Elections are special times in Canada where we, as a nation, can temporarily put aside our politeness and superficial notions of post-modern tolerance. Only at election time can we properly revile each other over our political affiliations. Gone are the usual “Well, you can believe what you want” and “good for you, glad that makes you happy” mentality. Usually polite neighbors can now truly express themselves by saying “How can you vote for that party? Are you stoopid?”

Maybe we take the gloves off because election results can actually affect our wallets.

Anyway, I am a bit of a news junkie, especially for Canadian politics and I will be glued to various news sites and some TV coverage. So, for the next few weeks my wife will once again be an election widow. Thankfully the Canadian election cycle is brief and intense. The American system would put serious strains on Naomi’s patience. Two years is too long for election coverage!

He survived the systematized killing chambers and doctors of death of Nazi Auschwitz, and went on to create his own.
The Nazis systematically killed millions of powerless people, he has enabled many more millions of powerless people to be murdered.
They eliminated undesirables that they thought would undermine their society, he eliminates undesirables that may cause future crimes (by unloved and unwanted children).
Their worldview didn’t see their victims as people, nor does his worldview see his victims as people.
He claims to prevent crimes and murders and save lives by taking lives.

His name: Dr. Henry Morgentaler, recipient of the Order of Canada.

I have this foreboding feeling that my family is going to have a very unwelcome visitor.. one you dread its coming and wish for it to leave, but are virtually powerless to prevent. This intruder isn’t a person, it is the Canadian government.

Usually, the news is a good antidote for happiness and contentment, but a couple of stories have stood out recently and gotten lots of attention in the press.

#1:: A Quebec court allowed a 12 year old girl to take her dad to court over his refusal to allow her to go on a school field trip. The judge decided that it was “excessive punishment” and permitted her to go on the trip.

An editorial in the National Post says this on the issue:

The courts have no business — none — in such routine family matters. This ruling is so profoundly intrusive we can only hope the Quebec appeals court strikes it down, and quickly.

A 12-year-old Gatineau girl repeatedly disobeyed her father’s rules about staying away from Internet chat rooms that he deemed inappropriate for a child her age. Eventually, she chose to circumvent his rules by going to a friend’s place to access Web sites he had banned her from viewing at home. She then compounded her disobedience by posting salacious photos of herself on one of the banned sites. So the father grounded her, telling her she could not go on the year-end camping trip for her Grade 6 class.

The girl, whose parents have been divorced for a decade, then left her dad’s house and moved in with her mother, even though the father has 100% custody. But because she still needed her father to sign the consent form for the field trip, she and her mother convinced a court-appointed lawyer to take the father to court.

www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=602849&p=1

www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080620/
Quebec_appeal_080620/20080620?hub=Canada

#2:: An unelected Liberal Senator brought forth a motion in the Senate to criminalize spanking.
www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/
20080618/spanking_senate_080618/20080618/

While her motion passed in the Senate, it still needs to be approved by the House of Commons. The Senator has already stated that she will continue to bring this motion forward until it is accepted and made a law and she has been able to erode parental control and decision making.

Whatever you think on the issue of spanking, I think most people would agree that it is a decision that is best left up to the parents, not the nanny state.
_______

Does the state really know better than me how to raise my children? At times I think that they barely know how to run themselves, yet alone my kids. Should they have the right to stick their nose into my parental decisions that will affect the future of my child’s development? They already have the education system, now they want my home.

And what about the ideas being promoted in general in our society? After several decades of increasingly liberal ideas of parenting, are they showing dividends in better behaved, more respectful, better balanced children who become better behaved, more respectful, well balanced citizens? No.. I think most observers would agree that our society is not on that idealistic upward spiral. Look at the problems faced in our school systems, workplaces and the general increase of other societal problems.. The spiral is going down, not up.

What are parents to do? On one hand some politicians are trying to interfere in families by saying spanking is a criminal activity and other forms of discipline should be use. On the other hand we have courts setting legal precedent that parents don’t have the right to ground children. What is left? If this continues, then the decision making and leadership of families will shift from the parents to the children and the government, neither of which I trust to be making parenting decisions.

Where is my pen, I’m writing my Member of Parliament.

This past week has been a major deep freeze here in the West. In the last few days it has now warmed up to a lovely -20C. This blast of coldness has confirmed something that I have long suspected. For me it is now a profound, deep, meaningful truth:

Cold is cold.

When a comment is made about how cold it gets out here in Western Canada I have often heard people console themselves with the statement “But it is a dry cold”. I don’t find that comforting. I have also heard people talking about my home region, the East Coast, and exclaim that it is such a damp cold there, and that a -10C temperature there is far worse than a -20C here.

I will now testify that that isn’t true. Cold is cold.

Weather for Sackville, New Brunswick today: Freezing rain warning, -9C, 64% humidity
Weather for Olds, Alberta today: Cold, -29C, 70% humidity – colder and more humid than Sackville which is going to get freezing rain.

A few days ago we had a low temperature of -34C (-29F). Even then humidity was hovering between 69 and 74%. Not very dry, but very, very cold.

These observations prompted me to further investigate the claims of “its a dry cold”. A quick Google search turned up this weather lore from The Weather Network:

I know many who have experienced cold stress, especially those of you on the Prairies, may take exception to this, but the assumption that dry cold is better than damp cold is largely a myth. Soldiers exposed to severe cold in climate controlled cold chambers did not find damp cold any more penetrating than dry cold, and if you consider the physics of heat transfer, the differences between the two are negligible. But why then do the majority of Canadians prefer dry cold to damp cold? One’s perception of comfort or discomfort while exposed to cold air depends on several factors but let’s just consider the weather conditions. Cold, dry days have usually sunny skies, high pressure and light winds – weather that is much more pleasing than overcast skies and shivering wind chill. Also soaking up sun’s rays only adds to your comfort. So there’s good reason to believe that you’ll be more comfortable in a dry cold than humid cold, but it’s not because of the difference in humidity. Of course, all this assumes one is not perspiring, his or her clothes are dry and it’s not raining.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/index.php?product=help&pagecontent= faq&pagecontent=weatherlore

Moo = Ask me if this is a dry cold.

There you have it. Empirical evidence that the perceived benefits of a dry cold is a myth.

The whole world is reeling as a result of consumer and corporate greed.

Subprime mortgages allowed people to purchase the dream homes they really couldn’t afford. Banks wanted to make more money off of the consumer. Things got bad for buyers. The house of cards got wobbly and started to collapse.

We can look at the history books at what happened in the Great Depression and see the simple mistakes in fiscal policies that led to that financial collapse. I don’t think we learned much since then..

Sitting here in Canada I wondered how such an obviously dumb thing could happen again, not realizing the impact it would have around the world. In my ignorance, I thought it would have some big problems for our southern neighbors that would spill over some into other nations’ economies, but nothing like what is happening. Our global economy is incredibly inter-linked.

Banks in London and other European nations in trouble because of the US housing market?
Canadian banks writing off billions?
Talk of the US dollar being abandoned as a currency backing in foreign nations?
One in forty-five US homes possibly facing foreclosure?
Worldwide recession?

Turns out that mortgage debt was being traded all over the world, so the impact may be global. Because of house buyers and corporations wanting more.

Greed has a price, and the whole world may have to foot the bill.