Obama Arrives in Ottawa Today

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
Barak Obama arrives in Ottawa today for his first foreign visit since taking office in January. Ottawa is the traditional stop for new presidents, although his predecessor chose to visit Mexico first. While the visit is for the most party barely registering on the American media, the Canadian media seems to be going gaga over the arrival.

Obama will be in the nation’s capital a mere 6 hours or so and is not expected to appear in public. Security will be massive, crowds are expected to be large on the hill as people gather in the hope of catching a glimpse of him. -- read more

Intimidation Wins This Battle in Quebec

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
2009 marks the 250th anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. This pivotal event ended France’s dominance in North America and set the stage for the strong English presence. The National Battlefield Commission had plans in place and preparations well underway for a re-enactment of the battle on the Plains of Abraham this coming summer.

Historical re-enactments are a wonderful way to bring history to life, not to mention a great tourism draw, something much needed in the current economy. Quebec city would take a step back in time in an effort to portray life as it was at the time of the historic battle. -- read more

Hugging Is Not Your Right

Posted on: Ides of May
As you might have gathered from the headline, I’m heading into a bit of a soapbox rant. Before I do though, got something I want to share with you. As you know this past weekend was Valentines. I’m not a big fan of Valentines Day, mostly as it brings around a couple of bitter sweet anniversaries.

On the good side, on this date twenty-one years ago my nephew Maxwell was born. Hey Max, happy birthday dude. On the flipside, on the fifteenth, twenty-one years ago, my late husband had the heart attack that led to his death some eighteen months later.

Sometimes though, I come across something that I really can appreciate and this year is one of them. I’ve been messing about on the website Twitter for a while now. Two of the people I follow on there have quickly become among the group of people who I really enjoy their ‘tweets’. They are @MichaelHyatt and his wife @GailHyatt, who both write blogs that I’ve come to enjoy reading. -- read more

Zytaruk Needs Help to Sue Conservatives

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
Tom Zytaruk would like to sue the Conservatives for their continuing claims that the tape which launched the Chuck Cadman affair was doctored. The problem is that he would need a lawyer willing to work on a contingency basis or pro bono in order to afford it. So the defamation of this author continues unless that happens.

The court has found the tape was not doctored. There was a break in the tape, Zytaruk turned it off when Harper walked away from the conversation and back on when he returned. Pretty normal move to make. The Conservatives continue to claim as fact that the tape was doctored. Sort of a tell the lie often enough and it might be seen as truth. -- read more

Do You Twitter?

Posted on: It's All About Money
If you have no idea what Twittering is, you probably are either new or you’ve been ignoring a lot going on. Twitter is a very popular microblogging site which allows you to post(tweet) 140 character ’slices’ of what your doing as often as you want. You follow other people who are twittering and people follow you. You can post about the mundane, the insane, the ups and the downs, the pain and the joy, whatever. The idea is to share and enjoy the interaction.

I didn’t get the whole Twitter thing when I first looked at it. Primary because, like Facebook, I couldn’t see how I could find the time to keep refreshing a website so I could see what other people were doing. Then I started to discover some of the Twitter tools that were available and started to understand the draw. -- read more

McGuinty Would Like His Personal Space - So Back UP!

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
Everytime I see one of those press scrums were members of the media not only have their mics pressed just about into the person’s face but are often practically close enough to kiss them, I want to throw up a wall and push the beggars back. See, I’m one of those people who really prefers to have some personal space around her. I hate crowds and especially ones that you can barely move without coming into contact with someone close by.

So, when I read the piece in the Globe & Mail about Premier Dalton McGuinty asking reporters to stand back about five feet from him, I had some empathy. The piece points out that McGuinty has tried to move reporters out of his face in a good natured manner over the years without success. I can understand that. -- read more

Canadian Heroes to Be Honoured Friday

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
Today’s post was originally going to be about the improvement the Liberals under Michael Ignatieff are enjoying in the public opinion polls. I’m happy to see that change but another item caught my attention. Without those who are part of this item and those who went before them, we would not have the democracy we have. Our opinions as citizens wouldn’t really matter.

I live on a section of the Trans Canada Highway 401 which has been officially renamed “the Highway of Heroes”. It is the section of highway stretching from Trenton (20 minutes east of me) to Toronto (90 minutes west of me) which every Canadian killed in service to Canada in Afghanistan has travelled with their families. It is along this stretch that thousands of Canadians turn out in the frigid cold of January, the searing heat of July and all the weather in between to salute our fallen Canadian and express our collective pain at their loss. -- read more

Ignatieff Slams MIA Prime Minister

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
Ignatieff went after the Prime Minister’s absence from both the House and the public scene when it comes to the economy and the value of the economic stimulus contained in the budget. I watched Obama’s press conference last night and found it refreshing to see a politician speaking very frankly about the state of the economy and how he wanted to see it dealt with.

Yes, I know, he was trying to sell a stimulus package which is receiving largely partisan opposition. It was refreshing to hear that opposition being framed not just as partisan game playing but asking the questions and laying out guidelines for what he sees as necessary for the good of the people and the economy and where there is room for bipartisan cooperation and what wont gain traction with him.

The major difference between the leadership of the two countries is that in the US, the leaders recognized and faced the fact that the economy was sliding towards and over the edge while in Canada, the Opposition parties were sounding the alarm while the government was busy telling us that if a recession was going to happen, it would have already taken place.-- read more

Australia Bush Fires Kill Record Number

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
It’s hard to believe the utter devastation that bush fires in the state of Victoria in Australia has wrought. Almost 800 homes have been destroyed, countless vehicles and other structures, animals and upwards of 160 people and rising have lost their lives. Another 80 are in hospital. Almost 1300 square miles destroyed by raging fires that some describe as sounding like 5 or 6 airliners landing at once.

What is even more mind boggling is that it is believed that some of the estimated 400 fires were deliberately set. According to one report I found, at least two suspects are in custody. Between the drought that Australia has suffered with for months and record hot temperatures, it would take someone with a serious lack of gray matter between the ears to even thinking of striking a flame.-- read more

Monday Again Already?

Posted on: Ides of May
Man, it is hard to believe that another week has flown by again. Last week was busy though. The Legion Executive meeting was on Tuesday evening, I just barely made it in from Oshawa to chair that. Thankfully it wasn’t a long meeting.

Wednesday I spent most of the day cooking the meat for Friday night’s Roast Beef dinner at the branch. The roasts were about 25lbs each. I figured about 4 - 4.5 hours to get them done, putting them on at about 9:30 figuring on getting them out around 1pm and having time to slip into Cobourg to do some errands.

At noon the meat thermometer barely moved, so, I headed into Cobourg and did my errands. Back by 3pm, the roasts were done. All of Friday was spent at the branch helping to prepare the rest of the dinner. Back around 6am on Saturday to get breakfast for about 35 people underway. -- read more

Palin Finds Bloggers “Pathetic”

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
Sarah Palin, the failed American Vice-Presidential candidate, rails against “anonymous, pathetic bloggers” in an about to be released interview with Esquire magazine. In general she thinks that the media coverage of her was unfair.

From what I saw of the media coverage, I thought they were being as fair as they could to her. When someone is basically dumb and then produces behaviour to prove it, the media could have had a field day, but for the most part, they were pretty respectful. -- read more

Ignatieff Allows Protest Vote

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
In the first test of his leadership, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has allowed a protest vote from six Newfoundland MPs. He’s drawn some criticism for having done so but since some of the sources are hacks like Tom Flanagan, a buddy of Harper, I don’t put a lot of stock in the criticism.

For some, the question is how can this be a one time exception? What happens next time Danny Williams brings pressure to bear?

If Ignatieff wants to set himself out as a reasoned alternative to Harper, he might want to rethink the ‘one time’ concept. He may want to giving some serious consideration to serving notice on Harper that punitive moves on any region of this country will resulting in him allowing protest votes from Liberal MPs in that region. -- read more

Cooler Heads Need to Prevail in Trade Issues

Posted on: Out of the Shadows
OK, so US lawmakers have slipped in some “buy American” provisions into the stimulus bill that President Obama is trying to get passed into law. I expect that the people who had those provisions put into the package had the best of intentions towards the thousands (millions?) of Americans currently seeking work or on the verge of losing jobs.

In many ways the policy makes a lot of sense, when the people closest to you are hurting, why wouldn’t you want to move to give them a hand up? In fact, it is a bit hard to believe that any government wouldn’t have that approach as a first line of purchasing, buying from domestic sources if at all possible or even if it might cost the taxpayer a bit more in the long run. After all those firms don’t only pay taxes, they employ people who pay taxes. -- read more

Making Something New Again

Posted on: Ides of May
Monday was a pretty productive day for me. I was able to spend most of the day finishing off tweaking the new look for this blog and then revamped It’s All About Money for a relaunch. There are still a few tweaks but then doesn’t any blog need a few tweaks. Right now, it is more important for me to get content into it.

While Ides of May (this blog) is where I right more personal material, It’s All About Money is where I share the online experience, specifically about online marketing. I have three other blogs that I’m planning on revamping and relaunching in the coming weeks. Yeah, I know, I have to be nuts -- read more

The Sun Shines Today — finally

Posted on: Ides of May
Well, at the moment, the sun is out shining brightly. That is much nicer than what has been going on for what seems like the last week. Last Wednesday we had about a foot of snow in an all day snow fall.

Thursday we were supposed to get some ‘flurries’ which turned into about another foot of snow. Friday started off with flurries, just long enough to force me to cancel plans to attend a funeral and then settled down. Saturday more flurries brought another 6-7″ of the damn white stuff.

So far this winter, we’re only two months into it, we’ve had more snow than we had all of last winter and that was considered to be a high amount. February is not known for being light on snow. So, we have February and March to get through. -- read more