. I strongly suggest some of you skip this one…

It begins… For the second year in a row, I find myself caring entirely too much about hockey.
Last year, I learned to loathe the local team, making me deeply unpopular with certain friends. I bet on the team’s failure, then watched angry rioters burn cars and smash windows. Some would call that karma, I think it’s just drunk assholes doing what they do best…
This year, my esteemed colleagues and I are running a full playoff pool, in order to keep track of the minor heartbreaks that will eventually add up to crush the Canucks and their fans. Some would call this schadenfreude… I think it’s just cynical assholes doing what we do best… Read More

I’ll be the first to admit – when the iPad was first released, I made my fair share of jokes. Why on earth would I want an over-sized iPhone? Why would I want a laptop with no keyboard, no USB ports, and a hefty price tag?

And here I am… composing a blog post on a goddam iPad.

How did it come to this?

Well, I guess it started when my MacBook decided it no longer had a wireless card, a Bluetooth card, or even a power supply. A laptop is pretty useless when it won’t connect to … anything… and it flat-out dies after a few hours of use, never to work again.  Read More

A quick update, as it’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything here.

Rather than weigh in ONCE AGAIN on why I prefer Google+ to Facebook (‘ZOMG! New Privacy Policy! EVIL!’) I’d like to take a quick moment to ask a simple question:

If Pinterest is so silly and pointless and trivial… just what in the hell are you doing on the internet that’s so amazingly important?

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As with many other online trends, I’m a little late to the table on this one, but here goes…

Last month, I noticed that my friend Ben had posted his ‘My5Books’ to Twitter. He challenged me to do the same, and in typical fashion, I thought about it way too much and ended up posting nothing. I actually stared at my bookshelf for a solid 15 minutes that evening. But when it came time to condense that down to 140 characters, I believe I ended up making a sandwich and watching NCIS instead. Sometimes this whole ‘life of the mind’ thing is easily mistaken for ‘laziness’…

So after a few weeks, I thought I’d return to this challenge, and post a lengthy blog entry. I’m not particularly good at following instructions.  Read More

As I continue to head toward the full de-activation of one online account, I find myself suddenly having to ‘defend’ my use of another. With recent changes to its privacy policies, Google has somehow begun to flirt with ‘evil’, according to numerous online onlookers.

This post isn’t intended to praise everything Google does. Rather, I want to share some of the thinking that’s gone into (and continues to inform) my decisions with respect to social networking platforms. Privacy is, indeed, one of my major concerns. And I still think Google is the safer bet in the long run. Read More

Ok, so I’m no doctor, but…

Why would anyone listen to medical advice from Don Cherry?

Seriously… the man is a professional idiot, and a part-time racist.

You wouldn’t take healthcare advice from this man, would you?  … Then why would you take it from any other random individual you encounter?

This story caught my attention because I’ve been engaged in this ‘discussion’ with a number of people lately. (I don’t want any of you to take particular offense to this, please… I really have been discussing this a lot lately, with many people. This ain’t about you.)

In a nutshell, the debate comes down to:

Western Medicine is a Sham  vs.  Anecdotal Evidence is Basically Irrelevant.

Take a wild guess which side I’m on! Read More

Ok, ok, so I’m posting content on a day when thousands of websites are going ‘dark’ in protest of bad laws in the works…

But seriously: I get about 5 hits a day. Asking my web designer to add fancy graphics to my site would just annoy him, and wouldn’t affect anyone else in any way…

For the 5 of you who read this site… I don’t need to tell you about SOPA/PIPA. (Say it quickly enough and it sounds delicious…)

Many other sites have covered this story for months, and many other sites have written up eloquent summaries of the issues involved. The Oatmeal even drew pictures of koalas and goats to make their point.

My own take on the various protests and actions happening around the web today has less to do with SOPA/PIPA itself, and more to do with my growing doubts about anything that claims to ‘raise awareness’ of an issue.  Read More

Jamie’s 2012 Media Resolutions: Read More