Medicare-less As I noted in my unburied power lines story on Wednesday, I managed to stay better focused in my research this week, but I cannot spend hours reading old newspapers without occasionally getting distracted. Fortunately, I have Fast & Curious as a sort of catch-all drawer; a place forRead More

Three Celebs and a Baby I recently swore off home reno shows after a friend pointed out to me that they are the worst thing you can possibly watch when you’re looking to improve your own living space because the key to their miraculous design transformations is the removal ofRead More

Real business news is good stuff. I say this as someone who used to read the Wall Street Journal regularly, after a co-worker gave me the sage advice to “throw out the op-ed section and focus on the articles.” The quality of such articles is high because businesspeople, although happyRead More

Editor’s Note: I am doing a deep dive into the CBRM’s 2021-22 budget this week and dragging you with me. This is Part 3 of 3. You’ll find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.   The CBRM’s capital budget for 2021-22 (the subject of this three-part extravaganza I haveRead...

Editor’s Note: I had to stop watching CBRM’s Tuesday council meeting to tune into the provincial COVID-19 update (full disclosure: I tried to watch both simultaneously with predictable results) and so can only report on half of the council meeting but I promise to watch and report on the restRead...

The May 12 virtual CBRM council meeting lasted a fraction of a minute over 3 hours. Although all current councilors and a number of CBRM staffers were in attendance, the video (which you can watch on YouTube) consists almost entirely of footage of Mayor Cecil Clarke, sitting in his office,Read...

Sea change A spectator (you know who you are) pointed me to this item from the tender for architectural and engineering services for the new Marconi Campus on the Sydney waterfront (before, I might add, it was also picked up on by the Cape Breton Post): Climate risks include increasedRead More

DNA Fail I grew interested in the subject of DNA evidence after a number of men convicted during the “John-Be-Gone” sting operation in Sydney were ordered to supply samples to the National DNA Data Bank. I wrote about some of the issues surrounding the collection and retention of DNA evidenceRead More

One Ocean Expeditions (OOE), purveyor of luxury Arctic and Antarctic wildlife cruises, hopes to make Sydney its home port, so I thought I’d try to get to know the company a little better. Obviously, the best way would be to take a cruise, but one look at the rates putRead More

Ban the Bomb If Spectator contributor Sean Howard has raised your awareness (and the hairs on the back of your neck) about nuclear weapons and the need for disarmament, you may well be wondering, “But what can I do?” (Other, of course, than dismantling your own stock of intercontinental ballisticRead More