I try not to get involved with American politics. I educate myself from multiple world sources regarding the latest to come out of the White House, their current position in foreign assistance or whatever else gains my interest.
I am not a student of American history so I leave it there. I read, learn, form my own opinions and avoid a soapbox. I feel that politics can start a pretty heated debate, and is not my intentions with this post.
AP – President Bush next week will request a $439.3 billion Defense Department budget for 2007, a nearly 5 percent increase over this year, according to senior Pentagon officials and documents obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. link
Quoting from Islamic, Jewish and Christian texts, rock star Bono called Thursday for the U.S. government to give an additional 1 percent of the federal budget to the world’s poor. link
I feel strongly about foreign aid, and I would like to see more of the G8 countries help out. Programs such as DATA or Jubilee 2000 are a great start, and so is this. Sadly I don’t think this 1% is going to have the same impact that the additional 5% will be making. It is a matter of priorities and I think it is clear where the US is continuing to head.
Unfortunately this post preempted a U2 dedicated post being published tomorrow. Expect a decade worth of U2 review in my next post. I was in the middle of writing it up when the above news clippings came in on my RSS feeder. I felt they were more important to post tonight rather than tomorrow morning. Also, I am not one wanting to mix politics and music together.
It’s really the lesser of two evils when it comes to politics. I wrote about my political feelings in Government Talk back in December so consider this a follow up.
I am confident in the party I’m voting for, but there are some policies they have that make me shake my head. And after a little more reading this idea of having one really incompetent policy is shared by other parties as well.
For example, the NDP wants to abolish the Senate and lower voting age from 18 to 16. At 18 I had no interest in politics so I doubt a 16 year old would be much better.
The Green Party wants to introduce ?women? only seats in parliament. Sure, these guys are kind of playing in their own sandbox anyway but women got the right to vote in 1918, so how is this still relevant?
Lastly we have the Bloc. Next to the Green Party this crew is looking out for Quebec’s own interest, and their out there policy is not so much surprising as it is stupid. They want to make Quebec its own country and expect to live in a happy utopia.
I would like a party to not have some of these crazy policies. Maybe all of those policies can be scooped up and given to the Rhinoceros Party as they make their epic return to politics.
We go to the voting polls in January and I have been trying to educate myself more on the policies and stances of the different parties. I feel like I have been coasting as a Canadian in the last five years so want to correct that in 2006.
In all honesty, politics bores me. The process on how items get taken care of is lost on me and usually forget which building in Ottawa takes care of what. A lot of dirty laundry gets cleaned on Parliament Hill and that’s all I know.
One hot topic for me is our connection to the Crown. My concern is the the needless spending that past Governor General Adrienne Clarkson did on her $5 million plane ride to three countries, or $90,000 rug in Riddeau Hall or how her spending doubled from $10 million in 1999 to over $20 million in 2003. But that isn’t one of the topics in this years election so I will quietly wait until the Queen passes on or a party actively takes this up as well.
Foreign aid, gun control, taxes and health care are all big topics this year; just as they were last election. Some things never change. When I took this quiz I realized how much each party is very similar on those topics. Take one view, and skew it just enough times to make it seem different for each of the four main parties. That’s the way it feels when you look at the parties on a whole.
I think the important facts in the Gomery Report are being overlooked by these “hot” topics when we still have a party in charge that was responsible for the sponsorship mess. And in the last week their popularity has gone up, of all things. I’m sure the government was always in a messy state but it’s not until you educate yourself about it do you realize that putting this country back together will be about as successful as rebuilding a Jenga stack in the dark.
Well, I got that out of my system. Now for something we hope you really enjoy. Once I have become a rich, rich man off of my famous Pancake House I think I will go into desserts. Jenna’s family knows of a recipe that uses Ritz Crackers and Skor Bar pieces with the perfect delicious blend of chocolate and salt. I want to further investigate the dessert qualities of Ritz Crackers. Perhaps offer it as a nice option, order a 10″ pancake and receive a mystery Ritz dessert? Order the 12″ pancake and receive two mystery desserts? This will require a few years of market research, but it’s for the greater culinary good.