I have some concerns about the direction our province of Alberta is heading. Though we currently have huge oil revenue surpluses, it would seem that mismanagement of this revenue is robbing our future for short term personal gain. Case in point is the $300 or so “dividend” announced by the premier this past week.

I\'ve been seeing in the news where the United States is revising their nuclear doctrine to make it easier to use their nuclear weapons in a first strike capacity. There are some things that need to be cleared up with this as well as some points for discussion.

It's happening faster than I thought. The American slide into despotism is well on its way, if the statements of a US Justice Department lawyer are taken into account. The lawyer, arguing in the Maher Arar case, has stated that foreigners on US soil have no rights. No right to due process, no rights under the US constitution and certainly no right to not be tortured by the US or any other country. I can see the US tourism adverts now: Come for a week, stay detained for a lifetime without charge.

I like trains. The reason I bring this up is that the precipitating event that caused me to put finger to keyboard in this instance was the editorial article in a copy of Trains Magazine. Now Trains Magazine is aimed at people who like railroads and railroading, railfanning as it\'s called here in North America. What railfans do is seek out places were trains congregate (easy to find, since the trains leave their tracks behind) and watch the trains go by or take pictures of the trains as they go by.

The editorial was mentioning an incident where local law enforcement in the United States was accosting some railfans who were standing on public property, taking photographs of trains. The police accused them of terrorist activities. When the railfans complained that they (the railfans) were merely engaging in their constitutional rights, the police responded that “new legislation has superseded the constitution”.

From what I\'ve seen in the press, it would appear that telephone and internet provider Telus, has entered the censorship game. A little background, Telus is in the midst of a labour dispute. After four years of contract talks, a strike has broken out, and someone has put up a pro-union web site. What Telus has done, is blocked the website from anyone who uses Telus as an internet provider. This poses several nasty questions about Telus.

I see in the papers where the CHR is putting up an objection to the drilling of some sour gas wells just outside of south east Calgary. This after the company that requested the wells was given a smooth ride through the approval process. It\'s amazing that the CHR would raise such an objection, and here\'s why I think that is.

The end of the NHL hockey strike is reported, above the fold, in second coming type. Pushing nearly all news off the front page of one newspaper and all news off the tabloid. Change health care, close borders, have politicians steal money, but don\'t mess with a Canadian\'s hockey goddamnit....

Just before I left for my vacation I picked up a new camera. I've always wanted a Nikon digital SLR, and they've come down enough in price that I can afford one. So I picked up a Nikon D50 with a couple of lenses. It's a nice camera, 6.5 megapixels, has a nice heft to it and it will accept all the Nikon film lenses I've accumulated over the years.

So I've been going picture happy, which is what anybody does with a new camera. What I've also done is tried out the camera at astro-photography, that is taking photographs of the night sky. The digital camera makes this a lot easier for a couple of reasons.

I type this from my hotel room as I am on vacation. One of the reasons I like the hotel in which I'm staying (other than the jacuzzi tub in the room) is that I get a free newspaper in the morning. In this morning's Globe and Mail is a story on the annual Dominion Institute's Canadian History Quiz. Sadly to say, as a country, we suck at our history.

For those of you who don\'t know me, I was adopted at birth. I\'ve known this since I was a small child as my parents did not keep this a secret from me. For the most part, over the years, I\'ve not had a great urge to find my birth mother. Part of this was due to the difficulty in doing so. Records were sealed when I was adopted as a matter of government policy, so finding one\'s birth parent(s) was next to impossible.