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The safety of tsunamis

by Kevin Potvin

The lack of a political angle on the Indian Ocean disaster has allowed the West, unaccustomed to dealing with politics, finally a chance to react to the dangerous world.

Now our Western media reporters, still stumbling around in awe at the devastation, express their mystification at the locals, who seem already (nearly a month on!) to have put it behind them and are rebuilding. What did we expect? To see them, like us, luxuriously marinating in the images and the emotional reality of it all?

I feel a draft

by Michael Nenonen

The American leadership have manoeuvred themselves into a tight corner by promoting egoism through war, and now risk wrecking the myth with conscription to rescue their beleaguered volunteer army in Iraq

By subjecting vast numbers of young people to the harshest and most blatant use of the state's coercive power, and by driving them against their will into the most bloody and traumatising situations imaginable, the draft came to be seen as an insult to human dignity.

Tsunam-a-rama fails to stir the Japanese

by Jennifer Matsui

There was much else going on in Japan to distract them away from what the rest of the world was watching - like imperial reconstruction, for example

Certainly no tsunami was going to rain down on this year's parade of well-heeled runners from the nation's top universities competing for the title of most over-the-top theatrical finale to a minor league event on par with a tricycle race.

They planned to bust the union all along

by Kevin Potvin

NHL owners, by building their own arenas the last ten years, pulled the rug out from under the players' feet, without anyone noticing a thing at the time

By the conniving execution of this plan, the NHL achieved its perfect world: for four whole decades, no leagues could compete with the NHL which itself remained minimally sparse with just six teams enjoying exclusive, if repetitive and boring, competition for the Stanley Cup.

The hunt for the al Duri doctrine, Part I

by William Kay

Guerrilla warfare is not new—it is in fact the original form of warfare. The insurgents' use of it in Iraq and the American counter-insurgency operations there continue a long pedigree with a variable record of success

The original Crusaders fought anti-guerrilla warfare operations a few hundred kilometers east of the Sunni triangle. Guerrilla warfare drove the English from France near the end of the Hundred Years War. The Duke of Wellington's successful use of irregular bands of civilian-clad locals to harass Napoleon's Army in Spain gave birth to the term “guerrilla”; as in “little war”.

Japan gets ready

by Reza Fiyouzat

Quietly through legislation and not so quietly through public displays, Japan seems to be signaling its intent to re-arm. Is war in the offing?

Bear greets pedestrians

by Joshua Corber

You can never escape a criminal record

by Mike Bryan

All the media got it wrong: Svend Robinson and Todd Bertuzzi, along with thousands of unlucky pot-smokers, will carry criminal records, regardless of their conditional discharges.

What's an STV?

by Ryan Fugger

On the May provincial election ballots, there will be a referendum question asking for your support for a new electoral system called single-transferable vote. It's complicated on first glance, but don't dismiss it quickly: take a moment to understand how it works, and you may be impressed with the implications

The Citizens' Assembly hopes that this will give small-party candidates and independents a fair chance at winning, and reduce negative campaigning between similar candidates and parties by eliminating vote-splitting.

The banality of Rwanda

by Junius

The film, Hotel Rwanda, is discomfiting, but not for the reasons you might suppose going in.

The Abu Ghraib trial

by Kevin Potvin

By convicting Graner and letting the higher end of the chain of command off the hook, the all-military judge and jury added to the list of crimes that may need answering if the war in Iraq ends badly

Call Ishmael, America

by Michael Nenonen

These days, American politics resembles a perverse retelling of Moby Dick.

How did creationists evolve?

by Stephen Peplow

In a land famous for its crude Darwinian business and social ethic, it's odd to find more than half the people sold on creationism instead

Turner's Movies

reviewed by Scott Turner

Finding Neverland and Kinsey

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