Why we granted a writer anonymity

3/16/10 3:33 PM

This week, for the first time, the Concordian granted anonymity to one of our writers. This is pretty unusual for us. In my opinion, the publication of writers’ names keeps people accountable; people are less likely to say crazy or untrue things when their name is attached. Just take a look at anonymous comments all over the Internet, they’re often pretty crazy and pretty extreme, but you don’t see that places like Facebook, where most people go by their real name. The second thing they allow is for the audience to know who the writer is and judge their credibility, they can find out what that person has done and or written in the past and use that information to make an informed decision on the writers credibility.   In the past, when writers have asked for...

Federal budget is smart politics

3/6/10 12:53 PM

The Conservative government released its new budget yesterday. On the whole, it isn’t exactly an ambitious document — some spending freezes, a few cuts here and there, the lifting of some tariffs and not much else.   It’s gotten flack from the Liberals and the NDP for not putting enough into social programs. But the right is also unhappy with it. Yesterday, the head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told CBC that the cuts aren’t real cuts. Rather, he said, they’re cuts to spending increases, the budget is still growing – just not as fast.   According to Andrew Coyne of Maclean’s, there is $4.5 billion in spending increases this year. Essentially, the economy is expected to grow, and the increased tax revenue and savings...