Six In The Morning

Nope, not the time (gawd forbid I'd be up before 8:45, ever), the number of stories I'm linking to in this post. Here's how the world's looking to prairie dog this wintery morn:

DIFFERENT STROKES The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives releases a teaser for its annual alternative budget, which calls for public sector investment in our struggling economy. Meanwhile, the actual government likes the idea of--surprise!--tax cuts, and they're meeting with the Canadian Taxpayers federation today to talk about how this is a super idea.

GOLD STRANGLEHOLD Sketchy goaltending? Suspect defence? Feh! Canadian hockey players are unstoppable, again.

MEET SENATOR SMALLEY He's smart enough, he's good enough and doggone it, people voted him in.

GOD DOESN'T TAKE THE BUS British atheists (some of whom are, apparently, incredibly hhhot, see above pic) make their point with a blunt new ad campaign that's Richard Dawkins-approved.

MANDRYK VS. HUBICH The Leader-Post's political writer pokes Saskatchewan Federation of Labour leader Larry Hubich in his Tuesday column. Hubich says auto CEOs, who carted off wheelbarrels of money last year as their industry swirled the toilet bowl, should be thrown in jail and their workers should run the business. Mandryk calls this "idiotic, self-aggrandizing rhetoric that makes no sense to anyone." I'll agree with that--reasonable people probably don't think overpaid CEOs should be jailed. Shot, maybe, but not jailed.

PLEASE STOP KILLING PEOPLE War sucks. Ceasefire now, please.

(edited by author to fix idiotic misspellings)

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Though Premier Wall's floating a trial balloon (and we'll have to wait for the next provincial budget to see if his thoughts become government policy), his idea of sharing one-fifth of the PST with municipalities makes a lot of sense. And dollars.

First of all, Saskatchewan's municipalities have not only been chronically underfunded (especially since the Romanow-era cutbacks, in response to the debt left behind by the Devine Comedy of Errors) and are facing big problems resulting from a crumbling infrastructure and (in the case of Weyburn, Estevan, Swift Current, Regina and Saskatoon) increased economic and population growth. While Lorne Calvert's government provided a few more shekels to municipalities, it all appeared done on a catch-as-catch-can basis: municipalities couldn't bet a guarantee from the province that there would be as much money coming their way in the next fiscal year. And why was that? Did the NDP believe that the province would suddenly fall into recession? Or did the NDP believe that they the better arbiters of what municipal governments should be doing with their money? A bit of column A, a bit of column B.

Wall says that the provincial government should be able to provide the equivalent of one point of the PST to municipalities. This would mean, says Regina Mayor Pat Fiacco, that the municipal revenue pool would increase by $40 million, and that municipalities would have a steadier flow of cash from the provincial government.

So, from here, Brad Wall appears to be doing the right thing. Before there's a killing frost in Hell, however, let's see the details.

Mea Culpa

With regard to the apology we issued to Saskatchewan Finance Minister Ron Gantefoer and Deputy Premier Ken Krawetz in our Dec. 18 edition for mis-identifying the latter as the former in a cut-line for a photo that ran in our Nov. 6 issue; I was the person who made the mistake. The weird thing is that I'd actually seen Gantefoer in person last March at an embargoed press conference that he conducted at the Legislature prior to presenting the first Sask Party budget. During that press conference, I was about 15 feet away from him for nearly an hour. So I had a pretty good idea what he looked like. The night we went to press with the Nov. 6 issue, I took a quick look at the file photo accompanying Paul Dechene's article on recently announced provincial tax cuts, said "That's Gantefoer", and wrote the caption: MERRY MAN: Finance Minister Rod Gantefoer's tax cut benefits the poor, but at what cost?

You know how Superman gets ridiculed for the idea that the only real disguise Clark Kent uses to hide his identity as the Man of Steel is a pair of glasses? As if Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and other intimates of his at the Daily Planet wouldn't notice the resemblance, people always joke. After my experience with Gantefoer and Krawetz I'm not so sure. If you see a picture of Krawetz without his glasses, it was pointed out to me by Stephen Whitworth, the difference between the two men is obvious. But in the photo we ran, Krawetz is wearing glasses. With them, it's like one of those "separated at birth" things. Krawetz has slightly darker hair than Gantefoer, and a semi-prominent forehead curl, but otherwise, it's like trying to tell Owen Wilson and Ellen Degeneres apart. Or Sarah Jessica Parker and Dee Snider. Or Warren McCall and Matt Damon.

Still, that's no excuse for the mistake I made. So I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to Mr. Gantefoer and Mr. Krawetz myself.

Interview Revue '08: Naomi Klein

Back in September. Naomi Klein was passing through Regina on a book tour promoting The Shock Doctrine. I got to interview her in advance of her visit.

I posted the unabridged interview on the Act Up In Saskatchewan website. Harper had just called his federal election and I reckoned the province needed as much Naomi Klein as was available.

Act Up In Sask, by the way, is a great site worth checking out --- great political commentary and their event calendar is invaluable, especially if you're interested in knowing the when and where of progressive gatherings such as rallies, talks and fundraisers. Thanks to them for hosting this interview.

Interview with Naomi Klein

Interview Revue '08: Kevin Miller, Writer For "Expelled"

Back in June I signed up to write an article about the anti-evolution doc Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed starring Ben Stein. You may have seen it mentioned on several critics’ Worst-Of lists.

Turns out the writer and director are from Saskatchewan. (As I mentioned in the article, I accidentally wound up chatting with the family of director Nathan Frankowski after the Regina premier.)

As part of my research, I interviewed the movie’s writer, Kevin Miller, via the email but opted to write a more straight-up review of the film for the prairie dog and didn’t end up using any of it.

In hindsight, I wish I would have challenged him more on the misinformation in the film. Thing is, there was just so much crap in there masquerading as truth I found myself a little overwhelmed.

Anyway, here's the interview in its entirety. As a Google doc. (My first time making one of those so let me know if it doesn't work on your machine.)

Interview with Kevin Miller

Just a couple more days to cast a ballot in the annual prairie dog Best Of Regina poll. You're running out of time to vote for Best Seafood Restaurant, Best Shoe Store (men's), Best Band and Best Place To Have A Car Accident!

Fill out the ballot in the current issue of prairie dog and drop it off at our office (#201-1836 Scarth St.) and grab some Easter candy while you're at it. Or e-mail us here for a digital ballot.
So easy!

Polls close 5:00 p.m. Thursday. (We MIGHT count late ballots, MAYBE, but that's the last day to be eligible for the AWESOME PRIZE: a $500 Cornwall Centre gift certificate!)

Words On Warcraft

Faithful readers of the print version of prairie dog magazine will doubtlessly recall the November 20 cover story we did on the sociology of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) on the occasion of the release November 13 of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. That game proved so popular with millions of hardcore and casual gamers world-wide, apparently, that publisher Blizzard Entertainment accelerated production of the latest expansion to the franchise. It's now expected to hit store shelves in Canada in late January. After checking out the linked news story on the game all I can say is WoW!

In Other News, He's Now Known As Flavor McFlav ...

The Scots claim they invented rap music ... my mum (the pride of Kirriemuir, County Angus, the birthplace of J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan) and Bon Scott must be so proud.

The 'Mad Bomber' Of Saskatoon

Nice to know that the police department that brought us David Milgaard, Neil Stonechild and the starlight tours is working with its customary efficiency. Since owning a chemistry set is enough to have the SPS arrest you for possessing explosives, anybody playing HALO 3 should be arrested as a someone leading a terrorist insurgency.

(Hat Tip to the Zach Bell Show)

A Twist On The Layoff Stories ...

An American reporter on National Public Radio was doing a series of stories about how people who are getting laid off are responsind to the economic crisis. It has an O. Henry-style ending: she got her layoff notice from NPR while doing the project. (NYT registration may be required)