Historicist: Life in Wartime
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
The Daily Photoist: November 9, 2009
George W. Bush made his State of the Union address last night. Among his policy initiatives introduced in the speech were a request to Americans to reduce their gasoline consumption by twenty percent in ten years (while simultaneously claiming American needed to increase domestic gasoline production), and a proposal to tax employer-based health plans to pay for HSAs (which don't actually solve the problems facing American healthcare). An annotated and rather niftily clickable rebuttal of the SOTU speech can be found here. However, they cannot rebut the fact that George Bush's chosen example of the ideal American immigrant is NBA star Dikembe Mutombo. Apparently the plaque on the Statue of Liberty is being changed to read "Give us your tall, your agile, those capable of dunking and rebounding with equal facility."
The city is $422 million behind on paying for the maintenance of its park system. This is especially relevant considering one of David Miller's campaign planks was to spend $17 million on new parks. Boy, that decade of provincial downloading of costs just gets better with every passing day!
As the Maher Arar no-fly-list clusterfuck continues to make Americans look stupid, Canada contemplates a no-fly-list program of its own. Because there's nothing quite like taking bad policy from the Americans and copying it for our own use. It's the political equivalent of illegally downloading "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency warns us that some types of Green Bean Cake contain a sesame filling not declared on the label. So, if eating sesame would kill you - you should probably check out the details there! If you're fine with eating sesame, on the other hand, go nuts on the Green Bean Cake. It's greenalicious.
A labour group representing nearly 200,000 workers begins to lobby Queen's Park for an increase in the minimum age to $10 an hour. That'll be nice, if and when it ever happens, which won't be for years and years!
And finally, now that the Oscar nominations have been announced, the annual painful procession of "hey! This one's a Canadian!" stories have begun. Remember, he's London, Ontario's Ryan Gosling!
Image via Maclean's.
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The ubiquitous hack writer Paul Haggis is also from London, Ontario. When he 'won' the Best Picture Oscar for 'Crash', this city when on a back-patting clusterfuck that lasted for six months and culminated in September 11, 2006 being named 'Paul Haggis Day' in honour of His Majesty's visit to our town. He also had a scholarship and a park named after him.
I don't want to know what Green Bean Cake is.
sigh. Good Grief. OK. As an American, let me first apologize to the rest of the world, although, I did not vote for this man. Watching, listening, reading and living under this person, this Dubyah, makes me sick, embarrassed and ashamed to be an American. His speeches, anything that comes out of his mouth, are lies. He is the biggest threat to the planet. He is a terrorist.
He is a liar, a warmonger, and above all, a complete idiot who can barely form a sentence.
In my heart, I am a Canadian, because I honestly don't care about America anymore or it's redneck, white trash culture of right wing religious nuts and celebrity worshippers. I've given up on any hope for this country, and it certainly is not worth fighting or dying for.
Should I ever travel abroad..."Hi, I'm Steve, and I'm from Canada.
Hey, Steve: I know a couple of Americans that got so fed up with the direction of the country that they recently obtained Canadian citizenship. We'd be glad to have ya, and you can vacation in Cuba.
I've looked into it. It's expensive. All I need to do, mainly, is find a job up there, but companies don't sponsor anymore or as much (so I was told by one recruiter). I'd love to move there. The rent in TO is up there though. I have a pretty good-sized one bedroom here in Rochester and it's only $600...it would easily be $1,000 up there.
Funny you mentioned Cuba. I just watched a DVD about Castro...the opening scene was him and his entourage swimming. The water was crystal clear. Also, if you ever get a chance to see "Buena Vista Social Club" it has some nice shots of Havanna ("Sister Havanna"...whoa, cool song)
If there is anyway your' friends could email me or post just how they went about moving to the Great White North. I'd love some guidance or ideas, I'm flyin' blind here. I did the citizen test (sounds Orwellian) and had enough points. I come up there as often as I can.
Havana is just awesome. I was there a couple of weeks ago and it's too bad that Americans generally aren't allowed to see it considering it's only 90 km off the Florida coast. A lot sucks about Cuba, but it also gets a bad rap in many other areas. Eight out of ten tourists there are Canadian (the rest from UK, Germany, etc.), so it's pretty much the only place we go where we don't encounter Americans.
Yep, it's expensive, but some people I've encountered have managed to get their employer to transfer them to a Canadian branch, which is apparently the easiest and cheapest way since they take care of the visa requirements and, if you're really lucky, moving costs. While the employees are working here on their visa, they work on getting landed immigrant status and, if they want to go further, citizenship. You have to live in Canada at least three years before consideration for citizenship. Dual citizenship is the cat's ass because it allows you to work and visit freely in both countries.
I find the Canadian government's rights and responsibilities of being a Canadian citizen quite interesting.
Interesting. Yeah, Americ-uh doesn't have citizens anymore. We have consumers, test audiences, target markets and stockholders. Well, at least these are the ones who matter. Oh, and those who do take the time to vote................
for their favorite "American Idol"