Canadian Musings

Despite all the rhetoric from Dalton McGuinty during the election campaign about keeping hospitals "publicly owned," he is off to go beg for a private group to build a new hospital in Ontario.

Or is he planning to nationalize (or maybe buy out) the Shriners Hospital, if it's placed in either Ottawa or London Ontario?

Every now and then, I like to post a simple recipe on here. Just something to lighten the mood. Today, it's simple-to-prepare fajitas.

Sliced beef (or chicken)
Fajita spice (*)
Lemon wedge (optional)
Chopped onion
Sliced Green and Red Pepper
Salsa
Grated cheese
Sour Cream
Lettuce (optional)
Tortilla shells
Hot sauce (optional)

You can either buy the meat pre-sliced (e.g. for stir fry), or slice up a steak. If you're slicing it yourself, you may want to put it in the freezer for about a half-hour first: having a bit more "stiffness" can help make cutting easier.

Start by browning the meat in a frying pan (optionally with a couple drops of a light cooking oil (olive oil works well) to keep it from sticking). Add the fajita spice (Old El Paso makes a decent blend), or alternatively some steak spice and garlic powder to taste. You may need to add just a bit of water to keep it from drying out.

Slice some red and green peppers, and chop the onion into slices. (After chopping off the top and bottom, and peeling it, I stand it on end and slice down from the top, into about six or so "pie-shaped" slices.) Fry them in a little bit of cooking oil, stirring frequently, until they've lost their crispness (about ten minutes). Heat the tortilla shells (e.g. in the microwave for a short time) but don't let them dry out.

Put some salsa into a bowl, and some sour cream into another bowl. Grated cheese in yet another bowl. The meat and vegetables can be served together or separately, and can be topped off with the juice squeezed from a fresh lemon wedge.

Consumption (for the three people who haven't yet had the pleasure) involves taking a tortilla shell, pasting with sour cream, a bit of salsa, meat, vegetables, cheese, and a few drops of hot sauce. Roll it up and enjoy!

For chicken fajitas, consider replacing the lemon with a slice of orange.

I've been watching the morning Plenary session of the Conservative Party convention being held this weekend in Montreal. It's been an interesting exercise, and I congratulate the session chair on keeping things moving at a good clip.

I've been especially interested in a few items, highlighted somewhat by CBC NewsWorld (with Don Newman) coverage.

There was a former Conservative candidate from Quebec, who was apparently quite upset that the plenary was (in his view) out of touch with Quebecers on the issues behind Kyoto. But, I would suspect that it is a lack of communication (exacerbated by the language barriers which exist) about what Canadians feel. I don't think you'll find many folk who favour pollution. But you will find many well-informed Canadians who do not feel that the Kyoto Accord is the appropriate way to reduce pollution. Consider, for example, the Liberals' plans: they want to take Canadian tax dollars and pay foreign countries to not allow their economies to recover ("buying their Kyoto credits") rather than investing those tax dollars in reducing pollution within Canada. A Conservative would rather reduce pollution. A Liberal would rather extend a failed equalization program internationally.

Stockwell Day seemed disappointed that his "electoral reform" issues were defeated. To his credit, he makes clear that this is not going to make him go away. But he reveals that he has matured less than those around him, as he ignores the problems with the proposals as presented. For example, there was a proposal regarding the recall of an MP. It was ill-considered, although the intention is noble. In the last federal election almost every riding in Canada had four candidates on the ballot (Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Green), and several had more. The winning candidate only rarely enjoys a significant majority (instead, it's usually a slim plurality), and it would only take a very slight shift in opinions to create a successful recall campaign. Distracting an MP while sorting out the campaign at home can be very damaging, and a process which invites abuse is not appropriate: the plenary was right to vote it down.

On the other hand, it is terrible that the Conservative Party have found themselves adopting a more liberal position than the Democrats in the U.S. on such an important issue as abortion. Saying that the Party would not introduce anti-abortion legislation is bad enough. Saying that the party would oppose such legislation, if introduced, is unconscionable. At least the Democrats have made policy that abortion should be rare - and have expressed disgust at the frequency at which abortions are carried out in the U.S. That the Conservatives adopted a policy to oppose any restriction on abortion is unacceptable.

Update: From the afternoon Constitutional Plenary, the number of folks citing the word "Grassroots" belies that Paul Martin is more correct than I thought: there are too many members who think this is still the former Alliance Party. It is not. Neither is it the former Progressive Conservative Party. It is the Conservative Party. There is more to the Party than just the word "Grassroots." This is now a national party, not a regional rump.

If Terry Schiavo had killed somebody before she fell and became disabled, then her lawyer and the judicial process would be going out of their way to prevent a death sentence from being carried out.

Instead, her husband's lawyer is in a rush to get her murdered by judicial order. Shame on him. He further thumbs his nose at the authority of the U.S. House of Representatives to subpoena anyone whom they choose to subpoena. Infuriating.

Why is this man in such a rush to kill this woman? If Scott Peterson cannot be put to death for (in all likelihood) about twenty years, why should an innocent woman be killed so quickly?

Update: This is important as any as a matter respecting life, but is now important also as a Separation of Powers issue. This Florida State judge has put himself above the Federal Legislative branch of government, and this cannot be allowed to stand.

A note to any Canadians who find themselves reading here: unlike in Canada, the United States is constituted as "coincidental sovereignties." That is, each U.S. State is sovereign, as is the U.S. Federal government. So every citizen has responsibilities to their state government as well as (and independently to) their federal government. The federal constitution creates three separate-but-equal branches of government: the Executive (including the President, VP, and the administration), the Judicial (including the federal judges and the US Supreme Court), and the Legislative (including the House of Representatives and Congress).

None of the branches of government are above any other. Yet this judge has awarded himself authority to not only interpret legislation but to rule over the federal legislature, declaring that the U.S. House of Representatives does not have subpoena powers which they eminently possess. This must not be allowed to stand: it causes as much damage to the U.S. Constitution as did former President Clinton's attempted assertion (which was knocked down) that he was allowed to lie to a judge (in effect, putting the Executive Branch above the Judicial).

Best wishes for a speedy recovery to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who, according to CNN reports, underwent lung surgery on Tuesday to remove a lesion.

You go to a restaurant, have a decent meal, and head home. Who knows what goes on in the kitchen, or in the office of that establishment?

I've been a regular customer at a particular pub for several years, and have come to know the staff pretty well. A couple years ago, the restaurant chain it belongs to created an "Income Trust" - basically, they take a percentage of revenues from all their 'stores' and distribute it to the unitholders of the fund. It's like a stock, in that there's some ownership associated with it, and that there are regular dividends. It's like a bond, in that the payments are significant and frequent (typically monthly). But in any case, I bought a number of units, so I'm not only a customer, but a unitholder too.

Over the years, new staff join and other staff leave. Some get fired for various reasons. It's part of what happens in the hospitality industry. I've remained friends with a number of folks who have gone on to new things, although it's tough to keep in touch with even a fraction of them.

But I've always believed that personnel decisions should be made locally, by the General Manager on the site. That the GM would be guided by the corporate policies, and would receive input from reviews conducted by the corporation (e.g. so-called "secret shoppers" who produce a report on their experience). But that the decision would be taken based on the need to make the numbers: if the store will be more profitable with different staff, then make the changes necessary.

As it turns out, there is considerable evidence (I'm not in management, and it's not appropriate for them to discuss the details, so we're going by anecdotal reports from others here) that this particular company has had a habit of interfering in local decisions. So I've been absenting myself from the pub, limiting my spending to just a small percentage of what I've spent there in years past.

And I sent a letter to the company. And this is where it gets really fun. I made it clear that I wasn't looking for any particular response. But as it turned out, I got a note back that the comments had been passed along to their "complaints" people. I pointed out in reply that my comments really were beyond the scope of what a "complaints" person could address, and they agreed - asking a regional manager to send me a reply.

In other words, they acknowledged that their first reaction to my comment was entirely inappropriate, but didn't say why they took that action.

A few days later, I did hear back from someone else, treating my comment more or less as any other comment - thanking me for my letter, claiming that their people are their strength (or some such boilerplate), and basically hinting that nothing more would happen.

So they've treated my comment in a way that they acknowledged is unsatisfactory, and although it has cost them most of my custom have never suggested that they will learn from their mistakes.

What a terribly-run company. Why did I ever support them with my funds?

No, I'm not talking about becoming flatter than I currently am (which is a bit more rotund than I should be, but that's a problem for another day).

Politics in Canada has always been about the socialists on the "left" versus the conservatives on the "right," and how the Liberals are in the center squeezing both sides to electoral success. Some good linear thinking, there, but perhaps a bit one-dimensional.

The last election, with the rise of the Green Party in visibility, showed the difficulties we have faced for a long time with such a demarcation of the political spectrum. It's high time we looked at a more refined mapping of political viewpoints, and adopted a more mature perspective on where each of us fit relative to the opinions of others.

There are a couple such attempts available on the web. One, which incorporates Fascists, Anarchists, Capitalists, Libertarians, Republicans, Democrats, Centrists, Totalitarians, and Socialists, is presented at the end of a popular political positioning quiz available at what seems to be another dating site called OkCupid.com. But it's not a bad representation of two axes: Social and Economic measures.

Another site, more general in nature, is available at Moral-Politics.com. It will classify people generally along the axes of Moral Rules and Moral Order, with general quadrants assigned for Socialism, Liberalism, Conservatism, and Authoritarianism. A refined examination identifies several variations and multiple ideologies within each quadrant.

If Canadians could come to have a deeper understanding of both where they sit (generally) under such a classification system, as well as how the population as a whole is distributed, the transparent ploys by certain electoral candidates would be that much clearer. By understanding the space each political party occupies, elections can focus on ideas more than the charisma and charm of the leader. (And it is interesting to note that even in the U.S. the Republican party is not confined to the "conservative" quadrant.)

I went to update my blogroll a few minutes ago, and found that I had a few "hidden" links. Oops. My apologies to the fine blogs which were linked, but not visible. You can take comfort in the fact that I don't really get much traffic here, so chances are that nobody will know the difference unless they read this entry.

The Kyoto Accord on Climate Change is an international joke, and taxpayers are the punchline.

The March 2005 issue of "Wired" magazine suggests that Canada is currently (2005) 73% over its Kyoto commitment. As opposed to those "evil Americans" who are "only" 37% over what their commitment would be, if they were participating.

The nations which find themselves under their Kyoto allotment (Russia, for one) generally find themselves in that position because their economy recently collapsed. So what does the world community decide to do? Spur economic development? Naw. Pay them to not develop their economies, instead. After all, if their economy recovered they wouldn't have the credits to sell.

But who are the conservationsists? Canada is dominated by liberals (with a few N-Dippers thrown in), and yet are way over their commitment. America is much more conservative, and while it is over its commitment Canada has doubled its excess.

Wait: all this is doing is transfering money from a few developed nations to a few less developed nations. It isn't doing anything to reduce emissions. Socialism on a global scale.