David Bercuson of the University of Calgary.
History isn't a science. Neither is economics, even though economists may think they do science with all the mathematical formulas they use to measure inputs and outputs.
There were a handful of economists and financial experts who forecast the current disaster, but there are other experts who believe that, if Lehman Brothers had not been allowed to fail last fall, the Dow would be no lower than perhaps 10,000 today. In that case, we would not be discussing the successful prophets of doom.
Ultimately, humans make things happen. Although some aspects of human behaviour are completely predictable - hunger, fear, etc. - specific human actions rarely are. And when they are, they never are with complete certainty.
Of course, in predicting that historians have no great claim to be able to predict anything, this very prediction must be called into question. I am, after all, a historian.
The National Post's Steve Janke and Lorne Gunter goes through their standard "Global Warming doesn't exist rants". They clearly are the experts on this, being NP pundits and having read an academic paper this week that claims to refute it.
Ian Robinson does not see an issue with border guards having absolute unchecked power -- Even though he admited he was robbed at a border crossing thanks to these unchecked powers.
Joseph Facal
Ma chronique du 2 mars dernier m'a valu un courrier si abondant et si émotif que je dois y revenir.
Plusieurs raisons expliquent pourquoi il est souvent difficile au Québec d'avoir accès à un médecin. L'une est que les jeunes médecins, souvent des femmes, travaillent moins d'heures que la génération précédente, parce qu'ils veulent une vie plus équilibrée. Bravo.
Une autre raison est que, chaque année, plus de médecins quittent le Québec qu'il n'en arrive de l'extérieur. En proportion de leur nombre, l'exode des médecins est deux fois plus élevé au Québec qu'en Ontario.
The Toronto Star congratulates Andrea Horwath for winning the ONDP leadership:
The provincial New Democrats turned a page over the weekend by selecting Andrea Horwath as their new leader.
After 13 years with northerner Howard Hampton as party leader, Horwath represents change both geographically (she is from Hamilton) and generationally (at 46, she is a decade younger than Hampton). She also becomes the first woman to lead the Ontario NDP, and, having been first elected to the legislature just five years ago, she carries no baggage from the NDP government of the early 1990s (in which Hampton served as a cabinet minister).
As well, with her feistiness Horwath should breathe some new life into the dispirited opposition ranks at Queen's Park.
Murray Campbell thinks Horwath is a "socialist."
Jim Coyle:
In all kinds of ways, cosmetic and more, it's a new day in provincial politics.
The fact Horwath is a woman probably mattered in getting her elected leader.
The fact she was the youngest of the four contenders likely mattered at least as much. The fact she is the toughest may have mattered most of all.
Michael Platt is excited about the possibilities of stem cell research.
Rex Murphy:
This week, the senator mused on VOCM radio in St. John's about the boiling waters of Newfoundland separatism. He noted that he himself wasn't about to lead a Newfoundland separatist charge, thus depriving Newfoundland of a very capable facsimile of Lucien Bouchard. He said "he was too old for that," but that was just charming modesty. George Baker, for those who really know him, is a one-man marching band, a zesty salesman and as deft a disputant as our House of Commons has seen. He's also a politician who, in the high art of setting a marauding cat among the pouting pigeons, is in a league of his own.
But he did argue that the Danny Williams/Stephen Harper feud - in which Mr. Baker sees the Prime Minister as the resident and presiding aggressor - and Newfoundland's getting shortchanged under the Atlantic Accord could very well blossom into an all-out drive for separation.
...
In Canada - certainly as seen outside Quebec - talk of separation, even as a mischief, is the nuclear option. If every premier or provincial politician were to reach for the separation option each time there's a hardy disagreement with a prime minister, Confederation would implode.