Parliamentary Bloat

The Canadian House of Commons is looking to expand.

Legislation introduced today would add 10 seats to Ontario, 7 to BC and 5 to Alberta, reflecting the population growth in these areas. No area would lose seats. If passed, the total seats would rise to 330, effective in 2011.

The realignment of riding borders is usually a (relatively) non-partisan process, following natural alignments along municipal, county, district and provincial borders & landmarks. Still, I find it interesting to see how municipalities get subdivided or rural areas get lumped together.

My home town in northern Ontario has been tossed back & forth between ridings in each of the last three redistributions but I never sensed any sort of blatant gerrymandering or a reduced representation in Parliament.

Parliamentary Bloat

The Canadian House of Commons is looking to expand.

Legislation introduced today would add 10 seats to Ontario, 7 to BC and 5 to Alberta, reflecting the population growth in these areas. No area would lose seats. If passed, the total seats would rise to 330, effective in 2011.

The realignment of riding borders is usually a (relatively) non-partisan process, following natural alignments along municipal, county, district and provincial borders & landmarks. Still, I find it interesting to see how municipalities get subdivided or rural areas get lumped together.

My home town in northern Ontario has been tossed back & forth between ridings in each of the last three redistributions but I never sensed any sort of blatant gerrymandering or a reduced representation in Parliament.

I Survived!

My week-long SuSE Linux class concluded today. And in the mid-afternoon, we finally hit a topic I didn't already know thoroughly: how SuSE Linux can be used to create & manipulate ISO images. outside of that 15 minute portion, however...

Overall though, the instructor did well with the others in the class. I have 20+ years of UNIX experience, everyone else was a Windows user; some never had administrator/root access on any server previously. She did good work corralling the others and keeping them from blowing away their boot disks by mistake, and she did well by largely letting me do my thing and occasionally exploiting me to help the others with their lab exercises.

If it weren't for the truly hideous commute between home & Reston and the growing list of tasks waiting for me at the Urbana office, it was a lovely vacation. :-)

I Survived!

My week-long SuSE Linux class concluded today. And in the mid-afternoon, we finally hit a topic I didn't already know thoroughly: how SuSE Linux can be used to create & manipulate ISO images. outside of that 15 minute portion, however...

Overall though, the instructor did well with the others in the class. I have 20+ years of UNIX experience, everyone else was a Windows user; some never had administrator/root access on any server previously. She did good work corralling the others and keeping them from blowing away their boot disks by mistake, and she did well by largely letting me do my thing and occasionally exploiting me to help the others with their lab exercises.

If it weren't for the truly hideous commute between home & Reston and the growing list of tasks waiting for me at the Urbana office, it was a lovely vacation. :-)

Eligibility

My fifth anniversary of obtaining permanent residency in the US occurred this past Tuesday. Technically, I could now apply for US citizenship.

I'm still uncertain about whether or not to proceed but I'm feeling less opposed to the idea now that gov't checks & balances seem to be gradually returning to what they should be.

My status is good for another five years so even presuming it will take 12-18 months for processing if I decide to proceed, I have lots of time to give this the serious thought and consideration it deserves.

Eligibility

My fifth anniversary of obtaining permanent residency in the US occurred this past Tuesday. Technically, I could now apply for US citizenship.

I'm still uncertain about whether or not to proceed but I'm feeling less opposed to the idea now that gov't checks & balances seem to be gradually returning to what they should be.

My status is good for another five years so even presuming it will take 12-18 months for processing if I decide to proceed, I have lots of time to give this the serious thought and consideration it deserves.