Our home and native land  

Matthew Yglesias explains why he's always posting about Canadian politics. I'd actually been wondering what was up with those posts... I've been watching them pretty closely because of some dotted connections I have with the country (various trips to Canada, friends, that Quebecois last name of mine) and it's made me want to get to know the political situation there a little better. Whether I'll start posting about it seriously myself is still up in the air, but I do think there's a lot to be gained from paying our friends to the north a little attention, now and then.

Also, there's this:

Lastly, though, I write about Canada in part just because one of the biggest problem with blogs is that it's hard to offer something different from what a thousand other bloggers are doing. You don't see a lot of Americans writing about Canada, so if that can be a part of my niche, then so much the better.