Canada
45 posts
Eccentric Canadian citizen Rafael “Ted” Cruz announced he will run for the Presidency of the United States. Cruz, who was born in a foreign country and is as ineligible to hold the office of president as say, Fidel Castro or Mitt Romney’s dad, is much-beloved by as much as 4% of the GOP electorate, and is expected to be a serious contender for the GOP nomination until actual primaries begin and real votes are cast. Cruz, a Canadian, represents Texas, the place he lives now, not Canada, the foreign land of his birth, in the US senate. Continue reading
Canada and the United States are in many respects two very similar countries. Founded as white colonial settler societies, both are now developed capitalist democracies, with functioning multi-party (more or less) politics. In some very important ways, though, Canada and the US are very different countries. The United States has developed a national attitude of rugged individualism, premised on distrust of government and the notion that everyone can succeed and climb through society if they work hard enough. Canada is much more communitarian, turning more to society as a whole, with an attitude of trust in, and deference to, government. Why is this? What made our two countries so similar yet so different?
Canadian-born U.S. senator Pablo “Ted” Cruz announced he will renounce his Canadian citizenship and defect permanently to his adopted homeland, the United States. Cruz, who is widely expected to seek the Wingnut Republican presidential nomination in 2016, had come under increasing pressure to explain the circumstances of his birth to Republican leaders who are obsessed with vaginas and things that come out of vaginas, like babies. Continue reading
It’s Canada’s 146th Birthday. In celebration, today’s post will focus on Canadian made products. Try not to get all emotional. Continue reading
In February, randyfmcdonald and I wrote about just how useless the Senate of Canada is and the expenses scandal engulfing the Senate. At the time, the scandal was (by Canadian standards) bad enough, with various Senators claiming money they weren’t entitled to, and questions arising as to whether those Senators were even constitutionally qualified to hold their offices. Continue reading
In the past week, the Senate of Canada–the upper house of the Canadian parliament, the chamber where politicians appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister lend their sober second thoughts to legislation put forward by the House of Commons, has been getting quite a lot of bad press. Two senators appointed by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper have been singled out for apparently abusing the Senate’s housing allowance, claiming that since they live somewhere far from Ottawa they need a special subsidy: Mike Duffy, of Prince Edward Island, hasn’t been seen by his claimed neighbours, while Patrick Brazeau of Québec faces criminal charges of domestic violence and sexual assault on top of housing expense fraud and any number of other tawdry claims ranging from non-payment of child support to stupid fights on Twitter. Continue reading
It all started with brunch at the Border Café, a no-longer-extant, Tex-Mex restaurant on the Upper West Side. The draw was not the huevos rancheros, however; it was the free, unlimited Bloody Marys*, margaritas, mimosas and Santa Fe Slushes. We thoroughly overstayed our welcome, by a couple of hours, to take full advantage of the drink offer and draw questionable pictures and slogans on the table-top butcher paper with the crayons they leave out for kids.
The conversation turned to the name of the restaurant and a discussion of borders. The group having established that the closest one was with Canada, one diner volunteered, “I have a car!” at which point the one woman with us quickly bowed out.
Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada: New China
It’s a frigid October afternoon. I’m walking towards a Chinese restaurant suggested by Lonely Planet. About halfway there, I see about a dozen middle aged Chinese men (obviously from Mainland China based on their hairstyle and the way they wear their white collared shirts) cramming themselves into a 15-passenger van. With toothpicks in their mouths and loud, satisfying burps, I can tell that they just ate. They came out of New China, which was not my destination. Continue reading