Ingrates!

Your daily schadenfreude: President Bush assaulted with shoes on surprise visit to Baghdad. Maybe it's just me, but I just can't understand what this gentleman could possibly be angry about.

Sorry - sarcasm doesn't look good on most people, but there are times when it is the only possible reaction to bury eight years of frustration.

UPDATE: someone else much funnier than I (on the Jezebel forums) has written that this is "one small shoe from man, one giant shoe from mankind."

Significant Digits

1: this is the number of hits that are actually me on the first page of results I receive when I Google my name. It is a page about my track awards in high school and doesn't even link to anything anymore. That's kind of sad.

454: the number of posts this blog has as of that last post - I have a pound of posts! In grams!

Viajo!

This is going to be a great spring! I will be living like a pauper in a variety of locations of varying sunniness, as follows:

February 3-13: St. George's, Grenada, for a visit and beachy good times with Katie

February 14-20: Havana, Cuba, for Kelly's wedding to the nice young man she met on exchange there (I haven't met Andres, but everything I have heard suggests that he is nice)

February 20-22: Horrible airplanes

February 22-March 25: Buenos Aires and other Argentine destinations, for cosmopolitanism, nomadism, and a potential intermission in nine years of mostly-vegetarianism

March 25-27: Horrible airplanes

March 27-April 1: Tucson, Arizona for Grandma's birthday (she is not a day over 46!).

It is to be an epic journey and a marvellous one.

From the Mouths of Babes

For no particular reason, I thought yesterday of something I did in fifth grade. At the time it was tremendously embarrassing, and I felt ashamed for being Wrong rather than Clever. This is a feeling that guarantees a memory will burrow into my brain and lodge itself there for all time. In retrospect, though, it's hilarious and I'm glad to have brought some merriment into my wonderful teacher's life. It happened during social studies. Mademoiselle Violet asked the class who the president of Russia was, and following this question there was a resounding silence lasting, in my recollection, about five minutes. Then, a bolt from the blue! I had an answer. I gasped! I raised my hand! "Newt Gingrich," I declared.

The Dream Dies

Today I learned that I can never be Betty Cooper, everyone's favourite all-American blonde, because it is extremely hard to sing and play the tambourine at the same time.

Flavour Of The Week

My favourite quote of the past two weeks is from my good election-night buddy Jacob, who made the following declaration regarding monies owed to the Canadian Revenue Agency,

"They never ask for documents, remember?"

Other notable recent events have included a showing of The Blue Planet, which features great numbers of jellyfish and similar freaky wondrous sea-blobs (some venomous!).

Probably the best thing, though, was hosting Boopsie for the weekend. She got to meet my hooligan choir friends on Halloween, so now she will not recognize them unless they are dressed as woodnymphs, mariachi bands, or alarmingly realistic pregnant ladies. We also went out for brunch at Von's with Tamara, her roommate Joey (real, awesome name: Giuseppe), Sandra, and Steve. They make a mean omelette at Von's and the portions are satisfying but not so much that you can't enjoy a rum ball at the Wild Oat afterwards. We drooled over everything in the display cases at Magpie Jewelry; my favourite was a rather expensive necklace in the shape of very delicate olive branches. It made me want to buy it and wear it with togas forever and ever.

Sadly, Boopsie and I both had schoolwork to do, so much of Sunday was spent bumming around the apartment, working. It was quite pleasant to have company, though, and I was very pleased when she remarked at the bus station that the trip had been easy and we should do this all the time. Both of those things are true!

Tomorrow I am going to see Spamalot with Kristen and Jen. RULAGE! Other upcoming fun includes a presentation I'm giving to our departmental sustainable development committee regarding the EU's Sustainable Consumption and Production/Sustainable Industrial Policy. There is a pretty fab summary posted here, but it is only up-to-date for July. Anyway, should be good times. I have started talking about policy again so clearly it is time for bed. Something raucous is going on outside my building, but I don't anticipate it will stop me sleeping. Arrivederci!

Politics Nerd Time: Yeah We Did!

Hell of a week! The phrase "President-elect Barack Obama" sort of rolls off the tongue, non? I have spent so many hours this week e-mailing particularly good editorials and interviews to other interested persons, and every so often being submerged in these tremendous waves of sentimentality. I hope that this is the start of good things. I think he is a capable, intelligent, and decent man, and I am confident he will stand the tests well. The simple act of electing him has done so much for the image of the United States, but the real work is on its way. There are a lot of things I'd like to see in the first hundred days, so here's a little wish list for you.

Maybe with the legislative and executive branches Democratic-controlled we will (despite Obama's vote on FISA) get some kind of due process back for accused terrorists. That is a relatively cheap step to take, and it might not be complete within 100 days but it could be started. It would also cement international goodwill if America started acting like the land of the free again.

I would also like defence accounting and contracting procedures tightened up, to avoid excess spending on contractors, because there have been some magnificently stupid things done in that arena in the past few years.

The climate change file is about to get even more interesting in the US, so I'll be watching that attentively. Personally, I don't expect the Canadian offer of a bilateral agreement aimed at carbon markets to get much of an airing in Washington. It wouldn't hurt to harmonize the carbon markets, because more reduction projects in the markets would make the markets more competitive, making carbon reductions cheaper, which is a Good Thing. That could be done at the same time as a domestic cap-and-trade system, so long as the accounting procedures were compatible between the two systems so that reductions created in Canada could be applied for US companies and vice versa. The Albertan fear that the fuel carbon standards idea will spread from California may be well-founded, and that could put a serious kink in bilateral relations. It will be interesting to see whether Obama honours trade agreements or tries to follow California's lead and get around them by arguing that the environmental exceptions in GATT apply (there's a decent case that they do, because I wouldn't expect any American-produced oil to have as heavy a carbon footprint as Canadian oil).

As far as the economy goes, I honestly have no idea what should be done. I oscillate daily between the "string the bastards up!" and "bail the bastards out" schools of thought. A more progressive tax plan, such as Obama's proposal from the campaign, would be a good strategy for the slightly longer term. It amused me that some people invoked (gasp!) Sweden as an example of what happens when you have progressive taxes. Yes, it must really suck to have a high life expectancy and raise your children in an environment of equal opportunity for all. Beyond that, well, we'll see. I have some sympathy with Sarkozy and Lula's calls for an overhaul of global capitalism, but I am unsure what, exactly, would replace it. The same goes for health care; I am by no means a health policy expert, so I won't give big strident opinions on that.

Lord, all I ever talk about is policy. And you, gentle reader, have more of that to look forward to, because once I have finished my term paper on the Iraqi security forces, it will probably be turned into a post for this blog.

Remembrance Day Concert

Ottawa area readers, I have something for you to do if you would like to spend this coming Friday night remembering the people who have died because their country asked them to. Faure's Requiem is a great piece, so hopefully you will be able to join us! Please contact me for tickets if you are interested.

\O/

It is snowing! Wet, disgusting slush-snow, admittedly, but still: it is snowing!

Soon I will snowboard. Soon.

Top Speed, For It Is A High-Performance Vehicle

Since I have half an hour before I have to run out again, it seems like an opportune time to update and explain the lack of posting around here. Here is my explanation: I have no explanation, just excuses about how busy I am. What have I been doing? Well, here are a few things.

I went to my first Grown-Up Business Travel Conference in possibly-scenic Rochester, NY (a shout out to the Rust Belt, here). It was a good time and everyone was gracious enough to live up to their national stereotypes. For my part, I did not cause any international incidents by, for instance, abducting attractive Scandinavians as gifts for my girlfriends.

I went home for Thanksgiving, where I attended Jeanne-Marie's wonderful backyard wedding and hung out with my grandma, my aunt, and my uncle from Arizona. We had some truly delicious meals and a very educational afternoon at Body Worlds (my uncle Dick, a retired cardiothoracic surgeon, was particularly informative at the case of horrible obstructed arteries).

After I returned from the Birda, I spent some time in Ottawa with my vater. He was in town on business, so we were both busy - actually, that was kind of nice because I didn't feel I had to host all the time on top of school and work. On top of that, Ottawa (although a lovely city) does not necessarily have a full week's worth of stuff to do any given week in October. We trucked out to Montreal to visit Boopsie at the weekend. We took her out for a pre-birthday brunch and a trip to the Chinese lantern exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. It was a great trip but ended inconveniently with a four-hour drive back to Ottawa, because Quebec construction firms are sadists.

A few weeks ago I participated in a seriously marvellous capoeira workshop. I was just in a good mood or something, because the movements we learned were much harder than what I usually do but I loved every moment, and the game we played at the end seemed to go really well, just lots of good vibes going on.

Not much else to report, really. There is some travel planning in the works for January; lots of stuff needs to get sorted out for scheduling and applications and whatever else. But I have to get going, actually, if I'm going to be on time for my class. Au revoir, tout le monde!

Awkward Photo Opportunity!

That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, "health." But, look, Cindy and I are adoptive parents. We know what a treasure and joy it is to have an adopted child in our lives. We'll do everything we can to improve adoption in this country.

All able-wombed women are cordially invited to send Senator McCain their unwanted babies.

Check It Out: Kiva

I added a link in the sidebar to kiva.org, a sort of microfinance aggregator/interface that puts small lending organizations in developing countries in contact with the people who have a bit of money to lend. Lots of you have probably heard of it before, and it's pretty cool. So far I've lent to a clothing vendor in Ghana and a small farmer in Peru. You don't get a tax receipt apart from the recommended 10% donation to Kiva's own operations (obviously, since you are getting the money back once the loan is repaid). But I think the idea of pumping a little capital into the economy of a country, while keeping it out of the potentially corrupt hands of the domestic governments, is much more valuable than a tax break on a straight donation. Loaning like this lets people exercise the agency to help themselves, which will probably have better long-term results for communities than aid alone.

So there you go. A brief weekend update: this weekend is kind of sucking hardcore. At about noon on Friday, I got a cold, and so now I am thoroughly disgusting and all of my fun plans for coffee and parties and such have been scuppered. My respiratory system is such a piece of junk sometimes. Friggin' Achilles lung.

Unintentionally Humourous Geomorphology Terms, Ed. 1

Dyke swarms.

Rocks Rock

Classes started this week for me (and for Boopsie!). The two I've had so far look pretty good. Saille and I have both of our geography classes together, which was a nice surprise, and other than that it's just international affairs for me. International affairs is going to be a depressing one, methinks: I haven't had the lecture yet, but the readings are all about sexual violence in conflict, terrorism, etc etc etc. It should be interesting, though. My geomorphology class looks somewhat terrifying; in the first class the prof blew through a whole bunch of terminology, seemingly assured that most of us knew all of it already. It was hyperventilation-worthy. Doing the readings so far, I do basically understand what's going on, but I'm going to have to be pretty careful to keep good notes.

It was a bit of a shock to come back to work and school after my Blissful Five-Day Weekend, during which I did as little as humanly possible. I cleaned the apartment, played a lot of capoeira in the park, and went to the movies. I went out to the Barley Mow on Friday night to see Jaime, back from England temporarily. Kristen and I helped Lauren move into her first apartment, which is adorable and in the fabulous Elgin Street area. Her parents very kindly took me and Kristen out for Vietnamese to thank us. Most importantly, I slept a lot (going to bed late and waking up even later is one of my favourite pastimes).

Friday night I went out with Saille and Rosina to Rooke's place - the Red Light Saints are in the Big Money Shot again (and won $5000 in the wild-card competition, which means they now get to go on to play for $40 000, which is intense). I didn't go to the show, though. Instead, I went out with a gang of assorted B.PAPMers to Pier 21 and danced the night away to the sounds of some good recorded music and a medium-bad band. Then I woke up to read about landforms.

One of the highlights of the weekend has been a good exchange I'm having with Emily. She's supporting McCain in the election, and said so in her Facebook status, so I e-mailed her to ask why she connects to his candidacy. On an emotional level as well as a policy level, McCain '08 doesn't work for me in the way it does for her. So now we're basically writing small essays back and forth on why we support one or the other. It's good to have exchanges like that; for me, it prevents me from just drawing a hideous cartoon of People Who Disagree With Me and yelling at it until I feel righteous. Writing also highlights to me the more paranoid and contradictory elements of my leftism (I may triage these into "for exorcism" and "for substantiation" at some later point).

A further highlight was talking with Katie and Boopsie on Skype. They were both online in the early evening on Saturday, so I basically ate dinner with them. It was pretty nice to catch up, and they both seem to be enjoying themselves at school. Boopsie and I discussed, among other things, the soon-to-be-completed epic Harry Potter fanfiction we are reading. Shut up it is awesome OMG.

I am not amused that the writ is going to be dropped so soon up here in Canadia, because the files I am working on all need to start going up the ladder pretty soon and nobody Important is going to be paying attention to them. SIGH.