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The Swedish Pirate Party, already the third largest political party in Sweden, took 7.1 percent of the Swedish vote and won at least one seat in the European Parliament.

-> www.salon.com/…
HD » Either the Swede’s really like their peer-to-peer networks or they have a helluva sense of humour. In Canada the Green Party, who are engaging in the serious battle for our environment, could only muster 6.8%, but in Sweden 7.1% of people vote for a party whose main platform is to reform copyright law:

All non-commercial copying and use should be completely free. File sharing and p2p networking should be encouraged rather than criminalized. Culture and knowledge are good things, that increase in value the more they are shared. The Internet could become the greatest public library ever created.

Gotta like Sweden. (And they like hockey too.)

Posted: 27 Jun 2009 | Author: Xander
Categories: Politics & Economics | Comments: No Comments

Is this the future of music? Okay, probably not but you gotta love what this guy has done. Hot tunes!

-> www.thru-you.com

Posted: 16 Jun 2009 | Author: Xander
Categories: Articles: Culture, Music & Musicians | Comments: No Comments

A friend of mine, well actually more of a relative, brother-in-law even, who lives in Southern Ontario, happened to be visiting a buddy who lives in Detroit and they wandered down to the stadium after the game (for some reason which eludes me), and they found it was free to go inside the stadium (or perhaps just unmonitored) at this juncture and thus they came across Sidney Crosby, captain of the Stanley Cup winning Pittsburgh Penguins (they beat Detroit 2-1 in game 7), hoisting the Cup for the benefit of a bunch of media-types.

Posted: 14 Jun 2009 | Author: Xander
Categories: Chronicles, Sports | Comments: No Comments

Many of us believe that Aid helps poor countries develop and lift its citizens out of poverty. But not African economist Dambisa Moyo. She grew up in Zambia, was educated at Harvard and worked at the World bank.

This year, Time magazine has named her among the 100 most influential people in the world. She’s in the spot light for her controversial new book “Dead Aid” in which she argues for stopping Aid to Africa.

-> www.cbc.ca/…
-> www.dambisamoyo.com

HD » Is this the woman with the brains, credentials, ideas and the intentions to finally solve the Africa problem that no one else in the world has been able to do? Getting a Starbucks on every third street corner in Africa would hardly be solving anything, but would it not be cool if Africa could participate in the global economy as an exporter of their products rather than an importer of aid money?

Posted: 25 May 2009 | Author: Xander
Categories: Books & Authors, Politics & Economics, Ideas | Comments: No Comments

It’s an exciting time for professional hockey in Southern Ontario and it has nothing to do with the playoffs. Jim Balsillie has made an offer to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes and relocate them to Southern Ontario. Jim stated, “I am excited to move closer to bringing an NHL franchise to what I believe is one of the best un-served hockey markets in the world”. Read the full release statement here.

We are building an exciting online community to help promote bringing Canada its seventh franchise. Sign up here for updates and alerts as we build this site and show the hockey world that we are ready!

Together, we can make it seven!

-> www.makeitseven.ca

HD » Bring the Phoenix Jets back home, Balsillie. Well, almost home. After 15 years (or whatever it has been since the Jets of Winnipeg were ignominiously relocated to Arizona) of dehydrating in the desert it is time for the Jets to come back to Canada where hockey matters. It is too bad it won’t be to Winnipeg, Balsillie is from Hamilton, but overall it is a good move to get the teams back to Canada and out of the southern United States where they don’t give a shiite about hockey, even with Gretzky on the bench.

Posted: 05 May 2009 | Author: Xander
Categories: Sports | Comments: No Comments

Progressive economists are rethinking markets

…

But if today’s headlines have displaced slower-moving ecological catastrophes, like shrinking freshwater supplies and runaway climate change, we need to remember how tightly our environmental, economic, and social crises are connected. Our global eco-nomic system, which balances market fundamentalism for most with corporate welfare for the few, is threatening human life on a massive scale.

…

Yet for all these ironic twists, when you listen carefully to talk of the economy during this Canadian and US election season, whether it’s Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton, or Stephen Harper, Barack Obama or John McCain, the scope of reforms being proposed is incredibly narrow. Partial nationalization, credit injections, an orgy of tax credits: though dazzling in their variety and technical complexity, their goal is to save, not transform, the fundamental economic structures we already have — the very system that continues to exacerbate climate change, water wars, and hunger, while stymying our capacity to adapt when we need it most.

Beyond North America, progressive thinkers are reinterpreting how economies work in greater depth while moving toward a vision that neither surrenders to markets nor pretends to avoid them. These thinkers insist that we can imagine organizing our economy in ways that are fair for everyone. Just as important, in the face of a web of global crises, they show how dramatically different public policies can foster a climate of innovation. Still, while they’re grounded in a solid reassessment of history, the authors’ prescriptions remain largely speculative.

-> www.walrusmagazine.com/…

HD » Darn right it is time for economists and politicians to start thinking outside the box to make significant changes to how we organize our civilizations. But first it is time to think outside the box and find a new cliche for that tired old cliche, think outside the box. Any fresh new ideas?

Posted: 25 Apr 2009 | Author: Xander
Categories: Articles: Politics, Books & Authors, Ideas | Comments: No Comments

My website is finally back online after about a two year hiatus. It has been my pet-project for many years now and has gone through several incarnations. This is the first one that uses a proper content management system, WordPress in this case. This is also the first one to be Canuck-inspired in its design style, but wi