Random Thoughts

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 ...

For those who don't know what I am writing about, let me give you some background. There is a Canadian family that is fairly well known in Canada (due to their views and relations with unsavoury characters). They have a few children. Born in Canada. Canadian citizens. One of the kids is accused of some fairly terrible acts. He is in a foreign prison. Canada has not worked on getting him home. Or help defend him for that matter. Maybe it isn't that big a deal. But maybe the details will make you wonder why I care about this. So, the details. The family name is Khadr. The father, he was close to one Osama bin Laden. He took his family to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He fought on behalf of those nuts in Afghanistan. Perhaps he was responsible for the deaths of soldiers and maybe even civilians (Afghan or otherwise). His kids were questionably involved in some of these activities. The family has, on more than one occassion expressed views that are not quite in line with what Canadians...