With many elections just complete in both United States and Canada, some readers might be interested in the different voting method used in both of the two Canadian arctic territories, NWT and Nunavut. I have not been in the legislative assembly in Iqaluit but in Yellowknife. The building design is modeled after after an igloo and the government representatives meets in a circular formation.  There are no political parties but each MLA is elected from his or her own region.Once elected and upon initial meeting,  The MLAs nominate and then elect a Speaker. Both the premier and cabinet or caucus members are further chosen from among the group by secret ballad, but consensus vote Their portfolios are chosen by the Premier.

Nunavut now has a Madam Premier, just elected their first woman premier, Eva Aariak and you might want to follow the story on the CBC link below.

http://www.cbc.ca/nunavutvotes2008/story/2008/11/14/nunavut-forum.html

NOT a total technological luddite, aka the expression of several young sales clerks, as I toted around two cordless phones this week, needing to get them functioning again. I DID finally figure out how to register the headset to the base on new "used" cordless  Motorola phone after a search on line to the company site and got batteries for the V-tech one at Radio Shack ( now the Source in Canada ). previous stops had included Staples, London drugs, a Telus repair store, and related to the ibook, the Mac store ( where I spent $250 on new battery and connector cord ).

my facebook status was "missing her dogs, pondering north vs. here for Xmas & wondering why certain phone & computer parts are obsolete, not fixable or replaceable!" ..so that pretty much sums up why no blogging last few days...oh yeah...last night went to take some photos and had left memory card at home.