why i'm glad to be canadian (and especially not american at the moment...)

did you know that there is a website devoted to calculating the constantly rising debt of the United States of America in real time? You can pull up this page and just sit there and watch as the super-power that dominated the majority of the previous century digs its own grave, deeper and deeper. The current total is over 14 trillion dollars and it literally increases by hundreds of thousands of dollars every minute.

here's the address if you're interested: www.usdebtclock.org

if you're not aware that america is in more than a bit of a pickle, i can't help but wonder where you've been holed up for the past three years. america, like much of the world, still hasn't recuperated from the global recession of 2008. and now, they're about to hit their debt ceiling, a previously decided limit of how much debt the country is allowed to have. this isn't the first time they've crept up on their limit and needed to raise it, but this time the Republicans have decided that they aren't going to take Obama's plan lying down (not that they ever do). Obama must work with his opponents to come up with a compromise and raise the debt ceiling by August 5 or else for the first time in history, america will to forced to default on its debt-not be able to pay its bills and will be completely broke.

i want to be able to congratulate the Republicans on putting their foot down and insisting that the government get the country's debt under control, but it doesn't look like that's really what's going on. As always seems to be the case in america, politics rather than policy is taking priority, with each side refusing to let the other "win", and holding the entire country hostage in the meantime. i find this recurring theme of "us" vs "them" in american politics to be rather exhausting.

i will be surprised if america does end up defaulting on their debt. unlike greece, they don't have a European Union to bail them out. the US owes most of their debt to china, and it goes without saying the chinese aren't known for being gracious. However, if they do, default i mean, it certainly will be a "brave new world". Who can really say what will happen? What we can say for sure is that the effects will reverberate throughout the entire world. and even if they do come to a reasonable resolution before August 5th, will the country be able to regain the confidence of investors? Will they be able to cut spending while still building the economy to avoid this happening again?

it is times like these that i am so thankful that in canada most of our politicians are academic older men who some may accuse of being a bit dull, and our prime minister is a greying economist who wears sweater vests. they may not be flashy but they get the job done. just saying.

'news of the world' is a remarkably apt name, when you think about it.

so in case you, like me, are a bit fuzzy on the actual events of the notw scandal, so far as i can tell, this is the crux of it.

the allegations - by now with a life of their own - that over 4,000 people, everyone from the families of dead soldiers to the royals, had their phones and voicemails hacked by headline-hungry journalists for the notw, have caused an implosion in the paper.  the most serious of the allegations implies that the phone-hacking impeded an (at the time) ongoing police murder investigation.  politically, the worst of the fallout comes from the former press secretary to prime minister david cameron, andy coulson.  (mr. coulson was the editor of the notw during much of the time in question.)  then the fun really begins - the allegations include suggestions that notw authorized pay-offs to the met police, which suggests a deep-rooted corruption in the fabric of london's force.

as a result, britain is in a tizzy - there are calls for the resignation of many upper notw executives, and rebecca brooks (newly ex-ceo) was briefly detained.  rumours have suggested that david cameron will step down (though completely unfounded, they are an accurate measure of the way the scandal is being perceived), and the british government has begun an in depth series of committee meetings to determine next steps and investigate the allegations.  the met has seen its senior officials (paul stephenson, ex-chief of scotland yard, and david yates, ex-assistant commissioner of the met) resign.  and, to cap it all of with a grisly exclamation point, sean hoare, one of the first whistle-blowers and a former notw journalist, was found dead in his home (although it is not currently being viewed as suspicious).  

in short: if your name is rupert murdoch, you're in hell. (but if you work for the guardian, you're having the best few weeks of your life.)

and thus concludes my coverage.

ems, anything you want to add?  i miss your political analysis, it's just not the same without you.

the sweetness at the bottom of the pie, by alan bradley

ems, i can't remember if you've read this - i think you have - but thought it'd make a fun first post either way.

if you only read one book about murder this year, it should be 'the sweetness at the bottom of the pie' (or, to be fair, either of the other two titles in the "flavia de luce" series, i'm not fussy which you choose).

in fact, i could leave it at that:  you should read it, the end.  but i won't.  (because sometimes more really is better.)

in alan bradley's buckshaw, a rambling manor in 1950s england, we meet the family de luce, as revealed through the eyes of eleven-year-old flavia.  flavia is, to be clear, an extraordinary eleven-year-old.  a budding chemist with a passion for poisons, she has an eerily adult voice and a thoroughly unflappable view of the world.  still, bradley has managed to capture the spirit of a little girl.  she seeks petty revenge on her older sisters, is befuddled by her widowed father's moods, and viciously dislikes the housekeeper's cooking.  flavia is both a laboratory-dwelling, poison-distilling chemist and an amusing girl who, like many children, sees the world much more clearly than the adults that inhabit her realm.

and then, of course, there is the murder-most-foul.  who doesn't like a story where a dead bird appears on the doorstep with a mysterious postage stamp affixed to its beak?  how can you not be thrilled when a body appears in the cucumber patch?

and while i'd love to talk about how cleverly it all comes together - and it does - i'm afraid you just have to trust me on this one: you don't want to be spoiled.  it's worth reading, if only for the fact that you may never again read a mystery that revolves around stamp-collecting and chemistry.

ems, i think my next post will review the news of the world scandal... the twitterverse is feeding my obsession, i can't get enough!