Random Thoughts

This is a bit of a rant. I have been meaning to write about it for a while but for various reasons, I have not. Well, no more. This is a political rant and one that touches many countries. I start of course with Canada, the country whose political landscape is most familiar to me. There has been this circus going on in Parliament of late which has bothered me enough to write now. Canada has a bicameral legislature with the House of Commons being the so called lower house and the Senate being the upper house. This is essentially the same as the British House of Commons and the House of Lords... except we have no hereditary peers or life peers. Now, there are usually at least 2 parties in the lower house. Her Majesty's Government and Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. In Canada's case, the Opposition consists of the Liberal party, the NDP, the Bloc Québécois. The circus I alluded to earlier is this: The *minority* Conservative government led by Stephen Harper has been governing...

Yesterday, the Prime Minister of Canada, representing the people of Canada stood up in the House of Commons and said the following : Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian residential schools. The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history. This may look simple and feel like just an apology, but it is so much more. I am a Canadian. I would like to think that in many ways, I am a typical Canadian. But not in every way. I am a (somewhat) recent immigrant and I missed out on the controversy of the residential schools. Looking back on what was done in the name of the people of Canada with 19th century intentions (maybe 17th century intentions to tame the heathens?) makes most of us cringe. It is a very sad story of one set of people dominating and destroying the culture and language of a people and almost entirely wiping out a (forgive me) race of people, erasing their history and 'civilising'...

Summer's here. Or at least, I am hoping this is how bad Summer will be. I have a new found appreciation for cold water, air conditioning and empty office spaces. Well, I would gladly put up with the heat and have an office full of nice people (no geigers), but given that I don't have that option, I'll take the cool office. It has been bloody hot in DC of late. We almost hit 40 Celsius the other day. I am not sure if this is global warming or just plain old DC weather, but I am starting to get tired of it. Right now, it is a crisp 10 Celsius in Vancouver and raining, and I almost tempted to say that I would rather be there than here. But not, I do like the warm weather... just not the searing hot weather. Anyway, I thought I would post a note on the good old blog mentioning the hot weather in the hopes that people will write about their weather... or something like that.

I think today was the day the obesession that is the Democratic primary ended. It has been quite the journey I must say. As a Canadian, I have been accustomed to the prominence of the American political machine in Canada; through the media, through popular culture... but it is a whole other story in the United States. Sometimes you forget that there is actually another party out there competing... I mean, you see the elderly John McCain trying to match Barack Obama in whatever way he can, but he seems to be an afterthought. I don't think too many people seriously expect Senator McCain to win. Perhaps that is why the election battles between the old white woman and the younger half-black man (perhaps half-black is unfair, but really, he is half black and he seems to be all-black when it suits him) have caught the attention of the popular media, and as a result of the non-stop reporting, the public. This election is quite interesting. I see many parallels between this country and th...