Starting the blog and summing up events of the day

I won't bore you, my first readers, with the ubiquitous "I've decided to start a blog because..." bit. I doubt those are of any interest to anyone except, possibly, a scholar studying people's motivation in starting blogs. If you are such a scholar and need data, let me know.

Meanwhile, I had an unusual day today, as I went to a town hall meeting with our local Conservative MP James Rajotte. It was a good crowd, although the lecture part was not exactly inspiring. The best part of the meeting was a person who asked an entire series of sharp and emotionally-charged questions about Afghanistan, prorogation and Omar Khadr. From her voice and her remarks during and after Rajotte's anwers to those questions I gathered that the answers did not clarify the issues, nor was she expecting them to. It's nice to see such a level of interest in current issues as well as outright courage in asking a Tory MP why there was such a shameful campaign against Colvin, how much money was wasted on the annual Harper prorogation (wait, no, that sounds as if Harper was prorogued...), etc. I really hope that person keeps up the fire. Rajotte did not seem too pleased with this approach.

Had a chat with James Rajotte after the meeting (having asked him a few questions on EI, poverty, prorogation and crime earlier). It is with great conviction that he once again stressed the reasons neither he nor anyone else from the governing party should be attending public events outside of an electoral campaign if there are representatives of other parties present. It is as if we all pretend he isn't Conservative while he pretends to be a true representative of all the constituents, never mind the first-past-the-pole system.

Keep working away on the Twitter and Facebook. A few people have let me know before I set up the blog that the blog should not repeat other media as much as possible. I will try to stick to that, although, of course, there will be a link between the different online presences I have.

Will call it a day for this first post. If anyone is reading - thank you for your kind attention and I look forward to your comments.