David Roberts: Hawks vs. scolds: How ‘reverse tribalism’ affects climate communication (in Grist)

"What the public wants and needs is a sense of what climate change means, how it fits into their worldview, what values and feelings to associate with it. ...

"That’s the key missing ingredient on climate change: not a technical understanding of stochastic modeling, forensic attribution, and degrees of probability, but a visceral, more-than-intellectual sense of what climate change means. Most people simply lack a social and ethical context for it, so they end up jamming it into other, more familiar contexts (“big government,” “environmental problem,” “liberal special interest group”).

"A storm like Sandy provides an opportunity for those who understand climate change to help construct that context."

Full article: Hawks vs. scolds: How ‘reverse tribalism’ affects climate communication.

Dan Buettner: The Island Where People Forget to Die (NYTimes.com)

"The big aha for me, having studied populations of the long-lived for nearly a decade, is how the factors that encourage longevity reinforce one another over the long term. ...

[In 1943, a Greek war veteran named Stamatis Moraitis went to the United States for treatment of a combat-mangled arm. In his 60s he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and returned to the island of Ikaria, where he was born, to be buried. Now he is 97 - he says older - and cancer-free.]

"I had one last question for him. How does he think he recovered from lung cancer?

"“It just went away,” he said. “I actually went back to America about 25 years after moving here to see if the doctors could explain it to me.”

"... I asked him, “What happened?”

"“My doctors were all dead.”"

Full article: The Island Where People Forget to Die.

Obama ‘surprised’ climate didn’t surface at the presidential debates - The Hill's E2-Wire

Obama ‘surprised’ climate didn’t surface at the presidential debates - The Hill's E2-Wire

Mitch Potter - U.S. election: Romney held in disdain in his home state (in The Toronto Star)

"Ruth Balser, a seven-term Democratic state representative from Newton, Mass., said the home-state resentment metastasized into something far more bitter in 2012 when Romney began trashing his signature accomplishment — the Massachusetts health-care overhaul many regard as the forerunner to Obamacare."

Full article: U.S. election: Romney held in disdain in his home state.

U.S. election: What Obama and Romney got wrong in last night’s debate (in The Toronto Star)

Full article: U.S. election: What Obama and Romney got wrong in last night’s debate.

Chantal Hébert: Federal byelections could be game-changers (in The Toronto Star)

Full article: Hébert: Federal byelections could be game-changers.

Haroon Siddiqui: American bombing of Iraq left legacy of deformed babies (in The Toronto Star)

Full article: American bombing of Iraq left legacy of deformed babies.

Philip Bump: Candy Crowley’s weird dismissal of climate change (in Grist)

"I am suggesting that climate change is a more immediate threat and issue for younger people. ...

"...it’s impossible to not read into Crowley’s comment some dismissiveness."

Full article: Candy Crowley’s weird dismissal of climate change | Grist.

Kathy English: Stephen Harper government builds stone wall around information (in The Toronto Star)

Full editorial: Stephen Harper government builds stone wall around information.

Kathy English is the Public Editor for The Toronto Star.

Catherine Morris : Undermining the rule of law: The case of Omar Khadr (in The Toronto Star)

Catherine Morris teaches international human rights at the University of Victoria. She teaches on peace and conflict at universities in Europe and Asia. She monitors human rights in several countries for Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada.

"Imprisoned for more than a decade, Khadr has never been tried by any properly constituted court that afforded the judicial guarantees recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. This is in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. In addition, his rights have been systematically and flagrantly violated under the protocol on children in armed conflict, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention against Torture."

Full article: Undermining the rule of law: The case of Omar Khadr.

Susan Delacourt: Political ads are not a conversation with the voters (in The Toronto Star)

"[Canadian Prime Minister] Harper’s government loves advertising so much, in fact, that it tries to turn all forms of communication into ads. Labels are slapped on legislation and members of Parliament are supplied daily with pitch lines for TV. ...

"Advertising campaigns give the impression that the government is in touch with the citizens, yet in reality, we should recognize it’s the mark of an administration that is on permanent “send” and rarely on “receive.”"

Full article: Political ads are not a conversation with the voters: Delacourt.

C. Scott Findlay: Governing in the dark: Ottawa’s dangerous unscientific revolution (in The Toronto Star)

C. Scott Findlay is an associate professor in the biology department at the University of Ottawa and a visiting research scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.

Article: Governing in the dark: Ottawa’s dangerous unscientific revolution.

Thomas Walkom: U.S. report on Chinese telecom snooping puts Harper in a pickle (in The Toronto Star)

"Harper, the Calgary economist, is desperate to stay on the right side of cash-rich China so that it will invest some of its billions in Canada’s resource sector.

"But Harper, America’s best friend, is equally desperate to stay on the right side of big brother in Washington.

"So when a U.S. House Intelligence Committee this week warned private firms, and by implication Canadian private firms, not to deal with two big Chinese telecom manufacturers, the prime minister was left in a bit of pickle."

Full article: Walkom: U.S. report on Chinese telecom snooping puts Harper in a pickle.

Heather Mallick: Conservative anti-abortion MP has new ultrasound plan (in The Toronto Star)

"I give up hope on these backwater MPs — almost always men — who come up with these fantasies about controlling women’s bodies and lives. Poke into their backgrounds and you find the most extraordinary things."

Full article: Conservative anti-abortion MP has new ultrasound plan.

If this story appeared as a piece of fiction, people would say it was too unbelievable! A Conservative singing group deciding women's rights - things are getting a bit scary!

Allan Gregg: In defence of reason (in The Toronto Star)

Allan Gregg is chair of Harris/Decima, is one of Canada’s best known social researchers and political commentators. In In defence of reason, he discusses the reasons why his talk, given at Carleton University last month, “1984 in 2012: The Assault on Reason” went viral, rather to his surprise!