The last Gulag?

A column in the National Post today (Dec. 3/10) by Jonathan Kay made me just shake my head.
The column titled The Invisible Gulag describes conditions within North Korea through the eyes of a German doctor, Norbert Vollertsen, who was given unimpeded access throughout the North Korean countryside for his act of charity. Vollertsen, who worked with an international NGO, describes horrors in the article that reminded him of NAZI concentration camp prisoners he had learned about from the Second World War. Eventually his disgust with conditions in North Korea led him to a surreptitious protest and an eye-witness report that appeared in the Washington Post 10 years ago. For this he was expelled from the North and now lives in South Korea as a human-rights activist.
Vollertsen is dismayed that the media seem to focus on relatively small-scale Western and Middle-Eastern human rights abuses while ignoring what is a virtual concentration camp in North Korea in 2010.
  

From the Brights: Earth and Life: Changes over Time

It's a poster for classrooms, or as a gift, and according to The Brights' it is unique. They describe it this way:
"Earth and Life: changes over time" is a pictorial representation of evolution from the “Big Bang” to current times. The unique feature of this poster is that it combines physical science and life science events on the same time scale. The viewer will be able to see connections not seen in other timelines of evolution. Educators will be able to show students the impact of physical and geological events on the evolution of life, while others can enjoy the grandness of the presentation and gain a new perspective of the processes involved in our changing world.
Have a look here.

Econ 101: The Keynesians have it backwards

Its income and savings that drives an economy, not spending and consumption. Watch:

Ontario: Refurbishing its way to prosperity

"Ontario’s plan to pour colossal amounts of money into nuclear, wind and solar could bury the province", so says Lawrence Solomon in the Financial Post (Nov. 27). Ostensibly the McGuinty Liberals in Ontario want cleaner air and greener energy production. McGuinty has bought into the global warming alarmist's view that we must reduce our carbon emissions to save the planet and stop air pollution to eliminate the deaths of Ontarians with respiratory problems. The former is ridiculous and the latter well, lets just say a lot of our pollution comes across our southern border so we would have to persuade our American cousins to do likewise. The fact is our air quality is rather good most of the time, and certainly does not warrant mortgaging the future prosperity of Canada's once richest province.
Mr. Solomon's column describes how McGuinty has decided to refurbish the old and build new nuclear generation facilities even though our previous experience with nuclear power plants has shown them to be extraordinarily uneconomic. 
The temperamental and pricey nukes will be assisted by wind and solar energy "power-plants" (when they are working!). It boggles the mind, but Mr. Solomon offers hope. The final paragraph of the article states: "It isn’t too late to turn things around. Just bury the long-term plan, none of which passes muster, and resurrect the privatization of the power system. Power rates would drop and Ontario’s economy would soar." The emphasis on privatization is mine, and it cannot come soon enough.