Nunc Scio

Politics. Media. Culture. Now you know.

Month: May, 2008

Mayor Miller goes after gun clubs. Nunc Scio is concerned.

I want to like Toronto Mayor David Miller. He seems like a smart guy who cares about the right things. Trouble is, his mayorship has been troubled by long periods of total inaction. I realize this isn’t entirely his fault. The lunatic way we organize municipal government in Ontario means ol’ Dave has his hands [...]

Mission to find the Titanic cover story for Cold War op

Now this is interesting. Turns out Dr. Robert Ballard‘s 1985 discovery of the Titanic was actually part of a classified mission to find the remains of two lost US nuclear submarines. In order to get sweet, sweet funding for his Titanic search, Ballard had to first find the remains of the USS Thresher, lost in [...]

The Phoenix has landed

Ta-daaaa! In a fairly miraculous demonstration of NASA’s cleverness, the Phoenix Mars Lander has safely touched down on the red planet, and even beamed back a few shots. Like the one above, of its own foot resting on the Martian surface. Getting a robotic vehicle to land on Mars has got to be the hardest [...]

Indiana Jones pisses off Russian communists. In other news, there are still Russian communists.

Seems like the sad, sad vestiges of the revolutionary vanguard are none-too-happy about the new Indiana Jones movies, calling it ‘anti-Soviet propaganda’. Communist party member Andrei “Still Backing the Wrong Horse” Gindos had this to say: “Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett (are) second-rate actors, serving as the running dogs of the CIA. We need to [...]

Rhetoric and reality in the Donlands

The big throwdown over the future of the Donlands got underway yesterday at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), with the City and Leslieville residents squaring off against the developers of a proposed retail power hub, Smart Centres. Not surprisingly, with their investment on the line, SC came out swinging: [Smart Centres lawyer Dennis] Wood told [...]

Want to cut carbon? Get off the bus.

I’ve been acquainting myself recently with the work of Randal O’Toole, an economist and fellow at the Libertarian Cato Institute. His work has a lot to do with the failures of government planning, and focuses on articulating free-market solutions to pressing environmental issues. His most recent work concerns urban mass transit, a topic of particular [...]

Wolf whistle finally works

Men, rejoice! After years of hard work, of self doubt and sleepless nights, we have been vindicated. If you whistle at an attractive woman on the street, she may, in fact, take off all of her clothes. Even if it only works on an infinitesimally proportion of the female population, our efforts are not wasted. [...]