christmas time is hilarious. melanie and i just spent six days motoring around ottawa in the extreme cold and the extreme wet. we saw friends and family and it was really nice. Now, i'm at the airport on our way down to miami, before we head off for jamaica on the cruise. i wonder just how much they (cruise line) will siphon from my bank account. we'll see. lots going on, naturally, in the real world. two days until the big election in ukraine. there's also the election coming up in three weeks or so in palestine. ahh.... elections are very funny times, i think. especially outside of north america, where our elections have become boring and really just events in brainwashing. there is a man beside me who is busy pushing aeroplan gold cards on every passing passenger. he's real friendly, and I feel bad that he has this horrid job. I once had a job like this, for Canadian Tire, but when I showed up to work wearing a black shirt and a red tie, they thought I wasn't subtle enough, and off I went. that was the worst job i've ever held. ok, i'm done. maybe i'll have more later.

Interesting Q & A with Yossi Alpher. Really smart guy... speaking on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. also - today i got a digital camera. so you should go check out my thoughts in images. click home to get there. Also, just finished some big papers. Will post two more in the coming days.

This is one of the coolest things i've stumbled on. See their first major project which I plan to use for my passover this year. The idea of Open Source Judaism generally, though, really is neat... it reflects, for me, much of the way I have resonated with the Reform Movement.

This link won't last long, but the weather in Sackville right now blows. Here it is so that if you read this later, the info won't be telling you elsewise: -10°C FEELS LIKE -21°C WIND NW 44 km/h GUSTS 63 km/h RELATIVE HUMIDITY 48% DEWPOINT -19°C PRESSURE 101.93 kPa yeah it's cold here. winter is settling in and getting comfortable. i am writing papers on William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and another on the Security Policy decision making implications of the International Criminal Court. Hoo wah. wish me luck. wrote the LSAT on saturday. interesting test. i had written a sample one, but very little can preapre you for the time constraints. having only 7 other compatriots in the endeavour, two of whom dropped out before the end, was less than encouraging. apparently, marwan barghouti is running for the PA presidency. whatever people say, his candidacy is good for the Palestinian Democracy if nothing else.

a few interesting things: Many have suggested that as a result of the FTA and NAFTA Canada's trading realtionship with the US is inextricable. A quick look at this should demonstrate that Canada's trade with the US, as a percent of where our trade goes, has not increased significantly. It has long been approximately 70-80% of exports. Exports have increased 10% (of the canadian GDP) since the end of the recession of the early nineties (upward trend began before NAFTA but after FTA; downward trend since 2000 peak). It seems to me that, frankly, the idea that Canada has been sucked into the US economy due to FTA or NAFTA is crap - we've been dependent on the US economy for a long time. Marwan Barghouti is creating a real democratic contest in Palestine for January 9. I think he'll have a hard time getting Israel to let him out of jail (previously thought/hoped to be through a trade for Azzam Azzam) with all the press - Israel won't want to be seen as caving. However, Barghouti's candidacy is creating a much larger buzz internationally. That is, the Israelis are busy reformating their government after the budget split. Also it seems that Israel and Egypt are thawing their relationship which has been cool since the intifada. Egypt will deploy troops along the gaza border, which Israelis have been after for a while. Mubarak even called Sharon the best chance for peace! meanwhile, this happened in DC. I don't know what to make of it, except that the US really prefers to do things on its own terms, so if the Israelis are getting too eager in their need for US information, then the yanks will certainly want to clamp down. Israel should take a cue from the Canadians, who have never had a case of espionage tried against one of its agents in america, while Israel has certainly had this occur. Canada is quietly sending it's ambassador back to Iran. I suppose our outrage and disgust at the murder of Zahra Kazemi wasn't enough to keep our ties to Tehran severed. what on earth is our ambassador doing there anyway? leading trade missions? Canada should keep out of Iran and bring the case to the ICC. The rest of the world is too occupied seeing if Iran will actually "stop" enriching uranium to seek out justice? I didn't realize we could only do one thing at a time. One the only blogs that I read has shocked me by going off on a second tirade against that video game that recreates JFK's assasination. Although, I don't think it's a terribly respectful or nice thing to do, violence in video games is nothing new. The fact that most video gamers view JFK's assasination as mythic will only reinforce it's potential reconstruction into a video game. As it is, one of the largest selling video games on the market is Grand Theft Auto, which I have played many many times, which involves killing folks, stealing their cars, selling drugs, etc etc. That's not to say that violence in video games should be acceptable merely due to the prevalance of it, rather that you can't control this from a supply side question. nor can you get rid of it by condemning it often and loud enough. people are able to distinguish between reality and video games. why is it ok if i want to kill King Koopa and the innocent bystander in GTA but not cool to kill JFK? howabout Lincoln? I suppose games like Burnout 2 and 3, which have modes that allow you to crash your "car" into traffic for the biggest accident should be banned since it is an affront to Manulife and State Farm. Violence is attractive to people since normally we aren't violent on a day-to-day basis. ok to end this little session of ranting and procrastinating, I've included another poem I wrote for that creative writing class: .Sean Thibault eastern bloc love letter making out in paris jr. left banks on it the old stone buildings as cold as a touch then we harden together my body turns while you ate me mind if I smoke your numbers (self) on my arm Certainly there is something special about Famous Small Cities i flew through you there kept in your concentration a willing prisoner protecting prague-memory when you loved me then that day you left your socks on my floor call me won’t you

today i got to a computer lab on campus and discovered i had brought my remote control with me.