Musings —12.02.2011 11:13 AM
—Facebook-induced head explosion imminent
I’m 7 friends away from the not-so-magic 5,000 friends limit.
When I get there, I have heard that the possibilities are:
- I won’t be allowed to accept any more friends;
- I get punted off of Facebook for being a machine, because it’s not possible that an actual human being can have that many friends; or
- My head will explode.
If the head-exploding thing doesn’t happen, non-friends can continue to follow my exploits, such as they are, on my “fan” page, which is here.
God bless and keep Mark Zuckerberg.
I find it easier to follow on the fan page. Streams with other stories I am following.
Off topic, we have our first analysis of the Liberal 2nd plaxe poll from earlier this week:
http://www.threehundredeight.blogspot.com/2011/12/liberals-in-second.html
With most of the gains for the Liberals coming in Ontario, most of the losses are from the conservatives. The seat results are:
CPC: 132
LPC: 81
NDP: 94
The reason why the election happened at the worst possible time isn’t so much the lowpoint for the Liberals. It was the perfect vote-split in Ontario between NDP and Liberal, allowing the conservatives to gain a huge number of seats with no substantial increase in the popular vote.
If Ontario went a little more Liberal or a little more NDP, the Tories wouldn’t have been able to go up the middle to a majority. This poll is a little more Liberal, and it gives them a much better result without much damage to the NDP.
. . . which is why Iggy and the LPC braintrust were morons for triggering the election when they did. As Warren K pointed out from the get-go.
Yuppers…
Its not an ill wind that doesnt blow some good……the total devastation of the Liberal Party in the last election has been good for self-examination, and for its humbling effect….I suspect a lot of good will come out of this, or at least I hope it will……
I wonder if the Liberal party had been stronger, would that have stopped the NDP wave entirely? Or would the NDP still have obliterated the Bloc, picking up 50-60 seats? I really do think there’s a coalition that would easily take down the conservatives, but it has to be rooted in our geography: Urban Progressives, Ontario “goo goos”, and Quebec Social Democrats.
Maybe we’ll never know about 2011. But it’s something to work towards in 2015.
Quebec seems so volatile, shifting and unstable these days politically. I wonder about basing any kind of coalition on Quebec. I take your point though.
One thing that’s odd about the NDP turning into the new “hoover to Quebec nationalism” party is this: traditionally, left of centre parties in Canada have been champions of a strong, interventionist federal government that stands for uniform social programs across the country and assertions of federal jurisdiction in the national interest. Quebec nationalism has typically been the polar opposite philosophically. I guess the NDP’s
Quebec nationalist experiment will succeed or fail partly depending on what specific Quebec/Ottawa issues perk up in the next 4 years or so. If that front stayed Quiet, that would be good for the NDP. If that front got active, that could really mess up the NDP’s grand master plan.
If you’ve ever met any young sovereigntists, or young people who support the Parti Quebecois, you’ll find out that a lot of the support for full on separation is very soft.
Some of the appetite for the Parti Quebecois is over real issues: especially the protection of the French language. But a lot of it is either support for a strong social safety net — as evidenced by their child care program — or a symbolic “eff you” to the latest scandal of the other federal parties. It really peaked in the 1995 election, after the fall out over all the constitutional stuff. But otherwise it’s an identity thing. I was actually against it when the federal parties recognized Quebec as a nation within Canada… but it’s had a significant effect making Quebeckers feel like their heritage has been recognized. The NDP succeeded there by promising to protect the French language, which is really the seed of all culture.
So, to your point… can a “strong federalist” party succeed in a province that has supported a separatist party? The answer is yes, as long as you know which policies should be federal and which should be provincial. It might be hard to square it up to the constitution, but nearly ANYTHING that would alleviate the fear that Quebec becomes the next Lousiana would be good to cede to the provinces (see: language, education, immigration). But the social democratic stuff puts Quebec in harmony with the Feds. Imagine if the federal government delivered on support for child care — it would be entirely compatible with Quebec administrating it and working out their own operational details. A stronger safety net across all the provinces would be good policy and good politics.
I believe that your hard drive is wiped clean, you have 3 years of bad luck and that polite man from Nigeria will not send you any more emails about the big cheque he is holding for you.
Or so I’m told…
Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee . . .