by Sean Orr | Canada no longer from coast to coast to coast. Oh, shut up! This goes all the way back to the question of Confederation. It has defined our country and our identity as a Province. Western isolation is nothing new and all this rhetoric is just that.

Related: Canadians say China is the biggest threat to national security. “My concern is with the ignorant projections that associate ‘China,’ ‘state-owned,’ ‘Communist party’ and ‘takeover’with nightmarish fantasies of the People’s Liberation Army marching down Jasper Avenue in Edmonton,” writes the Financial Post. Thanks for putting that beautiful possibility in my head, though. What a visual.

Because China is probably responsible for the earthquake: Earthquake off B.C. coast precursor to the Big One? Excellent question. It’s just too bad that this is only cheap conjecture as nowhere does the author even attempt to answer it. Probably because ALL earthquakes are precursors to the Big One on account of the fact that the Big One has yet to occur. Do earthquakes like this act as a trigger? No, they do not. If anything, they might release some of the pent up pressure that could cause the Big One.

Oh, never mind! Be scared always: Halloween tips for the sensibly paranoid. The media killed Halloween. There was never a razor-blade in the apple.

And they have the nerve to say stop brainwashing our kids. Education has always been inculcation, and the right-wing only disagrees with it when it conflicts their own agenda.

Stop brainwashing our adults: P3s help meet future challenges. Wherein the author, leader of a national P3 team, uses the example of Port Mann, which in fact was abandoned by financiers during the (last) recession and had to be taken up by Translink which then went bankrupt. Capitalism saving us from capitalism. Oh good.

Leading to the tweet of the day c/o Sean Leslie: “Adrian Dix counters Free Enterprise Friday with Theoretical Marxism Thursday. He is kidding. We think”.

Not so free enterprise: Judge shuts down Vancouver millionaire’s late night penthouse hot tub parties. Perhaps he should sue Bob Rennie for selling him a false idea: “Newell’s attitude seems to be that his closest neighbours […] are killjoys and do not belong in Yaletown,” the story goes. “But Yaletown living does not give Mr. Newell an excuse for ignoring the bylaws of his strata corporation.” We are Tennyson’s mariners.

Vancouver Would be Cooler If? Jesse Harris mural in Toronto.

When the news is a metaphor: Pedestrian hit by limo in DTES dies.

When the news is hyperbole: Condos vs. Cottonwood Garden: How City Hall’s viaduct removal plan would make it harder to eat in the Downtown Eastside. But if they turn them into bike-lanes they are anti-car. There’s a balance in there somewhere. Oh dear God, I’m turning into a modern-day pragmatist.

Food not Bons: Bad Boss Award goes to Bon’s Off Broadway. Plus I’m pretty sure they didn’t even pay the Coffee Sheriff.

Halloween rooted in plants. Don’t forget about the Funghi kingdom, because Halloween just wouldn’t be the same without mushrooms.