Tried-and-tested recipe adds to the festive moment

Just say no (to deficits during good economic times)

When a political party pledges to run small, “manageable” deficits if elected, it almost always means it will go deeper into the red if it wins government.

It’s human nature.

After all, as a government, if you get the blessing of the public to spend beyond your means, what’s a few billion more a year in overspending?

The problem is, it doesn’t usually end there. When those same politicians seek re-election, they often want permission to post even larger deficits. In some cases, they’ve abandoned the idea of balancing the books altogether, arguing perpetual deficit financing is acceptable, as long as the debt doesn’t exceed a certain percentage of the economy.

Tried-and-tested recipe adds to the festive moment

Some people need to find that elusive Christmas spirit before they get into the mood for baking holiday treats.

For Winnipeg home baker Lynne Stefanchuk, the weather has to take a wintry turn for her to turn on her oven. Beyond the white Christmas feelings, she has practical reasons.

“I start baking at the beginning of December, or whenever it gets cold enough to start using my balcony as an extra freezer,” she says. “My family and I decided a few years back to stop buying gifts for each other so my holiday shopping is minimal and I have some free time to bake. Baking is one of my favourite creative outlets.”

Stefanchuk provides Gingerbread Cookies for the final recipe in the Free Press’s 12 Days of Christmas Cookies for 2021. It’s a recipe she found on John Kanell’s website Preppy Kitchen (preppykitchen.com/gingerbread-men).

Meteorologist behind Rob’s Obs is moving weather station to Ontario

In a Winnipeg winter, there are always at least two certainties: it will be cold, and it will snow. A third certainty: the people will talk endlessly about how frigid the temperature is, and argue about how much snow is cloaking their driveways. Is it colder than it ever has been? Is there more snow today than the same time last year?

Rob Paola likely knows the answers to those questions.

Paola possesses no super powers. He is but a man with a metre stick and 40 years of professional meteorological experience, in the midst of a lifelong love affair with Mother Nature, a most turbulent mistress who rarely, if ever, reciprocates.

Each year when snow begins to fall, Paola heads outside his Charleswood home to figure out how much. He sticks his ruler in the ground, grabs his clipboard, and clicks his pen. In neat script, he records the temperature, what time precipitation began, how deep the powder is stacked. Then, he shares his data and insights online with thousands of followers who want a clear answer to the eternal questions: Why is this happening? When will it stop? How much snow has fallen in the city of Winnipeg?

Science-art collaboration injects dose of emotion into cold, hard truths

Looking at spreadsheets and map plots of trees is far beyond Rhian Brynjolson’s typical day as a visual artist, but she became entranced and inspired by data collected by Canadian scientists for a new art project.

Her hope is to try and bring the numbers, map dots and statistics to life in a new way to help the public better connect to climate science.

Falcon Lake’s Brynjolson is one of 12 Canadian artists who participated in an art-science collaboration exhibit, co-ordinated by the Global Water Futures program out of the University of Saskatchewan. The project saw the artists paired with researchers and scientists across the country who then engaged in conversations to try to inspire a new angle to their art.

“The whole idea behind it is: water is life,” says Louise Arnal, the project lead, and a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Hydrology and Coldwater Laboratory.

Neo-Nazi group members plotted to kill Free Press reporter

Disturbing details of a plan to kill a Free Press reporter who had infiltrated a white nationalist hate group were revealed for the first time Wednesday.