Random Thoughts

 It is easy to demonize the current US president for a myriad of reasons. Some have called him by the alleged tint of his skin (orange), some have called him a threat to democracy and used words like dictator, fascist etc. I am not going to delve into all that. He is, as far as I am concerned, the legitimate leader of a large country, duly elected by a majority of their voting population. What those people where thinking while voting for him in a majority, I question. But that is not the point of this post.  I live in Canada. I am a citizen of the country. I get to vote for an MP in my riding federally. The party who elects the most MPs is usually invited to form government by the head of state or (now) his representative. Our democratic norms are pretty simple and straightforward. There are plenty of things to criticize our electoral system for and the governments that come as a result. Anyway, all of this to say, we in Canada do not get to vote for a foreign leader. But we d...

Unless you have been living in a cave, or just chosen to be completely out of touch with the news in Canada, and you live in Canada, you will have heard of the on-going saga that is the Mike Duffy trial. Duffy faces 31 charges, some of which are pretty serious: fraudulent expenses, bribery, breach of trust etc.  The short version of the story is, Senator Mike Duffy claimed expenses associated with travelling on partisan affairs (i.e. he was out at Conservative party election campaigns) and per diems for housing which, by most reasonable people, appear to be incorrect, if not illegal. He asked the Senate, and by extension, the tax payers to foot the bill. His sordid housing story leads back to his appointment as a Senator from Prince Edward Island. A small detour on this. The Senate rules on housing are a bit vague. It goes something like this. If a senator owns $4000 worth of property in the province, they are deemed to be a "resident" and therefore eligible to be ...

I've spent half my life in North America. I've spent the other half of my life in Asia and Africa. Well, mostly in Asia. I think I have seen a lot of interesting politics over my short lifespan thus far. I was born in a state run by democratically elected Communists. Not quite the they-will-kill-your-kids-and-eat-them-for-lunch kind of Communists that some may have heard of. They were more socialist in their ways. They spent time and money on somewhat sane things. Like basic healthcare. And going on strikes. Vancouver has been home for a little over 13 years now. I've watched a lot of Canadian politics over that time. From the venerable Jean Chretien (I think he was great, even if so many Canadians seem to dislike him, I have no idea why they do, but they seem to), to my former MP Svend Robinson, I've seen a lot of good and not-so-good people out there trying to run our countries.  And then there was Jack Layton. He was an interesting sort of guy; he rode a bike, had ...

Canadians are off to the races once more to pick a new group of MPs. There's 308 of them. One of them will become Prime Minister. And it seems that a good chunk of the electorate doesn't give a hoot about the process. The media do a good job of reporting on the events. On the surface at least. But they try. They also seem to relish in finding Canadians and asking them about the elections to get the desired effect of a disenchanted and largely uninterested and ill-informed set of people to sheepishly grin on TV. Many people I have seen interviewed have similar excuses; its not time for an election, I don't know what the issues are, I haven't voted since I last used my discman, this will change nothing (meaning the make up of our parliament). Many also don't seem to care. The level of antipathy and downright anger is amazing. Its like someone inconvenienced them with these (admittedly horrid) election advertisements in between their Jersey Shore and HNIC broadcasts....

Apparently, there is an impending flood of democracy sweeping North Africa. That's what some people seem to think. I don't know what to make of it. While it sounds like a progressive sort of thing, I have my doubts. Recently, the Tunisians managed to chase away their dictatorial leaders out of the country. What started at some unfortunate soul dousing himself in paint thinner and setting fire  to himself (ending in his death a few weeks later) has toppled a government and thrown the whole of North Africa in political chaos. I am not sure what made the rulers of Tunisia flee. My guess is, they had enough funds stashed outside of the country and had a plan on what to do post-ousting. They probably had safe-havens sorted out (apparently some of the crooks are Canadian residents!) and made their way out rather than risk getting killed by popular anger. Perhaps the army said it would no longer support them, perhaps they were wishing for some peace and quite on the golf course somew...

I can't believe that it has been over 5 years since Robin Cook passed away. He was one of the few principled politicians out there that I have known of and dare I say, admired. Listening to his resignation speech (from the cabinet), I have a profound sense of sadness for Britain and for the larger civilised world. It is sadder still when you go back in time and think of people like Hans Blix, much maligned by the then US administration and by many others in the world. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition. says Cook of the split between the allies in regards to this war. The world is worse off today without people like Robin Cook. I sure hope the folks that went to war and decided to rename food are enjoying their freedom fries secure in the knowledge that at least now, those (phantom) weapons of mass destruction are indeed beyond use; safely put away in the figment of their collective...

I've been thinking a lot about why people do what they do. And the conclusion I have arrived at isn't one that surprised me nor do I think it will surprise many (or any if there are any) of the readers out there. People are almost always motivated by self-interest. While that probably isn't a revelation of any sort, I wonder why so many people couch it as some sort of altruistic thing. There have been many recent narcissistic activities I have seen including the minister in the Indian state of UP who has decided a police force is in order to protect statues of herself. Statues that apparently cost $1 billion. I don't know about the math, but this cult-ish activity of erecting statues of oneself usually ends up with someone else coming in and taking down the statues by force. Remember Saddam Hussein's statue? So, why do I care about all this? I guess I don't really. I feel bad for the tax payers of UP for their money being spent on such silly activities, though ...

I think I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard someone say that Stephen Harper was a Professional Rogue seeing as he prorogued parliament. While the sentiment expressed by that person is quite in line with what a lot of Canadians are expressing, I can't help but wonder where these people crawled out from. Canadian politics for the most part is a boring spectator sport. Our parliamentarians spend more time grandstanding and blaming each other for some silly thing than they do anything interesting. And I like it that way. I am very happy that I live in a country where the biggest parliamentary problem today is the fact that the Prime Minister pulled a cheeky move and shut it down until March. I don't mean to suggest that I am in favour of what Mr. Harper pulled out of the hat; quite frankly, I am appalled at what he has done. My outrage has more to do with the way these elected people treat our institutions and the lack of realistic work being done by these people. Thes...

It has been a busy few weeks out here on the Wet coast of North America. November seems to be zooming along at a great pace. Our future King made an appearance in Vancouver, sparking all sorts of debate about the role of the monarchy in this Dominion and whether it will end with the demise of our Queen. The final phase of Olympics tickets went on sale in Vancouver. I didn't get any tickets. And it has been raining like crazy here. Apparently about 220mm worth of it. I also went and met up with some people whose story is quite a good one. Let's start with our Prince. As many of you hopefully know, Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy. In rough terms, that means that we are part of a Kingdom or realm... in this case, one headed by the House of Windsor. We have a monarch. We like to call it the Canadian Monarchy. The Canadian Crown. This is rather important. For example, when speaking of the Queen in the context of Canada, she is Queen Elizabeth II of Canada (and then Great Brita...

I have something of a set ritual every day when I wake up. I try and dodge the alarm clocks. I have an old little analogue alarm clock I set for around 6am. I also have the alarm on the blackberry set to (depending on how I feel the night before) about the same time. I usually don't hear the regular clock for whatever reason. Anyway, one favourite technique of avoiding the alarm is to wake up, pick up the blackberry and head back to bed. I keep the thing deliberately away from arm's reach so that I have to get up to turn it off. Usually, it ends up with me taking the phone back to bed with me and leaving it by my head so I can hit snooze again in 10 minutes. Sometimes, I read the already queued up emails (being on the West Coast of North America means that the Indians, Chinese and the East Coasters have already finished/started their day). I also, if I am up for it, check facebook and the BBC in that order. And so it was Friday morning last week. The headline of course, in cas...

Canada is a country full of immigrants. From the folks who crossed the Bering Strait way back when to the loads of Europeans who hopped on boats and took the perilous journey to the east coast to the Chinese, Japanese, Indians and so forth that took boats and what not to get to the west coast, Canada is a country built on immigration. I am one such immigrant. And I am a very proud one at that. I can happily say that I am Canadian and not worry one bit about whether someone would have a hard time (at least in Canada) believing that to be the case in spite of the colour of my skin, the lack of knowledge as far as things like touchdowns or Kardashians go... and in spite of any accent I may have. That is what makes Canada so unique, so beautiful. We welcome all sorts of people. Rich ones, poor ones, light ones, dark ones... it runs the gamut. We even welcome war criminals and refugees. Mind you, if we catch you (as a war criminal), we are sticking you in prison. And so we come to Burnaby. ...

There are some things one should never do. One should never cheat on your taxes, one should never lie to one's physician or lawyer. One should not be stubbornly dumbassed about something that the majority of the country and its courts agrees on. The Canadian government has been, of late, doing some unnecessarily dumb things. My concern today is the appeal by the government of a ruling by a federal court in Canada that says they have to appeal to the US government to repatriate a Canadian citizen who is being held at Guantanamo Bay on questionable charges in a reasonable time-frame. As a Canadian, I have some rights. I am allowed to come back to the country whenever I want. I can expect to use my travel documents (my passport) to enter many other countries. On behalf of Her Majesty, the Minister of Foreign Affairs requests that I be afforded all assistance and protection as seen necessary to travel through other countries. I can even expect, when there is no Canadian mission, to a...

Fifteen years ago, I lived on another continent, in a land that was (and is) home. Ten or so years prior to that, I lived on yet another continent. Counting back that far makes me feel so old. The former of course was Asia, the latter, Africa. Fifteen years ago, a man named Bill Clinton was President of the free world. Jean Chretien was Canada's big shot in Parliament. John Major was the Prime Minister in the United Kingdom. Maggy Thatcher's dear friend Mitterrand was President of the Fifth Republic. And fifteen years ago, on that continent of Africa, something started. Something so vile that the word used to describe it ( legally as per the IGO called the UN and colloquially) does not quite convey its cruelty and indiscriminate nature. What happened in Central Africa by those great lakes was truly horrible. Genocide. A word made up from a couple of Latin words. An estimated 800,000. In about 100 days. Do the math. That's about 8,000 a day if you assume a uniform distrib...

The world is sometimes a great place. Sometimes though, you just have to shake your head and wonder. It is strange sometimes when a nation forgets its past so easily. South Africa seems to be having an episode of amnesia right now it seems. You see, this old withering man who ran away from oppression to seek refuge elsewhere and make a political case for his people while in exile wanted to enter South Africa to talk about Peace. And South Africa said no. Because his presence in South Africa "would not be in South Africa’s best interests." What was that again? How could the presence of a Nobel Peace Laureate, a religious leader, and lets not forget, someone who many believe is a living god, in your country not be in your best interests? What kind of crap ass grass are you people smoking out there? And, in case you forgot, this man won a prize for PEACE for god's sakes. Whatever god you believe in, whether he looks like his holiness, whether he or she had 8 hands or whethe...