Sunrise, sunset (clause)

Hey blog. It's been ages. What's new? I feel we haven't talked since June. I started a new job over the summer, one that is awesome and so much fun, but required a bit of an adjustment period. I think I've found my sea legs now, and I may even have enough time to blog. 

A couple of interesting things that have happened in the last couple of weeks.
I hear that we're coming up on the bicentenary of the War of 1812 and the Historic Harper Government is going to make something of a big deal of this. Harper himself is a huge War of 1812 buff, which is a side of him I never thought we'd see. 

This is actually something I'd like to see the government do. I like a good historical recreation, and this seems like the perfect opportunity to bring out the costumes. It will also be interesting to see our government try and commemorate a war we had with our current largest trading partner, closest ally, and symbiotic host country without offending them. I bet no-one will bring up the burning down of the White House

It was actually the British who did it, but Canadians have been trying to steal the credit ever since.

Second thing I found interesting was the conservatives bringing back two clauses in the anti-terrorist act that seem frightening from a human rights perspective. The first would allow the police to hold anyone suspected of terrorist activity for three days without a police warrant. The second would allow judges to question suspects in private, with the threat of imprisonment if the suspect refuses.

It seems that the scope for abuse there could be pretty large, but I'm just speculating. As a wooly liberal/sheepish social democrat, this sort of news tends to push my buttons. Would I rather the government allow terrorism to thrive on Canadian soil? No, but I'm not keen on them selling out our human rights or due process either. 

It's not clear what burden of proof would be needed to label someone as a potential terrorist. Hopefully, it would be more than just racial profiling or people denouncing people they don't like.

I have misgivings more about the fact that these clauses are going to be in effect semi-permanently. When they were first passed in 2001, they were sunsetted. The means they would expire after a period of time, in this case five years. I don't know if that period of time is typical for all 'sunsetted' clauses. The happy Harper government has said that it won't sunset these clauses when they bring them back into effect. Which means they will be in effect for the foreseeable future.

I needed a picture. This really doesn't belong here.