Snowed in On Christmas Eve

I'm working from home this morning. It took us 1.5 hours to clear the driveway (WITH the snow blower. yikes!). We finished just around the time I would have to leave on a non-snowy day to make it to work on time. But... The road wasn't plowed yet. Still isn't, so I'm not going anywhere for now. We have about a foot of snow on the road and a nice big snow bank blocking our road at the end. We have to head out to Sister Sarah's this afternoon, so hopefully the snow plow will come by soon, if not, the neighbours have apparently said that they will help push us out of the snowbank when (not if) we get stuck.

I've been diligently working so far this morning. I am heading back to windsor from Jan. 5 to 8th so I need to get stuff organized for that, but after 2.5 hours of work, I'm mostly there. Funny how much more efficient you are when you aren't getting bugged by people all the time! I have some other stuff to work on that isn't high priority, but I might as well get started on it so that I won't have to worry about it later. When I was working, Arash played Snowblower Santa Clause and went around to help all the neighbours get out of their driveway. Now everyones ways are clear, we just have to wait for the city plow to come by our street!

And Now for Something Completely Different

No more political ramblings for this girl ;) At least for now.

So it has been a busy 2 weeks in Laura Land. I made the mistake of saying I wasn't completely busy on the 8th and I have been swamped since then. My Desk looks like a drawer expoded or something. The week of the 8-12 was busy scrambling to organize a field program for a Phase II in Windsor that has a short timeline and then last week I was in Windsor from Monday night until Friday night. Boo! Just where I wanted to be right before christmas.

The 12th was A's Christmas Party at work. I sometimes feel awkward around his coworkers since I have like 0 in common with most of them. His boss and I get along wonderfully, but she didn't go this year. My solution this year. Drink too much. Yep, totally mature. The 13th we planned to get our christmas shopping done, but I was nursing a hangover to end all hangovers and we only ended up getting a little done. I was feeling better by the evening though and managed to stay up for the christmas baking extravaganza which was fun as always. We missed QC and EK, of course, but EL, JC, and Robin were great additions. Sunday we cleaned the house and I think that is mostly it.

Last week I worked 60 hours. Boo! Test pitting Tuesday and Wednesday, Drilling Thursday and Friday. We still aren't done the work, but will be back in the new year to finish the work. We probably have another day of drilling and test pitting and 2 days for GW sampling and surveying. Fun.

Saturday we finished our christmas shopping. We ended up staying in Woodstock and hitting up a bunch of different stores - Winners, Staples, a local stero store, home depot, a local pet store and a local camera store. We ended up crossing everyone off our list, and avoided crazy mall parking lots! It actually wasn't too bad, and kind of pleasent. I'm glad we decided not to head into London/Kitchener.

Sunday we watched movies, shovelled the driveway (we are in a winter wonderland right now. There is about half a metre of snow on the ground. We shovelled the driveway this morning between 6:30 and 7 and by 7:45 we had another 5 cm of snow! ack!) and wrapped our christmas presenets, so we are almost ready to head off to Belleville. We just have to pack our bag and work another 2 days. Christmas plans are shaping up to be another busy year. 24-26 in Belleville, 27-28 in Ottawa, 28-31 in Quebec skiing, 31-1 in Belleville, 2-4 in Woodstock. Yikes!

The Coronation of King Ignatieff of the Liberal Party of Canada

I think the title speaks for itself. I’m neutral in this year’s leadership race. Kennedy came out to support Rae yesterday, and others from his camp have supported Ignatieff. I personally remain neutral. Why? Simple – I don’t like either candidate as leader of the Liberals.

Rae. I like Bob Rae. I always have (except perhaps in 1995 when he was defeated by a crushing majority of the Neo-Con Harris Conservatives who cared more about their own pocket book than the social wellness of Ontarians. Rae has a bad wrap, I think mostly because he was leader of the wrong party. He was a centre-left NDP in a party that had now room for anyone so close to centre. Yes, he was elected leader of the party, but the members of the NDP tried to overthrow him several times. The NDP didn’t like him because he was too centre; the Liberals and Conservatives didn’t like him because he was NDP. Long story short, Rae ruled Ontario in one of the toughest economic times in recent history, and took the flack. Much the same as Michael Peterson is still widely unpopular. Rae could not be as strong in Ontario as the Liberals need to be to win a majority government. He would likely do well in Cities, but I doubt he would be strong in Rural Ontario that has gone conservative the last two elections.

Ignatieff. I don’t like Ignatieff. I never have. Sure, he is an intellect. Sure, he has a smidgeon of charisma. But the guy does NOT no when to shut-up. He is smug. He feels he is entitled to the Liberal Leadership. On top of that he is a little too right for my liking and I think he would have been better suited with the former PC party than the Liberals. At the last leadership race, the Ignatieff supporters were so obnoxious in their refusal to work with the other leadership contenders should one of them win. They full out said they were joining the conservative Party the next day. They refused to believe that the party grassroots were strongly against Ignatieff and to a smaller extent Rae which lead to the selection of Dion as the leader in the first place. Based on my experience from the 2006 leadership convention I am certain that the Ignatieff supporters worked behind the scenes against Dion since 2006 and are partially to blame for the poor showing in the last election. My Liberal party has no room for those kinds of actions.

This being said, I was all ready to accept Ignatieff as leader. I think that he is more electable and I feel his supporters would again undermine the liberal party if Rae had been selected as the leader.

Now, the latest political gossip is that Rae is set to drop out of the leadership race this afternoon. The thing I like the absolute least about the liberal party is the elitism of the Party Brass and the lack of respect for the Party’s grassroots (myself one of them. I never belonged to the Federal Liberals until Gerard Kennedy joined the Leadership race). The fact that the party brass was going to appoint a leader without consultation with its members is absolutely mind boggling. I strongly suspect the Party Brass is also behind the strong arming of Bob Rae out of the Leadership race.

I have already mentioned this to a friend in e-mail, one who doesn’t like to make her political affiliations generally known, but if this is the way the Liberals are going to act, I’m not sure I will support them anymore.

A Few Thoughts on a Thursday Morning

As I sit at work organizing field files from projects over the summer that need to be filed away permanently, I’m anxious to see the outcome of the meeting between Harper and Jean this morning. Obviously, as a supporter of the Coalition, I hope that Jean will deny prorogration pending Harpers proof that he has the confidence of the house of commons. We will learn all that our great Country is to face within the next few hours. But it does give me cause for some thought.

1) What if Jean denies prorogation like the majority of voting Canadians wish? Will the conservatives attack the office of the governor general? Is this the beginning of the end of Canada being a Commonwealth Country? I have a feeling, that if prorogation is denied that conservatives across the land are going to rise up and denounce the office. They will cry, not for Senate Reform, but for abolishment of the Senate, the Governors General, and everything in the country that is Commonwealth. I think that they would have every right to this opinion, but I personally don’t support it. I think it could possibly be a future referendum question that divides the country. Then again, if Jean goes against the obvious will of the House of Commons and grants prorogation, the pro-coalition supporters might call for removal of the governor general.
2) I think all this week is doing in my mind is cementing the idea of proportional representation/mixed member proportional representation. I voted against it in the Ontario referendum last year mainly because I couldn’t wrap my head around it. This week is giving everyone a good idea of how it would work. Likely, the PM would be Liberal, NDP, or Conservative, but they would have to work with other members of parliament and represent the majority of Canadians, and I don’t think this could be a bad thing any more. Coalition governments would no longer be rare, they would be an every day occasion. Unless a party elected has greater than 50% of the seats, they will have to prove that they can work with other members to pass legislation before they are given power. It took a constitutional crisis, but I’ve finally wrapped my head around the idea of mixed member proportional representation, and I think I like it :).