this is the first election, provincial or federal, that i have decided not to vote in. not because i'm apathetic or anything like that, just straight up lazy. i'd have to fax in some forms, wait for a ballot to arrive and then send it express, which costs money, and may not arrive in time anyway, so I have done the true Canadian thing, and have just given up. i'm just kidding, i don't think that's the true canadian thing at all. now the choices of parties this year is finally across the board, from right to left, everyone can now find representation within the main parties. my congratulations to the green party for coming so far, it goes to show that there is more and more demand for steadfast representation in the house of commons pertaining to the environmental issues the governments of the past have shirked. i have no illusions, i don't expect nor really desire to see the Green Party with either a minority or majority government, however, a few seats can go a long way. polls are running high for the Greens at around 10%, higher than the BQ. despite that, they probably will not get more than one or two seats (if they're lucky), due to the concentration of support being spread out over the entire country, and not focused in one geographical area. so even though there was more than 600,000 votes in the last election for the Greens, they didn't win a single seat.

personally i like the idea of a minority government, as it prevents one party to be able to come along and make any drastic changes contrary to public opinion, or near consensus in the House of Commons. just think, if the conservatives would have had a majority this last term, we would have seen drastic changes to our copyright laws that would have made most users of the internet common criminals. or perhaps a bill that limited only Canadian content in funding due to arbitrary judgments of the heritage minister.

now i could list many more, but i will list some praises of the conservatives:

- i agree with the idea of fixed election dates, the conservatives themselves put this one through, once every four years. to quote Rob Nicholson, the conservative who put forth the bill: "fixed election dates will improve the fairness of Canada's electoral system by eliminating the ability of governing parties to manipulate the timing of elections for partisan advantage." (of course, despite this, they called an election one year early, at the party's advantage)

- they switched Rona Ambrose as environment minister. when asked to address the issues of logging in the area of the endangered species, the Spotted Owl, in August 2006 she stated that although the population of Spotted Owls in British Columbia is only 17, she does not feel they are threatened and therefore they do not merit any special protection.

- this one I'm being honest about, i am happy that the government apologized to the Aboriginal community for its role in the rural schools. although it's symbolic, it is something no government has done in the past, and i'm happy as a canadian to know that even though i disagree with the government, that at least once and a while, they seem to do the right thing.

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well, on the flip side, i'd like to talk a little bit about the idea of voting "strategically". in my opinion, this just lends further support to the bipartisan system that exists, there will never be any other parties in power besides the conservatives or the liberals. despite the fact that on the political spectrum, they are holding hands on the right of centre. if you choose to vote "strategically" in your riding, and you lose, not only did you not vote for the party that won, nor did you vote for the party of your preference, taking away from their popular vote, which in the case of the smaller parties, can determine whether or not they have funding for the next year. for example, Saskatchewan is a conservative stronghold, as is Alberta. there is the common conception that they will represent the west better than the liberals will, and i somewhat agree with that. so a strategic liberal vote in the west means your vote will not change things (except for Goodale, a bang up guy, and has kept his seat for 15 years now). so, vote what you agree with, as strategy will only result in disappointment (my opinion).

i'm done ranting, but my prediction is that the conservatives will retake power, with a minority gov't, the greens will get 1-3 seats, the NDP will gain in seats, the liberals will decline in seats, and BQ will take the same.

anyone want to start a pool?

but i don't seem to be working that often. today is the university entrance mock-exam, so there is no classes, the same as tomorrow. so we had a holiday monday, no classes on thursday or friday...slave drivers i tell you! last week was kinda neat, the picture in the post below is from the school festival. they spend the whole year preparing for this show, and they have some amazing talent on display. i was actually a little nervous because they put me on right after two bands that were quite solid. however, i had star power, and they couldn't understand what i was saying anyhow, so they loved it. an audience of damn near 2/3 of Taebaek was present, and it was my first solo performance. i've always had the luxury of not being centre stage, and i've found that takes the pressure off of things immensely, so this time i was a little nervous. but it was simple, two tracks: Hey Hey My My by Neil Young, and Shine Through by Linger adapted to acoustic.

Other than that life is good, haven't had much chance to travel of late as I've been so broke from Japan. However, I have a new addiction to feed me: Lord of the Rings Online! who needs WoW, when you got LOTRO? I finally finished the Silmarillion, that puts me in the complete geek category, as I've now read five Tolkien books in six months, and have started the online game. NERD!!

hope life is treating you well, five months and i'll be coming for a visit...

I only played two songs to a huge audience who never understood a word i said, but that's okay.

well, devoted blog readers, it's been a while. kat and i are back into full swing of teaching here in Taebaek city, South Korea. Japan was a blast, and check out some of our blog posts on Annyong Haseyo, we've started to do more regular updates, and although we're over a month behind in posts, they are becoming more and more frequent.

anyhow, the topic of today's post is illegal downloading. my perspective of this phenomenon has always sorta been from the sidelines. in the past, i was a heavy heavy music downloader from everything from napster to imesh to limewire to bittorrent. these days, i've mellowed, and although i do occasionally download some music, most of it is purchased off of iTunes. there are becoming many appealing legal avenues for getting the music at a reasonable price without the stigma of "stealing". Of course, i'm still quite a heavy software/movies downloader, but that's another blogpost. Recently i was surfing the net to see how the Linger album has progressed in its online presence. So i typed in to Google: linger root of truth. the number one entry was a bit torrent site offering free downloads. What really shocked me was that the number of downloads was over 900 downloads in less than one month, and there were 4 people at that very moment downloading it. initially i was very surprised, a little shocked. who could it be that was downloading it? who made the torrent file available for download. whereas the thought of people downloading the music free didn't bother me so much, as there were 900 more people who likely would never have bought or even have had opportunity or knowledge to buy it that were hearing our music, but my thoughts kept turning to who did this? where did they get the original files? returning to the google search page, i realized that not only was the number one hit a bit torrent site, but out of the top 20 hits, 15 were bit torrent sites, the myspace page being number 9 on the list. in these hits i found a russian site that was selling it! woah! hold the phone, illegal downloading is one thing, but somebody making money (albeit a small amount) off of our hard-work, now that is outrageous!

but what can you do, at least more people are listening to it, but remember, we have 500 cds that need homes too!

working to put the KHTK details together, formulating a game plan. there is still another 5 months before we come back to canada (maybe for a month, maybe forever, depending how it goes), but once we come back there will be lots of work to be done. keep an eye out.

until next time, keep fit and have fun.