Thoughts from the North on the Fourth

To my American readership I bid you all a happy and blue-skied Fourth of July. North of the 49th, we have just barely recovered from our national day of celebration on July 1, which carries the extremely ironic and imaginative name Canada Day. Myself I have just emerged from a huge orgy of Canadian bacon smoothered in maple syrup, washed down with a couple of dozen Molson Export beer while watching re-runs of the World Junior Curling Championships.

The 49th parallel, by the way, is known as the world's longest undefended border. And despite the occasional spat about cruise missiles and softwood lumber, our two nations get along pretty darn good. In celebration of our relationship, I would like to enumerate some of the things for which I personally appreciate the United States.

• Providing a home for our aged pop stars like Celine Dion when they start wetting the carpet.
• Inventing Velcro™. No more unpleasant bending to tie up your shoes.
• Providing a huge buffer zone between us and our arch-enemies Mexico.
• The Eastham, Mass. Turnip Festival.
• Being such good sports in conceding defeat at the hands of Canadian forces in the war of 1812.
• The world's most entertaining electoral practices.
• Adopting the Canadian sports of hockey, basketball and football to such a degree that you'd think they were invented by Americans.
• Bourbon
  
• Generally, just keeping the world interesting.

So enjoy the picnics, fireworks, parades, etc. Just keep the noise down though because we're still hungover up here.