This is why civil unions don't work, despite all the wishing and hoping: Nevertheless, residents who work for companies headquartered in other states, and those whose insurers are based outside New Jersey, have found it difficult if not impossible to sign their partners up for health insurance. Unions and employers whose self-insured plans are ( Read more... )

There's a long post coming about exactly why the Conservatives are evil (in case you needed more reasons, which kind of begs the question, what are you doing here?), but here's a quick thing from the CBC:

Toronto area gets $1B for transit

And the thing is, we ... didn't. I mean, it's $962 million, and this is what it covers:

• an expansion of the ( Read more... )

Maybe I'm missing something here, because of course I'm not a world-renowned bioethicist, but why would same-sex marriage (and, I assume, adoption) erode the chances of a child getting to know his/her biological parents? How does the sexual orientation of either or both parents have anything to do with the child's interest, or lack thereof, in his/ ( Read more... )

From today's Globe & Mail:

"We will fight tooth and nail to keep energy resources out [of equalization] because as I said, those resources belong to the people [of Alberta] and secondly, they're volatile," Mr. Klein said.So oil belongs to the people of Alberta, but the trees of BC and the whatever mines of Ontario do not belong to the people of ( Read more... )

The Harper government will exclude natural resources from equalizationTrue, industry from natural resources make up only about 13 per cent of the country's "economic output" (I'm taking this from the Walrus, which isn't telling me if it's gross or net or what it includes, but it's a helpful number & I'm too lazy to look up StatsCan tonight). But ( Read more... )

So: according to Harper, it's important for the big urban centres of Canada to have representation in Parliament. Therefore, he seduces a Liberal cabinet minister from Vancouver (David Emerson, we hate you)1 and appoints a senator-cum-cabinet minister from Montreal (thereby breaking a campaign promise even before he gets sworn in - that has got to ( Read more... )

About Kansas' invasion of minors' (sexual) privacy (NYT)

Summary: "A federal trial opened here [Wichita] Monday over whether a Kansas law prohibiting virtually all sexual activity by people under age 16 means health care professionals and educators must report such behavior to state authorities, which some say would stop many teenagers from ( Read more... )

(This is really mostly for my own edification, so I can find it again, but anyway.) The Globe and Mail has a story this morning about howdtheyvote.ca, which apparently is a web site that details the Parliamentary records of MPs ( Read more... )