Ah, the old "Gen X 40" election logo. I came up with that over five years ago during the 2005/06 campaign. Remember that? Remember when people blogged about elections and even paid people to do it? That was nuts.

Well, break out the 8-track player and the wide leg jeans because we are going back for a nostalgic trip into the world of dead end social trends and gonna blog the swan song for either Iggy or Steve. Sure, it's all about Twitter now but that's a bit wobbly still - Steve seems to think it's just like email.

Today's story? Iggy pumping up a packed ballroom in an Ottawa hotel. We've had three successive elections with the Grits led by duds. It would be great if Iggy actually turns out to be a good campaigner.

I love it. You can't put a price tag on democracy but entering into the semi-annual surprise Federal election process does give one pause. But only a pause because there is nothing better than watching otherwise civilized Canadians saying bad things about each other. The funniest thing and the populations secret giggle is that all parties would rules us exactly as we would have them govern. No one likes a deficit except in a time of crisis. Everyone likes playing the line between peacemaking and peacekeeping. Nobody fails to enjoy watching how badly our leaders fare in actual debate. Me, my vote is mobile this time. All bets are off. My mind is like a calm cool pool of water unaffected by the slighted whisp of a breeze. No, I have no idea either.

• I created a new Twitter feed, CanVote2011. Nine followers so far. After beer blogging faux fame-like status in my mind, this is a shock. 2006 is a long time ago.
• Iggy? He will do better than expected and there's no one to be thanked except Harper for all the negative ads. It worked with Dion because it was true.
• The Tories have a similar if opposite problem posed by the 1 out of 20 poll that places them up by 19%, a falsehood that no one takes seriously but believers. He will now have to face an immediate fall from position.
• The news equivalent of a headline reading "Sandwiches Made With Bread!"
• I am not sure that Johnny Bower on Afghanistan is the opinion I was waiting for but what the hell!

Running. I am running. It's too late. But at least it's writ day... maybe.

Sorry. You can't have a hereditary monarchy and pretend that's socialism:

Saudi King Abdullah demonstrated how effective socialism can be when he announced on Friday that — purely out of the goodness of his heart (oh, and also out of fear that the population might get antsy and try to oust him) — he’s handing out goodies for everyone. $100 billion worth, give or take. Civil servants will get a bonus worth two months’ pay. Students will get an extra two months’ living allowance. The military and security forces will get 60,000 more jobs (just in case the population doesn’t take the hint and clam up already with its complaints).

It's one of the saddest things about Internet based comment that words like Nazi and socialist get all bundled up into "thing I don't like" or "thing that other people do that I don't understand. Hitler, for example, has to be socialist to make sure that there was never right-wing dictatorships. Now, apparently, one ruler holding absolute unlimited political power in the state based on birth is socialism. Brilliant. But, then again , why bother with fine points when it's only the conclusion that matters, right?

Growing up in Atlantic Canada, one had to expect an election somewhere in what no one called "Canada's New England" every year or so. Inevitably, one party or another ran on the slogan "Time For A Change!" mainly because, if elected, they were going to administer exactly the same as the bums they wanted you to turf governed. Pints of rum for votes. Gravel for supporters' drives ways. A little something for themselves. Haven't we hit that now in a lot of ways? And it doesn't just have to be the suits. Tyrants? Hockey concussions? Winter? A lack of baseball on my TV? Change's time is now.

• It Was Thirty Years Ago Today Update: shopping in 1981. Sweet Neil Diamond lp acquisition moment framed in time.
• Harper tells Canadians in danger you are on your own in Japan but sends in the secret paratroops for oil workers in Libya? Irrational? Time for a change.
• Namby pamby refusal to say wrong is wrong and right is right? How many chances do you get to drop the ball? TFAC! [Ed.: err... does that work? Yes!]
• My new favorite local history fact is that the Island of Tonti, now Amherst Island, was named after a 1600s Italian adverturer pal of Frontenac called Henri De Tonti. Continued refusal to admit our Baroque Italian past? Tempo di cambiare!!
• Faceless Battalion? These guys should have their own bubblegum cards. I heard somewhere that they are asking old men to do it as it takes so long to pass away from radiation. Forget bubblegum cards. Statues for fearless average joes. 変革の時!!!
• Guys dating their granddaughter's friends and then scamming public funds with them? Well, that is just yikky.

There. Next week is spring. Can't stop it. Time to run. Can stop that either.

I've taught overseas and one of my co-workers even had a run in with useless Canadian embassy officials but this sort of stuns me in the face of one of the worst disasters in history:

A Toronto man living in Japan says the federal government is “providing no help” to Canadians wanting to know if they should leave the earthquake and tsunami-ravaged country, especially given the nuclear threat. Phillip Ilijevski teaches English in Takasaki, about 100 kilometres north of Tokyo. He called Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to find out if it’s safe to stay in Japan, but says the only advice they gave him was to watch the news.

Warnings of repeat tsunami performances, nuclear plants teetering on the edge of meltdown, civil services collapsed and hundreds of thousands potentially dead - and you ask an embassy official if it's safe? So, if they said "yes" and a nuclear plant goes all "end times" would you call them back and complain? If they said "no" would you pack your bags and leave without any other consideration? Watch the news? Good advice. Because it's hours into a crisis of unknown proportions and no one has a handle on it. Good advice.

Cold rains washed away the last of the sidewalk ice yesterday. With two full years now past since the deepest depths of the recession, it even has a feel like things are going to be different this year. This summer, I do things. Not like last summer. This year I will rearrange the shed. To make it more of a hideaway. Maybe I will think about that a lot between now and June and, who knows, it could happen.

• Tsunami's edge.
• Big ball game tonight. I sure love big ball.
• I sure hope that Benghazi is not the new Srebrenica how about a no sail zone to go along with a no fly zone?
• Best children's book ever made of two books I never quite got.
• The landscape of my imagination is filled in inordinate part with recollections and stories from this place.

Only one more edition of the Friday bullets before spring comes. Every year I look forward to napping with the windows open. Beats the hell out of winter napping.

I have been reading a lot this winter. Lots and lots of histories - mainly US but plenty about the founding of Upper Canada, too, though those texts are fewer and far between. Right now, I am reading John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father by Francis J. Bremer, a book about the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony founded in 1630 a decade after the Pilgrims hit Plymouth Rock. It is a great ride, covering his grandfather's birth in 1480 to his own death in 1648 and contextualizes his life in the ebb and flow of the state's regulation of religious practices from pre-Luther to the lead up to the English Civil War, also the name of an excellent song by The Clash. But this is the key bit. The middle bit to his sermon to his fellow passengers on the event of their departure to New England from the Old World:

... for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are going...

See that? The new order of New England shall not only be a candle on a stand rather than under a bushel (basket) - but if they were to screw up "wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants." That is a heavy burden but one that acts as a prophesy, reaching to today from 381 years ago. What was the way to avoid having "prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us"? Worship of those other gods, pleasures and profits. And also failing to make "others Condicions our owne rejoyce together, mourne together, labour, and suffer together, allwayes haveing before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke." Pinkos! I see Pinkos! Pinkos like me!

Next time you hear about how American was founded on faith, you may want to agree in part and note that what sort of Christian by which it was founded.

It got warm and then it got cold. The river froze again into a mirror. People are skating miles offshore. Ice sailing boats speed smoothly at sunset. There should be another word for this other season. If there is Indian summer what is the name of the time between the thaw and sugering time? Portuguese winter? Fool's spring? March.

• I like mine via a splash of infused oil over mac and cheese.
• Outrage from the loss of a political status it never had, and a right to impose it's will over the majority of Canadians. A functioning disproportionate Senate should be cause for Ontario to quit Confederation.
• Didn't I say this in about 2006? Maybe not to the point of this but I was in the ballpark.
• Comfortably mid-table. Nothing wrong with that. Just aim for ties from here on out and we'll be fine.
• They can't make the playoffs, can they? I mean are they even allowed?

Already late. Must go. If I only had an ice boat.

Hearing Justice Alito, at least a form of originalist, had dissented in the very difficult case of the foul mouthed wacko protesters at a military funeral had me running to read his words to see how he got it wrong. Because when folk who claim to a certain level of purity go out on a limb, well, that is when you find out what is really going on. And there is it in the second paragraph of his opinion [warning: .pdf]:

Mr Snyder wanted what is surely the right of any parent who experiences such incalculable loss: to bury his son in peace. But respondents, members of Westboro Baptist Church, deprived him of that elementary right.

See, no matter how awful and stupid the protests were, not matter how hurtful their effect... they did not trigger a "right" of the parent. A right is a relationship set out in law. Do we have a right to be left alone in grief and respected? No, because we should have respect at that moment as a matter of cultural norm. Decency. The members of Westboro Baptist Church were unbelievably indecent and, frankly, clearly have a higher authority to answer to in the Christian construct for their act of judgment. But there is no right. Free speech, however, is a right in the US constitution for which there are legal protections. To balance that, Alito needs to make something up which he does at page 11 when he states that funerals are unique events at which special protection against emotional assault is in order. Where does that come from? His sense of decency. Which is great and admirable and what we all wish for. But it is not of the constitutional order of things.