As far as inaugural posts go this will seem a bit weird perhaps, but you're basically catching mid-stream of thought, which is pretty close to what this blog will be about. So, in reality, you're getting the point.
I'm following the elections in Canada and the US pretty closely so I caught some blog posts from south of the border about Joe Biden's new stump speech. It goes pretty hard after McCain trying to draw his 2008 persona (snivelling distorter of truths) away from the 2000 version (Maverick) everyone seems to still be enthralled by. It also contains this line, which caught my attention:
"He stands with the oil company CEOs who swore to me, under penalty of perjury, that they didn't need tax breaks to explore for oil."
Now, I assume that Biden has never sued and oil company exec (I assume without proper fact check), so I also assume that he's talking about testimony given to a congressional committee. From experience, I know that when witnesses testify before a House of Commons committee that they can (and often do) say just about anything they want, and unless one of the committee members knows different (chances = slim to fat chance), they can get away with lying out their ass. I realize (thank you C-SPAN) that congressional committees administer an oath of honesty, which Parliamentary committees don't, but I guess the question I don't know the answer to, is:
Why does Parliament consider it okay to lie to its committees?
