Well it looks like Harper's going to shuffle his cabinet again. Now normally I'd wait for the shuffle to happen before commenting, but since it would seem that no new ministers will get a chair at the cabinet table, there's no point in waiting. It's been only seven months since the last shuffle and one wonders what the point of this one is.

So there I am this morning down in my basement doing some tests on an electronic project I'm working on when the phone rings. On the other end of the line was a reporter from the local CTV station asking questions about the upcoming Perseid meteor shower and was I available to be interviewed about it. Long story short I ended up with some air time. What's cool is that CTV News Net picked up the story so about every 15 minutes or so, my smiling mug is on the screen describing a meteor shower. Cool!

With my holiday dwindling away, it's time to begin to look into the world of politics once again. Looking through the proactive disclosure for Environment Canada, I noticed a numbered Ontario company getting $54 815.00 of taxpayer money for "Other Prof. Serv. - Management consulting - OGD or programs". I was curious what the numbered company (1286756 Ontario Limited) did. This lead to a search on the web for this company, gaining further government contracts netting 1286756 Ontario Limited contracts of $123 432.23, and$94 870.00 for a total of $273 117.23 since January of 2007. So some mystery company in Ontario netted over a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer money.

It's been a while since I've put finger to keyboard, but the last week of June is busy in the 'ol education biz and I was away visiting my mom till yesterday. Once I get caught up on the news I'll return to the regularly scheduled political ranting that is normally in this space. Till then I'll show some pics. Specifically, I bought a new telescope and while visiting my mom, managed to get a couple of shots. First light was of M13 and the next shot was M51.

Well the No Fly List is now in operation. I've already expressed my concerns here so I won't go into that for now. What I am writing about is the views of some of the commenters over at the CBC on this topic. While a lot of people are expressing concerns about the various issues over the No Fly List, some are basically rolling out the old lines such as:
WHY on earth would airport screening lists bother anyone unless you have something to hide?
or:
My stance has always been I would rather have 100 people inconvenienced to save a single life
These people seem to be missing something, that something is a respect for their own rights, and that is scarier than any possible terrorist threat.

...for the Alberta Conservative government announcements to start following their defeat at the hands of the Grits. First we have disaster relief for the cities suddenly, pardon the pun, flowing like water and sudden announcements of new schools for both Calgary and Edmonton. It almost seems like the Alberta Tories are starting to wake up after a 30 year slumber.

Any day there's one less sitting Tory in the world is a good day. The Alberta Liberals have taken Ralph Klein's old seat of Calgary-Elbow. Unfortunately the Tories retained their hold on the rural riding of Drumheller-Stettler. The result in Calgary-Elbow was a bit of a surprise , given the predilection of Alberta and specifically Calgary voters to vote for Conservatives like sheep. The question is what does this defeat for the Tories mean?

Transport Canada announced yesterday that their new no-fly list will go into effect on the 18th of June, a mere 10 days after the announcement. Of course people will be able to board aircraft as long as their children between 12 and 18 have government issued ID with them. Ten days should be no problem picking that up. To ease the transition, until September minors can use one piece of non-photo government ID. Now I was up at the Calgary International Airport on Monday and there were no posters or anything about this announcement up at that time. I suspect that there will be some issues the rest of this month when people show up with their children and aren't allowed on the plane because the government couldn't be bothered to announce the change in a timely fashion.

In a page taken from their federal counterparts, the Alberta provincial PC's have two faces. One face is what the Premier has stated time and time again during his leadership campaign, then there's what his Education Minister Ron Liepert said to the Alberta Teacher's Association.

During question period yesterday we had this outburst from our Prime Minister:
When the Leader of the Opposition is able to stand in uniform and serve his country, then I will care about his opinion of the performance of the Minister of National Defence.
This from a man who's never served a day in uniform himself. In fact he goes on to say so:
Mr. Speaker, I will just say that it is true I have never served in the armed forces. I consider that an experience that I have missed in my life, but I can say that I have always lived and worked and paid my taxes in this country.
Ok, he did pay his taxes. Way to give till it hurts.