From Fair Vote Canada :

"Had the same votes been cast under a proportional voting system, Fair Vote Canada projected that the seats allocation would have been approximately as follows:

• Conservatives - 36.3% of the popular vote: 113 seats (not 124)
• Liberals - 30.1% of the popular vote: 93 seats (not 103)
• NDP - 17.5% of the popular vote: 59 seats (not 29)
• Bloc - 10.5% of the popular vote: 31 seats (not 51)
• Greens - 4.5% of the popular vote: 12 seats (not 0)

However, Smith emphasized that speculation should be tempered. "With a different voting system, people would have voted differently," he said. "There would have been no need for strategic voting. We would likely have seen higher voter turnout. We would have had different candidates - more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We would have had more real choices."

"The voting system really matters a lot and the system we have is simply not acceptable in a modern democracy." "

Mudwrestling at the Forum

Come on, guys, you're so obviously being set up here.
Newbie "Michael Bloomberg" uses his very first post to ask where on the island Harrison Ford lives, and 52 posts later, half from the mischievous "Michael" himself, a free speech vs right to privacy debate has escalated into the cops being called in.
Now someone has posted an Entertainment Tonight report that HF has indeed bought a house here. Again.
So tomorrow on the Forum, everyone who was so outraged that a part-time islander like "Michael" (read : not one of us) would have the nerve to invade HF's privacy will be invited yet again to speculate endlessly on just which house HF has bought.
Think about how stupid you want to look.

On the lighter side, given that mud wrestling is primarily a spectator's sport, I was pleased to see the return of local poet Terry who lobbed one of his blank verses into the fray. To wit :

"Topics spill onto this digital navel
like random shaky spoonfuls of warm soup.
The pH of all local flavours rarely rises above 2."

Now why can't I write like that?

Human density transfer

From the Undercurrent :

"One of the fun activities that came from Ft. St. John was the walk to Whistler. They actually had the whole community come out one day and walk together; they added up their mileage and had the 1300 kms it would take to walk to Whistler from Fort St. John."

Wait for it...

"Well, obviously the distance from Bowen to Whistler is a little shorter, so the parks and rec. girls have decided to change the challenge slightly. For the week of Feb 3 to Feb 10, you add your mileage up to the 101 kms it is to Whistler. That's a long distance for most people to complete individually so you may form a group and add your miles together."

Yes, it's the human density transfer principle.

So why the fuck would we sign on to this dense idea?
Well apparently the "2010 Legacies Now" committee want us to start up some winter traditions now so that we'll be in the mood by 2010 because :

"The Olympics are not just about the actual competitions anymore. A very important aspect of having the Olympics in the lower mainland is the legacies that will be left long after the Olympics are done."

Ah, yes, legacies. In one of the original pitches for having the 2010 Olympics here, the council of Salt Lake City was quoted as saying they would definitely host the Olympics a second time if they got the chance. When I wrote to Salt Lake City council asking for more details, they wrote back to explain that hosting the Olympics a second time was the only possible way for Salt Lake City to recoup their losses from the first time.

I would suggest that rather than join the "Walk to Whistler" campaign, if you really want to show your support for Olympics 2010, a more fitting tribute would be to just park your car in your driveway and leave the engine running for 45 minutes or so.

Brian Jungen at the VAG

A whale skeleton made from plastic lawn chairs.


A native mask made from running shoes.

Proportional representation, anyone?

In the riding next door, 63% of the voters chose Lib, NDP, or Green.
63% of the total votes were "wasted" under the 'first past the post' system.
Think any of these libs, greens, or dippers are happy about being represented by a conservative?
One argument against "prop rep" is that it might allow a "fringe" candidate to get elected.
Under first past the post, 63% of this riding got fringed.

Attention shoppers!

The following are not recorded at Elections Canada as protest votes:

• "I'm really just not into the whole political thing."
• World of Warcraft addiction
• sleeping it off - all day
• "I wish it would stop raining."
• not feeling 'included in the system'
• Auto Antiques Roadshow marathon
• your Trailblazer is blocking your Pathfinder in the driveway
• "Only politicians are running"

Onward Christian litigants

Our Lady of Fatima Shrine Catholic Church in Scarborough Ont was the scene of a small tax-exempt political brawl right after Sunday Mass yesterday morning.

The Conservative candidate for Scarborough South West took a swing at a campaign worker handing out endorsements for Liberal MP Tom Wappel and a scuffle ensued in which one of the campaigners was knocked down. The campaign workers in question, LifeSiteNews director Steve Jalsevac together with his wife and four children, were distributing a “pro-life pro-family” leaflet endorsing Liberal MP Wappel, one of 32 liberals who voted against Same Sex Marriage and Bill 6.
The Conservative candidate had evidently declined to answer a Campaign Life Coalition ‘Vote for Life and Family!' questionnaire and so did not win their endorsement. The LifeSiteNews director made an audio recording of the scuffle which you can hear here and has said he intends to press charges.

I have to question the wisdom of the repeated use of the term 'bastard' in this exchange. Wasn't Jesus technically a bastard?
And remember, every time the six o'clock news runs a story of so-cons duking it out on the church steps after Mass, the baby Jesus cries.
Thanks to Politics from the Heartlands for this lovely gift of schadenfreude.
Rick also has links up to get some early election results.

Scraping the 'compassionate' off the 'conservative'

John Weston finally gets down to it in his final campaign mail-out before the election.
It's all about the stuff.
Getting more stuff and keeping everyone else off your stuff.

A vote For George Harper is a vote for Stephen Bush

"Conservative leader vows to end anti-U.S. rhetoric
By Levon SevuntsTHE WASHINGTON TIMESJanuary 21, 2006
MONTREAL -- Canada's Conservatives, who look increasingly sure of winning national elections on Monday, say they are hoping for a fresh start in the nation's frosty relations with the United States.
John Reynolds, official opposition house leader, said while trade disputes between Canada and the United States will remain, the tone of political discourse will change. "We had a government that for 12 years in Canada has called [Americans] words like 'coward' and 'stupid,'?" said Mr. Reynolds, who co-chairs the Conservative elections campaign. "That would change. Our party is not filled with anti-American people like it is within the Liberal Party." Mr. Reynolds said the first practical step in improving security cooperation between Canada and the United States would be to restart discussions about joining the anti-ballistic missile program."

In the last few months I have written several times to John Weston, Mr. Reynolds' CPC successor in our riding, asking him very politely for a clarification on his own position on the anti-ballistic missile program and the Security and Prosperity Pact of North America.
No reply from John Weston's campaign office.

As I recall, it was Bush, and not [Americans], who was referred to as 'coward' and 'stupid'.
So likewise when I call Mr. Reynolds a quisling and a disingenuous lying sack of shit, I do not mean all the people living in the West Van/ Sunshine Coast/Sea to Sky riding.

OK, to be fair, sometimes Canadians have referred to Americans as stupid, mostly because so many of them voted for Bush. I'm afraid we're about to find out what that's like.

As David Hill put it on the Forum : "A vote for George Harper is a vote for Stephen Bush."

We are family

Stephen Harper appeared in public in his secret Promise Keepers Canada crown for the first time today, as seen above. Introduced at a news conference by David Sweet, a Tory candidate and former president of Promise Keepers Canada, Mr Harper has also obtained the endorsement of the 'Globe and Mail' and the 'National Post'.