Election wrap up and Bush news

Let's take a look at how my second election prediction did against the seat count as it stands today:

My estimates on January 20th, 2006	Actual numbers after Jan. 23, 2006
Conservatives 121 Liberals 112 Bloc 66 NDP 8 Independent 1 Green 0 [with a popular vote of 5%] CPC 0 MLP 0 CHP 0 CAP 0 Voter turnout: 62% of elligible voters will cast a ballot.	Conservatives 124 Liberals 102 Bloc 51 NDP 29 Independent 1 Green 0 [with a popular vote of 4.5%] CPC 0 MLP 0 CHP 0 CAP 0 Voter turnout: 64.9% of elligible voters will cast a ballot. This means 8 Million registered voters didn't go.

Fox News headline: "Canadian Voters End 13-Year Liberal Presidency". And that's all I have to say about that - for now. OK, I couldn't hold off speaking about Fox News' ridiculous site. "[Harper wants to]... tighten security along the U.S. border to prevent terrorists and guns from crossing," they say, as if implying that it's Canada's responsibility to stop guns and terrorists from going INTO the United States. Harper, if he said that, would be saying it to stop those things from ENTERING CANADA which is a Canadian responsibility.

"The Liberals have angered Washington in recent years, ... enacting punitive Canadian lumber tariffs." And when the truth doesn't matter - lie. I guess it's OK for Faux News to neglect to mention to its brilliant viewers that the USA enacted illegal lumber tariffs on Canada years ago and has refused to pay us back?
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Key Congressmen kept Informed of Illegal Bush Spying

"Bush also said he kept key members of Congress informed.

"You know, it's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he was just breaking the law.' If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush said, apparently referring to former Vice President Al Gore's accusation last week that he was "breaking the law" by authorizing the program.

"These are not phone calls within the United States," Bush said. "This is a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. "

Mr. Bush, are you trying to get some Congressmen in trouble too by
tattling on them knowing about your crime and they did nothing to stop you?

Comments are here at Daily Kos.
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This CBC page has a list of some of the high profile losses and victories of the election. Goodale and Belinda won, and Anne McLellan and Svend Robinson lost. You might be pleased to hear that Sarmite Bulte, the former Liberal MP lost her seat to the NDP, and is for now no longer an immediate threat to Canadian copyright law. Keep an eye open for Bev Oda of the Conservatives though to take on the role of DMCA champion. Tony Valeri the former Minister responsible for rail line removal, also won't be back this time.
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I drove over to Semans today, and the roads were not completely clear. I had to slow down at some points to avoid losing control on the slush and ice. When I got back in the evening, I downloaded a photo, and got confused and deleted two or three pictures I didn't have backed up. I tried using FreeUndelete with no real luck, although it did recover a whole lot of files I didn't want any more. If I kept at it, I could get the pictures back, but they were essentially duplicates from different angles anyway as far as I remember, so I'll just let go of them instead of banging my head against the desk in frustration all night. Yes, even computer geeks occasionally wish for magic on
their computers.
UPDATE: It's never worth getting frustrated over something. I went to look back at my photos, and found the missing picture(s) I thought I lost, it turns out I'd removed only duplicates after all. Now pardon me a moment while I go back up those pictures properly this time.

Listening to the radio today there were plenty of interesting stories. The most interesting was the accusation of voter fraud in Sask.'s northern riding of D-M-Churchill River. A recount is being launched there, where the Liberals beat the Conservatives by barely 100 seats and under unusual circumstances. Elsewhere in the country, former Ag. Minister Andy Mitchell lost to the Conservative Tony Clement.

This parliament isn't what I hoped for, it's only what I predicted [the second time around a few days ago]. However, I do think a Conservative minority government is a better outcome for Canada than another Liberal minority or majority would have been. Some individuals will disagree strongly, because the Conservatives will make their life difficult in the short term, but I think it's short term pain for longer term gain. If you can survive the coming year of a Conservative minority government, you can look forward to a rejuvenated Liberal party down the road, and hopefully a much stronger Green and NDP seat count. Harper might actually enact parliamentary reform, so that our senate will be elected, and elections called on a fixed schedule [which I have mixed feelings about].

Strategists were taking two lines of thinking, one that Harper might try to push through his most repugnant law changes such as banning government recognized marriage of homosexuals, early so as to catch opposition parties in a bind where they can either bring down the government and
make Canadians mad, or enact the law and make Canadians mad. The other strategy to govern which I hope Harper chooses is to pass his GST reduction law and reforms to parliamentary responsibility, and then try the fewer people want. The point was also raised that he peeved the civil service last week, by implying that they'd sabotage his government because they were mostly Liberal appointees. He has to bring the civil service back onto his side before he'll hope to get
much real work done.

A former professor of mine was on the Noon Edition call in program on CBC, Stephen Kenny. He teaches Canadian history at the University of Regina, and was the guest helping to answer callers questions and comments about the election. One caller noted the potential voter fraud in SK's north riding, and a few brought up their concerns about the new Harper government. One caller repeated the now tired mantra that I hear everywhere, that "people can't complain if they
didn't vote." I think people should be encouraged to complain, but they should realize too that they look a bit like a hypocrite doing so. It is more important statistically to convince other people to vote the way you do, than it is to vote at all in 99% of major elections, but non-voters have a lot of nerve to whine about government if they don't do anything about it. I think people just grow tired of hearing hypocrites speak about politics, so the media came up with the now massively popular urban myth that only voting gives one the right to contribute to democracy between elections.

The Green Party didn't fare as well as I was hoping, but did better than I expected because I was very concerned about the vote polarization by the Liberals and Conservatives. The NDP got a taste of their own medicine, and didn't get the seats they were due thanks to the fearful voting by Liberal supporters in many ridings. The Green Party was in danger of being squeezed right out, but managed to increase their voter base by many thousands. I'm concerned that unless the Green Party can convince a member to defect and sit as a Green MP, then Canada might never see the Greens in the debate, and thus start to take them seriously as a national party.

The Conservative MP Garry B. in Yorkton Melville won yet again, with an obscene number of votes. It's a shame to think of the good those votes could have done for Keith Neu and the Green Party, and they were just wasted on piling up way past the point of putting Garry's number over the top. Yorkton-Melville could have sent a strong message for change by either electing a different MP than the one who's done little or nothing for them in the previous 13 years, or electing him but voting strongly for the Green Party which could have attracted national media attention.