the big difference is the redrawn ridings. it is arguably the case that the cities were split up to harm the ndp in the first place; it certainly raised some eyebrows. even at 2011 numbers, the ndp would be expected to pick up most of those new urban seats in saskatoon and regina, with the one exception being rock-steady ralph. nobody's ever beating ralph. well, jesus, maybe - but the conservatives are not that bold. yet....

ralph's seat will probably eventually go to the ndp, too.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-prairies-sep19-1.3234750

Rush 2112
nobody causes harm to the NDP, They open their mouth and speak

Jessica Murray
well, the accusations of gerrymandering are kind of hard to ignore, if you look at the riding splits.

both cities were sliced into four parts in such a way that the rural parts of the riding would determine the winner with essentially no ambiguity.

had that not occurred, saskatoon and regina would have been sending ndp mps to ottawa the whole time.

HardRightByte
The cons didn't do this though, the Liberals did because at the time they figured the NDP were a bigger threat to them than the Reform Party.

Jessica Murray
this is accurate. for all the talk of "western alienation", it suited the liberals just fine so long as they could keep it contained, and the more the westerners cried and yelled like the entitled, spoiled children we've learned they are, and it was always clear that they are, the more they kept themselves hemmed in. it makes me angry whenever i see somebody apologize for the nep.

and, the truth is that this calculus was absolutely correct. nobody should apologize for being right. the liberals did not lose power due to a surge in conservative voters. they lost power because layton started bleeding them on their left, most notably in ontario. and, for them to win again, they need to beat the ndp, not the conservatives. the poll corrections over the last week have upheld what i've been saying for years: you can't push the conservatives under 30 for any length of time. you have to fight over the other 70% to form a government.

they seemed to get it then, what's more head-scratching is why they forgot it for so long.

china's population is roughly 40 times that of canada. yet it's emissions are only 16 times. another way to see this is to look at emissions per capita. china's is about 6. canada's is more than twice that, around 15. and, because we can only control our own behaviour, this is the right to way to look at the situation: we need to reduce our emissions per capita to a level that indicates we're doing our share, rather than polluting at two or three times the global rate.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/15/this-changes-everything-china-canada-climate-change-_n_8140518.html

scientists and media organizations should be presenting this information as emissions per capita, not as gross emissions. it may be true that gross emissions are a better way to understand the climate effects. but, per capita emissions make it clear what it is that we need to do in order to do our share.

despite the media narrative, the reality is that we'd be making a huge contribution if we could get our per capita down to where china's is.

Peter Thompson
Jessica Murray, if you want Canadians to get our per capita emissions down to China's level, set the example and start with yourself. No heat, no car, no electricity are the realities for the vast majority of Chinese, you first and enjoy the upcoming winter...likely your last.

jessica murray 
i don't own a car, and i heat my apartment with electric power that i'd like to hope will be 100% renewable in the near future. the largest part of my relatively small carbon footprint has to do with transporting food, which is something we can easily work together to avoid if we decide that we'd like to. the irony is not in me needing to look at myself; i already have, and i can assure you that i do about everything i can, and actively argue for people to get together to take further steps. my footprint is lower than china's per capita emissions. the irony is in your false assumption that i haven't, and your inability to see beyond your own mental blocks.

www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/see-which-nations-are-the-biggest-co2-contributors/57401/

i won't go over what's been said, other than to point out that the ndp never previously polled as high as 10%. if the bloc are polling at 10% or higher, the ndp would have to be swinging a considerable number of liberal voters to even be competitive.

that said, i'd like to see some polls in outremont - which is one of the first ridings you'd expect to see swing back to the liberals, if they're getting a boost over 2008, which they clearly are. i suspect this is a deflection.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/18/justin-trudeau-papineau-anne-legace-dowson-poll_n_8161098.html

i'm quitting smoking again. done this enough to know it's temporary. but, dammit....

you need to teach that raccoon to fish.

it's always a little disturbing to me when media purporting to be about "exposing rape culture" features violent rape imagery, knowing full well that many people that are watching are less than horrified by the imagery, if you understand what i'm saying. there's a very fine line between messaging and pornography; this is a topic that people engage with in complex ways, from repressed fantasies to voyeurism. sometimes, this line is crossed by accident, or at least not by conscious choice. i think lady gaga has a marketing team that is able to understand what i'm saying better than i'm able to articulate it, and they wouldn't make such an error as an oversight.

if i'm interpreting this as twisted porn, it's because it's designed that way.

so, this is pretty much the precise point where it makes sense to start panicking.

world war three is due to start any minute, now.