Fifteen years ago, a grassroots political movement with the slogan “The West wants in” suddenly appeared within the House of Commons. Sick of feeling that the politics of this country (Canada) were run by backroom deals among the ‘king-makers’ in Ontario and Quebec, often to the determent of Western Canada, the people formed a political party and sent them to Ottawa. But even winning 80% of the seats in Alberta and British Columbia wasn’t enough to grant the party Official Opposition status; no, that honour went to a party who’s raison d’être was best summed up by de Gaulle in 1967 when he proclaimed “Vive le Québec libre!” (Long live free Quebec!)

I read an article about a week ago describing it as a disgrace, how Bush has been treated by the American people and media. I sat back and realized it’s been a LONG time since I’ve heard anything nice about George W. Bush. Regardless of how good a job Bush did, or did not do, when the American media starts bad-mounthing the President, it implicitly gives everyone else permission to due the same.

So the item all over the news of late is the Olympics, which are being held as we speak in Beijing, and will go on for the next week or so. Giving the games to China has been the source of controversy since the decision was made in 2001 - while China suggested it was the chance to show itself off as an emerging world player, the critics argued that China’s record, particularly on human rights, made it an inappropriate host.

Every so often I need a good laugh…and “Dilbert” by Scott Adams so often fits the bill. For those of you out of the loop, Dilbert is the engineer with the upturned tie who has a rather depressing social life and an imbecile of a boss. The humour, I suppose, comes from the fact the situations Dilbert has to deal with are far too common in cubicle-land.

I go to the store. They say I get a discount if I have their club card. So some paperwork and five minutes later, I have a 2” by 4” hunk of plastic and more $10 in my pocket than I otherwise would have. But now what do I do with it? I already have a collection of similar hunks of plastic, making my wallet too fat. My option is to keep them somewhere other than my wallet, inevitably, when I want it next, I won’t have it and will be out $10.