More miscellaneous stuff
Dec. 15th, 2003 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulroThis is likely to get long, so we'd better go
A short break for Stargate and I'm back! I appear to be getting my year's posting out today. Random stuff:
Yesterday we finally delivered the rat cage I bought for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redcountess and reddragdiva many months ago. This involved spending approximately 3 x as much time in the car as visiting, but our mp3 player has an impressive playlist, and our car is comfy, so this wasn't a hardship. We decided not to fight traffic at Brent Cross on the way back and go north up to the M25 instead. This took up through Chingford, which was very Stepford Wives territory. It wasn't till we got there and saw the Christmas decorations that I realized that there just weren't any in Walthamstow. I knew I liked it there for a reason.
Speaking of Christmas decorations, they're up in force around here, as if I need to be reminded I live in White Trash Hell. Every year this area reminds me of *that* episode of Roseanne. There used to be a truly horrendous display at the other end of our road, but it's not there this year. One of the houses is now boarded up with a great load of charcoal and ash out front, and I suspect that used to be it.
And it gets better - Christmas is firework season too!!! At least they set them off a lot earlier with it being dark so early.
We finally named the hamsters. They are Micro, Nano, and Pico (narrowly avoiding being Mum, Wee Shit and Smally Fry). Yes, it has only just occurred to me that they need names.
And now for some current events
I see Paul Martin has been sworn in as the new PM of Canada. I'm painfully aware that his major mission is to un-piss off the Americans to improve trade. Um, dude, the Canadian economy has been doing better than the US even when they hate us. Find new markets. Joining the war against terror and re-criminalising pot to suck up would tick me off a bit, but I'd be severely disappointed if he tried to repeal the legality of gay marriage, because as far as I'm concerned that's a really basic equality issue. However, apparently this upsets important sectors in the US more than things that might actually concern them.
From the BBC, the West's private-sector dogma "risks new Ethiopia famine". They seem to have failed to realize that if there's no infrastructure existing, there's no way to sell it off to the private sector, and since when has the private sector built up infrastructure from scratch?
I still owe y'all a load of quick book reviews, as I've read a few obscure-ish books lately that I think people should know about, but I'm out of steam for tonight. Maybe on my day off on Wednesday, as if I'm not insanely busy.
A short break for Stargate and I'm back! I appear to be getting my year's posting out today. Random stuff:
Yesterday we finally delivered the rat cage I bought for
redcountess and reddragdiva many months ago. This involved spending approximately 3 x as much time in the car as visiting, but our mp3 player has an impressive playlist, and our car is comfy, so this wasn't a hardship. We decided not to fight traffic at Brent Cross on the way back and go north up to the M25 instead. This took up through Chingford, which was very Stepford Wives territory. It wasn't till we got there and saw the Christmas decorations that I realized that there just weren't any in Walthamstow. I knew I liked it there for a reason.Speaking of Christmas decorations, they're up in force around here, as if I need to be reminded I live in White Trash Hell. Every year this area reminds me of *that* episode of Roseanne. There used to be a truly horrendous display at the other end of our road, but it's not there this year. One of the houses is now boarded up with a great load of charcoal and ash out front, and I suspect that used to be it.
And it gets better - Christmas is firework season too!!! At least they set them off a lot earlier with it being dark so early.
We finally named the hamsters. They are Micro, Nano, and Pico (narrowly avoiding being Mum, Wee Shit and Smally Fry). Yes, it has only just occurred to me that they need names.
And now for some current events
I see Paul Martin has been sworn in as the new PM of Canada. I'm painfully aware that his major mission is to un-piss off the Americans to improve trade. Um, dude, the Canadian economy has been doing better than the US even when they hate us. Find new markets. Joining the war against terror and re-criminalising pot to suck up would tick me off a bit, but I'd be severely disappointed if he tried to repeal the legality of gay marriage, because as far as I'm concerned that's a really basic equality issue. However, apparently this upsets important sectors in the US more than things that might actually concern them.
From the BBC, the West's private-sector dogma "risks new Ethiopia famine". They seem to have failed to realize that if there's no infrastructure existing, there's no way to sell it off to the private sector, and since when has the private sector built up infrastructure from scratch?
I still owe y'all a load of quick book reviews, as I've read a few obscure-ish books lately that I think people should know about, but I'm out of steam for tonight. Maybe on my day off on Wednesday, as if I'm not insanely busy.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-16 08:12 am (UTC)Take a look at this from the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/martin_paul/
He's said he'll join the missile defence program - probably on the basis that it has a good chance of getting canned, but while it's running there will be lots of defence contracts that could go to Canadian companies if we're in and it is something that would be a huge problem for Canadian relations with the US if Canada didn't.
Whereas "Martin said Ottawa must take a strong position against "trade harassment from the United States"".
As for gay marriage, I can't see the federal Liberals being willing to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause of the Charter to prevent it being legal.
At most, he might shelve any legislation from being passed, in the same way that abortion was legalised.
Canada is involved in the "War on Terror" (deployed in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf), but the way Canada positions its involvement is more the thing.
Pot will probably get made illegal again - given that Anne McLellan (the Minister of Health who has actively ignored the Court rulings on the matter and dicked around to no end) is now Deputy P.M.