Really late elections wrap up

• Canadian election: Nothing much changed.  In a nutshell: Everybody lost, the Liberals lost more.
• American election: Everything changed. In a nutshell: Obama won, Bush will be leaving (and there was much rejoicing)

Why can’t we in Canada have some sort of Obama-like political person?  For the first time in my life time we as a country wish we could join the US, so as to also feel the warm glow of the hope and change.  Instead we have the cold, hard same old.

The one upside is this has added to our general confusedness regarding our identity.  The only thing we could all agree on was that we were different to the Americans, better, in some undescribed way.  Now the Americans are better than us.  What do we, collectively, have to live for?

Clearly we must elect the first human-vegetable hybrid.

PAulm

Canada Votes – Election Party Edition

The official Canadian Election Night Party is green for go.

The exictment will be palitable.  Which way will London – Fanshawe go?  Will the Greens elect their first seat?  Will the Bloc pull through?  How badly will the Liberals do?  When will Jack Layton realize that there is no hope that he will be Prime Minister?  When will Stephen Harper revert to his old non-blue-sweater-wearing self?  If a train left Montreal at 8am and another left Toronto at 9am, when would they meet?

Let the games begin.

PAulm

Canada Votes – Advance Polls Open

If you would like to get the horribleness over with the Advance Polls are now open.  You window of opportunity is Friday, Saturday and Monday (noon to 8pm).

May the pain be light for you or at least a quick end.

PAulm

Canada Votes – Pseudo English Edition

So I sat down to watch the English debate today with someone else (identity not revealed to protect the innocent).  Everything was fine until Stephane Dion started to speak…then she turned on the captions…a very telling omen.

Canada’s two official languages policy sometimes creates interesting pseudo languages amongst politicians.  The most memorable in recent history was good ol’ Jean Chretien.  He spoke a language that was neither English nor French but had the worst elements of both.  He was saved by the fact that he publicly played off his own miss use of the language and he was also fairly humorous in general.  Remember the pepper spray incident?

PAulm

Canada Votes – End of the World Edition continued

The French and English debates are done.  They were kind of interesting but not in either the flaming-train-wreck way or the winking-whilst-field-dressing-a-moose way.  None of the leaders made large errors or gained major ground.

Perhaps next time we should arm them and put them in a large octagon.  Or, if that is too death filled, make them play some old school first person shooters at a LAN party on national tv.  They could even fill out the rest of their respective teams with their (shadow) cabinets.  However, knowing the Liberals, they would insist on turning on friendly fire…

Back to the dark, sad, depressing reality.  The debates where mostly about the economy and how we are either fine or about to be swallowed by the earth.  The campaigns have noticeably shifted to address this issue, even the Conservative campaign, which never shifts (especially if set shifting is green).  Apparently the fact that the TSX has dropped 21% since the beginning of September is sinking in.  Also there is a growing cry from businessy type peoples for some serious attention.

So how can we address this issue?

• Conservative option: What issue?
• Liberal option: I’m confused.
• NDP option: Repeat “working families” ten times
• Green option: I was at the debate!

We’re doomed.

PAulm

National Do Not Annoy List

On Tuesday Canadians could sign up for the new Go Away List.  Apparently there was so much interest in this that the server hosting the online sign up service was overwhelmed, which is a good sign.

The new Natinoal No I Don’t Want Any List is not perfect.  Mainly it has five execptions.

• Political Parties
• Newspapers
• Polling Peoples
• Charities
• Businesses that you are already involved with

This is very troubling.  Personally, the majority of calls I get are from businesses that I am already involved with.  I can ask that I be put on their specific do not call list, but then what is the purpose of the new national list?  Still I think I will sign up, some is better than nothing.

PAulm

Traffic Relations

Mom showed me this today.  Apparently the song was very popular in 1966.

Master Singers – The Highway Code

This video was something I remember from my early days on the internet and I have found it again.

Very instructional.

PAulm

My Apartment Votes

Tis the season for elections.  So I decided to put myself up for reelection as dictator of my apartment.

My constituents consist of my two cats and sometimes the partially living substances I create in the kitchen.  The issues are as follows:

• Current supply and access to cat food
• Cleanliness of the litter box
• Supply and access of clothes to sleep on
• Supply and access to various bags and boxes for playing
• Dangling of string
• Occasional belly robs
• Amount of window-looking-out space

The current rolling poll suggests that I am doing pretty well.  When campaigning to Horton there was significant tail wagging.  Tim wagged his tail but with less enthusiasm.  The partially living substance downstairs did not respond (it did respond very well to warm moist air).

Tomorrow I will be announcing my economic platform.  Investment in cat treats.  I think this will connect with my constituents.  Perhaps I will also discuss long term increases in the amount of window-looking-out space.

PAulm

Canada Votes – End of the World Edition

Apparently the end of the known world is upon us.  Or, the very predictable clapse of a market soley based on infinite credit.

I am of the belief that there is needed a fairly significant shift in economic policy and practise.  Especailly in the United States but to a lesser extent the wider Western economies.  I believe that markets should be regulated.  I do not believe that the free market will solve all our problems.

I find it very interesting to hear the exuses put forward.  The most interesting is that people in the big companies were greedy.  Really?  Isn’t that the whole point of the free market?  To make money?  Isn’t the American dream to make lots of money?

It seems to me that both the public and private citizen is redefining the rules so they can blame something other than the root causes.  To actually look at the root causes also means acknowledging the failures of both public and private economic policies.

So far the end of the world ends at the U.S. border but one Canadian report says it might be coming north.  I don’t know about you but I have my end-of-the-world-kit ready.  Things I have added to the kit: Euros.

How does this affect the Canadian election?  Several possiblites come to mind.  There are four possible situations: (1) Nothing major happens, no panic. (2) Nothing major happens, panic.  (3) Stuff happens, no panic. (4) Stuff happens, panic.  Currently I would say we are inbetween 1 and 2.

Generally when it comes to elections and the economy there is two possible affects: (1) punish the incumbants for making a mess of things or (2) reward the party that is believed to have the future sound fiscal policy.  In this current election those both options are the same party.  The Conservatives are the incumbants and are the party that constitantly polls as the leader in economic policy.

So the affect on the election is that Canadians will both punish the Conservatives and reward them for their sound fiscal policy?  It’s official, Canadians are the most confused people on the planet.

PAulm

Port Maitland

A while ago Chris (of Cyris) and I drove to Dunnville from the parent’s place in Niagara.  The drive may have a been quite late and in search of (1) a closed Tim Hortons and (2) a neighbourhood near a race track next to an airport.  It made sense at the time.

So along the way Chris was learning the finer points of his new camera.  This came in handy when cars infront of us where driving too slow.  Just start taking copious pictures of them until they get uncomfortable from the strangers tailing them taking pictures at night and turn off somewhere.

Eventually we arrived at the airport and were underwhelmed.  So we continued south to the mightly shores of Lake Erie and were surprised to find Port Maitland.  There was a rather nice park (at night) and it had a cool pier and lighthouse.   So I explored a bit whilst Chris took some very cool pictures.

PAulm

More pictures after the break.  The full set is on my flickr.