Where are the new generation of Rosie O'Donnells? Gays that are fearless, not parsing words, not playing nice. The Chick-fil-A anti-gay controversy sure got the Rosies of America going but what amazes me is the relative silence concerning the more immediate potential game changer, the Romney/Ryan ticket.

I am a scientist who has studied marine mammals off eastern Canada for the past 35 years. The concept of a seal cull to improve Maritime groundfish stocks is not scientifically defensible. It is simply not known whether seals have a positive or negative effect on groundfish populations. A large cull of grey seals in the Maritimes will not help our understanding. Removing native species is scientifically indefensible, and, from my perspective, morally wrong.

The Canadian Senate, our Senate, has just released its report on the "management" of grey seal populations on Canada's East Coast and recommends spending millions in taxpayer dollars on an "experiment" that is so incredibly flawed that, whatever the result, it will be entirely unreliable.

Our government is ramming through another omnibus budget bill, and is set to sign a deal with China, both of which seem aimed at facilitating the pipeline and other resource-extraction projects. Why would anyone want to sell out our interests, democratic processes and future like this? And why would we put up with it?

There was plenty of evidence presented to the Senate Committee that a cull of grey seals would be scientifically risky, unethical, and expensive. Yet, on Tuesday, the senate recommended one anyway. In addition to scientists and sealers -- most Canadians are also opposed to a seal cull. First, It is unlikely that a cull in Eastern Canada would have a substantial positive effect on cod populations. Second, that the majority of grey seal diets consists of fatty forage fish such as herring, sand lance, and other small fish, and therefore they would not expect much, if any, benefit of culling seals on cod.

When political parties spend time on the opposition benches they often come up with ideas that look great on paper but lose their lustre once the party moves from the opposition side of the House to the government side. Such has been the case with the Conservatives and the Parliamentary Budget Office presently run by Kevin Page. Remember the chant from the Conservative backbenches, "Promise made, promise kept"? In this case that's not quite accurate.

During the debate, without thinking, I tweeted that Romney had just been "raped" by Obama. Realizing my mistake, I deleted the tweet seconds later and issued an apology later in the debate. It may have taken an idiotic mistake on my part, but I now appreciate more than before the importance of language in advancing our values. It is not enough to pay tribute to certain laudable rights-related causes every once in a while. We must be serious about the issues in question in every aspect of our lives. We could collectively start by choosing our language more carefully and opposing the use of certain inappropriate words whose meanings have unfortunately become watered down over the years. I know that's where I'll begin.

The stage was set at Boca Raton's Lynn University. The desk dusted, chairs put in place and zingers primed and ready for volleying. Oh, and it was supposed to be about Foreign Policy. Right? Well it kind of was. Kind of. According to Romney, American grade school teachers are part of American foreign policy. Confused? Wait, there's more...