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Quotation of the day: "Nothing says Christmas like Richard Nixon."
And now for a political rant! To wit, WTF is going on up north!? Proroguing Parliament!? I can't believe Steven Harper was craven enough to choose possibly undermining Canadian democracy over letting his government go down. I mean, it's a parliamentary system for god's sake, the whole point is that you can get back in when you're on the outs. And seriously, let's think who else in Anglo-British-Canadian history had a habit of proroguing Parliament when it displeased them? Oh yes, that's right, Charles and Jimmy Stewart (all four of them)! Now, if memory serves this habit led directly to the elder Charles' head being forcibly parted from his shoulders in front of Whitehall in 1649, and to his son James being run out of his own kingdom in the Glorious Revolution of '88...which, among other things, directly caused the atrophy of the monarchy into the spavined figurehead institution that it is today. Not that this was not a great victory for Liberty of Commerce, Religion, and diverse other good English ideas, which we here in North America have taken and run with. But it is an illustration of the fact that proroguing Parliament is never a good idea in the long run.
SPEAKING OF POLITICS, we watched "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" recently and while I on the whole enjoyed it (triumph of the geeks! more Riley! and more of Abigail and Benjamin, who are cute), I was unable to wind up comparing the whole Cibola thing with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," to the benefit of the latter. Props to Helen Mirren for being awesome on general principles, though. And yay for the movie's trumpeting of Lincoln. I'm about to pull out that ethical biography of him that I received for getting the ΦΒΚ Award five years ago and read it, in celebration of 44.
And now for a political rant! To wit, WTF is going on up north!? Proroguing Parliament!? I can't believe Steven Harper was craven enough to choose possibly undermining Canadian democracy over letting his government go down. I mean, it's a parliamentary system for god's sake, the whole point is that you can get back in when you're on the outs. And seriously, let's think who else in Anglo-British-Canadian history had a habit of proroguing Parliament when it displeased them? Oh yes, that's right, Charles and Jimmy Stewart (all four of them)! Now, if memory serves this habit led directly to the elder Charles' head being forcibly parted from his shoulders in front of Whitehall in 1649, and to his son James being run out of his own kingdom in the Glorious Revolution of '88...which, among other things, directly caused the atrophy of the monarchy into the spavined figurehead institution that it is today. Not that this was not a great victory for Liberty of Commerce, Religion, and diverse other good English ideas, which we here in North America have taken and run with. But it is an illustration of the fact that proroguing Parliament is never a good idea in the long run.
SPEAKING OF POLITICS, we watched "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" recently and while I on the whole enjoyed it (triumph of the geeks! more Riley! and more of Abigail and Benjamin, who are cute), I was unable to wind up comparing the whole Cibola thing with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," to the benefit of the latter. Props to Helen Mirren for being awesome on general principles, though. And yay for the movie's trumpeting of Lincoln. I'm about to pull out that ethical biography of him that I received for getting the ΦΒΚ Award five years ago and read it, in celebration of 44.