Canada’s not the only country with issues
The Scots want out of the UK, and the English want their own powers too. Everyone wants a piece of the UK pie, at least its not Haggis.
And the next Liberal leader is…
If the Liberals were smart (oxymoron) they'd dump Iggy, Rae and Dion and unite behind Kennedy. Why?
Ignatieff has baggage of his mouth, combined with the whole not living here for 20+ years. Canada has changed a great deal in the last 20 years and Ignatieff represents a blast from the past best left for reminising about Pierre Trudeau.
Bob Rae is intellegent, well spoken and has a genuine social conscience. Problem is he was the NDP premier during the 1990's resession and while the complete trashing of Ontario's economy and social framework was not all his doing, Rae did not help matters. When you are left holding a bag of shit you can do two things:
- Clean it up
- Add to it making matters worse
Rae took option two.
Stephane Dion will probably go down as the guy who'd be a great leader if he wasn't from Quebec. Articulate, a pragmatist with enough wit to handle anything thrown at him by those in the BQ or CRAP parties. But he's from Quebec and that alone will ensure either minority governments run by the Conservatives or even a Conservative majority (shudder).
And that leaves us with Gerard Kennedy. Social lefty which could help reposition the Liberals back to that idological left they wish they were still occupying. He's from Ontario, which will appeal to the centre, and is young giving the Liberals a chance to mold and groom him to unelectiblity over a long period of time.
Either way next weekend's convention should prove very entertaining. With Howard Dean as keynote speaker you just can't get better TV than that. At least there will be something on CBC I might actually want to watch... for a change...
Redneck American Fun
Value for money
Is this real value for money? I purchased some items at the Walmart in the USA on "Black Friday". The price was $72.00. This was declared at the border, to which I was given a slip and had to go in and pay taxes on this. In the end I paid $4.32CDN GST on the items.
As I was driving home I was thinking, was it really worth it for the gov't to collect that $4.32 from me. Not that I am trying to get out of paying taxes, but...
What does the average customs worker make. Lets say $17.50 an hour. Between the person in the booth and then the two people inside I had to deal with, I had a total of 15 minutes of "face-time" with customs workers, in which one person would have been paid $4.38CDN to deal with me.
I paid my $4.32 with Interact, which standardly costs the vendor/retailer $0.15 to process a transaction on their behalf. That cost now is $4.53. Thats not withstanding the cost of overhead for the building and such, nor even the cost of the paper and other sundry's they use to process my transaction.
To collect their fair share, they lost $0.21 cents or more. Is that value for money?
Harper strikes again – Plunders $375,000 on crap
Senators win two in a row. Colour me astonished
Are the reporters at CP nuts? The Sens win two in a row and suddenly the Senators woes are over? Give me a break. The team is still in the bottom of the North East, nowhere near where the pundits expected to find them this season. And the reason why Ottawa held on to the game tonight was goal tending. It wasn't necessarily the play of their forwards after the second period, it was the fact that Emery stepped up.
A severe case of Sour Grapes
The municipal election in Cornwall brought with the victory of Bob Kilger as mayor, a case of sour grapes. Witness this audio gem from the radio station Classic Rock 101.9.
This "kid" is 27 years old. Completely un-called for and shows a lack of maturity and respect for the city of Cornwall.
Did the voters do a good thing voting for Kilger over Kennedy. Yes. My four year old's temper tantrums seem minor compared to Kennedy.
So long Mr. Kennedy.
Bye Bye Blogger
After using Blogger for the last two years I finally decided it was time to migrate to WordPress. Template changes are easier, I like the interface and I am not beholden to another firm for accessing my posts or such.
A side-effect to WordPress is that I can now import finally my blog posts pre-January 2005 when I was using Mambo. Not that anyone cares. 
Democrats win in the States and so Walmart brings back Christmas
Municipal Voting – Who’s approachable?
This election I made a goal, I will only contact candidates in my area who are approachable, and only will deal with those who approach me. After all it is my vote they are after.
So a week before the Electronic voting starts in my township, one of four candidates for mayor have stopped by my house. I contacted all four candidates for mayor, only the one who stopped by has answered my questions. Therefore that person, because he took the time to talk to me and connect with me, gets my vote.
Out of four candidates for deputy mayor, two advertised with no ways of contacting them, their out. The other two haven't bothered to return phone calls. So in the end, I'll likely not vote for a deputy mayor.
Out of 11 candidates for council, to which I get the fun of voting for three, four advertised with some form of contact. Out of those four, only one took the time to call me back and discuss what my questions were.
Are the issues counting towards my votes, yes? However in an age of less and less contact with those who we elect, municipal council is the only place left that we can really still have a voice. So in the end, I am voting for those who paid attention to me. And for township council, that still leaves three votes up for grabs.