American Government Attempting To Dictate Rules To Canadian Banks

The U S Government, through the Volcker rule, is attempting to regular how Canadian banks do business both within Canada and with Canada’s other trading partners around the world.

“The Volcker rule is named after former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who was commissioned by the White House to come up with U.S. financial reforms.

The reforms aim to lower the exposure of banks holding personal and business cash deposits to the risks from speculative trading for their own profit, something known as proprietary trading.Those deposits, to a large extent, are insured by the U.S. taxpayers.

Risky bets by big global banks forced the U.S. government to bail out the American banking system in 2008.”

Someone should remind the Americans that Canada is not part of the U.S. If the American Government want rules about financial reforms that affect American banks that’s fine, but they should not include foreign banks.

Read more here.

Ice Day - School is Cancelled

Photo courtesy Icyroadsafety.com

This photo shows what the roads looked like this morning. They were covered with ice and were very slick.

School buses were cancelled today, and the kids have exams. Fun! Not a snow day, but an ice day. There was a scramble to find out what was happening with the exam schedule, which will be shifted forward a day and the teacher training day next week will be cancelled. I’m glad that’s sorted out.

The temperature has been hovering around freezing, and what happens is you get a mix of sleet, ice, and a covering of snow on top to disguise the ice. This is what makes it so treacherous. Just give me snow, rather than all this ice. Kids can’t sled, not enough snow. I’ve fallen several times. Hint: don’t tread on a sidewalk that looks wet, it’s probably black ice.

This has been the weirdest winter. I know I’ve been gone a few years, but I’ve never seen grass in January. I thought last winter was really mild, but this year we have had hardly any snow.  In Autumn trees are shades of yellow and green, and hardly red and orange like they used to be. Climate change exists.

The Secret Life of Books

This is what happens in bookstores when you are asleep. Thanks to Laura K of wmtc.

Clever video made by owners of Type Bookstore in Toronto. It took the owners 4 nights to make this video. If you listen, you can hear a typewriter in the music. Very clever.

I agree that there’s nothing like a real book. Electronic readers are ok, but I prefer the feel and look of a book.

I'm definitely visiting this bookstore next time I'm in Toronto.

Here is an interesting article about the video in The Torontoist.

"Making His Ode to Joy of Books

A Toronto ad man devotes over 50 hours of physical labour to bring the magic of books to life in a stop-motion viral sensation.

At a time of e-books and rising rent, Toronto is mourning the loss of independent bookstores. Book-lovers were in need of a miracle-maker like Sean Ohlenkamp to bring the city’s love of books back to life.Okay, Ohlenkamp may not actually be a magician or a protege of Dr. Frankenstein—in fact, he’s an associate creative director at the Lowe Roche advertising agency here in Toronto—but with the help of his camera, 15 to 20 volunteers, four nights of after-hours physical labour at Type Books in November, and months in the editing room, his stop-motion video titled The Joy of Books is the closest thing to movie magic we’ve seen in a while.

“From the moment the doors locked at 6 p.m. we started working, arranged and rearranged, shelved and re-shelved…it took about fifty-odd hours of heavy lifting,” Ohlenkamp told Torontoist. “The first night I was there until twelve or one putting all the books back, went home and slept for a few hours, and then came right back.”

Finally finished last weekend, Ohlenkamp uploaded the video to YouTube on Monday. In the scant two days since it has garnered nearly 27,500 views and the attention of the Washington Post, BoingBoing, the Spectator, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, and many others. Not to mention, lots and lots of love for books and independent bookstores everywhere.

“I feel amazing, it’s really nice because I’ve been a little desensitized to it,” he said. “It was a very private process, me staring at the screen over and over again and no one else seeing it. But putting it out there and seeing the very positive response renews my appreciation for the time that has gone into this.”

It was a combination of friends, students, and colleagues who donated their evenings to the project (they are all listed on the video’s YouTube description), committing anywhere from a few hours to a full night. But Ohlenkamp and his “very, very loving and forgiving” wife Lisa Blonder Ohlenkamp were there for the entire filming process. Ohlenkamp provided the vision, but it was a group labour of love: Tom Westin of Grayson Matthews Music + Sound composed the original score, and Blonder Ohlenkamp created the green crocheted monster named “Oog” (seen chasing salt and pepper shakers at around 1:00) as well as a clock (at 0:35).

Now that the project is finished, Ohlankamp admits he’s “done moving books for quite a while.” But he’s hopeful that the video can at least convince a few others to pick up one or two."

Mr. Perry We Are A Foreign Country

With thanks to a friend who wrote about this on her blog We Move To Canada. "Does Mr. Perry Know Something We Don't Know?"

Presidential candidate Rick Perry, speaking in Iowa on Tuesday, made the following comment.

“Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source,” Mr. Perry said earning a loud round of enthusiastic applause.

Later, the audience reacted again to Mr. Perry's assertion that buying so much energy from foreign countries is "not good policy, it's not good politics, and frankly it's un-American."

Ok, so.... Does Mr. Perry not realize that Canada is a foreign source?

The second comment regarding it being “un-American” to purchase oil from foreign countries confirms that he truly believes that Canada is not a foreign country.

Mr. Perry also said that within 1 year of his election he is going to “seal the border”. Mr. Perry, there are two borders, but since you believe that Canada is not a foreign country, I’m sure you only meant the border with the US and Mexico. Go ahead and seal the border if you like, but there will be no more foreign oil coming from Canada.

Is it just me, or do other people find the Republicans ignorant and frightening?

Mr. Perry, I guess that geography is not your strong point, but a Presidential candidate should be aware of the world outside your own country’s borders.

It's Official. My Children Are Anchor Babies.

The first new edition of the American Heritage Dictionary in 10 years contained 10,000 new words. The term “anchor baby” is included. The original definition did not include any indication that the phrase is a slur and offensive, as it does for other words. (The online edition only has just been changed to note that the phrase is offensive, but did not change the definition).

The current definition the dictionary gives for anchor baby is:

“A child born to a non-citizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil, especially when the child's birthplace is thought to have been chosen in order to improve the mother's or other relatives' chances of securing eventual citizenship."

A more appropriate definition would be:

"Slang, a pejorative description of a child born in the United States to parents who are both without legal status", implying that the parents intend to leverage the child’s citizenship to “anchor” their own presence in the U.S.”

I have 2 issues with the current definition.

1. "Non-citizen mother" includes all non-citizen mothers, whether in the US legally or not, and ignores the citizenship of the father.

2. "in a country" means all countries use the term anchor baby. The phrase anchor baby is not used much outside the U.S.

When my children were born I was not yet eligible for US citizenship, but I was a legal immigrant with a green card. So my children were born to a non-citizen mother. Therefore, according to the definition in the dictionary, my children are anchor babies. Their father is a US citizen, but again no mention is made in this definition of the nationality of the father.

Several bills have been introduced from time to time in Congress which seek to nullify the US citizenship of “anchor babies”. Unsure whether these bills would survive legal challenges, some legislators have proposed a change to the Constitution to deny and/or retroactively strip “anchor babies” of US citizenship. It all comes down to semantics. If a definition in the dictionary uses “non-citizen” mother, instead of “parents without legal status”, it’s likely future legislation will mirror the definition in the dictionary.

As a result, my childrens' US citizenship status is now at risk.

I believe that all children born in the US, or any country, should be granted citizenship as a birthright, regardless of the immigration status of the parents. The immigration system in the US is inhumane and does not work, but this is not an effective way to fix it. Having said that, this post is about my viewpoint as a legal immigrant living in the US.

The problem I had living in the US was that the anti-immigrant hysteria in the States caused “legal immigrants” to be penalized simply because they are not US citizens.

There is no sense of security living in a country where the basic rules are subject to change. Are my children going to be stripped retroactively of their US citizenship? My US driving licence was suspended in Florida,(read more here) and I was left without a licence for 30 days, simply because the clerk didn't understand my green card was proof that I was living in the country legally.

The DMV clerk who revoked my driving licence was like most Americans who do not understand the difference between "legal" immigrant and "illegal" immigrant and believe "non-citizen" means they are in the country illegally.

Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University said that skilled immigrants are leaving the US.

If immigrants feel unsafe living in the US they will return to their home countries, and it will be America’s loss.

65 tons of snow trucked in to Florida park

In Canada when we get a lot of snow sometimes we truck it out of the neighbourhood.

In this park in Tampa Bay Florida 65 tons of snow is trucked in for their annual "Snowfest".

This is very popular with Floridian kids and there are long lines to try it.

Most Floridian kids have never seen a snowfall, so this "snowfall" gives them a chance to experience it for a few hours until it melts in the heat.

Winter in Florida is just, different!