What an interesting day. Canadians are electing a new government and Osama Bin Laden has been murdered. I do not typically post politically related thoughts on this blog, however, this is more of a reflection on the days events.

Standing in the RIM cafeteria awaiting the arrival of my wife for our lunch date, Osama Bin Laden's face is plastered all over the many mounted LCD televisions around the room. As I'm getting a coffee I notice a fellow tech support worker is also in the room staring at one of the monitors, his name is Mohammed Muneer Uddin and he is from Pakistan. "So what do you think Mohammed?" "Meh, does anyone trust what governments say anyway?" Exactly. An older lady who works in the cafeteria chimes in, "It would've been nice to have at least seen some proof." Indeed. Skepticism in regard to the story being sold to us was rampant throughout my office. Distrust in what our governments feed us seems to be growing into a mainstream phenomenon.

Its odd, watching Americans all over the TV celebrating. I can't help to think, Bush made the idea of pre-emptive war acceptable, Obama is doing the same for the idea of assassination by presidential decree. At what point did our society begin celebrating murder without trial? At what point did Americans provide their president with the powers of judge and jury? These revelations are all very distressing and with the 2012 election on the horizon, there is no hope for change...except for one candidate. But that's for another post.

Besides the distraction brought to us by the American government, us Canadians are busy running to the polls. Noone I talked to at work today planned on not voting. Everyone was very determined to fulfill their democratic duty, however noone seemed overly excited about their choices. The general sentiment was that, if only Jack Layton was the leader of the Liberals it would be a landslide. When I arrived at the fire hall at 7:30, the parking lot was packed and there was line up to get into the building. I looked at my choices with great disdain. The green party? Socialists. The liberals? Socialists. The NDP? Socialists. The conservatives? Socialists. Ah well. I closed my eyes and made my mark.

Sarah suggested I should've put a big X through the ballot and then write-in Ron Paul.