Ottawa

Have police lowered the tolerance speed for photo radar in Edmonton?
The other day I was doing about 60 kilometers per hour in what I quickly realized was a 50 kmh zone.

I realized that because I saw the dreaded flash of a photo radar camera in my rear mirror.

That’s curious though because the Edmonton Police Service, like many, has allowed a tolerance of 15 kmh over the limit before they ticket you.

So, for the longest time, you wouldn’t get a ticket until you’re 16 kmh (10 miles per hour) over the posted limit.

That’s fair, since speed limits are set artificially low in this city anyway. (Read the full post about ‘Have police lowered the tolerance speed for photo radar in Edmonton?’…)

Anne Cimon, author of Susanna Moodie: Pioneer Author, one of the Canadian biographies in our Quest Library series, recently told us about her inspiration and writing life. Tell us about your book. My book is entitled Susanna Moodie and it is a biography of the nineteenth century Canadian writer Susanna Moodie. How did you come up with the idea for this work? I have been interested in Susanna Moodie’s works and her life since reading Margaret Atwood’s collection of poetry The Journals of Susanna Moodie in the early seventies. When I was asked to write a biography of a famous Canadian for the Quest Library Series I eagerly chose Susanna Moodie as my subject. (Read the full post about ‘Susanna Moodie Q&A by Anne Cimon’…)

The first review for J.D. Carpenter’s new debut literary novel Twelve Trees came in the May 2008 issue of Quill and Quire.  Twelve Trees features ex-racetrack journalist Priam Harvey previously seen in Carpenter’s Campbell Young Mysteries The Devil in Me and Bright Kill , and 74 Miles Away who on the first anniversary of his firing from Sport of Kings magazine and the coincident departure of his girlfriend Barbara, is forced to make an important decision about his involvement in the lives of those around him, and for that matter, is his own life. Here’s a little of what reviewer Gavin Babstock had to say about Twelve Trees. (Read the full post about ‘“And They’re Off” … Quill and Quire Reviews J.D. Carpenter’s Twelve Trees’…)

This month’s issue of Resource Links features not one, not two, but four reviews of Dundurn juvenile titles. And they are: Three Million Acres of Flame by Valerie Sherrard, The Law of Three by Caroline Rennie Pattison, Boxcar Kid by Norma Charles, and Perilous Passage by B.J. Bayle. Here’s some snippets of what the reviewers had to say.   “The book contains much well-researched detail of life in the early nineteenth century. Footnotes are used to explain or define terms that modern children may not be familiar with, or to give historical notes relevant to the story on that page. In the classroom, the story could be included when other examples of historical fiction illustrating Canadian history are read. (Read the full post about ‘Resource Links Reviews Four Juvenile/YA Books’…)

James Kirchick, the guy at the New Republic who helped break open the story about the racist newsletters published in Ron Paul’s name, had a column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

The title of the column is simple and to the point: Arm Zimbabwe’s Opposition. Kirchick points out that even after (probably) losing in recent elections, Robert Mugabe, the current president of Zimbabwe, seems unwilling to give up power. Not only is Mugabe trying to rig the election results, but he’s also persecuting just about everyone who opposes him.

Kirchick cites a report by Human Rights Watch claiming that Mugabe has constructed "torture camps" for those who support the opposition.

(Read the full post about ‘Should the U.S. arm rebels in Zimbabwe?’…)

According to its website, Kitchener-based Christian Horizons is "Ontario’s largest provider of developmental services." The Kitchener-Waterloo Record reports that the evangelical non-profit required its employees to sign a contract promising they would not have homosexual relationships.

When she was first hired by Christian Horizons, Connie Heintz, now 39, signed the contract like all other employees. However, after five years of employment, Heintz discovered she was a lesbian.

(Read the full post about ‘The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal strikes again’…)

Rebecca Walberg, who works as a policy analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, has an excellent column in the Sun media chain today discussing some of the ideas I put forward in my manifesto, The Trudeau Empire Has Fallen and it Can’t Get up.

Walberg compares the arguments I make as to how conservatives can win the war of ideas with the arguments put forward in two other works: David Frum’s Comeback and Tom Flanagan’s Harper’s Team.

There’s women’s views, and then there’s the Status of Women view. It bears repeating that these are not one and the same. If there’s one agency that needs to be defunded pronto, it’d be them. I’d argue this by starting simple, with their name. "Status of Women" Whose status? Which women? And we could move on from there.

(cross-posted to ProWomanProLife)

Action movie star Wesley Snipes was sentenced today to three years in prison. Federal prosecutors wanted to make an example of Snipes in looking for the maximum penalty for misdemeanour tax charges. From 1999 to 2004, Snipes earned $38 million from playing staring roles in movies including the popular Blade series. Snipes paid no taxes on this money. He claims he got tax advice that he didn’t have to pay. This advice came primarily from tax denier and protester Eddie Ray Kahn. Kahn is part of the growing tax protest movement in the US that claims either that income tax is unconstitutional or that the 16th Amendment, which grants Congress the power to tax, was never properly ratified. (Read the full post about ‘Action star Wesley Snipes will spend three years in jail for misdemeanour tax charges’…)

Phoenix Technical Support, a local startup launched by a handful of former Dell employees, rises from the virtual ashes left when the US-based computer maker recently closed its Kanata call centre and dismissed some 1,100 staff. The new company will provide telephone support for home and small business for Windows XP, Vista, Linux, Vista conversion to XP or Linux, among other offerings. “We know that U.S. consumers value the service that Canadians can offer,” says Phoenix founder David Long.

(Read the full post about ‘Phoenix rises’…)