“Before 1914,” the historian John Lukacs wrote in his provocative 1984 book Outgrowing Democracy: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century, “the most renowned international currency was the British pound, and the financial capital city of the world was London; by 1918 the dollar replaced the pound, and New York, London.” Rumours […]

The ho-hum quality of the 2007 annual meeting of the leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada – held this year “in a massive cedar log chateau” at Montebello, Quebec – was nicely summarized in headlines from the three leading US newspapers of record. According to the New York Times, e.g., there were “No […]

Especially if you are older, you may remember that August 16, 2007 marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley – the king of rock n’ roll, in America and around the world. And this is important enough to prompt a special tribute from Vision TV, “Canada’s multi-faith and multicultural broadcaster, dedicated to […]

The summering partners of the counterweights editors up here in Canada have just emailed a bizarre new theory about the near-term future of American politics. They say they arrived at their propositions after a tough mid August 2007 evening, watching MSNBC TV. But, it turns out, no less than Newt Gingrich had already started the […]

[UPDATED AUGUST 23]. The first fixed-date election in the history of Canada’s most populous province, on October 10, 2007, is now just over two months away. But by the traditional midsummer civic holiday it was still a bit too early for any great excitement among the people of Ontario. The big holiday event in the […]