A Few Quick Notes 541

-The weather has really been yo-yoing for the past few days. On Sunday I woke up to sun and blue skies only to find that within an hour the skies had turned so grey that it seemed like the sun was about to set. Only minutes later I was in the midst of an intense downpour and thunder and lightening store. After the sky cleared we had another such transition at about 2:00 PM. My recollection is that yesterday was also intermittently bright and dark while today, at least so far, seems to be a beautiful, if cool, day. Of course, rain seems to be in today's forecast so who knows how things will actually turnout as the day moves forward.

-Fortunately yesterday evening turned out to be quite pleasant, even if the skies were a little grey. Jeannette and I decided to go for an evening stroll and, somewhat unintentionally, ended up visiting Acadia University's botanical garden. Though we didn't take as much time to visit the gardens as we could have, it was nonetheless a very enjoyable visit. I am sure we will be heading back throughout the summer.

-I should be paying more attention to some of the legislation that has recently been introduced, or that is about to be introduced, by the Harper government. Some of these bills, if enacted, could really change the way things work in Canada and, sadly, I get the sense that they are being rushed through without too much consideration of their potential impact.

Anyway, not that my opinion counts for much, I think that the Senate reform attempts are likely to be particularly important and could really change some of the central institutions of government. While I am not so much of a fan of the current structure of the Senate to say that we should never consider changing it, I do think that any changes should be discussed openly and widely before they are implemented. Currently it seems that the plan is to implement the changes without really having much of a national discussion about what impact these changes might have or whether or not it is even constitutional for the federal government to unilaterally make such changes to the constitution and the functioning of a powerful (or potentially powerful) institution.

I really should probably motivate myself to write a letter to Mr. Harper and my local MP (Mr. Harris), but for now this will have to do.

-Now that I am about 12 days removed from my surgery I have enough energy and have recovered enough that I can get back to work. I guess this means that I should probably stop blogging for the time being and actually get back to work.