Election time is upon us, and I’m actually looking forward to another federal vote. It'll be cool to see the biggest garbage in the world, when we dump $300 million into it.

In honour of the big event, I’ve decided to set aside my pinko lefty ways (Don Cherry’s and Archie Bunker’s words – not mine), and promise to vote for ANY party that follows my simple guidelines. More on that in a bit...

Quite frankly, though the mainstream parties in Canada run the left-centre-right gamut, they are each just slight variations of the other.

Happy birthday to me! Today, I finally turn one. Well, my dot com alter ego that is.

And, in honour of this milestone (or kilometrestone to my fellow Canadians), I would like to give a special gift - which may involve you. But, before I get to that...

One year ago, after some serious inspiration from the late Matt Cook, and after a serious car accident, in which I flirted with my expiration date, I accidentally started this Web site (which you can read about in my first post) and re-started my writing career.

As modest a goal as it may sound, I want to change the world. So, rather than compete in a beauty pageant, I write. (That, and when it comes to the swimsuit portion, my articles look great in bikinis.)

You want to know what happens when schools, parents, and communities don’t do anything about bullying? One of three things:

1.    The victim to the bullying endures horrible physical, emotional, and/or mental suffering;

2.    The victim to the bullying either goes on shooting rampages or commits suicide, as we’ve sadly learned, or rather, finally acknowledged this year; and,

3.    The victim to the bullying fights back, because no one else protects him, only to face punishment.

Which brings me to the story of a 16-year-old Australian boy who rightly deserves to trump Justin Bieber as the new teen dream.

In 1989, the House of Commons made a resolution to achieve the goal of eliminating child poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000.

In 2010, an act to eliminate poverty in Canada was introduced into the House of Commons.

What a difference over two decades can make.

At least one in nine children in this country live in poverty, while one in every four children in First Nations’ grow up in it.

Today, health ministers from across Canada collectively announced that we must wait until November 2011 to find out what they intend to do about childhood obesity. What they fail to note, is that it is one of poverty’s heaviest problems.