Canadian Musings

I haven't had much to say lately, at least not here.

But I notice that the Christmas Season and the Canadian federal election overlap in interesting ways: today, I received my first Christmas cards of the year ... from both my Member of Parliament and my (former) Member of Provincial Parliament.

My MPP has resigned his seat to run federally in a neighbouring riding, so I can hope that both he and my MP sit in the House of Commons in the 39th Parliament.

I apologize that after more than a year with this blog, some stupid ******* idiot has hit it with comment spam. ******* morons.

So I've had to enable the "comment moderation" feature; I have no intention of blocking any comments other than spam, but it's still a sucky thing to have to do.

And I apologize to anyone who visits here, however infrequently, for having to impose such a measure. I know that it's a bit of an intimidation to think that someone has to "approve" of your comments, but I'm not here to exercise an editorial role.

I plan to be busy tomorrow celebrating Thanksgiving (for only the second time this year), so I'll post a note today to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Courtesy of Paul Wells' blog, we learn that Prime Minister Paul Martin's approval rating has apparently slipped to 35% (with only a scant 4% citing a "Very satisfied" rating), and nobody pays much notice.

US President George Bush's approval rating is at 37%, two points higher, and the press are all up in arms about him having the lowest rating in decades.

The Canadian Media really does have to get their act together.

Our Prime Minister thinks we're all ignorant and don't know how to read a calendar.

He went on the record today, telling the Opposition Parties that forcing an election campaign to be held over the Christmas Holidays may offend some religious groups.

Which wouldn't be so laughable except that he has promised to call an election campaign to be held over the Lent and Easter Season.

Shame on him.

Shame on anyone who votes for him.

Watching replays of today's Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa, one particular detail struck me which needs to be corrected in years to come: the Governor General laid a wreath not on behalf of the Monarch she represents in Canada, but instead presumably on behalf of The People of Canada.

This is an insult. She does not represent me. She is my Head of State, not my leader. Her role is to represent Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, not to represent me. And I am offended that she should even pretend to represent me.

The People of Canada are represented by the elected representative government in the House of Commons, and their (our) wreath should be laid by the Prime Minister as the head of that government. The wreath laid today by the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government of Canada, could perhaps be laid by the Speaker of the House. And the Governor General should present a wreath of remembrance on behalf of the individual and institution she represents: HRH QEII.

Plenty of sites have posted profiles of various individual soldiers who fought in past wars. Today above all other days we honour them.

But let's not forget either those who are in active service each and every day of the year, working for poor wages trying to keep us all safe from the evils that lurk in the world.

We've had a show about nothing. Why not a Nation of Nothing?

Over on the Canadian Expats Blog, some problems were discussed with Canada's national anthem and a more appropriate version was suggested (credit was given to "elsewhere on the Internet").

In the comments to that post, it was pointed out that ... Doesn't "nada" mean the same as "nothing", "zip", and "zilch"?

Canada. Ca-nada. Ca-zip. Ca-zilch. Ca-nothing.

And "nothing" is something we can get rid of.

Ca.

Heck, ".ca" is Canada's Internet Country Code top-level domain. Why shouldn't it also be the entire name of the country?

Jay Leno, interviewing Nicollette Sheridan on The Tonight Show, was apparently intending to talk about food when he quipped that he could "eat her under the table." Yup. Food is what comes to mind, there.

They came back from commercial talking about going for a motorcycle ride together.