Coup D'etat

My god. 7 weeks after a federal election put the Conservatives in power by a hair, the three main opposition parties are ganging up to form a coalition government and bring the government down in a non confidence vote! Rather than having another election, they propose to run as a coalition for a couple of years. It's happened once before in 1926 so there's precedent. The Conservative government had pretty much no plan of attack to deal with the economic crisis and that's what spurred this on. Or rather, that's the excuse they needed to implement what was probably their plan all along, who knows? There doesn't seem to be a whole lot PM Harper can do though he may have the option to "prorogue" the legislation session which is basically closing down the parliamentary session until he can put a new budget together later in the winter which will probably still bring down the government if the Liberals and NDP have their way. Stick your head in the sand, Harper but it's not going to go away. At the head of the table is beleagured Liberal leader Dion who was going to quit after the dismal showing in the recent election but he'll stay on and be PM until a leadership convention in the spring replaces him. You can't make this stuff up!

The Conservatives compounded the problem with a sneaky little deed this weekend that came back to bite them in the ass. A Conservative MP was accidentally brought into a conference call that was set up to discuss the coalition. What did he do? Damn right he participated, and he taped the whole call and then sent it to the media!!! I don't know if the idea was to represent the other three parties as conspirators but it only made the Conservatives look sneakier and more underhanded. Doh. So it's going to be interesting watching all this unfold.

Now, my book and my reading glasses, that i'm sure i'd put in my canvas tote bag, aren't there this morning. I'm hoping they're on my shelf at home and i'm just getting a vision that they probably are. I took some stuff out of the bag when i got home yesterday and i'm picturing that i took those items out to get the other stuff out so they're probably sitting there at home. I'm more concerned about the glasses but i don't need them to work and i am sure i can manage to read the newspaper under a good light. I did forget my security access card as well. another Doh.

Ahem

Went to the mall after work and have now completely checked off all items on my Christmas gift list. Go me! I'll have to get either wrapping paper or gift bags but i have to sort everything out, check the bags i have from last year and see what sizes i need. Dollar store is my friend! I don't do any Christmas baking per se, other than making the "turtles" which i've already done, so that's not on the table. Or in the oven. I have the packages posted that needed to go all but one which i'll send this week as it's small anyway. I got my first two Christmas cards today!!!! I'll have to send mine this week, too, since some go to the UK, Ireland, the US and other parts of Canada as well as local. I expect i'll put my tree up this weekend.

It's official. I am off work between Dec. 22 and Jan. 2. They like us to use all our vacation days rather than carry them over if possible so i'm just using up mine and taking a few extra days. One of the programmers at work is going to Brazil for Christmas, his wife is from there. Another is going to China in February. He's from there. We have a new programmer starting at the end of the month and she is apparently from either South or Central America. The other programmer has a wife from the UK and i've got a fiance from the UK. We have the most international team in the office!


And yes, my book and glasses were indeed home as was the security access card.