I finally decided to break down and pay a little money for a service which allows me to watch New Zealand television over the web. This kind of completes a virtual world tour I've done in the past few years of immersing myself in the television media from various other English-speaking countries. I'm glad to see my ideas confirmed - that New Zealand does seem to be the wonderful place I've been thinking it was.

I've seen these very stark differences in character between our sibling anglophone countries around the world. And it's even given me a lot of insight into myself and my own country to see how things are done abroad.

In a word, this is how I would characterize the national discourse of these different English-speaking countries:

• Britain is about reason
• Canada is about rationality
• Australia is about caring
• New Zealand is about idealism
• the USA is about formula/recipe

It's very important that people see the differences in national character of all of the different countries where one can live. Particularly for my lot - the intuitive intellectuals - it's very hard trying to make a go of it in the USA. The USA isn't a place where people discuss the why and the how. When a person starts discussing things on this level, he'll be facing social hardship really quickly. The USA is a place which makes its intellectuals into eccentrics, nerds, and introverts. It ostracizes its smart people - not intentionally - but just because of how people are accustomed to seeing their world, and living their daily lives.

Barack Obama is a shining example of a successful intellectual; he's learned how to hide it. He never discusses things at face value in interviews. Instead, he knows how to tell people what they want to hear. Therefore, he remains in good favor with the American people... where people like Margaret Atwood or David Suzuki or Dennis Kucinich or Noam Chomsky (or the countless other university professors who teach humanities-related subjects) never fare that well in the USA.

Not only does the USA have formulas for business, but it has moral, social and political formulas. Foreigners often decry the amount of religion in the USA... but it's really not true. It seems to me that nations like Australia are far more religious than the USA. However, the USA has moral formulas that may indeed be misguided at times. Why has the USA gone through these dramatic debates about communism, and homosexuality, and prohibition, and abolitionism and child labor, and civil rights? Because of moral and social formulas that people have a hard time setting aside.

At any rate, I agree with what Jon Stewart said yesterday at his "Rally to restore sanity" in Washington DC. I think intellectuals in the USA need to pipe down a little bit. They need to stop waging these verbal wars of antipathy. If they would look around them at the world a little more, they would see that the world is bigger than just the USA. Even if they see their own elected government officials as being clumsy and foolish - there are other options out there for places to live - other (more sensible) governments to live under.

For anyone who is honestly interested in politics... here is a great resource. It's the Canadian equivalent of the CSPAN channel we have in the Usa.

This is called CPAC - and you can watch the proceedings of the federal government in Ottawa 24 hours a day.

It's incredibly refreshing to see how learned, and conscientious the government in Canada is when you compare them to the fools in Washington DC.

Remember, that Canada is a bilingual country from its core - with a big portion of the country - Quebec - speaking french as their main language. So all proceedings in parliament need to be translated in real time between the two languages. Usually parliamentarians will talk in the language they are most comfortable with. I think this kind of bilingualism is really good for the social dynamic in a government. Always to have multiculturalism front and center before your eyes is a really good thing for folks in government to think about.

• Watch CPAC here

You can also pull the broadcast at any time, directly into windows media player, by cutting and pasting this into the "Open url" box: http://www.cpac.ca/asx/cpac1eh.asx

This is a very fascinating interview conducted by a woman by the name of Catherine Clark who is the daughter of a former Canadian Prime Minister: Joe Clark. She is interviewing another child of a Canadian prime minister - Justin Trudeau; Pierre Trudeau - Justin's father - was one of the most charismatic prime ministers Canada has had in recent decades. He was something like a Barack Obama figure, actually.

It's a very interesting interview to watch - because the social dynamic is pretty unusual - to have one of child of state interviewing another.

• Watch the interview at CPAC (as long as it is available)

The "New Democrats" in Canada are the political party which is the strongest progressive left-leaning party in the country. They seem to dominate ridings (what we in the Usa call "congressional districts") in British Columbia, for example... and they just got a parliamentary majority (and thus got the right to form the executive branch (governership) of Nova Scotia. They have 36 seats in the national parliament in Ottawa, where there are 308 total members. This is over half of what the Liberal party has (which is the most mainstream left-wing party). And this is enough seats to give the New Democrats significant leverage on parliament hill. Most recently, the New Democrats chose to prevent the Liberals from succeeding in a non-confidence motion which would have led Canada into a national election where the executive branch of government would be contested by all the major parties.

It may be that in order to really appreciate the humour in this video where Jack Layton pokes fun at himself and his own party, you need to have more of a sense of Canadian politics than you can get from that short synopsis above... but I want to share this video, anyway. This man's talent and humour is very refreshing... and I think that his attitude is a bellweather of good things on the horizon for Canadian government. I wish we had a person in congress in the Usa who had this much influence, and who was this progressive. Watching canadian politics is a refreshing change from watching the events in Washington DC.

Oh, one thing you will need to know for sure: The word "government" in many countries such as Canada means what we in the States call "the executive branch." This is formed by the party with the most seats in government after a national election. So theoretically, Jack Layton, as party leader, would become prime minister of Canada, if his party would ever achieve the most seats in parliament (an event which is highly unlikely in conservative Canada). Also, it's important to know that the word "grits" is slang for the Liberal party.

Watch the film.

I've been following current affairs in Canada in recent months, and I am continually impressed at the civility of public discourse up there, and at the quality of the judgement of governing officials. Today Canadians are going to the polls to cast a their vote in their 40th federal election.

I think one important thing is that people do not vote directly for the prime minister, as we vote for our president in the usa. The party with the most members in parliament appoints the prime minister (invariably this will be the leader of that party). The problem is that at election time, federal issues are often an abstraction to people. It's unusual for people to feel like they have "skin in the game" (This 2008 usa election between Obama and McCain is an exception to that). And when there's an abstraction, there is room for a third party (the mass media) to come in and "spin" the issues; in other words, they can create a narrative about things... which plays on people's passions and guides them in how to vote.

We had the same problem with all these investment banks in recent years - AIG, Lehmann Brothers, Bear Stearns, etcetera. The shareholders owned those companies and had ultimate control over their direction. However, all the dealings of those companies were made into abstractions - mathematicians were hired to draw up very complex schemes of risk management. And because of that lack of transparency, the shareholders were at the mercy of whoever wanted to create the narrative about the health of those companies. And the shareholders consequently lost their shirts when the companies went under.

In Canada, people only vote for their representative to the federal parliament. And there really isn't a way for any local publication or television station to make the citizens of that community believe an absurd and offbase narrative about the events in that town or city or county. People are living there day to day, and sure they're curious about the specifics of what's going on, and about causes and effects which pertain to events and trends in their community. But you can't snow them. They see the town in front of them daily, as they go about their lives.

It's interesting that the residents of Washington DC are immune to the spin of the mass media in the usa. They always see things more clearly. Unfortunately, those folks don't even get to appoint a voting member to congress.

This was an amazing thing to see tonight. The focus of canadian politicians is very precise, and very earnest.

This is a wmv film which runs 2 hours

• The english language debate

Stéphane Dion is jockeying for the position of prime minister in Canada. He is the leader of the Liberal party. I really have become fond of him, after watching and listening to several interviews with him. He's a francophone, and he doesn't speak english very clearly... but I find that actually quite cute. He's very eloquent in French, he's very smart and has a very nurturing kind of personality. His looks remind me of a childhood comic book hero of mine - Tintin.

These are wmv videos which you can download:

Here's an interview of him at a campaign rally at a soup kitchen

Here he speaks to senior citizens in Toronto

He answers questions from the media in Toronto

Speaks to medical students at Algonquin college

An in-depth interview with him

Check it out. I wish politicians in the usa spoke and acted like this.

The difference between political discourse in Canada and in the usa is like looking at day versus night. Canada is also undergoing an election season, and will be voting in a new government on October 14th. This is the first debate of the party leaders (it is in French with english translation).

For those USAers who are not familiar with Canadian politics, Canada has five political parties. The people around this table tonight are:

1. Stephen Harper - who is the current leader of the Conservative party, and the current Prime Minister of Canada

2. Stéphane Dion who is the leader of the Liberal party

3. Jack Layton - the leader of the New Democratic Party

4. Elizabeth May - leader of the Green Party

5. Gilles Duceppe - leader of the Bloc Québécois

Watch the film footage at CTV. This is in segments, and in order to get to each segment in sequence, you might have to touch the "up next" hypertext underneath the video.

Or watch the entirety of the film footage from the CBC by downloading the entire 2 hour video (large wmv)

The level of public discourse in Canada is quite a bit higher than it is in the usa, when it comes to political issues, and many other topics. Canada is also in an election season, and this is how those hopeful for the office of prime minister are campaigning:

• the article