In The News

Holy Pope, Batman! Yes, they elected a new pope yesterday after only two days of deliberation. (And after only three voting sessions?) He's a 78 year old guy from Germany who takes his orthodoxy seriously. From what I read, people consider him to be a safe transitional choice for pope, especially given his age. After he's gone, it's conceivable that the next pope will be more progressive in his approach, although progressive is a relative term in this case.

Recently, Jevant commented on a message that he saw on a church sign in town. "To All Our Roman Catholic Friends, Our Prayers Are With You." He thought that it was a nice gesture but he disliked the emphasis on the differences between the churches. While I would suggest that not commenting on the papal leadership would be a false unity, I think that anyone would prefer that message to this one. Check out that link, it's just a tad absurd.

And finally, I have a comment about recent Canadian politics. Shocking, I know. While our minority federal government will apparently fall apart like a bitter house of cards soon, I thought that one tactic was amusing. Previously, the opposition was given one day a week to present their own agendas. This Opposition Day would cycle around, giving each of the opposing parties one day each in a regular schedule. The Conservatives tabled a motion on April 18 to let the opposition scheduled their own days. That was seen as a direct move to set an Opposition Day with the specific idea of forcing an election and it was flatly rejected, as expected.

The thing is, this article describes how the Liberals then came in just before the end of the day on April 18 to cancel the Opposition Day that was scheduled for April 19 for the Conservatives. So this was a small part of the greater strategy with both sides trying to wrest control of the day that this government breaks down. I thought it was funny that Liberals and Conservatives both tried to usurp Opposition Days for their own ends.

To clarify what's going to happen, the Liberals have to provide six more Opposition Days before the end of the term. It's not written in stone that these have to be once a week but what can they do, bank the Opposition Days until the final week? 'S funny.