I was happy to discover recently that the Brandon Sun has RSS feeds available. The feeds are very nice because there isn’t a lot of regional news available via RSS, and I almost never read print news. Plus, unlike it’s sister publication in Winnipeg, the Brandon Sun’s articles aren’t locked behind a subscriber wall.
However, I’m having a problem with the feeds: very often when I try to read the full story I can’t access the Sun server. I’ve been getting a “server could not be found error” nearly every time. It is as if brandonsun.com has gone offline which in itself is plausible, but it happens so often that I’m considering the possibility that there’s something else going on. At the moment, I have no clue why this is happening; it’s frustrating and annoying.
More Focus on the North
I think it’s a good thing that there has been increased attention on the North lately. As is commonly observed: with the warming of the Northern climate there is bound to be more activity up there. So I was glad to read that the CF are sending some ships to Churchill and further.
It’s going to take a good while before the passage becomes really viable and at that point there’s nothing anyone (especially not the Canadian government) will be able to do to prevent some heavy environment impact. (I think it’s a relatively sure bet that a ship will at some point spill something nasty while traversing the northwest passage.) However, right now the possibility of an open passage raises the geopolitical question of “who’s in charge?.” And, quite honestly, given the likely candidates and my current knowledge (as always, admittedly limited) I’d prefer see the answer to remain Ottawa.