And now for his internet debut..

Here is Jacob Solomon singing his ABC's. The bad camera angle is thanks to me. The video hosting is thanks to Google.



... and here is is singing Mary Had a Little Lamb...



More video to follow... once I film it, that is :)

Another video

I have not yet had the time to upload any video, but, here is an amazing clip that I found on Google video.

And now for something completely different...

...A test of Google Video. Enjoy this weird Hamster video. Don't worry, it's weird, but I can't imagine anyone being offended by it!

If this video works, I am going to investigate how to upload my OWN video to Google (of Jacob of course), and post it on the Blog. Let the fun times begin!

No whammy's... No whammy's... STOP!

Hello everybody! Just thought I would say hello as I have not posted since Canada's gone blue.

If you're interested, here are the official election results for Ottawa Center:



Oh, and here's the latest news that leads me to believe that Canada may very well be going down the tubes.

More one the subject not to be spoken about..

If you're still undecided about who to vote for on Monday, you may want to take a look at http://www.saplin.com/elections2006/index.php. It's a site which asks for your opinion on a variety of issues, and tells you which party you are most aligned with.

Also, Katherine asked me to post a link to her blog: http://katherineinottawa.blogspot.com/.

A powerful case of why we should not vote for the Conservative Party

Thanks Kurt for forwarding me this article written by Sinclair Stevens. It's taken from http://bloc-harper.com/blocharper/demise.htm, and reprinted below without permission.

You may want to take a look at bloc-harper.com if you find the article below interesting.

It is sad to witness the demise of Canada, one of the greatest nations in the
world.

The Leader’s Debate demonstrates the problem. Prime Minister Paul Martin does not have it in him to project himself as a Leader able to save Canada.

Opposition Leader, Stephen Harper is just that - an opposition
mentality.

He has spent most of his two years as Leader harassing the Government on various allegations of wrong doing. Harper does not stand for Canada First, he stands for Canada second - behind the Provinces. His plans for a “new federalism” in Canada are well documented but they were not debated last evening nor have they been explained in the media.

Since confederation our Leaders in Ottawa have put Canada First. Sir John A. Macdonald’s “National Policy” and his building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, not only put Canada first, it made Canada a reality.

At that time there was no Alberta. Oil and gas resources were not a factor.

Two world wars allowed Canadians to demonstrate they were willing to fight for our country and our democracy.

Canada’s prosperity into the 1990’s made us one of the richest countries in the world right up there with the U.S.A.

But in the last fifteen years the average Canadian’s earnings, which were fourth highest in the world, have now fallen to 17th. Our per capita revenue which equaled U.S. per person revenue is now $7,200.00 behind.

With a Prosperity Canada programme we could catch up to the U.S. level again. Every man, woman and child would earn that extra $7,200.00 a year and all levels of government would have an extra $80 Billion per year to pay down our National Debt or to spend on public services.

What went wrong?

A thing called separatism.

First in Quebec the Bloc Québécois was started by ex federal politicians and then in the West another group of politicians formed built a party around “Western Alienation”.

The Bloc was driven by a sense of Nationalism for Quebec while the Western movement was money driven. Of the two, money (some call it greed) has proven to be a stronger force in the West than Nationalism in Quebec.

Separatism or as it was called sovereignty association with Canada never received a 51% vote in Quebec.

It was always claimed they could only be a sovereign nation if Canada agreed. They of course could not control the Government of Canada. Yet a constitutional change was needed.

In the West, however, the Calgary School, which included Stephen Harper, saw a different opportunity.

They realized if they could take control of the federal government they could then, through down sourcing of federal activities to the provinces, and the transferring of tax revenue capabilities to the Provinces they would have de facto separation without constitutional change or the need for a referendum. It could also be called sovereignty association if they left with Canada some role for them to play such as foreign affairs, defence, international trade negotiations and maintaining a central money system.

Virtually
everything else would be handled provincially with say ten different provincial health plans, welfare programmes, educational activities and resource management.

In 1995, Mr. Harper then an M.P. and unity critic in the Reform Party under Preston Manning called their plan New Confederation or New Federalism. The 20 point plan was published at the Reform Party’s Headquarters
in Calgary.

Now Mr. Harper calls it “open federalism” and he slyly had it slipped into the Conservative Policy document agreed to in Montreal last
March.

This Policy paper actually endorses the Council of the Federation; set up on December 5th, 2003, by Provincial Premiers, to lobby the federal government.

The dollar effect of Mr. Harper’s scheme would be monumental.

In 2004, Alberta’s GDP per capita was over 144% of the National average. Prince Edward Island is 72% while Ontario the second highest
province was 103%.

Alberta is running a surplus at the rate of over 12 Billion dollars per year which would be equivalent to over 140 Billion in
Ottawa.

Alberta has no debt. Canada has over $500 Billion.

Oil and gas revenue flowing into the Alberta Treasury is over $15 Billion per year. That is almost $5,000.00 for every man, woman and child in the province.

In Canada, Ontario is the main purchaser of Alberta’s energy. Every time we fill our car gas tank we send dollars to the Alberta Treasury.

Harper’s open federalism would make it clear.

Resource revenue flows one way into Alberta’s Treasury. Ottawa would not be able to tax any of it for the benefit of Canadians in other provinces.

Question? Why would Mr. Martin not challenge Mr. Harper with these facts?

Answer. He is not a political leader who can handle provincial politicians.

And this is a game politicians are playing at the provincial level.

It started in Quebec with the separatist government claiming they had a fiscal imbalance with the federal government.

Other provinces through their politicians followed suit including Liberal Premier McGuinty in Ontario.

That meant if Martin attacked Harper on his open federalism he would be opposing Liberal Premiers in the two most populist provinces, Quebec and Ontario, who had supported the Council of the Federation.

Unfortunately Martin was already living with the Ad Scam problem so he felt trapped.

Too bad for Canada.

All he could do was hope Harper would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

So far it has not happened.

Harper has said “24 hours a day I think strategy”. Martin on the other hand has said - “I don’t touch strategy”.

On that basis there is no contest.

Harper is an ideologue on a mission.

He took over the leadership of the Alliance Party.

He convinced Peter MacKay, the Progressive Conservative Party Leader to merge Canada’s oldest federal party, the Party of Sir John A. Macdonald, with his weak, heavily in debt Alliance Party.

Then over three days Canada’s future shifted.

On December 5th, 2003, the Premiers formed The Council of the Federation.

On December 6th, 2003, in a rigged vote the P.C.’s appeared to support the Alliance take over.

And on December 7th, 2003, Messrs. Harper and MacKay persuaded Mr. Kingsley the CEO to eliminate the Progressive Conservative Party and register the Conservative Party of Canada. This action has been found by two courts to have been unlawful and a violation of the Canada Elections Act.

Now as a result, Mr. Harper may succeed in his dream of reducing Canada to a shell hovering over 10 pigmy states.


Hon. Sinclair Stevens.

SMS/ap

Here are some picture I took this evening

Images are by Jeremy. Text is by Katherine.

So, anybody who knows Jake knows he likes his chocolate anyway he can get it. With this method, he extends his hands to reach his little dirty fingers into the chocolate sauce meant for dipping fruit into.

Later on this evening, Grandma showed Jake that a bunny lives in her hands and shows him how it goes to bed.

And Jake gets entirely too excited when taking his picture that he cant wait for the flash to go off before he runs to the camera to check out the shot.

This is the face Jacob makes when we ask him to smile for the camera. When we ask him to make a real smile, he insists that this is his real smile.

Numbers are awesome. And so is Katherine. She's beautiful.

Hope you enjoyed the photos!

Some personal messages:
Avi - Jen says that your e-mail address is wrong.
Michael - your parents blog doesn't work.. did they change the address?

Have a nice night everyone!

A serious Jacob...

...with a pumpkin

Text to speech is awesome

It's been over a week since my last post, and I don't really have that much to post about. Things have been very quiet over the past little while. I think it may be the dust settling from the busy end of the year.

Well, it looks like this blog may be helping me stay more in contact with my family and friends after all. I've heard from a few family members lately (because of the Blog?) that I haven't heard from in a very long time. It was very nice to see your post Avi, and I can't wait to see you at pesach. It was also very nice to talk to you Amanda, and I can't wait to see you either-- whether you make it to Ottawa, or we make it over there. Today, we also received a letter from My aunt and uncle on my fathers side. I haven't spoken to them almost since Katherine and I got married. It was good to have an update on how everyone is doing. The next time Katherine and I make it to Montreal, it would be nice to plan a visit.

Well, as I said, I don't really have much. I do, however, have two very cool links that I found. Both of them are text to speech websites, so if you don't like that sort of thing, you can ignore the links below.

Let them sing it for you
Loquendo