My son the road engineer; making tracks for morons

One of the activities of little boys is making roadways in the playground sand. The other evening, Anton and I arrived at a local playground with a variety of small plastic digging tools. Immediately he set to laying out an elaborate road system. Then he made a long winding road away from his main site.

He announced "That road is for jackasses so they don't drive on the good roads". I reflected that my on-road terminology was having an effect- he recently had taken a certain joy in the phrase "learn to drive, moron" which he yells at fast moving or erratic drivers.

Perhaps he has the right idea; leave certain roads unrestricted and only minimally supervised, and let people drive on them at their own risk- a sort of libertarian Autobahn. Then tightly control the remaining roads, especially in residential areas. Hopefully the incompetent, immature and down-right homicidal drivers will be removed from the genepool.

disturbing dichotomies

Aside from being a neat alliteration, it disturbs me that Gatineau has 60 000 citizens without a family doctor, but Montreal has a Birkenstocks Hospital.

More distressing is that Canada's New Government has proposed a ban on camcorders, but doesn't want to ban handguns. Apparently Movie studio's profits are very important, Canadian citizen's safety less so.

I guess tough on crime means crime against foreign corporations not Canadians.

Encore "Nous"

12 years after Mr.Parizeau's remark about "money and the ethnic vote", ethno- nationalism is back in vogue, although the sanitised expression is 'you are all welcome, as long as you become like us'.

Mrs Marois' opinion's here.

Coca-Cola - is(sh)it

I found this parody video of a Coca-cola ad followed by the original. I have nothing witty to add- just feelings of frustration and anger at Coke.



and here's the preening, hypocritical original...

What kind of vegetable is Stephen Harper?

What kind of vegetable does Stephen Harper remind you of?

In this article in Deutche Weller, the controversy about the Polish president being compared to a potato(o the scandal of it!) made me think we should apply the same level of discourse to our own head of Canada's New Government. It's about the right tone, and certainly reflects the same level of sophistication and maturity as the current PM.

So what kind of vegetable is Prime Minister Stephen Harper?

Updated!

He's a sweet, colourful fruit! But given his party's level of sophistication, he's also tasteless.

Back in the saddle

Well, we're back in Montréal. The new digs are a spiffy little apartment in St.Henri. Back where, to within a block, we started about 2 years ago when Sheila and I decided to move to Gatineau/Ottawa.

I'm shocked and delighted how well that experience seems to have resolved itself. Almost forgotten, like a bad dream.

Anybody want to buy a house with in walking distance of Parliament Hill?

Ignatieff:Struts and Grovels at the same time

Unable to say "I wrong was about Iraq" Michael Ignatieff produced a convoluted mass of weasel words in the NYT. It has generated much cruel laughter in such as this article by David Rees.

Pompous egoism is forgivable in academics provided they can write clearly about interesting or difficult ideas. But I still wouldn't care to have that species of intellectual in my home, even if I buy their books.