The day before the vote

One of the sites I have been tracking is this one Northumberland--Quinte West | Vote For Environment put together by a bunch of enviros to make suggestions about the best enviro candidate in the ridings. It has a very good graph map and what appears to be an accurate predictor of future votes. Up until yesterday, and you can check this by using the dropdown box, the predictions were quite close. But the CPC has a bigger lead now than yesterday. This leads one into a discussion of how relevant overnight polling is when trying to predict future voter behaviour. Some analysts say that the polls are about three days in front of intentions as some people tend to make their minds up based on information contained in polls.

An oldie but still a goodie:
This Youtube clip, about the arts and government funding, comes courtesy of the "Sunday Star". It is taken from that wonderfully realistic sitcom, "Yes Minister". This series must be 40 years old by now and still rings true. A beautiful series about the way Government works. Too close to the bone for a lot of living pols but for us pundits dead on the button. This clip just proves that nothing is ever new.

Finish the week with this

A nifty little ad from an NDP supporter has turned up in the "Orange Room, here it is.

A new low as described by Don Martin of the "national post" here I saw it last night and although I cringed for the guy it certainly didn't merit the attention that the CPC is giving it. The really smelly part of this is the way CTV issued the out-take for public consumption, after all do they give out clips of "Fat Bastard" Mike Duffy eating greasy hamburgers on his coffee break?

Rewriters to the front!

As I spent the weekend at a family wedding enjoying the niceties of life in Ottawa - $7.00 beer and $25.00 entrees - there was no time to make comments about local life. The situation wasn't helped by the fact that the Town hasn't posted the Executive Committee agenda on the website for the third consecutive time in six weeks (anyone see a pattern here?). So a few webposts that I picked up in the last 12 hours.

Right-wing attack dogs attack each other: A youtube clip that is mighty entertaining here

Older drivers cause accidents! A piece that I would have liked to write but didn't - I chickened out. Jus a tale from a week ago. I was called to an incident on a Sunday afternoon at 5pm. After I had pulled the older man from the ditch I asked him to sign the invoice. "Sign on the X" I said. "Where's the X, my eyes aren't so good!" And he wonders why he hit the ditch. Article here

Just what we need in Cobourg to ensure an online presence: Here's an article about a law in the US that mandates an online presence for municipal business - about time.

For the really political nerds

Mcleans mag weblog is published here, read it if you have absolutely nothing else to read and lots of time. Macleans.ca liveblog - Canadian Leadership Debate - Day 2 : Blog Central : Macleans.ca Blog Central

And this site, a blow by blow realtime reaction to every word spoken last night. Red lines bad green lines good and to check specific responses by the leaders mouseover the blacks at the bottom.

And an ad that I approve of - Garth Turner's page and a link to youtube. Here

A primer on the subprime mess

Read about it here subprime works - Google Docs

Monday reads

Finally the right decision:
The Police Services Board has finally made the correct decision - to make the Acting Chief the real Chief. Paul Sweet has finally been recognised as the person for the job, ten years too late. Congratulations Chief.

Another slow election week
Will those who have noticed an election taking place please stand up. Talk about the 'phony war' just what is going on. Hardly any signs, one All Candidates meeting and little else. Oh Elizabeth May did turn up on Friday for a whistle stop at the Cobourg VIA station. Very artsy-fartsy: a jazz band, lots of older people and plenty of signs, well as many as about 35 people can carry. Waving sunflowers she said nice things for about three minutes, and then got back on the train. As one disembarking passenger told me, "It's been like this at every stop but there were more people at Oshawa."

Just who can you trust?

An amazing story about the aftermath of a lottery ticket purchase is detailed here - Lottery cash frozen as family feuds over winnings
Even more amazing is that there is only $200,000 left to quarrel about.

We found it - with subtitles

As a reaction to the Conservative cuts to the arts a Quebec video has been a runaway success. Half a million hits in the past couple of days. Unfortunately the youtube version was unilingual. Now CityTV has put up the video with subtitles and it is here and it is very very funny.

A few jottings

First things first:
Good news for a baseball buff who likes the vacation spot in Las Vegas, here. Let's play in Vegas! But seriously with the BJs out of contention this morning, how will this help when the press in Vegas complain about the lack of the will to win by their ball team, kinda sounds like the Rogers team !

Where's the paperwork?
For the second time this month no agenda was published online for the Executive meeting of Cobourg Council. Makes one think that they either don't care about the public or they just prefre to soldier on in secrecy. Sad!

Election signs:
Two items; one was an email from a regular who asked if the County bylaw is unconstitutional and the other a brilliant rebuttal to the question, "Why is Paul Macklin asking to be re-elected ? The first answer from me is that I don't know if the County law is unconstitutional and it will cost a lot of money to find out. "Postering" - the practise of putting up posters on public property has been cleared by the Supreme Court in a case in Peterborough many years ago, perhaps "signing" could be proven allowable as an extension of that case. But folks get your money out to pay for the lawyers to prove it. The second point - Macklin's signs - was easily explained in a beautiful piece of semantical polemic (wordy academic argument). Since Macklin had been elected more than once he was entitled to ask to be re-elected again. Not being the incumbent doesn't make the use of the word exclusive to the incumbent. Pity Arnold McCurdy, a few elections back, didn't think of it when he recycled his signs in a municipal election and took a lot of flak for it.

A few election sites to watch:

• Adam Radwanski's "Election rating" here. A regular grading of the leaders's performances.
• Election prediction, local style here. This site is part of the "Election Prediction Site" where people log on and give their opinions about the election, ridings and seat projections.
• "Campaign Perspectives" - Carlton Univerity's J-School election project here
  
• Macleans blogs, a collection of election thoughts here

Email me your favourite election site please and we'll make this list longer

Someone with too much time, or an egghead professor!

How about a lesson in physics applied (no pun intended) to election sign placement Effort, load, and silencing Garth Turner's sign whine