Forget Big Bird...

I would be way more worried about Bert and Ernie.

Liberal Leadership Debates

My proposal would be to have 50 debates on 50 successive days that are 20 minutes long. Each debate would be about ONE subject - picked randomly out of a hat.

Let's see Le Dauphin prepare for that.

Reclycling Jokes, 2012

Remember when I made this joke?

One of these parties no longer exists...

Doesn't seem so outlandish in 2012, does it?

I am not even sure this still works

But, my last couple of months has been quite raucous.

Thank-fully, there is a full scale war being fought between two Premiers about how product should be shipped across their borders, so if that doesn't slow economic development, nothing will.

Elections Canada Complaints

Take a VERY long time to resolve.

In 2003-4 EC had a lot of complaints. It might not have been 31,000, but it was a lot.

I would say that at least half of them had to do with enumerators and/or polling information at the FRONT END of the campaign.

I would say that half of the rest of them had to do with things that any sane person would describe as "insignificant."

I would say that half of the rest of the rest had to do with RUDE staff.

I really hope that they catch the assholes who willfully tried to disenfranchise people. I hope they go to jail.

I also wish people would stop throwing out numbers like they are significant on their own. 31,000 complaints are...well...just not that many in a country that has 25 million electors (or so - I am guessing.)

There are a few things I hate

But there is NOTHING I hate more than blindly partisan reposters/retweeters or whatever they are called these days.

I don't really care about C-30. I think that our investigative tools need to be modernized. In fact, when the same bill was presented in 2005 by the Martin Liberal Government it was called the Modernization of Investigation Tactics Act. C74, as it was then known, was not universally panned by the opposition. Certainly, mainy of the critics of c-30 bill probably VOTED for it when it was introduced at first reading - that is, if they weren't defeated in 2006, 2008, 2012. Or, at the very least, they didn't object to its introduction. Landslide Annie (L - Edmonton) you were a great one.

Of course, it wasn't about child pornographers in 2005. It was actually more about aligning with the US Patriot Act. That, in and of itself, is far more convincing to me as a reason to oppose it.

I am not going to defend the Minister for ONE SECOND for their silly communications plan. It was atrocious - and it appeals to a very limited base.

But to call this updated review of investigative techniques a "Big Brother approach to spying on Canadians" is just as uninformed. I remember when wire taps were seen as an unreasonable encroachment of civil liberties. Or at least, I remember reading about that time period. Now they are a tried/tested method to help catch bad guys.

I am a civil libertarian. I really do believe that our laws shouldn't be random and that Locke was right on what we can/not consent to. I don't see this as an onerous invasion of privacy. Neither should you.

I finally found her

I have been flying on Air Canada as long as I have been alive. I have YET to find a SINGLE employee who was "going beyond the call of duty."

In Florida, I finally met that employee. She started her shift over 30 minutes early, and didn't even bat an eye. She was super pleasant, and very helpful.

To date, most of my exchanges with Air Canada employees are...brutal. Thank god for this one. I am almost afraid to send a letter to the company praising her work for fear that she will be ostracized in some way.

I don't like winter

So I am going to Florida. See you in a week.