While I am working so much I am finding it hard to get out and take some photos. Today at lunch time I found a lonely no parking sign so I spent a few minutes looking for an interesting angle to this sign. Here are three photos from that exercise. I like the rough broken feel to each of the detail photos. This is a step away from the usual photo I would take and post.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
My resolution
A slightly delayed goodbye (and good riddance!) to 2009 and hello (and how are you?) to 2010 post:
I’ve already made two big changes in my life this year. And I’m not one to normally use the secular new year as a way of marking personal resolutions.
So consider this just a quick attempt at improving myself and others at an opportune time.
In 2010, on this blog and in my daily life, I will do my best to bitch a little bit less about the Conservative Party’s trashing of Canada, and Stephen Harper’s shameful and “contemptuous” behaviour as PM.
I will try to put my dismay to more effective use, and not simply write about the injustices and issues I see. Truly, change only comes when people love something enough or get angry enough. And I’ve been pretty angry lately.
I will find ways to reach out and encourage other like minded people to effect meaningful change. I will maintain a sense of the supremacy of dialogue coupled with action.
And I will do so from a perspective that – while disagreeing with – maintains a respect for those who are politically conservative. The crux of my arguments of late against the Tories has not been one against conservative substance, rather it has been one against the Conservative’s abuse of power, their hypocrisy, their apparent disregard for ethics and law, and their role in diminishing Canada’s place on the world stage and the subsequent tarnishing of our international image.
Some food for thought as I close my commenting on the great political shit-show that was Canada in 2009, courtesy of John Ivison at the National Post of all places:
Stephen Harper is a despot. The decision to “padlock” Parliament is a cover up designed to avoid scrutiny over the Afghan detainee issue. The Conservatives have a very thin legislative agenda and no new ideas to put forward.
And that was that.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Top 10 Canadian tourism destinations for Chinese
Last month, China gave Canada “Approved Destination” status during Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to Beijing, easing the way for tour operators to arrange group trips. Lifestyle suggests the following 10 Canadian destinations for first-time visitors.
10. CN Tower
A little bit like the Shanghai Pearl TV Tower, highlights include walking over a window in the floor that gives a dizzying view of the earth 350 meters below. Chinese tourists may be disappointed the revolving restaurant lacks windowless private rooms.
9. Niagara Falls
Chinese tourists should feel comfortable here because of the pre-set view points, abundance of tour groups, and the bright colored lights, cable cars, boats and other manmade clutter that distract from the natural beauty of the place.
8. Casino-Rama
Centuries of exploitation and marginalization left the First Nations people on Rama reservation mired in hopelessness and substance addiction. To assuage their guilt and generate tax revenue without making gambling legal on Canadian soil, the government struck a deal with the First Nations people to allow gambling on their semi-autonomous lands. The residents of Rama became wealthy, fast. Many of the regular customers are Chinese-Canadians from the Toronto area.
7. Mountain climbing
Climbing mountains is a favorite activity of many Chinese people, and Canada has innumerable stunning peaks. Be warned, Canadian mountains do not have stairs, teahouses every 100 meters, or hotels at the top. The more popular peaks do have wooden huts at the bottom with electricity and rescue teams.
6. Small town Chinese restaurants
Every small town has a Chinese restaurant that looks like a 1950s Hong Kong movie set, complete with golden wallpaper and dragon motifs. Mainland Chinese people will marvel at how dishes such as egg foo young and lemon chicken ever evolved from their home cuisine.
5. Chinatowns
Unlike small-town Canada, Chinese can feel right at home in the Chinatowns of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Not only do you not need English, sometimes English won’t even work. Cantonese will get you the farthest. Restaurants, shopping malls and entire sections of town conduct business in Chinese.
4. Ottawa
Dashan’s hometown is best visited in winter, when you can skate up and down a frozen river in the center of the city and enjoy delicacies like beaver tail (Guangdong people, stop salivating… it is a kind of sweet wafflle). Ottawa is also the seat of Canada’s government, which in 2006 apologized to the Chinese for discriminatory policies from 1885 to 1947.
3. Anne of Green Gables
This farmhouse featured in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s nine-volume series about a redheaded orphan on Prince Edward Island draws thousands of tourists each year. The musical based on the book is performed each summer. PEI also has great lobsters, although they are mostly for the tourists; the locals consider them too gauche to eat.
2. Algonquin Park
Canada’s most famous park is almost half as big as Beijing municipality, but karaoke machines and late night mahjong games are not welcome, and you need to keep your chicken feet stowed carefully, because if the bears don’t get them, the raccoons will.
1. Bethune Memorial House and Memorial
The house that Canadian doctor Norman Bethune spent the first years of his life in is now a national historic site in Gravenhust, Ontario. Bethune is relatively unknown in Canada, but a hero in China for his service to the Chinese Communists in the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s. There is also a statue of Bethune in Montreal, where he advocated for socialized medicine.
bron: www.globaltimes.cn
Wedding Dance Choreography
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Contact Kendra at kendra@kendrahughes.com today to add your own personal touch to YOUR special day!Friday, January 1, 2010
Much Ado About Prorogation
I’ve been reading and thinking for a few days about the prorogation of Parliament, an occurrence for the second year in a row, and what it all means. It’s true that there has been general outrage from those who identify themselves as opposition voters. And the media has been in a frenzy of hyperbolic ravings and outlandish characterizations. There’s certainly nothing “despotic” or undemocratic about what the Prime Minister has done, no matter how unseemly it may appear to people. It would be dishonest to both ridicule people one year ago for calling the proposed coalition government last year a “coup”, and in the same breath be able to call prorogation an “insult to democracy”.
But that’s precisely the language being used in column’s like Heather Mallick [who goes overseas to condemn Canada again], the title of her column including the word “shafting”. Ms.Mallick believes the prorogation was “to smother a scandal, to halt a highly embarrassing and public inquiry into the Canadian military.”
Don Newman uses similar language in his CBC column saying that prorogation is a small price to pay “for silencing embarrassing questions on Afghanistan.” Meanwhile, Elizabeth May is using this moment to advocate Canadians “kick and scream” about the move. And by kick and scream she really means log on to Facebook and sign a petition. I’m certain that will be highly effective in shaming the Prime Minister for his decision.
John Ivison probably penned the most calming response to the “crisis”, debunking the idea that it was done to avoid “embarrassment”. As he writes, although the government could do without the endless detainee talk in the House of Commons, this had nothing to do with the prorogation strategy. For one, the government was ignoring the entire affair, and for another, polls suggest Canadians either don’t know or don’t care about it.
No, prorogation was about reconstituting the Senate committees to keep the Liberals from stalling bills which had already been unanimously passed in the Lower House. Further to the point, it gives Stephen Harper control in the Senate for the first time since he became Prime Minister in 2006. Rather than continue to berate the man for stacking the Senate, I’m more particularly interested to see how this fits into his proposed claims to want to reform the Senate.
It’s true that Canadians aren’t entirely up to speed on the definition of “prorogue”, but as Tim Powers pointed out, it isn’t exactly a rare occurrence. Parliament has been prorogued 105 times in its history. But you can’t exactly, as Mr.Powers did, average it out to once every 1.3 years.
Historically speaking, prorogation was more common before 1983, since the process of proroguing the Canadian Parliament usually involved the Governor General reading a speech in the Senate recounting the accomplishments of the parliamentary session. But not all prorogation were length affairs; on the contrary, some lasted only a few hours.
What’s most interesting is that there is some historical precedent involving the Conservative Party and a meddling Liberal Party with prorogation. In 1988, Brian Mulroney’s Free Trade Agreement was endlessly being stalled in Parliament by the Liberals who wanted an election to be held on the issue. Mr.Mulroney asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and won a majority in the November election. He then caused Parliament to be convened on December 12, 1988, for the sole purpose of passing legislation related to the Free Trade agreement, and then adjourned until late February. But the Conservatives didn’t think this was long enough to organize, so Mr.Mulroney asked the Governor General to prorogue Parliament for a month longer until he and his government were ready.
Besides all this talk about democracy and despotism, John Ivison points out the obvious: that the opposition can always vent their outrage in March by defeating the government budget and going to the polls. Norman Spector certainly thinks it’s going to happen. And if the Liberals don’t defeat the government at that time, it’s only going to make all their moaning and complaining now look all the more ridiculous.
One is reminded of the cartoon where the snarling and vicious dog who has been barking at a stranger finally breaks free of his leash. Realizing he is no longer restrained, he turns to his owner and asks that his leash be reattached so that he may continue snarling and barking and looking vicious. The phrase it coined sums up the Liberal Party: “all bark and no bite.”
ARGH !
It appears that the new law against unsolicited commercial email in Canada has fallen victim to politics.
The Conservatives have decided to Parliament until March 2010 and the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email predict that Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, will be lost.
Similar legislation will likely be introduced shortly after but still, we were so close to finally getting something in the books !
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Bits & Bites Of Canucks/Moose News
Many things have gone down over the past little while since the last update, so here’s a summary of what has happened lately with the Vancouver Canucks and Manitoba Moose.
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Veteran defenceman Mathieu Schneider was placed on waivers by the Canucks yesterday, and cleared them today. What this means for Schneider and the Canucks is up in the air.
Defenceman Kevin Bieksa suffered a cut on his leg during the second period of last night’s game versus the Phoenix Coyotes, so hypothetically, Schneider could end up back in the Canucks lineup. From all appearances though, it doesn’t look like that will happen.
Vancouver could also elect to send him down to the Manitoba Moose or to another AHL squad, much like they did with Brad Lukowich, who the Canucks sent to the Texas Stars at the beginning of the season. Unlike with Lukowich, there’s no guarantee Schneider will report to Manitoba and play for them, even though he would get tons of ice time and instantly become Manitoba’s #1 defenceman.
Considering Schneider’s age, there’s also a chance that he’ll decide to hang up the blades and call it a day. Schneider’s no spring chicken at 40-years-old, so his clearing waivers could spell the end of his playing career.
Schneider has five points (2-3-5) in 17 games for the Canucks this season.
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The day before Mathieu Schneider was placed on waivers, the Canucks called up forward Alexandre Bolduc from the Manitoba Moose of the AHL. Bolduc was called up by Vancouver to replace Ryan Johnson, who was put on injured reserve after suffering a foot injury.
Bolduc went pointless in seven games with the Canucks earlier this season, and has picked up three points (2-1-3) in 13 games with the Moose so far in 2009-10.
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So far, six members of the Vancouver Canucks have been named to their respective country’s Olympic squads.
Goaltender Roberto Luongo (Canada), defencemen Sami Salo (Finland) and Christian Ehrhoff (Germany), as well as forwards Pavol Demitra (Slovakia) and Daniel and Henrik Sedin (Sweden) have so far been named to play in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The United States hockey team will announce its roster immediately after the NHL Winter Classic at Fenway Park in Boston on January 1, 2010. It’s expected that forward Ryan Kesler will make it a lucky seven for the Canucks by getting named to that squad.
The most notable absence, if just for what he said when he wasn’t named to his country’s Olympic squad, is Mikael Samuelsson. As most people have heard by now, when the Swedish Olympic hockey team did not name Samuelsson as one of their 23 players that will suit up in Vancouver, the Canuck forward said in an interview afterward that those who picked the team should perform an act of self-fornication. No word on whether those who made the Swedish roster followed suit, but it’s highly unlikely they took Samuelsson’s advice.
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The American Hockey League announced today that Manitoba Moose forward Sergei Shirokov has been named to the PlanetUSA All-Star Team for the 2010 Time Warner Cable AHL All-Star Classic, which takes place next month at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, Maine. Teammate Nolan Baumgartner will suit up as captain and play as one of the starters for the Canadian All-Star Team.
Shirokov has picked up 23 points (11-12-23) in 34 games for the Moose this season, while Baumgartner has seven points (1-6-7) in 24 games for Manitoba. Baumgartner’s currently out of the Moose lineup with a broken finger, but should return to on-ice action within the next week or two.
A notable absence from the All-Star Game lineups is Moose goaltender Cory Schneider, who started for the PlanetUSA All-Stars last season. So far in 2009-10, Schneider has registered a 16-6-2 record, with a 2.25 goals-against average, a 0.923 save percentage, and two shutouts.
No word on whether Schneider told the AHL All-Star selection committee to fornicate with themselves after not getting picked for the team. 
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