O CANADA, OH BROTHER: Now, I'm no expert on this subject, and how Canadians govern themselves is entirely their own business, but after hearing a good many a lecture about the superiority of Canada and its civic virtues over those of the imperialistic, hegemonic, and altogether corrupt United States it is entirely heartening, for those of us inclined to schadenfreude, to see the Canadian government first becoming embroiled in a nasty corruption scandal, and secondly manage to stay in power by ignoring the rules of parliamentary democracy as most people understand them and then by cutting a political deal of outstandingly cynical proportions with a member of the Opposition. The ongoing and wholly unedifying political spectacle is something like watching the wife of a minister trying to explain away those pictures of her coming out of a beach house with three cabana boys and holding a bottle of Jack Daniels whilst in a state of extreme deshabille during the pastor's annual religious pilgrimage to the Bahamas; it can be done, after a fashion, but it tends to cut down on the righteousness quotient of the minister's next sermon. It's hard to tend to the mote in your brother's eye when everyone can see that softwood 2 x 4 in yours.