i'd give it a 4 and a very short review: it's boring.

i'm fighting with facebook, today. i don't expect to get much done. but, we'll see how long i'm awake for...

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22796-future-politics/

some good news out of ontario. they're panicking, clearly. but, these are the right choices.

this is what they have to do.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-hydro-bills-global-adjustment-kathleen-wynne-1.3975946

and this is long overdue, but it's good to see some movement.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/ontario-mercury-clean-up-1.3979912

there's a section at the end where a former trump insider explains that trump actually sees canada's immigration system as a possible model to emulate.

i hope that that is correct.

and, i hope that it is a bit of a wake-up call for justin trudeau, on that file.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVj53-eYC0E&feature=youtu.be

He is a strong proponent of Canada joining the U.S. missile shield as a way to modernize NORAD.

“If the North Koreans are able to fling missiles at the United States, there is no reason to think they couldn’t go off course and miss Seattle and hit Vancouver,” he said. “Absolutely we should be in their missile defence because it is in both countries’ interest. It’s not a favour to them, it’s a favour to us.”

john manley is a strange animal in canada - he identifies as a republican, but in a politics-of-government sense rather than a partisan sense. that is, he thinks that canada should be a republic, that it should have a president. and, why do you think that is?

it should be noted that this is not just an issue of an unusual position in a vacuum. in articulating a system of centralized federal power that minimizes provincial power, canada's separation division of powers was explicitly designed to prevent the states' rights issues that led to the civil war in the united states (our date of founding is july 1, 1867). our system of government at every step of it's development has been designed to prevent the errors made in the united states, rather than to emulate them. this isn't an empty statement of superiority; rather, we should thank the americans for making these mistakes for us so that we don't have to. i'm merely drawing attention to the ahistorical position that manley holds. canada has always sought to learn from the mistakes of america, and has never sought to emulate it.

this is important, in context, because this position on north korea misunderstands or glosses over the broader geopolitical problems around canada making itself a target. the missile defense shield is of course not about defending anybody from north korea, but about an offensive weapons capacity aimed towards russia and china. by stationing missile defense equipment inside our borders, we are creating targets for hostile actions by the asian powers. we need to be cultivating our relationship with these asian powers, as they will be important in the context of a melting arctic.

it follows that volunteering to work in the missile defense is a stupid tactical position, unless canada plans to cede it's sovereignty to the united states - which is why previous governments have rejected it.

there is also the issue of boycotting it as a means to prevent it. should the russians ever send a missile over the north pole, it's going to get shot down over canada and leave debris on our soil. it may even be strategic for the russians to send missiles over (via north korea) with the intent of damaging the oil industry. why would we sign up for a system that would leave us as a wasteland if it was ever implemented?

this is an issue that snuck up out of nowhere. the liberals opposed the bmd under paul martin. when did this position change? and why wasn't there a public discussion about it?

supporting bmd is not in the national interest. it threatens our relationship with asian partners and puts us in increased danger of attack, as well as increased danger of fallout.