Americans who filed federal taxes got a $600 rebate this year. <a href=”http://www.slate.com/id/2192361/” target=”_blank”>As this article in Slate explains</a>, it is a spectacularly stupid idea; as most tax rebates are, it’s basically a form of bribery-by-borrowing. We filed in the U.S. but did not pay any taxes (Americans living abroad are required to file even …
Category Archives: Politics
Abortion Politics in Canada
My neighbor sent me a link to a petition, which I’m passing on to my Canadian readers: Stop Bill C-484. Called the “Unborn Victims of Crime Act,” it allows charges to be laid in certain cases where a fetus dies. While it’s expressed purpose is law-and-order politics, it also opens the legal door for anti-abortion …
Academic Labor Politics in the Air
It must be the season or something. Today, our TA union staged a demonstration outside the front gates in support of their ongoing contract negotiations. McGill teaching assistants are quite underpaid compared to their counterparts at other Canadian universities and “R1” universities in the U.S. It’s a Quebec thing, since they’re better paid than TAs …
This week’s blog topic: our vacation in Mexico
That’s the plan anyway, if I can get the time free to write (even though I swore I was done with book reviews, I’m finishing a review of Steven Wurtzler’s Electric Sounds for Cinema Journal). In the meantime, I would like to briefly comment on two things only loosely vacation-related: 1. The Orlando airport is …
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Super Tuesday
I am not sure I’m comfortable with its linkage to the Super Bowl. Fox was actually running ads suggesting that people watch their coverage of both football and the election, like they were related. Much as I delighted in seeing the Patriots lose the big one (and special thanks to the Giants for not talking …
Quebec Alternative
Last night, I attended the vernissage for Quebec Alternative. The exhibit shows off some of the materials in Marc Raboy’s collection of alternative publications, which he dutifully stockpiled — eventually renting a storage locker until he was able to donate them to the McGill Library. For last night’s event, many key figures in Quebec’s alternative …
Chuck Norris in HD
One other thing. Strange as it may sound to those who don’t own HDTVs, HD sets have a feature that stretches the edges of a regular 4:3 image to fill the entire screen. Most viewers I know leave this on even though it can be shut off. When Chuck Norris was standing next to Mike …