It's raining...
Well, it's raining here for the first time since I arrived. That means that I won't be heading to St. Tropez today. I checked out the weather for Cannes, and it's supposed to rain for the next two days. That sucks. Then I checked out the weather for Paris on December 31st, and it's supposed to yucky, with possibilities of snow.
Anyway, I've had a chance to catch up on the news, finally. I bought a copy of the English language Economist, in hopes of finding out what has been happening in this crazy world. (I don't have a TV, and don't read the papers regularly here, so I've been out of the loop basically since I arrived in September.)
France has banned la voile islamique, the Islamic headscarf, in schools and public buildings in an attempt to keep the state totally religious-symbol free. It's been a huge debate over here since before I arrived.
I just found out that Canada has a new Prime Minister. Well, everyone was expecting that Paul Martin would be "the one", but I didn't know that Jean Chretien had stepped down so soon. Supposedly the election will be called in April, which would be cool because I'll get to vote from abroad!
The US is once again blaming Canada. I shouldn't be too surprised.
I also found out that Canada gave into the US on the softwood lumber issue. Canada has to reduce its lumber exports to the US (read more lost jobs), US companies get to keep 48% of the $1.6 US billion in tariffs that were unfairly imposed on Canadian lumber exports, and we have to drop complaints to trade tribunals (which we would have won, as we have won several times in the past).
That's all for now folks.