funny how quick the holidays seem to breeze by.

maybe it's the way the days lack the structure of the regular week and how everyday just feels like a sunday.

maybe it's because this year i feel like a guest and have an obligation to make a night for everyone i haven't seen since september. i apologize to those that by the 4th night only got a marginal dose of what socialness was in me. i'm running empty just days and just want to tuck away in a bed with the xmas reading material santa gave my way.

and visiting relatives you see maybe 2-3 times a year seems to make the time fly as well; all with getting familiar with the latest happenings in their life.

funny cousins you once held in your arms now on the cusp of adulthood doing regular things you did that age but having your 'baby' cousin laugh about doing bowls makes you feel old.

getting plastered with your 19 year old brother and arguing with him that the liberals will not dare to bring down the harper government makes you realize your own brother knows about the world than how to play xbox, watch every damn move in the public library, play terrible guitar and get stoned. doesn't mean he's right but at least knows what a minority government is.

and the sister still pretends to be something she is not. and if that what she is, you feel sorry for her and the trapped self imposed world she is in. trying to get at her and help her grow out of it just makes her defensive and angry that you no longer bother.

she'll come to the painful realization very soon that her attitude and view on life will be difficult to change the older you get. besides, the holidays aren't time for psycho babble but trying to get through the few full days with the family without bursting out things you've wanted to say for years.

and as tempting as it was watching cp24 with all happy boxing day shoppers, i didn't give in to temptation this year. all with no income part and terribly in school debt with every single minute curbed the enthusiasm to spend money junk i don't need. besides, great deals on product stores can't seem to move prior to the holidays seems bleh. now my boxing excitement is whether i'll have enough dollars to cover tuition for the final semester while being able to eat more than every 3rd day.

all with the economy in the shitter, the deals will just come rolling way through '09. fuck boxing day, boxing year is in the works for the next 12 months.

by then hopefully i'll be rocking at least a minimum wage job to jump in on the excitement.

i got my health, i got my family, got my friends. i don't really need much.

though this would be kinda cool

not only does it keep one warm but makes a kickass LOTR like costume.

19.99 and this 'reverse' backrope functions as a blanket with sleeves.

i wish i was somewhere warm, sunny and drunk.

instead of spending 45 minutes chipping ice off my car. she looks so vulnerable and the poor thing is not meant to withstand such conditions.

yes, my automobile has feelings. i wish i could take her with me.

after weeks of emotional void and nearly hitting rock bottom in the trenches of regret, i had just about enough.

the tipping point came when she appeared in my dreams. standing there in the doorway just as the boring kingston radio station shook me out of the eventual fantasy.

and with that, i arranged a mini road trip back to toronto thursday afternoon; first, the necessary company on the long boring 401 stretch between toronto & kingston; secondly, to save a few dollars on gas. a rag-tag bunch unaware of my motives of bringing them along and why i am heading to toronto in the first place.

i really did try to study and get through the exams but my notes were filled with supply/demand curves, elasticity of income theories and the things i wanted to say once i saw her again. i needed to see her again.

who in their right mind drives back few days before a string of exams? a person who still lives in the past and ran from a situation unaware that running/hiding eventually come around at the worst possible times.

the closer i got to toronto, the more i doubted the grandiose illusion of surprising her and pretending the last six months never happened and things would go back to normal. i started to think more clearly and realistically that just maybe the john cusack ala high fidelity moment just would not happen.

people move on. feelings are temporal. memories fade away. it's only those who hang onto the sliver of hope that make nothing into something. it's a leap into a brick wall.

and so i pussied out. spent a few evenings with friends, wasted time and probably failed this morning's stats exam for the reasons that seemed if i fail it would be worth just four nights ago.

and for what exactly?

a week ago, the liberals collectively crowned stephane dion as their prime minister only today to toss him to the curb; not in five months but effective immediately to have a successor before the end of january in time for a potenial election.

given dion's lack luster performance to swing public support in favour of the coalition, his (second) loss of faith by his party isn't all that surprising. he had a window of opportunity for frame harper as shutting the door down on parliament, instead came out looking as the villain trying to overturn the results of october's election. harper came out looking as if shutting down parliament was imperative to avoid a coalition of separatists, socialists, and soundingly unpopular liberals from forming the government. the merits of the coalition's right to take power have been discussed but without the public on side of the proposal, it's legitimacy is stalled in time.

and with the resignation of dion atop of the liberal party, ignatieff is poised to become the next leader as soon as wednesday on a vote by liberal MPs and senators. the sudden shift in gears is that party gave dion another crack last week, only to disappoint and solid leadership will be required to head to opposition once parliament resumes in late january. no doubt, bob rae, the other liberal heavyweight is critical of the secret vote to install iggy as the party's temporal leader.

this development reveals the structural problems within the liberal party these days; dumping leaders, bringing them back, only to dump them a week later. now, a make shift party leadership selection without any input from the party's rank and file members. although, iggy's almost inevitable victory as the party's leader is within the party's constitution, his selection is likely to voice some skepticism within the public's eye as to how the party appointed him so quickly to replace dion. no doubt, harper's war room is already scheming in ways to frame iggy is not only blowing past canada's democratic process but the party's procedures as well.

parliament has been prorogued.

with that; democracy in this country has entered unprecedented waters. the idea that a government facing a vote of non-confidence vote can suspend parliament hopefully just galvanizes the coalition to bring down the government once--and whenever that is--resumes.

harper who created this mess now cowardly refuses to be accountable for his words and rather than facing the house has been allowed to shut it down.

what to make of this? the conservatives diatribe against the bloc can stir up sovereignty debate yet again and another period of national unity uncertainty. here, the party was on the brink of being the power broker in ottawa, now harper has shut them down cold. either way, whatever steps harper made in quebec last two years have been reversed within the last few days. in essence, the potential at a conservative majority is all but over. now, either the liberals will see a rejuvenation or bloc stir up separatist sentiment.

harper could of course turn this in his advantage by coming back in january and rolling out a budget that that coalition just cannot vote against.

however once looks at this situation; harper faces an upward road from just where he was a mere week ago.

i woke this morning and looked out the window to make there wasn't any soldiers or tanks rolling in the streets.

all with the government accusing the opposition of staging a coup d'etat and installing it's own PM, sounds reminiscent of some great revolution of the past.

so the developments of the past 24 hours suggest the opposition parties are not backing down for pushing forward and toppling the government. with the rhetoric of last few days and now officially announcing the coalition has a particular timeline and how it'll be structured; it's hard to believe they'll back off now with this teasing.

the most contentious aspect is their selection as stephane dion as the interim prime minister until a new leader is chosen next spring. this is the same dion that was overwhelming rejected by the canadian voters mere weeks ago and left on the curb his fellow party mates. rather perplexing that next week he may become the country's next prime minister. while i have my reservations about this, what else is there to do? he is still the leader of the official opposition and according to our constitution, his ascendancy to prime minister is legal, yet, hard to grasp by most canadians. the hardest the coalition faces is selling thhe idea of dion as the prime minister. even tougher in the spring when the liberals choose a new leader that automatically moves into 24 sussex. no one chooses that pm other than the liberal party members and according to the coalition accord could be prime minister for well over a year before facing the electorate. of course we saw this kim campbell's short helm as the country's pm and her subsequent defeat eventually can attributed with the collapse of the progressive conservatives. going out on a limb here, but liberals are charting into politics never seen in this country.

in the harper camp, it's full panic mode. to suggest he might prorogue parliament is more dangerous than dion as the prime minister. constitutional experts call that option an unprecedented and undemocratic as the prime minister in essence is running away from his own defeat by shutting down parliament. such talks throws us back to bygone eras where the kings shut the doors on the legislature to avoid hearing what they did not want to.

but life is not a video game that harper can just his the reset button and try again with a new throne speech and economic announcement in january when parliament would resume again. to think the PMO is actually considering this option is frightening. it reveals the disdain the conservatives have for the democratic process that they would run and hide from from a parliament of which they make up the minority of. understandably election is not a credible option, every canadian throwing around the statistic the typicall election costs $300 million, which produced nothing six weeks ago, why do it again? the electorate is likely to punish the conservatives this time for dissolving parliament as soon as harper made his first mistake.

proroguing the parliament can result in two outcomes: galvanize the opposition to bring down the government once (whenever that is) resumes or simply in time, they'll lose their momentum. the break neck speed of which all developments have happened so far means there has been little room for reflection and ability to gauge the murky waters the opposition find itself in. perhaps, the winter break will give gilles a chance to realize that his signature on the coalition accord could be politically damaging in quebec; the separatist leader working with the federalists.

suspending parliament would buy time for harper in that he can come up with some credible economic package on which the opposition cannot vote down. for example, harper can offer to write the auto sector a blank cheque over the next 10 years and give layton little maneuvering room to vote against the government. rather than cutting the party subsidy, harper can offer to raise it from 1.95 to say 2.25 for every vote. suddenly, the reason we find ourselves in this political crisis becomes awash with more rather than less dollars being thrown out. hard to believe harper would lay out either of these options, but they would corner the opposition into essentially voting against what they stand for.

right now it seems most canadians are skeptical of the coalition but if harper suspends parliament the table will shift and likely the public will see a government that is fearing to face a problem they have created. the general opinion is that this is harper's own doing when he went for the jugular of the opposition, however, people are less responsive their reaction that the government now must be toppled. scanning the news comment sites (yes, bad way to gauge public opinion) there is concern that this high-stakes political drama is really necessary at a time like this.

harper needs to either move over and let the coalition form the government. given that they are a hodge-podge of parties with their own political agendas, it'll be interesting their coalition holds through until 2011. and given that a new PM would come in no matter in the spring, five months from now, the coalition itself could ravel apart. the bloc is the balance of power in that coalition and their interest lie way outside of the other parties.

what a weekend for political junkies. i don't think i've read more columns, blogs, news site comments more than in the past 48 hours.

edge of the seat stuff, folks.

potentially, we are in the last full week as stephen harper the prime minister of the country. the desperation is seeping through; all with the flip flops of the announcements from thursday, delaying the confidence vote and last night's tape recording by the conservatives in which they were "accidently invited" to listen in on jack layton's conference call.

the tight ship ran by harper was nothing but a house of cards that has all about collapsed. this week is likely to produce more fascinating commentary from the party's rank and file in a desperate plea to hold their governorship.

make no mistake about it; the media is revelling as this political crisis plays itself out. since 2006, harper has been cold to the media with next no access and the first story of which would be out of his control--ironically, by his own doing--they would seize on the moment. even the commentary of the right-winged national post's don martin is questioning the judgement of mr. harper.

the bottom is that harper the master politician picked the wrong time to play politics. even individuals like myself hesitant but willing to give him a chance have seen the true harper; all politics, all the time. at a time of economic crisis not seen in my lifetime, harper used the opportunity to push through politically and ideologically charged proposals hoping parliament would swallow the poison.

no matter how fragmented or lacking real leadership, this "coalition" is necessary to put the country first and politics aside. yes, it's rather unholy union of "socialists", separatists and a party that can't keep itself together, yet, it is better than a government that chose to ingore what the rest of the world is doing and instead attempted to all about kill the opposition by choking their funds. regardless of what the coalition puts forth as their economic plan it is still better than a government that chooses to ignore the problem all together.

his own descent is not the result of a hijack by the opposition but harper's flawed view of a minority government should work, let alone in the times we find ourselves. instead of admitting fault, harper is framing this as a hijacking of democracy and installing a prime minister that was not chosen by the people. given the fact, more than 60% of canadians voted for this collective group of parties, their legitimacy is entirely grounded within the voters. if anything, harper's 38% or so public support lacks the legitimacy of the country when last week he failed to address the concerns of the majority of the country. of course, the percentage of support is entirely subject to its own debate on our electoral scheme. the point is; harper is choosing to ignore the fact the constitution permits these sort of arrangments between opposition parties when the government loses confidence of parliament. harper should know very well; in 2004, he was on the brink of arranging the same coalition with the bloc to bring down martin's liberal government.

i've always credited harper as a smart politician, doing and saying the right thing at the right time. nothing he ever does or says is without a projection of what is to transpire afterwards. the parties subsidy cuts was a clever ploy that shows you can't win them all. the plan itself was brilliant but the miscalculation of the expected outcome has harper on the defensive. rather than the opposition blinking, they now smell blood and are going full steam after harper, no matter how battered they are themselves.

what harper did for the conservative movement could not have been done by anyone else within that party. however, there is a limit to what one can do and at which further actions are detrimental to to the cause. simply, the feared underlying thoughts many canadians have about harper are now front and centre as he played his cards too early. now is the time for the party to choose a leader who's interest in the country and not destroying the opponents. speaking to friends and family who work in the limping manufacturing sector of ontario as to what the government plans on doing, harper is more concerned with using his position to conquer a majority government not by ideas and policies but by mean spirited strategies. it is as if harper really does have contempt for the democratic process.

if the coalition pushes through with bringing down the government next week, it is likely the end of the harper's political career. he can't be trusted with the public, parliament and likely rank and file conservatives are displeased with his me me me-orientated announcements last week.

and if so, much credit to harper for being the first politician to unite the left and the right.