Hmmm…I’m sensing some familiar sounding medical concerns here…
Oh, here’s a whine, though not necessarily because life is “teh suck.” My six year old received a bit of junk mail today informing her that “because of her achievements and lifestyle” she now qualifies to apply for an American Express gold card.
Who knew that learning to read and being really into art were considered enough for an Amex gold card?
Huh. She’s too young to legally enter into a contract, right?
Have her fill it out!
Life is teh suck because I work for the state, and there’s a whole mess of tax laws that go with that. I just got a letter saying that I may owe back taxes. I didn’t file any tax returns before 2006 because I didn’t have a job, but now if I don’t get it straightened out soon I could lose my job. I think it’s almost cleared up, but looking at my records should have shown them I was a minor then. Grrr Arrrg
And now we know why Amex is having financial issues.
Wait. So if you owe back taxes, they’ll fire you?
From a job where they could easily garnish your wages?
WTF?
A condition of employment is that all taxes must be paid. But I don’t actually owe any taxes from the time period in question. The only good thing about making no money is paying no taxes.
Government work’s weird that way, especially if her work involves a security clearance. Then it goes to a whole new level of paranoid that’s all the more annoying because you know they’re right to be.
Yeah, that’s what’s important.
The thought crossed my mind. Then my wife said, “Santos L. Halper” and I realized where that could lead.
No security clearance. I’m a tour guide at a state park. It’s really funny because I’ve only worked there two days since summer ended.
Well, clearly you’re a menace to the state and the IRS is right to come after you!
Seriously, that totally sucks, but I’m glad it sounds like it’s getting cleared up with little more than an annoying headache for you. It couldn’t come at a worse time, though, could it? (You’re still in school, right?)
If you were a tour guide at the FBI… or was it the CIA… supposedly you’d need one, just in case you opened a door and found yourself in the middle of “secret %#^”.
Still in school. Luckily (ha) it happened right before fall break, so I was coming home anyways. Otherwise, I would have had to make a special trip back to Missouri to deal with it.
Hey Boomer. Don’t hate me but I totally disagree with your take on what the minority parties have decided to do. We have a parliamentary system, which means we don’t vote for the Prime Minister or the government, we vote for our own representative. This can be forgotten in the age of party politics, but the distinction is important. After each election, the winners do not automatically form the government. Actually the Governor General (the GG) offers the person/leader who she believes can form a stable government the opportunity to do so. By convention, the offer is made to the leader of the party with the most seats in the House. Theoretically, she could make the offer to someone else, but this would cause a constitutional crisis.
As expected, Harper was given the opportunity to form the government, which he did. The government must be strong enough to keep the confidence of the House, which is easy enough in a majority government. In a minority government, the PMs in Canada have usually been able to maintain control by the fact that the other parties hate each other, refuse to work together and if the government failed the only realistic option would be another election. Since the electorate tend to spank parties they see as forcing an unnecessary election, the minority parties do not generally topple the government unless they can do so in a way acceptable to the electorate.
However, if the government falls fairly quickly, the constitutional convention has been to ask the Leader of the Opposition whether he or she can form a government. In this case, Dion has formed an alliance with the other parties and believes he can form a government. If his government goes ahead, the parties together actually represent more voters than the Harper Conservatives alone. This is a risky move for the opposition as if they fail there will be an election and the voters may take their revenge.
Unfortunately for Harper, he managed what few other minority PMs have, he has angered the opposition so much that they are willing to work together. This is a constitutionally sound manoeuvre and is often employed in other parliamentary democracies. There is nothing unusual. If the Canadian electorate continue to vote in minority governments, we will see more of this sort of thing. But for the Bloc, I bet that a coalition government would have been formed at least once prior. The surprise here is the inclusion of the Bloc, something the Conservatives thought was impossible.
The GG actually has very little real power here. If she does not act pursuant to convention, she will cause a constitutional crisis. Therefore, if the government fails now, she must surely ask Dion if he can form a government. She must look at his plan to satisfy herself that he can keep the confidence of the House. If he can, she must allow him to try. Her only real power here is deciding whether or not the confidence vote can go ahead on Monday, as Dion wants, or whether this sitting of the House should end early thus delaying the vote to the new year, as Harper wants. I suppose this decision will be based on whether or the GG believes Harper can regain the confidence of the House. I suspect she will allow him to try as he will have to bring down a budget in the new year which will provide a clear opportunity for a vote of confidence.
As I said, this is a completely constitutional move. What would be interesting to see is if Harper is given the time to put together a budget whether he actually makes most of the big changes requested by the opposition and whether the opposition alliance will fall apart.
I fighting off some kind of infection.
I think I may have given it to my gf.
On top of that I have fallen so far behind with my homework I’m never going to catch up till after Xmas break.
Life suks…
My paper’s not done yet!
I was doing so well… and then I got distracted by dinner.
2.5 hours down the drain.
So I guess this means I should get back to work…
Two weeks of parent teacher conferences!
paper outline due that i havent started any research on yet! and math test and other hw!