Although he didn’t address the Twitter account directly, Toews lashed out against the low road. “I won’t get involved in this kind of gutter politics,” Toews tweeted. “Engaging in or responding to this kind of discussion leads nowhere.”

Personally, as much as I oppose this bill, I’m not a huge fan of the @vikileaks30 approach. It’s provocative, but it’s unnecessarily crass – and it’s a bit beside the point, since the information shared through this account was obtained through public affidavits. It was personal, and it was certainly embarrassing, but doing it didn’t require the sort of sweeping invasion of privacy that rightly worries critics of Bill C-30.

Still, I thought it was a bit rich for a guy like Toews to lecture the web about gutter politics, and I figured I might as well tell him so. Since I only had a hundred and forty characters at my disposal, I knew I’d better keep it brief and to the point.

“You, sir,” I pointed out, “compared your critics to child pornographers on the record.”

He totally did, by the way. During Question Period on Monday, Toews responded to criticism of the bill by Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia by saying “He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d said this sort of thing, either. Back in November, in the House of Commons, Toews called on the Liberal Party to “finally stop putting the rights of child pornographers and organized crime ahead of the rights of law-abiding citizens.”

As I noted prior to spotting his “gutter politics” tweet, it’s like Toews looked at Larry Miller, the Tory MP who stood up in the House of Commons and compared the long-gun registry and its supporters to Hitler, and said “Kid, that’s amateur hour.”

In any event, my humble point seemed to resonate with others on Twitter. By the end of the day, it had become the most retweeted thing I’d ever tweeted – scoring nearly twice as many retweets as Toews’s original complaint, I might add with just a hint of smugness.

What did I learn? Aside from the fact that you can score cheap social media points by calling out the blatant hypocrisies of a public official, I learned that Toews is right: you don’t need to take the low road to stir up the hive. I also learned that this bill and its sponsor have more opponents than I’d expected – a lesson Toews has also learned, judging by all the limp, defensive backtracking he’s now doing.

If you’d like to voice your opposition to this bill, you can head to stopspying.ca and sign the petition drafted by the good people at OpenMedia.ca. The bill may be under fire, but it’s a long way from dead, and your voice can make a difference. Remember to be polite!

As some of you know, I served on the board of Literature for Life for two years; I left the board in December in order to focus on my own growing family. They’re a terrific organization doing vital work in our priority neighbourhoods, and they’ve still got my support as a donor and an advocate. Not only that, but my wife and I got married at the Steamwhistle Brewery, and I can tell you that Literature for Life couldn’t have chosen a better space to host this exhibit.

Stay tuned to the Literature for Life website for details on this event as they develop, or “like” their page on Facebook if you want to be kept in the loop. The opening reception is free, and it’s bound to be a great introduction to one of my favourite local charities.

I’ve bookmarked a few of the many, many articles on getting the most out of Pinterest, and I do plan to read at least a few of them. For the time being, though, I’m more interested in goofing around and seeing how flexible it is. There’s an etiquette to this sort of thing, of course, but there’s generally no “wrong” way to use a site like this as long as you’re respecting your fellow members.

Pinterest is a small new community, and if the many social networks that have come before are any indication, that means its best and most popular uses haven’t yet been discovered. As Clay Shirky famously said, “communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.”

If you’re already on Pinterest, you’re more than welcome to follow me. I’d also love to hear what you think of the site, and what you’ve been doing with it, so feel free to share them in the comments. If you’re not on Pinterest, but you’d like an invite, you can drop me a line or post a request below.

If you truly want to enjoy every moment, you’ve really got to commit yourself to the bright side. The diaper thing is just one example; here are just some of the other affirmations I’ve found myself saying in the wee hours:

• “Wow, that kid’s got some set of lungs!”
• “My life hasn’t actually changed that much, in the sense that I stayed up late all the time before we had a kid!”
• “I’ve just invented a new drink by pouring black coffee into my wife’s tea!”
• “My kid is so gorgeous and entertaining that I’ve barely noticed everything and everyone else in my life gradually slipping away!”
• “Stealing a car, getting on the highway, and driving until I run out of gas might seem like a good idea now, but I’ll bet there’s a downside I’m not seeing because I haven’t slept in days!”

I’m open to suggestions, and I’m sure all you parents out there have got your favourites. Feel free to share in the comments; I’ll be sure to read them the next time the cutest kid in the world gives me a few damned minutes to myself.

Beyond that, no updates tonight. No pledges or philosophizing. My mother and my daughter are getting to know each other, giving my wife and I a chance to get reacquainted with an old friend called sleep.

I’ve taken a few weeks off, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m glad in a way that this happened on a weekend, because on weekends there’s less of a schedule to shatter with constant baby needs and intermittent pockets of sleep. I know we’ve only been parents for a day and a half, but it starts at full speed, and already I don’t feel confident about my chances of easing back into a regular schedule. I’m certainly glad I’m not supposed to be at my desk at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning.

Mind you, there’s also a certain freedom in that. I like to get a lot done in a day, and as a result I do tend to subject myself to a pretty heavy level of routine. It’ll be nice to shelve any need for a sense of structure in my day, and simply tackle the demands of the moment. We’ll still be busy as hell, but the things we’ll be doing are things we’ll genuinely need to do, instead of just habits we’ve adopted in order to feel productive.

People are already telling us to enjoy every moment, and we certainly hope to try, although I know there are bound to be plenty of moments that won’t be at all enjoyable. Maybe it’s better to simply try and be present in every moment – to focus on what’s happening and do what we need to do, instead of worrying about a bunch of unrelated nonsense.

If I can develop that kind of attitude, then great. If I can take it back to work, or into other aspects of my life, so much the better. If I can be at work when I’m at the office, be a dad when I’m with my daughter, and be relaxed when I’m on my own, I figure I’ll be living a well-rounded life without too much stress or sacrifice.

Easier said than done, I’m sure, and big talk for a guy whose kid was literally born yesterday. But I’m lucky enough to have a few weeks to focus on my family and set all the rest aside. Let’s start there, and see how it goes.

What do you think? If I’ve learned one thing this weekend, it’s that we’re lucky enough to know plenty of parents who are happy to share their advice and experience. What do we need to bear in mind as we take this baby home?

We’re spending our Saturday night in a hospital room, giving everybody time to recover. Kate’s about to get some sleep, to the extent the baby will let her, and I’m planning to stay up and take care of everything else. If all goes well, I might actually finally eat something.

We’ve already missed one big Saturday night party because of our baby, and ironically it was a family affair. After a night in the waiting room, my family spent the evening at a restaurant down the block, celebrating my mother’s birthday. As it happens, my mother and daughter ended up being born on the same date, many years apart.

Big thanks to everyone who’s shared their congratulations and good wishes. It means a lot to have heard from so many people today, and I hope no one minds if it takes us a while to thank everyone. I’m sure it won’t be long before I post a thousand identical videos of my kid sucking her hand, so stay tuned for that.

What we do have is a rough deadline. If Kate doesn’t have this baby by the weekend, we’ll induce. We’re not exactly sure when, because we’re waiting for the hospital to confirm the appointment, but we know it’ll only be about three or four days.

I’m sure this is a dumb thing to say, but the schedule makes it all the more real. It’s plenty real as it is, of course, but even after the due date’s come and gone, it’s easy to forget that this baby’s actually coming. Spending a week at home, with no responsibilities and nothing to do, probably hasn’t helped either.

But guess what? Here comes a baby, probably by Monday at the latest. I think I might celebrate by ordering something from Amazon and seeing what arrives first.

Researchers at Brock University found that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes in adulthood. These adults tend to subscribe to socially conservative ideologies, which in turn reinforce prejudice by encouraging hierarchy and resistance to change. If you hold a prejudicial belief, in other words, you’re less likely to be comfortable with that belief being challenged.

Prejudiced conservative Rick Santorum agreed, in a roundabout way, when he suggested that the reason Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college is to brainwash them into becoming liberals. “The indoctrination that occurs at American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America,” he told a crowd of Florida voters last week.

“As you know,” Santorum added, “62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it.”

Does Rick Santorum truly believe that higher education is a liberal plot to undermine the values and faith of “real” Americans? Or is the GOP candidate simply aware that the fewer ignorant, bigoted conservative voters there are, the smaller his already negligible base will be?

I’m betting the answer is “a little of both, and the only way to stop it is to make sure gay dudes aren’t allowed to marry each other.”

But Kate’s not the only one who’s been inspired by her pregnancy. I’ve typically done what I can to stay healthy, both for my wife and for myself, but during the past few months I’ve taken it up a notch.

My wife deserves a lot of the credit for motivating me to exercise more. Watching her stick to her routine, and seeing the results, has definitely been inspiring. But to tell you the truth, it’s also helped to know that whatever physical challenges I might choose to tackle are nothing compared to the challenge she’s about to conquer.

Roll your eyes all you like at the sensitive man, but it’s true. Whenever I don’t feel like exercising, I can remind myself that Kate doesn’t get to decide she doesn’t feel like having a baby. Whenever I don’t feel like seeing it through to the end, I can remind myself that Kate doesn’t get to cheat. Hell, even when I break new ground, I do it with the knowledge that a few extra reps or another five minutes on a machine is a pretty pathetic achievement compared to giving birth.

The other day, Kate sent me a couple of clips from a Channel 4 program called One Born Every Minute, which is all about “providing helpful insights into the realities of giving birth.” In this clip, which you absolutely shouldn’t watch unless you want to see what a Caesarean section looks like, one of the mothers tells herself it’s time to “man up.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, because a) I hadn’t seen the C-section yet, and b) it struck me as a really weird choice of words. I use the phrase often enough myself, despite its casual sexism. Saying you’ve got to “man up” to get through labour, though, is like saying “I’d better make the like the gender that talks a big game but never actually has to do this sort of thing.”

I’m not saying one gender’s any better than the other. All I’m saying is I live with a woman who’s about to do something I could never do, and something I doubt I could do “like a man” if the tables were turned on me. And it really puts all the other little things I feel like I can’t do into perspective.