Job growth in the U.S., the economy and the elections

I was listening to Wolf Blitzer reporting the results of the job growth news. It appears that the news are quite disappointing. The unemployment rate in the U.S. remained stuck at 5,6%. Nonetheless, the american economy appears to be doing well despite the outsourcing controversy. As a Canadian, I'm curious how this news will factor into the upcoming American general election.

In any case, the Canadian economy, especially in Quebec is doing quite well. What fuels the economic activity is the construction boom in both residential and commercial. I can certinaly attest to this, there's a lot of construction in my neighbour area. Entire woods and empty fields are being developed.

The reason isn't a mystery. Leaving aside the obvious low interest rates, the principal reason is that construction is finally picking up after years of a standstill. In the early to mid 90s, Quebec's construction industry pretty much halted. I remember visiting Montreal after a few years of absence and was shocked to see rows of closed stores and boarded up building on Ste Catherine's, Montreal's downtown. There was even a timethat you could get a nice apartment, a 4 and half at the Students' ghetto around Mcgill University for 500$/month! now Montreal has a vacancy rate like Vancourer's. Montreal's is now at 0,2% something unheard of.

Back to the American job growth, I'm still curious as to what it signifies. On the one hand the American economy is doing quite well; on the other, the employeers don't seem yet convinced that the ecomony is vigourous enough to justify hiring more employees. I have to admit, I try to follow economic news, but it's very easy to become confused by the contradictory information. So the fact that the American unemployment rate remains unchanged is that good news or bad news?

La constitution irakienne: que passerait-il?

Names: families and the Civil code

Pastor de Vries' oped amply demonstrates how his attack on arts 54-55 Civil Code of Quebec, which edicts that everyone has a name and women preserve their own family name when they marry, is certainly a poor choice to highlight the contemporary assualt on the family.

His article underscores how Anglophones really still don't understand Latin culture or Roman law. If he bothered to research the history of Quebec's private law since the colonial period, he wouldn't have been so quick to condemn feminimism as a root cause for the inclusion of arts 54-55 CCQ.

During the colonial period until the 1860 women would preserve their family names when they married. The problem resulted from a confusion by the instrusion of common law in Quebec. Common law, until very recently obliged, women to give up their family names to take up that of their husband This led to a non-legal custom in Quebec which the notaries fought very hard to reverse. The reason is due to several hoary, but fundamental reasons.

First, every person has an intrinsic dignity qua human being, thus each person should receive a unique/distinct name as long as it's not demeaning. Second, by having distinctive names it's possible to ensure that the right person will execute his obligations or respond for any faults he committed. You can imagine the headaches courts and notaries have had when they had to deal with Jean-Guy Tremblay only to find out that the plantiff took the wrong person to court.

If the pastor had continued his research on the historical background, he would've realized that it's not just Quebec's civil code that preserves women's family names, when they marry and transmit their name along with the husbad to their children, but the entire civil law regime throughout out Catholic Europe, Latin America and African countries under Latin colonization. The individualism he decrys isn't the familiar Lockean, Anglospheric ideal but a preindustrial legal category painstakingly elaborated over 2 and a half millenia and astute enough to balance between the individuals' and family's rights and obligations. Contrary to his complaints then, the civil code is very respectful of names it just doesn't protect them in the identical manner as common law. In fact, names are the foundation of Roman private law and Quebec has amply illustrated the disruption that occurs to the society when common law was incorrectly applied to the civil code in the matter of names.

La matan?a del xi?tes:?Qu? passar? proximament?

Ahir quan mirava el reportage sobre la Festa d'Aixura- el dia m?s sagrat del xi?tes, em horritza a veure les explosions i sentir el xiuleigs del mortaders. 147 morts i uns 500 ferits. I aix? sense comptar la carnerisseria a Pakistan. Realment em disgusta m?s ennl? de paraules

Els comentaristes culpen Zawhari que escriv? una carta en qu? articulava precisament aquesta estrat?gia- provocar una viol?ncia sect?ria en l'Iraq que desencadenaria una guerra civil que fotaria afora la Coalici?. Pel moment, els iraquins no han caiguts en la trampa. Ja saben ben b? qui son l'escuma que els mata. Que es interesant i esgiriffant es que cap imam o col?legi de savis islamics han comdemnat aquest atemptats contra els correlgionaris.

Hi ha una paralua tencnic que m'escapa per? dintre l'Islam es prohibeix de manera total de matar entre musulmans. Una de les conseq??ncies es la perdua d'anar al c?l amb Al?la; altres m?s prosaquies son la perdua de tot legtimitat per aquells amb autoritat i el dret de rebel?lir per protegir l'ulma contra tals impiosos.

L'altre irritant es que els caps de xi?tes cuplen els americans per l'inseguran?a. Potser tenen un miqueta de la culpa per? ?on estaven aquest milities privades de Sistani? Papa observa que criden i cuplen molt per? no fan res per assistir els americans ni l'Autoritat provisional a capturar els autors d'aquest atemeptat encara saben for?a b? qui son.

Triumph the wonder dog, Huntington and the New World's colonial legacy

Recently, the blogosphere was abuzz about culture, jokes and immigrations. It started with a puppet dog called Triumph mcking the Quebecois during the Conan O'Brien show; then Steyn opined how the resulting controversy highlighted how multinational countries are basically humourless because the inhabitants don't share the same culture references or background. Then came news of Huntington's controversial article against Latin American immigration and finally Randall Parker posts about how democracy can foster multiethnic strife

However, it was Huntington's article that triggered some reflections about the New World's colonial legacies. I pointed out to a fellow blogger that such advocacy against biculturalism exposes a deep insecurity by the North American Anglophones about their colonial legacy. Obviously my position is highly controversial and totally counterintuitive because it smacks of the turgid white man's guilt. My position is nothing of the sort. After all, Anglophone colonization in the U.S. has resulted in a highly dynamic, perpetually creative superpower that dominates the world in many fields. In Canada, its Anglophone colonization has resulted in an orderly if earnest society.

Yet North American Anglophones have always been conflicted when dealing with minorities and have intuitively concluded that their colonial heritage didn't really prepare them with how to deal with such issues in comparasion to the Latin colonialists. In Canada, since the Conquest of 1759, Anglo and Francophones have always had relations that oscillated from mutual acceptence to overt conflicts. In the U.S., the growing Hispanic presence is causing great tension that challenges some of the underlying myths that define the American identity. The source of those tensions in both Canada and the U.S. originates from the Anglophone colonial experience. Where the English colonists established themselves in areas where there weren't inhabited, or where the aboriginal tribes were few, the settlements really prospered. In those areas where the aboriginals were more numerous the colonies were often the focal points of conflicts.

Indeed, in North American colonial history, isn't it rather astonishing that there never seems to have existed Anglophone m?tis populations, coureur de bois or missionaries to the aboriginals? By contrast, the Latin colonization appears to have done a better job of integrating the indigenous populations into their respective colonies as workers in the mines and fields, servants at their table, guides to their expeditions and mistresses in their beds. Obviously Latin colonization has had its share of brutal, grotesque and vicious exploitation. No one's colonization in the New World is unsullied.

To return to the principal theme, I do regard the current handwringing about bicultralism and bilinualism by some Anglophones to underscore a sense of insecurity that originates from their colonial heritage.

Les eleccions del 14 mar?: ?qu? s'acabi d'una vegada!