It's been a quite scene here lately, largely because I'm still toying around with the thesis and making sure it's just right. BTW, the big day for the oral defence is August 24th. If you're in town that afternoon, drop on by if you are so inclined, though I can't imagine why anybody would be. On a related note, if you think TV is really bad, you don't know mind-numbing until you've had to do the preliminary pages and formatting of a thesis. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but now I'm a smidge disappointed that my supervisor said they're not going to be focusing too much on the formatting and stuff when the 24th rolls around.

In addition to other priorities, I've been suffering a bit of a burnout and lack of really interesting things to say. I've spoken my piece on the Middle East crisis and Canada's role within it (and the broader international system), and I don't really feel like commenting on the day-to-day tactical developments all the time. The strategy remains the same, and if/when there's the big diplomatic breakthrough I'll say something about it. Till then, I don't want to get bogged down in details. There's also the matter of summer, which I'm told doesn't last as long here in Halifax as it does in the Okanagan. Hard to disagree given what I've seen so far. In all my years I can't recall being woken up at 6am by a thunderstorm though.

Beyond that, I'm good. Sent a letter to the editor of the Post this morning about a guy complaining about the inability of the UN to "make the world safe for democracy." It's a laudable goal and certainly one that I share, but he got his acronyms wrong. The UN isn't about democracy, but the US is. It was Woodrow Wilson's statement in the first place, and after the League failed, Harry Truman (ohh I love this subject; I bought a presidential coin off eBay yesterday, fwiw) decided that "it must be the policy of the United States to stand up for free peoples everywhere." That's the gist of it. If they print it, I'll put it up, if they don't, they don't.

That's all, I'm fine, we're all fine here now, how are you?