it's kind of like laws against political donations. ideally, corporations could pay the politicians all they want, and people just wouldn't vote for them. really, in order for a democracy to be functional it kind of has to be true. if you have to go around policing who gets paid by who so they don't sucker people into voting for them, you don't really have a democracy. you have a bureaucracy.

it's hard to read these stories. but this really shouldn't be illegal. rather, people should know better. and, perhaps they might know better if the education system wasn't so deplorable.

i'm sorry to say it, but the only zombie apocalypse i'm worried about right now is an ndp majority. the candidates they're running....they're just....

let's just say that they're not really up to par.

it's less that i'm concerned about them ruining the country or something. it's more that they seem to provide almost no potential for any kind of pushback. it's this mass of backbenchers that will produce almost no private members legislation, and just do what the party instructs them to.

and, it's sort of amazing, actually, because the ndp have up to this point been known for the quality of their mps in contrast to the quantity of them. they never elected a lot of people. but, you knew when one got elected it was a good one. because the hill to climb was that much steeper.

i'm really attached to voting for a local mp that's going to stand up and make independent choices, rather than a rubber stamp for the politburo in ottawa. it's kind of distressing, even.

if the party executive spun it around a little and got them out, it might swing some voters like myself a little more convincingly. but, instead, they seem to understand the deficit of talent they're working with, and have them scripted to the absolute core.

they may have stripped the socialism out of their platform, but they seem increasingly centralized, increasingly focused on a cult of leadership and increasingly harsh on dissent.

so, it kind of seems like a zombie apocalypse, in terms of what we're actually going to get: mindless, strict observation of the party line.

i swear, my body has loosened up by a factor of 80%, if such things can be measured, which of course they can't. but whatever stress buildup existed is fading away. and, that should actually help me focus a bit better.

it should also help me kick the cigarettes. it seemed pointless when i didn't know how much longer i'd be alive...

i bought one more pack for the next day or two. i need to put the election shit down and get through the remaining tracks for this. that last track is bugging me, because it just sounds kind of odd. i may end up replacing it after all. and, the next few should be pretty quick to pass over.

my odsp was extended until 2020.

i can stop worrying about that, now.

by 2020, i am exceedingly confident that i will complete my discography and be moving into phase 2.

checks

hi.

just letting you know that my disability extension was approved, so i have checks ready to give paul for the rest of the year, whenever he's home to take them.

j

my ndp candidate seems to be an anti-science hippie with few views of her own that will just occupy the seat, zombie like, and vote as she's told. total backbencher.

my liberal candidate seems to be some kind of business person that is critical of nafta and calling for it to be renegotiated - which is not likely to happen. but a bit of contrariness and independent thought is a bit more appealing to me. he seems to be pro-active in cross-border issues. trade is one of the big issues that has turned me off the liberals. this guy looks like he's a rogue liberal that's a bit more in the style of the old liberals i had somewhat of a fondness for. he may end up a little outside the caucus, but maybe he can shake it up a little.

the green candidate is quoted in papers as a liberal party activist as recently as late 2013. i'm guessing he's going to sound like a mcguinty liberal, but there's basically no information as of yet.

i don't want to vote for a zombie. and, if the green candidate and liberal candidate end up being indistinguishable, it seems foolish to vote for the one with the lesser chance of winning.

i may end up voting for the damned liberals. we'll have to see how the ndp candidate defines herself, but i'm really not expecting much besides memos from head office.

i believe trudeau's position is actually that he'll support it if it's no longer widely opposed. which is almost comically liberal. mulcair's position is that he'll support it if it passes the environmental review. but, see, it's unclear to me why it is that they would think - in contradiction to all polls - that criticizing mulcair for possibly being *against* the pipeline would be good politics. you'd think they'd criticize him for being in favour of it, if they were trying to win votes - whether it's true or not (and it mostly is).

but, see, there's been this constant string of hints for years that these elections are...they're not inconsequential, so much as that they're really directed at a layer of power that's largely obscured, and of unclear national origin.

there's a sort of cognitive dissonance around it. on the one hand, we're all very naive, aren't we? on the other, what's the use in peddling evidenceless conspiracy theories? but it's the absolute truth: you'll see these weird campaign announcements and attacks from time to time that just make you scratch your head, until you realize "oh. right. that's not meant to influence voters. that's meant to influence that unstated ethereal force of unclear national origin."

it's just this unclear force that seems to be of great importance.

like, diefenbaker getting into a lot of trouble with kennedy-johnson administration, and then disappearing.

or there was the time that reagan accused trudeau of being a soviet spy, and then trudeau disappeared.

and the time that chretien refused to go to war, and canada got mad cow, sars and stephen harper (i'm undecided on which is more dangerous to our health).

it's just been there. this force. in the background. for many years. and the actors seem entirely aware of it. but, there's very few ways in which the public can quantify or understand it

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/brian-gallant-criticizes-tom-mulcair-s-energy-east-pipeline-stance-1.3197057

the biggest benefits that i can think of regarding this are in transportation. that's less transportation time, less transportation costs and less pollution resulting from travelling. we produce a lot of carbon getting to work and back, and we waste upwards of 10% of our day on it. how necessary is that, really, if we're just sitting in front of a screen when we get to work?

there's other benefits. less child care costs, for example, which are a kind of a deadweight on the economy.

but, i think this is ultimately a carbon reduction strategy. and, it's one that offers a better quality of life or many.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-pitches-new-parental-leave-proposals-flexible-work-plan-1.3195987

Re: deleted response
see, this is why people get so irritated by conservative propaganda. the guy suggests a policy for people to work at home more, and to provide for more flexible hours, and you jump to the most ridiculous and unlikely scenario: which is that everybody is going to request the graveyard shift. it's just idiotic.

most federal workplaces are not open overnight.

these large regional margins of error suggest that sudden swings, especially when they slice across the spectrum, are mostly due to sampling error. but, that doesn't give their earlier results greater stability. i look at some of the trendlines in these regional polls and see absolutely nothing whatsoever of value out of them; they're flying around all over the place by 10-15%. i really wish the firms would get meaningful sample sizes if they're going to do weekly polls. the result does make the ndp numbers seem the most volatile, but that has to be interpreted in the context of how the ndp's immediately apparent volatility affects the numbers for the other parties. for example, the last nanos poll gave the conservatives a 10% bump on the ndp in ontario in a way that is inconsistent with the other polling. on first glance, the conservative numbers look roughly stable while the ndp numbers look volatile. but, that can't actually be true - it's actually impossible.

the abacus polling was another internet poll. it seems like the internet polls are consistently polling the ndp a little higher. i suspect this is a consequence of bias in the sample, due to how the poll is being taken. the forum polls seem to continue to be understating their margins.

the phone polling is mostly placing them tightly together, but that may also be technology dependent because younger people are going to be harder to reach over the phone. it's well understood that phone polling tends to overweight older people. this has tended to balance out in recent elections with higher conservative voter turnout. the fact that the conservatives are having a hard time getting over 32 in phone polling - and with questionable regional polling - suggests they ought to be extremely concerned.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-polltracker-aug19-1.3195182

gwest
I'm not at all sure that your hunch about what the Liberals would do - especially if they're whittled down a bit from 2011 - when confronted with an opportunity to share power with a minority Harper contingent.

I can't forget the aftermath of the 2006 election when 'Liberal' David Emerson packed his suitcase and walked across the floor to Stephen's open arms and a cabinet post...and I seem to recall a long form interview with Peter Mansbridge when the new PM made it pretty clear that he feels there really isn't that much difference between Liberals (on fundamentals) and Harper's own views about running the country. Although he clearly hates Pierre Trudeau and probably would have liked to see the Liberals decimated as a political force - he saves his real antipathy for the 'socialist' NDP: Recall that speech in the US when he led the National Citizens Coalition and said of the NDP..."The NDP is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men..."

Furthermore, the antipathy of the power elites (within the Liberal party) in this country toward the possibility that the NDP (despite the centralizing tack it has taken since Jack Layton) might actually get to shape policy and write laws which would affect the ability of those elites to keep managing the economy for their own benefit would be a strong goad to convince Trudeau fils that he should support a minority Conservative government after October 19.

Wells's book, by the way, has some really interesting things to say about the centrality of the 'relationship' between Pee Wee and Ray Novak....it's well worth another read for anyone who hasn't picked up a copy.

deathtokoalas
i responded to this elsewhere, and need to agree in reiterating that the liberals will NOT back an ndp minority, and anybody voting for the liberals under that perception should strongly reconsider doing so. it's not exactly conservative propaganda, but it's delusional of the realities in the house. if you're voting for the liberals for other reasons, whatever - after taking a look at the candidates in my riding, it seems clear to me that the liberal is the best candidate (and he's critical of nafta, to boot) and i may end up doing that myself. but, this idea that the election is going to come up with any kind of arrangement between the ndp and the liberals is nothing short of delusional. the liberals will conscientiously oppose the ndp on the right in an attempt to position themselves as an alternative to the conservatives.

but, they won't outright back the conservatives, either, for the same reason. it would be a suicide pact, in either circumstance.

you can't believe everything these guys say. you should be pretty skeptical about it. but, when trudeau says no to a coalition, he's being dead serious and you should take him at absolute face value. this will NOT happen, in either direction.

but, you could see some floor crossings. even if the ndp win a majority, i'm sure they'd be happy to take the experience of some cabinet ministers. and, if they're just a few seats short, it's the perfect excuse. similarly on the other side.

and, in the long run, there are some liberal mps that will be tempted to bail in either direction. it's an inherent problem with parking the middle party in third place. there will be plenty of pressure to rip the party in half.

the media will not drop this. but voters really need to get it out of their heads. it's not a possibility. it's been ruled out, explicitly. and the liberals would be destroying themselves by even considering it.

trudeau will have little choice but to allow carefully arranged "free votes" on almost everything. and, that will give them the flexibility to run the house from the center, as they pick and choose policies from the right and the left.

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/08/19/Harper-Minority-Team/

Wwm
Hi, i agree that the Liberals most likely won't join a formal coalition unless they have the most seats themselves [then they'd think it a great idea] But i do think they'd vote non-confidence in Harper at the first opportunity and allow the NDP to govern like you said through free votes and subtle pressure on the NDP to make their bills acceptable to the Liberals. All of which may be less than perfect but it's still a hell of a lot better than what we have now IMO.

Of course, as i've said before, the best of all possible outcomes, in my eyes, is that the NDP comes up a seat or two short of an absolute majority and that the Greens make up the missing seats in a coalition that puts Elizabeth May in as Minister of the Environment.

deathtokoalas
we may end up with a bit of obscure manoeuvring around the precise point of the election, but i would expect the liberals to prefer harper as prime minster to mulcair, for the reason that it keeps them in direct opposition to a force without momentum. i hope i explained that concept in easy to understand terms; it's a little aloof. allowing mulcair to become prime minister would set a new ball in motion, as it were, and put them back where they started. terms in canada (won via fresh mandate) nowadays seem to be around 10-15 years or so. by that time, they'll be appealing to a generation of people with only vague memories of liberal government, and they'll be in the same position the ndp are now in.

technically, stephen harper will remain prime minister after the election, until he resigns or is replaced by the gg. should the governor general decide he is most likely to win a confidence vote, the issue may never really arise - he could just remain prime minister. see, the thing is that it may not be remotely clear who is most likely to win a confidence vote. and, then what? if the gg cannot make a distinction, how is that he can replace him? and, you can expect harper to pull his usual obfuscating playbook out and, perhaps correctly on an abstract level, argue that it's undemocratic to replace him. the possibility of harper whining about this on tv, combined with the actual reality of such a house composition, may suit the liberals well enough that they don't push this. and, that would leave mulcair arguing he ought to be prime minister with less than majority support - an argument he can't win in the public spectrum. he won't make it.

but, it won't take long for harper to do something like bundle a law against abortion in the budget (i exaggerate only mildly to avoid providing any good ideas). if we end up in this kind of mess, it will be harper that instigates another election by packaging a confidence vote into something the opposition can't support. but he might wait a month or two to let the dust settle. it's risky - it might not settle in his favour. but, there's little other option. harper will not govern under trudeau's thumb.