• Bungaku Shoujo
• End of the Golden Witch
• Hidamari Proof Sketch
• The Reappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
• Heaven’s Feel
• f(Angel Beats)

Oh well.

So you may have noticed that there are a bunch of people in Vancouver who’ll be playing in the snow for the next two weeks. We just had a fancy ceremony to open the next two weeks and of course, the knee-jerk reaction is ‘herp derp China was better’. Which, I guess, is true. This ignores another fact that should be blatantly obvious.

Canada is not China.

I mean, it’s pretty clear. One of those countries has 1.2 billion Chinese people in it and the other has 33 million random immigrants. One stems from an ancient civilization going back thousands of years and the other is a relatively young constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. One is a burgeoning superpower and the other is a modest middle power. The opening ceremonies of an Olympics should reflect the culture of the host nation, so why are we expecting Canada’s to look like China’s?

China used their opening ceremonies to go through how awesome their history and culture is and to show to the world that it’s back. Canada is looking to present its culture, but not necessarily grandstand in it. And well, there is the fact that China has a much larger pool of cool things to draw from. This is why China had 2008 drummers in absolutely perfect coordination and Canada had punk tapdancers with shoes on fire.

Then there’s the cynical side of things. China is an authoritarian state and Canada is a parliamentary democracy. China has the authority and the will to trample over peoples’ rights and sink ridiculous amounts of money into showing the world how great they’ve become. Canada is beholden to the public and its actions are under constant scrutiny and there are always people displeased with what’s going on who have the right to make a fuss about it.

The intent of China’s show was much more clear as it was a show of force designed to awe the world. As a result, they did whatever it took, at any cost, to pull it off. And for the most part, they succeeded in making an amazing spectacle. Canada’s show is completely different in intent, which was more of a ‘hey guys, we’ve got some pretty neat stuff to show you’ sort of thing. This worked out because it meant that the scale and cost and execution didn’t need to be as grand. It was interesting and fun and pretty neat and that was all I was really asking for.

Now let’s see some frigging medals, Canada.

Colour

Colour choices dictate two things: readability and visual appeal. The chief concern should be for readability. That is the purpose for worship slides: to display lyrics for the congregation to read. Anything that diminishes that for any reason is bad. If your slides are hard to read because they suck, then learn and get better so you can offer your best for worship. If your slides are hard to read because you think that they’re prettier the way you have them right now, then you need to reevaluate why you’re doing this and what purpose your work is supposed to serve.

Some basic colour theory is nice to know. I’m not going to go through it here, since Wikipedia and Google can provide pretty much what you need to know. At the very least, you should be able to tell if a colour is too dark or light to be seen against your background. The most basic slide setup you can come up with is white on black.

The other obvious choice is black on white. However, this isn’t such a good setup. The main difference between black on white and white on black is the readability. First, we should remember the setting that we’ve placed ourselves in. We’re displaying lyrics on a giant screen. Generally, each slide should not have an enormous amount of text. Thus, we should have plenty of space to work with and so a light on dark scheme will work better than a dark on light. With the amount of space that isn’t taken up by text, using a light background will create a sort of overwhelming brightness whenever someone tries to read it.

Now that we’ve established a basic starting point, we can take it and make it snazzier. Something I’ve tried and done a few times is add a slight gradient, which adds some depth to the background.

You can also try some other colours in the background.

Or have a shot at having colours and gradients.

Of course, it is possible to make things that don’t look good using this approach.

The key to keeping things looking good is simple and quite noticeable. Try and keep gradients reduced to changing to colours in the same neighbourhood.

Remember that colour is one of the ways that you can set a general mood. Keep this in mind when you’re making slides for a set. Knowing this, you use suitable colours for various themes that the worship leader might be trying to convey through the set. Something that I just thought of that would be cool is if there was a slow, slight change of colour throughout the set, like a gradient, except the colour variation would be through time as opposed to a physical dimension.

Anyhow, never forget to make sure that the contrast remains high. Readability should never be sacrificed. Reading always comes first, as that’s the purpose of the slides. Cool things that add to the mood are secondary. If you are making the slides, you should be able to do both.

So, with a few simple steps, we can ensure that the slides that we make aren’t huge pains to read. We also know how to make things a bit more bright and different and do it, again, without making things impossible to read. So the obvious next step is backgrounds that involve pictures. These open up a series of new challenges that I’ll be talking about in my next post in the series.

The other podcast I’ve subscribed to is The Rissington Podcast, done by Jon Hicks of hicksdesign and John Oxton. The two are fairly recognized (on the Internet at least) British web designers who work at a former air base RAF Rissington. The page has a snazzy design and they are also quite entertaining. They also have some spots that they do like a typeface of the week.

And with that, I’ve run out of things to listen to. While I’m on the subject, I may as well ask for more sites to track on my RSS reader. I’m a fairly picky reader; I don’t read a lot of the large blogs like Kotaku or Joystiq. I prefer small blogs, like 4 color rebellion or The Escapist, since they have this charm to them or reputable sites, like Ars Technica, since they’re usually not full of exaggerated opinion as bloggers are want to do. Also, I’m looking for gaming, technology, or design types of sites.

Unlike that stupid “find x, here it is” picture, this math joke is actually hilarious. xkcd is awesome.

I’ve found Facebook very interesting for learning about people: what they do, what they’re interested in, the connections that you have, the places you’ve been, among other things. It can be very useful. However, there are some wrenches in that people throw into the system that effectively render the system completely useless.

There are a bunch of things that attracted me to Facebook, including the closed networks and the name policy. Closed networks prevents everyone on the Internet from learning everything about you and the name policy stops retarded names from detracting from the experience.

However, there are lots of ways to make Facebook retarded. One of those is obvious: groups. Groups on Facebook right now are awful. While “For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur” is a good cause, it is a horrible group. “Grad Class of 2011″ is slightly better but redundant because unless you’re organizing something through that group, everyone knows when you’re graduating through the normal metadata. There are very few good groups and far too many retarded groups to make groups useful.

Another thing is the profile. I try to fill out my profile as accurately as possible, and this includes filling it out properly. When they ask you for music, movies, and the like, they’re asking you for your favourite movies and music, not your favourite movies and music and little side comments. Here’s a news flash: “David Crowder Band”, “DAVID CROWDER BAND :D LOLOLOL”, and “omg i love david crowder band they are the best in the world!” are not the same thing which defeats the purpose of being able to search by metadata. Why else do you think your music is listed in a comma-delimited list?

Finally, there are the crazy paranoid loonies who are demanding more privacy. Here’s a news flash: any semblance of privacy you think you may have in a place where you give out your information does not actually exist. There are two reasons for this. The first is that this is the bloody Internet where evil men lurk around the corner to steal your credit card number when you touch a computer. The second is that not sharing information runs contrary to the reason for establishing social networks.

The thing about social networks is like anything in life: you get as much out of it as you put in. Social networks are for establishing connections between people through their real life relationships or by meeting new people that have common interests. If you join Facebook and you have no pictures and no information about who you are save for your school and an e-mail address, you’re going to have no friends and find Facebook boring and useless.

Obviously, no one cares about any of this exciting analysis and Facebook will continue to be a place where you express yourself through retarded groups and by posting back and forth on each others walls as if it were some new, unique way to communicate. And the grand experiment that is social networking will fall flat on its face because ultimately, users are idiots.

So then there’s this bunch of users who think this is an invasion of their privacy. These are probably the same people who think Google is invading their privacy. Well here’s a tip I suggest for those privacy advocates: don’t put your information on the Internet if you don’t want someone to see it.

Facebook didn’t break into your house and steal your address and phone number and put it on their website, you put it on their website, so deal with it.

Why don’t you damn kids whine about the real invasions of privacy in our society?

Heat

I don’t know if this is really a defect, or rather a pretend defect. The Macbooks were perceived to be unnaturally hot, but it’s not like it’s burning. Well, I can’t speak for the Pros, but I’ve been able to use the laptop just fine on my lap when it’s under load. My Macbook usually idles around 60 C after a few hours and went up to almost 80 C while playing Civ IV.

Fans

On some Macbooks, there’s a phenomenon called the Moo. When the system reaches a certain temperature range, the fan will go on and off, because it’s at the borderline between when the fans go, producing a mooing sound. I’ve never had this problem.

Discolouration

This is the big one I was worried about. I’d read a few weeks prior that my Week 27 Macbook was susceptible. Fortunately, after the two week line, and now one month, no yellowing was found.

Sharp Edges

I found the edges sharp upon first use. I don’t know, as I used it more and more, I can now rest my wrists without having the edges cut me. They don’t feel that sharp anymore, either.

Magsafe

Apparently, the Magsafe can melt and the power brick can cause a buzzing sound. That hasn’t happened to me, and I don’t charge it while I’m sleeping, so the Magsafe causing a fire won’t happen, however unlikely.

Airport Kernel Panic

I was worried that when I went to Waterloo and started using the wireless, this would happen. Luckily, I have acquired a wireless router and found that Airport is not causing any problems.

Decision

I think that the “defects” are not particularly widespread and only occur to those unlucky people who will always inevitably be out there and have bought a first gen new product.

If you search on the Internet, I’m sure you’ll find tons of articles talking about how easily the average person is just giving away their rights without a second thought. I think the problem is that most people don’t understand what their rights are.

Freedom of speech is the one right that everyone knows about. I think it’s the only one everyone knows about. I don’t think anyone would give that up quite as easily as, say, the right to remain secure against unreasonable search or seizure. The problem from what I’m seeing on the news is that people don’t realize it’s a right and treat it as a minor inconvenience. I mean, being inconvenienced is a small price to pay for being safe against the threat of terrorism, right? Do you think people would be as willing to be stopped from carrying a can of coke onto a plane if they knew that this was a right of theirs, like free speech?

Why do we have a right that protects us from being searched? Why do we have laws that protect our privacy? Is it to make it harder for the honest government to protect us from terrorists?

Democracies have these rights because governments can’t be trusted. That’s the reason why there are three different branches, so no one institution has all the power. That’s why Americans have the right to bear arms: so if the government starts oppressing them, then they can raise a militia and fight back. That’s why our elections are by secret ballot.

That’s why we should be questioning the wisdom of banning all liquids on flights. Think about it, the human body is two thirds water. If a someone wanted to bring liquid on board a plane, they just need to bring themselves. Humans are liquid making machines. And what’s next, banning solids because terrorists start making solid explosives?

Part of the appeal is being able to pick a team and root for them just because you like the country. I mean, no one really cheers for the Leafs just because they really like Toronto. South Korea doesn’t have to have really good players for me to like them; I just like them because I’m Asian and they actually have a shot at the World Cup, or at least they did in 2002.

So I watched the final between Italy and France. I chose Italy, because I like France less. I found the first minute hilarious because Henry runs smack into another guy and gets like a concussion or something. I thought that first goal that Zidane got from the penalty was really cool. He shoots it off the crossbar and it goes straight down, just crossing the line.

I’d say that Italy had a really good first half, especially after Materazzi heading the goal in from the corner and almost doing it again. After that though, I thought that France was almost scoring a lot, while Italy was really having trouble getting over to France and getting into a good position to score. Some interesting moments were the almost goals. One by Italy, when that guy flew a bit and kicked it in but was offside, and one by Zidane with an awesome save by Italy’s goalkeeper.

The most random moment was the one I think a lot of people will be remembering. That crazy Zidane’s headbutt, out of nowhere, almost as if for no reason at all. If I were a France fan, I’d be like “wtf zidane”. The headbutt itself looked pretty funny. I mean, Zidane just jogged a bit past the guy and it seems like everything’s fine. He turns around and out of nowhere, rams into the guy with his head. And it was going so well for them too.

To my disappointment, there was no supermagic comeback like there was for Italy against Germany, which would have been really exciting, and the whole thing was decided by penalty shootout, which I think is kind of anticlimactic.

Anyway, I thought both sides played well, so good job Italia.

It seems like I have to replace (upgrade) everything once I get into university because everything has something wrong or grossly inferior about it.

I’m not a huge sports dude, so the only time I follow athletics is when something like national pride is on the line. Case in point: Salt Lake 2002. Gold-medal hockey. Canada vs. USA. And boy did we hand kick them in the pants. Very nice, watching it at my cousin’s on their projector. See, that’s national pride there. We weren’t about to let the Americans take the medal for our game. The best part was at the end, when the camera was pointed at Dick Cheney after the Americans got beaten by us.

Another time was World Cup 2002. My AZNsian pride flared up as Japan and Korea were both doing surprisingly well. Japan lost somewhere about halfway and so everyone was watching Korea as they caused an outrage when they whooped Italy and went on to the semi-final match.

And now, there’s Torino. Quite honestly, unless something comes up in hockey again, I’m not going to be that interested. However, with the advent of the Olympics, I always enjoy having a look at the host cities. That’s one of the reasons why I wasn’t that interested in Torino. There’s just nothing there to me.

The 2008 Olympics, however, holds a bit of significance to me. The 2008 Summer Olympics are hosted by Beijing. There’s that Asian pride thing going on again. But, Beijing beat out the city I believed should have taken 2008: Toronto.

From what I’ve read, Toronto easily had the best bid of the bunch. The only reason Beijing won was because of politics. It’s not a secret that Beijing was pretty much already decided before the vote even began. Toronto had the best plan and some ingenuity in its Olympic plan and it would have really beautified the city’s Harbourfront. The reports had nothing bad to say about Toronto. And even though Beijing was the heavy favourite, the report still mentioned something about human rights issues in China.

The Olympics were going to a country with a particularly bad record of human rights abuses over a city with a solid bid because they were promised a games after they lost seven years prior.

The thing that gets me is all that could have been. The vote happened in 2001. It’s five years now since the host city was decided. Think about what would have happened in that time. At the moment, the TTC just raised fares again, no one really likes living here and the government is playing tug-o-war with funding for the city. Instead, we could have a totally awesome downtown and skyline being under construction, have tons and tons of funding for the city, and have some pride in our city.

But thanks to Beijing, all of that is going to Vancouver. In fact, some would say the reason Vancouver is getting the 2010 Winter Games is because they felt sorry for Toronto. That, of course, makes no sense since Toronto’s not feeling any more prideful any more than the Harbourfront is getting prettier. And so Toronto got screwed over again, and for at least another decade or so.

I remember about three general elections before this. And before that, Kim Campbell and Brian Mulroney were allegedly in power. Imagine that, I was alive when they were still in power. I say allegedly because, being six and under, I don’t remember a thing about them. So much like my friends, I have basically lived my whole life with Jean Chretien as the Prime Minister.

So once I started learning about the terribly exciting world of politics, Jean Chretien was leading the Liberals to majority after majority, Joe Clark returned to attempt to save the Progressive Conservatives, Preston Manning had just hatched the Reform party, the NDP were getting screwed after Ed Broadbent left, and the Bloc were those guys from Quebec. Some things just don’t change.

The hugest changes came in 2004. By this time, I’d already learned how the political system works here in Canada. The first change was that the faces changed. Suddenly, Jean Chretien was gone, Preston Manning (and Stockwell Day, I guess) was gone, the Progressives were gone, Alexa McDonough was gone, and Lucien Bouchard was gone. The other change was that the Liberals were starting to slip.

Finally, after 12 years of the Reform rising to form the opposition and the Progressives getting knocked down to nothing, the new Conservative party, which is approximately 80% Reform and 20% PC, gets into power. In fact, let’s forget that the Conservatives include Progressives, since they are mostly Reform. A party that was created just over a decade ago has gained power and kicked out one of the oldest parties in the country.

Also, the Conservatives, hardcore Westerners that they are, managed to snag some seats in Quebec, and ten seats at that, where before, they had none. They also managed to take quite a bit of Ontario. Of course, even with all of those breakthroughs and all of the screwing up the Liberals managed to do during the campaign, they still came out with only 124 seats. Compare that to the Liberals with 133 seats in the last Parliament and 103 this Parliament.

In a hilarious turn of events, Belinda Stronach is still in office over in Newmarket-Aurora. Heck, if I were a Conservative, I would be bloody pissed off at Stronach for crossing the floor. They must really like her.

The other surprising win was Michael Ignatieff in Etobicoke-Lakeshore. Ignatieff is the Harvard professor who won the Liberal candidacy by default, although a lot of members of the riding association think that there’s a conspiracy to get him into an easy riding so he can take the Liberal leadership. He’s also taken some flak for his views on the war on Iraq and torture.

Other than the Liberals, the other loser party, I think, is the Bloc. They came into the election thinking that they’d take over Quebec and ended up losing seats. I think that much like the fear of Conservatives in Canada, the fear of the sovereigntists at the last minute made people think twice and go for the Conservatives, which paid off handsomely for them.

The other winner is the NDP, who went up eleven seats. I was worried there in the last week of the election that they’d screw up with Layton practically begging for votes. In the end, they made a lot of gains.

The riding I watched closest was definitely Parkdale–High-Park. This was where Sam Bulte was MP. In case you missed my previous posts, Sam Bulte was the MP who had a hand in the awful, awful proposed copyright reforms and who held a fundraiser hosted by the music, movie, publishing, and software industries, who have the most to gain from copyright reform.

Basically, Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and founder of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, called her out on the fundraiser and she responded with vitirol. The story spread quickly all over the Internet and her refusal to acknowledge that this looked really bad at a time when politicians have an obligation to not arouse any suspicion, made it worse.

In the last days of the election she called anyone who opposed her pro-user zealots, threatened to sue Michael Geist, and write an editorial in which many of her points were lifted from the Canadian Recording Industry Association’s own materials. In the end, her constituents booted her and replaced her with the other NDP candidate to take a Toronto riding from the Liberals.

And now a few words on the next government. I don’t think a Conservative minority is a bad thing, unlike a few of my friends who see the Conservative government as the sign of the coming of the Antichrist. Change is what Canadians wanted and change is what they got. But, they are not aligned with Conservative ideals and the minority reflects that.

Contrary to popular belief the government will not fall in two weeks. The opposition has an obligation to try and keep this going for as long as possible. If they don’t, the party responsible for the government toppling will be getting some hate from Canadians. The result is that Canadians will vote in a Conservative majority just so that some idiot party won’t go forcing another election.

Besides, the Liberals need time to get their party sorted out what with Martin stepping down. Also, the NDP are in the best position they’ve been in for a while. The Bloc can probably get some more power to the province thing going with the Conservatives. Of course, Stephen Harper can’t just go around doing stupid things like giving free votes on gay marriage or anything for the next two years, at least.

Those kids…

Unfortunately, the stereotypical adolescent who is apathetic to affairs of the state and would rather go on blasting gangsta music in the halls and what not holds true to about 90% of our school population. This week was the pretend vote for students. It’ll be interesting to see the results, considering most students have no idea what’s been going on, as my friend who’s been going around to home forms conducting the vote. It’ll be interesting to see how this year’s Grade 10 Civics classes manage to do with an exam coming up in a week or two.

In English, my teacher brought up a discussion about how some politicians want to raise the voting age to 21. Of course, for the impressionable teens that we are, we steadfastedly refused such a proposition. Yes, a lot of people in that age bracket don’t care, but apathy runs across all ages, genders, and races and any other demographic.

Of course, my arguments (which always pop up after we have a discussion) are that (a) prisoners get to vote and (b) 18 and ups are legal adults. Why and how could anyone attempt to void the right of legal adults to vote? I mean, if someone were to seriously try that on the 18-21 year olds, I can promise you that all hell will be raised by those young’uns. Hell, look at what happened when the Liberals got Elections Canada to remove the advance polling stations on the U of T campus. Not a good idea, especially after the York U students fought hard to get a polling station on their campus.

What happen!!

Anyhow, what I really want to do is to play political analyst. No, I’m not going to be impartial. It’s not in my nature. But the campaign has been an interesting one and will continue to be, I’m sure, right to the very last minute. Keep in mind that I am a high school student and I may very well be BSing and not realize it.

First of all, everyone knows the Liberals are screwed. They managed to do every conceivable thing wrong. If they manage to form another government, they are invincible, and we should just welcome our Liberal overlords.

Concerning the Liberals, one riding I am definitely watching is Parkdale–High-Park. This is Sam Bulte’s riding. I’ve talked about this before, but basically, Sam Bulte is having a fundraiser for her campaignWhich she has recently claimed is not but is still referred to as such on her own website. held by interests that have a stake in the copyright legislation that she has a hand in. The result is Bill C-60, which would introduce harsh, American-style legislation akin to the DMCA, which has chilled innovation in the States. This has caused quite an uproar on the Internet. If you’d like to understand why that’s a bad thing, I’m going to point to Lawrence Lessig’s excellent presentation on Free Culture and his book with the same name.

Anyway, enough of the Liberals. Let’s have a look at the Bloc. Most people don’t realise this, but the Bloc and the Conservatives are really polar opposites, about as much as the NDP. From what I understand, since the two major parties in Quebec have always been the Bloc and the Liberals, the Liberals could be seen as the right wing in Quebec. Since the Conservatives don’t really have that much power in Quebec, they’re not seen as an option, kind of like how the NDP is seen as the third man across the country. The best they can hope for is to have some sort of representation in that region.

But yes, the Bloc has Quebec in the bag. And they are really super socialist. I mean, look at their education system and their child care system. I guess that’s one of the reasons why the Conservatives aren’t gaining the support they really wanted there: they’re way too right-wing for them.

The Conservatives and the Bloc do agree on one thing though: provinces. They think the provinces should get more power. It’s easy to see why the Bloc likes this. When the provinces get more power, it means that Quebec gets more power. The problem I have with that is that it seems like it’ll destroy any semblance of national unity we already have. Think of the States. Their federal government does not have the sort of power over a state like ours does over a province. This is pretty much thanks to Trudeau.

Which brings us to the Conservatives. It’s interesting to read things about the history of the Reform party and the Progressive Conservatives and how they got merged. Basically, when the PC and Alliance merged, a lot of PC members jumped ship, most notably Joe Clark, who lead the country for a short while as a Progressive Conservative. Also, the Reform party, formed by Preston Manning, basically got created because a lot of Westerners thought they were getting shafted by Ontario and Quebec. Thus, the birth of the Reform party.

Now, if you lined up the parties in that traditional line, you’ll find that on the very left were the NDP and Bloc. Heading towards the centre were the Liberals. A bit further right and you would find the Progressive Conservatives. At the very right, you have the Reform party.

So not only was the Reform party born out of regional concerns like the Bloc, they were more extreme than the PC. The Reform party is generally considered to be neoconservative. Unlike the former Progressive Conservatives, the Reform party’s policies are very much in line with those of the Republican party.

Which brings us to today. The resulting Conservative party is much more like the Canadian Alliance than the Progressive Conservatives. As a result, a lot of voters that have traditionally gone PC because of their moderate conservativeness, have gone over to the Liberals during the last election.

Having had a Liberal government for a good twelve or so years, Canada is going to get its first jolt of change in a very long time. The funny thing about this election is that no one really wants the Conservatives in power. Most people would have been content with the Liberals if they didn’t go and screw around with taxpayers’ money. The reason the Conservatives are getting voted in is this sense that the Liberals should be punished, at least a bit.

This is reflected in the polls. At the beginning, the Liberals were enjoying a moderate amount of support. As the campaign dragged on, one thing after another kept on slamming the Liberals and the result is the Conservative minority that the country is headed towards. Now, if you look closely, you’ll notice that Conservative support peaked at about 40%. Soon after, their numbers dropped. Why? Because people don’t really want a Conservative government, and they sure as heck don’t want a Conservative majority. With 40% of the popular vote, a parliamentary majority is a very realistic outcome in Canada.

The thing is that people don’t really want to be more like the States. We don’t want Star Wars. We don’t mind Kyoto. We like services. We don’t want more tax cuts for the rich. We want more education funding. We don’t like private health care.

And lastly, there’s the NDP. The NDP are in a really bad position. Those who don’t want the Liberals to win aren’t going NDP. Those who don’t want the Conservatives are also not going NDP. This is particularly bad, especially because they caused this entire thing to happen. Yes, they are getting a few more seats, but with the Conservatives in power, I don’t think there’s much they can do short of bringing down the government again. I really like a lot of the NDP’s policies, especially on education and copyright. They’re a party that really should have more influence on the country but don’t for whatever reason.

An Opinion

Now then, what do I think?

Contrary to what most of my peers think, Liberal is not the way to go this election. They’ve screwed up way, way too many times to be forgiven. I’m not referring to their last term, which has been quite acceptable, but their campaign. They’ve bungled it too much and have pretty much destroyed the hope that they could lead an effective government.

Contrary to the flow, I am vehemently against the Conservatives. That largely has to do with my personal beliefs and political leanings. However, I don’t think it’s a good idea to vote for the next big party simply to punish your party, especially if you don’t want them to be creating policies for you. This seems to be the mindset of a large number of adults who’ve voted Liberal by default.

This is also the mindset of younger people (younger than myself). It’s always seemed like they’re Liberal supporters because that’s the default. So if the current sweeps towards the Conservatives, they’ll follow because they don’t know who to vote for. The default is the easiest route.

The other reason to vote Conservative has to do with religious affiliation. A lot of people are voting Conservative simply because of moral and ethical issues. That, I think is one of the biggest problems for the church, especially in America, where the Republican party is so closely associated with evangelical Christians.

I’m going to diverge a bit with this. It’s been noted many, many times that when the church gets too close to power, it strays away from God and becomes more worldly, relying on things like political power rather than on God.

Take America, for example. I’m sure we are all aware that the current President is George W. Bush. It’s a fact that many people voted for Bush simply because he is a Christian. Generally, if you are a Christian, you are pretty much in the Republican camp. This, I’m sure has had dire ramifications on the nation.

The inverse effect is that if you’re a liberal, you’re not considered a Christian. I’m not talking about the hurray for gay marriage liberal. They mean liberal as in ‘not conservative.’ And it’s not just the morals thing. Apparently, privatization is a very Christian ideal and publicly owned institutions are not. Tax cuts are Christian but medicare is not.

Let’s have a look at what Conservative policies generally encompass. Generally, they defend tradition, such as ethics and morals and the sort. They’re also usually very hands off. They’re big into privatization and tax cuts. Those sorts of things generally benefit the rich.

The big issue for Christians in Canada is gay marriage. There are lobby groups that are calling for all decent people to vote Conservative so they can bring in a free vote in the House of Commons. The question I would like to ask is how we can expect a government that is held accountable by the people and ultimately governed by the people to refuse something like gay marriage in a society that prides itself for protecting the rights of minorities? What happens when the free vote produces the same outcome?

The problem I have with this kind of voting is that most people who do so do it at the expense of all the other issues. Public health care, education, national unity, and economics all goes down the drain when faced with moral issues. Screw the poor people, I’m not going to let them gay people get married! And people wonder why Christians get labeled as crazy right-wing fundamentalists.

Finally there’s the NDP. Personally, there’s always been a sense of embarassment around sympathizing with the NDP. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they never win. But during this election, things have worked out such that the NDP remains my only choice. Again, their policies resonate with me. Also, their effectiveness during a minority government has encouraged a few more would-be NDPers to actually vote for them this time around.

This post was really a result of all the thoughts I’ve had on the election but haven’t had a chance to write down because they’d all form a bunch of tiny posts. Put together, they are a collosus of opinion. I’ll be back with another post soon after the election to talk about the results and maybe what we can expect.

I really wish I could vote in this election because there are a few issues that will affect me and I’ve taken a side on those issues. Unfortunately, I will be turning into a legal adult 42 days too late. Also, I wished I were in some other riding, because our MP is going to stay here until he dies. I mean, he once had the highest margin of victory here. But yes, a few things happened on the way to January 23 that has changed my opinion dramatically.

I remember at the beginning of the election that I thought that the Liberals were going to win, even if a minority. Why? Because the opposition forced an election too early. The Conservatives were still scary, especially after a few attempts to bring down the government before. The NDP just switched sides. And everyone doesn’t like the Bloc.

One thing I wasn’t expecting was the Liberals to mess up as much as they had. They had a very clear shot at victory again, but one thing after another just made the public’s opinion of them plummet. Really, it’s amazing how crappy they are at keeping things low profile. As a result, the entire province of Quebec is going Bloc just to spite them and everyone else is going Conservative. Those lefties who got tricked into going Liberal are probably going back to NDP to salvage their pride.

I have two main concerns with this election: Internet and copyright law, and education.

Education was simple. It’s either Liberal, with their newly announced education plan and the fact that they never delivered on their last promise on education from last time, or the NDP with lowering tuition 10% and just being the student friendly lefties that they are.

Internet and copyright legislation is something I’m following very closely. I obviously don’t want Canada to fall into the trap and emulate the travesty that is the DMCA. So I checked out CIPPIC and was checking back every so often for party responses.

The first question was “Do you agree that we need legislation to protect Canadians from harmful technologies like the Sony-BMG rootkit DRM?” and the Liberals responded with:

The Liberal Party of Canada supports technology that protects digital artistic content and we will continue to work hard to facilitate consensus amongst stakeholders in copyright matters. We introduced a wide ranging piece of copyright legislation in the last Parliamentary session that encourages creativity and protects the rights of creators, while ensuring diffusion of knowledge and access to cultural products.

Wait a second. Read that carefully. Read the question. The question is asking whether the party agrees that Canadians should be protected from the Sony-BMG rootkit. The Liberals respond saying that they support Digital Rights Management. It seems to me that they missed the entire point.

The other day, I was reading Boing Boing when I came across a post about a Canadian MP, Sam Bulte (Parkdale-High Park) who was a steadfast supporter of US-style copyright legislation (think DMCA) and was getting a fundraiser from the recording and publishing industries, to name a few.

Without going any further, does anyone else see the problem here? Here we have an MP supporting harsh copyright protection legislation and the industries that stand to benefit most from that legislation is giving her money. Is it legal? Yes. Does it raise suspicion, especially in a government that has been brought down by a sponsorship scandal? Yes.

Here, we have echoes of what is going on in the States: corporations essentially buying (they call it lobbying) laws. Upon further inspection, it is revealed that Bulte’s campaign is the only one to be funded in this manner. Also, it’s not only Canadian interests, but those from the States are supporting her as well. What happened to keeping out of our election? What’s worse is that she’s basically the author of this amendment to the Copyright Act and she’s pretty much next in line to become the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Of course, being posted on Boing Boing and Michael Geist’s blog, the story got picked up by blogs all over the Internet. And as with most things that happen on the great big Internets, the mainstream media has picked it up as well. The Canadian Press, CBC, and Toronto Star all have coverage.

The thing to notice here is how Bulte and Henderson, President of CRIA, respond. “I’ve done nothing illegal.” “These people have become my friends.” “This is part of the political process.”

It seems that everyone but Bulte sees what’s wrong with the picture. Either that or she doesn’t believe we can put two and two together. If they are your friends and you are responsible for legislation that benefits only them and they raise money for you, isn’t it possible that the public will raise some serious questions about your integrity? Let’s not forget that the Liberal Party of Canada has not exactly shown itself to be the epitome of integrity, even during the election.

So, in effect, the NDP just won my (useless, since I can’t vote yet) support. They haven’t screwed up like the Liberals have and I agree with them on many more counts than the Conservatives.

There is much more to the Bulte and copyright story and I encourage you to have a look at the links and links on those sites for more. I will end off with a nifty graphic (as the Internet is full of nifty graphics) from The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

EDIT
This story talks about how the Conservatives are ahead in the polls and features a funny picture of Harper in front of a Quebec flag. A little Inkscape magic and we have the successor to Gilles Duceppe!

The first half of 2005 was more Grade 11, so school was pretty uneventful. No stress, no mad panic while tracking marks, no mad rush for assignments and tests. There was the extremely retarded March Break placement that pissed me off to no end.

There were a few exciting things that Hosanna and church brought. There was the huge Easter production that took plenty of manpower and long days to put together. There was Project T-DOT that took a lot of time hanging around downtown and at church to also put together. I think I blew about $50 for food while we were scouting downtown. And as always, every March Break brought TC and serving on the Stage Crew was another wonderful time. Then there was the double dose of summer camp at the end of summer. Yes, nothing like sleeping in a flooded tent.

Starting in 2005, I got into the whole web standards thing and got pretty proficient with building structured sites. Being involved with web standards, I guess it was inevitable that I would get introduced to the wonderful world of blogging and begin to kick my own blogging up a notch.

Once May rolled around, it brought two things. The first was Star Wars Episode III, the least sucky of the Prequels. On the other hand, it did forever taint Darth Vader’s name in the last five minutes of the movie with the NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

The other thing that May brought was paid hosting and my migration to WordPress. Ever since I got my site up and running, I have been continually tweaking and improving it, even today. In fact, I upgraded to WP 2.0 this morning.

With my growing interest in web standards, I happened upon the archaic art of typesetting and learned the joys setting documents semantically and structurally with LaTeX. It has improved the quality of my lab reports 230%. With typesetting, I also delved into the even more archaic art of typography and scoured through many books on typography and grabbing as many high quality fonts as I could.

And of course, we had the first half (approximately) of Grade 12. Yes, the past three years were completely useless. Grade 12 is the determinant and it makes me wish that the universities did care about the first three years, since the current setup makes it seem like a bloody waste.

But yes, Grade 12 brought all sorts of stress and rushing of assignments that were unheard of in the entireity of the last three years. You’d think they’d ease you into it like they should, but no, it drops like a frigging hammer.

And ever since I submitted my unversity application, there has been a constant stream of university talk emanating from me. Heck, we even went to Waterloo for the open day and I am now quite acquainted with the campus there.

And now there is only six months of crap school between me and university. That is quite discouraging. Of course, at the beginning of the year, there was ten, so I do believe progress is being made. Hopefully, something exciting will happen again and distract us from the gloomy reality that is crap school.