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Friday, January 1st, 2010
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1:06 pm
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| Thursday, July 9th, 2009
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12:00 pm - Further to my last post:
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I just sent this letter to my MP. Unfortunately, my MP is a member of the NDP, and while I'm sure she is on my side, her influence is limited. Canadian readers, feel free to plagiarize or adapt:
Dear [MP],
It was with great dismay that I read this morning of yet another foreign-born Canadian denied the right to return to her country of citizenship:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/662585
The Canadian government's official line is that the woman in question in is travelling under a false identity. Her passport photo, apparently, does not look sufficiently like her. The government has thus rejected her passport, driver's licence, and health card, as well as several of her family members' offers to vouch for her under oath. Such means of identification taken individually, incidentally, are considered sufficient proof of identity in the voting booth (http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=ele&dir=ids&document=index&lang=e&textonly=false); why does a different standard apply here? And even if it does, how does the Canadian government justify denying Ms. Mohamud the opportunity to provide her fingerprints, which would allow her to prove her identity beyond doubt?
This is at least the second time in the recent past that the Canadian government has played fast and loose with the law in order to deny entry to a foreign-born citizen. I urge you to use your influence to ensure that Canada upholds the rights of all of its citizens travelling abroad.
Sincerely,
[me]
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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9:24 am - Another foreign-born citizen stranded overseas
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It would be too kind to say that the Canadian government is merely being complicit in the detention of this woman, whom they claim is travelling under a false identity. I'd say it's colluding to keep her stranded:
"When I applied for Canadian citizenship, they took my fingerprints," the Somali-born woman said yesterday by phone from Nairobi, where she is out on bail pending trial.
"They can match them."
The Canadian government is refusing to take her fingerprints.
Not that it should even have come to that. The Kenyan government, suddenly a reliable witness for the Canadian government, claims that Suaad Hagi Mohamud does not look like her passport photo. Cripes, who does? But in addition to a passport photo, Mohamud has a health card, driver's licence, and several dozen people who are willing to swear under oath that she is who she says she is.
Elections Canada considers any of these things, taken individually to be sufficient proof of identity in the voting booth. Ask your MP why the Canadian government won't uphold the law in this woman's case.
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
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9:03 pm - Jazz festival student showcase
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When required to choose, musicwise, between "groundbreaking" and "listenable", I will choose the latter every time. If that makes me a philistine, then so be it.
current music: the sound of a cello being bowed on the wrong side of the bridge
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(11 comments | comment on this)
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4:10 pm - Breaking news: 365 = 1 mod 7
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| Friday, June 5th, 2009
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6:37 pm - I can haz electoral reform?
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Wishlist: a voting system that reflects people's preferences well enough that when we have a substantial majority of voters wanting a different government, we also end up with a substantial majority of said voters wanting an election. When a scant third of decided voters prefer the ruling party over the alternatives - less than the proportion who favour the opposition party - but a measly quarter of decided voters think that voting for a new government is a good way to remedy this issue, something is awry.
current music: Ashley MacIsaac - Andy Renwick's Ferret
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
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1:57 pm - secret ballot, or, how I almost got myself arrested when trying to vote
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My apartment building is across the street from a seniors' residence, so I wasn't surprised to see that the fellow in front of me in the voting booth for Polling Station 70 was eighty-seven years old and visually impaired. A polling officer was helping him vote.
( Read more... )
current mood: civicly dutiful
current music: Jaime RT - Encore Reels
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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11:54 am - External Hard Drives: So Help Me, I'm Just Not That Bright
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So! This external hard drive I bought was designed to be idiot proof - connect two cables to the only places you can connect them to, double-click on the My Computer icon, and lo! the hard drive should be ready to use.
Except that it's not. And the troubleshooting section of the manual is nigh useless (Did you plug in your hard drive? Is the power on?). The Device manager tells me that I have an external hard drive, but I can't access it in any useful way. Halp plz?
current mood:  frustrated
current music: Barrage - Sing, Sing, Sing
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, May 9th, 2009
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11:58 pm
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| Friday, April 3rd, 2009
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5:38 pm
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| Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
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3:19 pm - John Cleese explains proportional representation
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| Thursday, March 12th, 2009
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12:19 pm - Actual job title:
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"Jameson Irish Whiskey Brand Ambassador for Canada".
Really!
current music: Loreena McKennit - Santiago
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
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8:24 pm
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I just put my hair in two braids and sewed them to my head with green ribbon. I am SO ready for St. Patrick's Day.
current music: Paperboys - After the First Time
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, February 14th, 2009
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3:48 pm - This is a new one
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"Do you have a brother?"
"Um, yes, but you don't know him. He's in Ottawa. Why?"
"Oh, it's just that you look just like this Rasta guy who comes in sometimes."
current mood: wtf?
current music: Paperboys - Jesse James/Sally Gardens
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, February 7th, 2009
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10:00 am - sublime
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| Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
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2:11 pm
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I'm applying to replace my expiring passport. Thanks to the simplified renewal process, this is actually appearing to be not much of an ordeal at all. So, hoorj! (Also helpful: the fact that I am applying to replace an expiring passport, as opposed to a stolen passport.) Also, per ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) r6's suggestion, I am requesting that my place of birth not be listed.
The form I'm filling out is very straightfoward - list your name, address, employer, yadda - but then there's this wacky bit at the end that you only have to fill out if you were born outside of Canada between February 15, 1977 and April 16, 1981, in which case you also need to submit proof of citizenship. Question for the masses: what is the significance of those dates?
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(15 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, December 26th, 2008
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3:47 pm - Correction
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I had described this event as rock bottom, but that was before I saw the ABBA musical with my mother.
As an aside, I am sure that it is just an oversight that ABBA has earned only one entry in this database.
current mood: campy
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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6:28 am
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Yesterday, I found myself watching a rerun of an old Beverly Hills, 90210 Christmas special. And not just any Beverly Hills, 90210 Christmas special: it was a retrospective episode, in which the characters did nothing but sit around a table waxing nostalgic about all the adventures they'd had in previous Beverly Hills, 90210 Christmas specials.
To my credit, I turned off the TV ten minutes into this dreck. Neverthleless, I believe that this is what is known as "rock bottom".
current mood:  embarrassed
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
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7:33 am
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| Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
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2:34 pm
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Third post of the day! It's almost like I have a pile of exams I don't feel like marking.
I'm invigilating my third and last exam in an hour. It's in the gym, where I invigilated on Monday, and I know that I won't be able to get any work done. "Do you know if the campus library has novels, or is it just an academic library?" I asked a colleague.
"No idea," she said.
So I went over to check. They have a paltry selection of mystery paperbacks, which was just what I was looking for, so cool. I chose one, and presented it, along with my faculty card, to the librarian at the desk.
"Oh," she said. "You don't check the novels out. You just take them and bring them back whenever."
Dude.
current mood: free books!
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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