The new Budget

Some background on the new, very "generous" Canadian budget, here.

Look, I agree that it's a generous budget. It begins to address a lot of the austerity imposed upon Canadian social programs over the last decade, so I won't emphasize the thousands of marginalized people who were left out in the cold during that time, the lives destroyed.

I hate to sound like sour grapes, especially since the worst impact on my life was a lack of grants when I was going to university, but I was one of the lucky ones.

End Game

I kind of feel like the Bush administration is in the early stages of spinning around the proverbial bowl. Make no mistake, he still has power and influence. It's just diminishing rapidly. Did I mention I like Sid Blumenthal?

...but then you see articles like this:

Re: my last post, THIS is why US politics is more interesting than ours. Can you even IMAGINE this happening in Canada? (OK, maybe I could...) Nonetheless, these are crazy times in the Good Ol' US of A.

Remember how little it took to get Clinton impeached? The mind boggles.

Local Politics

For some reason, I have a hard time getting as excited about local politic as I do about US politics. Certainly, the global impact of American politics is much greater, and the Yanks sure know how to ramp up the drama, but still, I should pay more attention to what's going on in my own back yard. Especially given the fact that the effects on my life are much more immediate.

That's why I subscribe to The Tyee. It has an independent perspective on local politics that offers me a great alternative to the mainstream press.

I don't think I'd have found an article like this in the Vancouver Sun.

Dad and Missyfitz

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Originally uploaded by Fitz in Van.

This is a picture of my dad and my wife, taken when he was in town for our wedding. I'm testing this Flickr thing to see if I can make it work, and I thought it would be a nice pic to start with.

...seems like it works nice and Kentucky.

Insurance profits

I've often said insurance is a scam; a necessity, yes, but one that doesn't fairly reflect the needs of consumers. Articles like this only bear this belief out.

Told Ya So

Well, I didn't myself...but I read others making this prediction long ago, and it made sense to me then, and doesn't surprise me now that even the CIA admits it's true.

You'll need a free subscription to the Washinton Post to see this article, but it's worth it.

Gannon-gate

This story has been bouncing around the blogosphere for a week or 2 now, but leave it up to Sy Blumenthal to put it all together.

Credit must of course be given to AmericaBlog for doing so much legwork on this case.

posting a picture

I tried including a picture of myself to my profile, but apparently Blogger doesn't like Yahoo pictures' url format. I'll keep trying. Let's see if I can do it here, in the body of a post...


...nope, not liking it.

Oh well. Maybe a different site...


Getting (re) Started

Well, it's been a long, long time since I last posted. The problem is, I read a lot of established blogs, and I get a bit daunted trying to be as intelligent, interesting and articulate as Atrios, or Joshua Micah Marshall or even my friend Infidelia.

So what I'm going to do is just put up any random thing that occurs to me and hope some kind of coherence emerges.

Here's my wife, Missyfitz.

Ain't she cute? She's a redheaded sassafrass and I love her. She has a blog she actually posts to, and it's good enough to make me feel a little bit insecure too. But I think by just free-falling here onto the page, I might break through, and actually create something worth seeing.

We'll see...