Canadian elections, American debates, and more

The Canadian elections are over, and Harper didn't get the majority he hoped for. He did gain some seats, the Liberals lost a few, the NDP gained a few, the Bloc Quebecois lost a couple, and the Greens were shut out once again. Even though this is the result that the polls predicted, looking back on it, I'm a bit surprised that he didn't do better. The Liberal leader Stephane Dion has to be one of the least charismatic politicians I've ever seen. If Harper can't beat him soundly, who can he beat?

Here in the USA, the presdidential debates are over, and for those who tuned out (like I almost did) because the first couple were so boring, missed the best one. I thought McCain looked pretty crappy physically. He had the rheumy eyes of the old man that he is. But physical appearances aside, McCain finally made the "palling around with terroists" claims to Obama's face. As usual, Obama was totally unflustered and handled it well, especially when he brought up the people he does "pal around" with. McCain was trying to get in so many right-wing -whacko talking points that he never really managed to land one.

One thing he did bring up that probably went over the heads of most viewers was his claim that ACORN was tearing at the very fabric of American democracy. You'd think they were another Al Qaeda, but I'd be willing to bet that if you asked 100 Americans what or who ACORN is, no more than 20 would be able to tell you, and those 20 are already part of the kool-aid drinking fringe. ACORN is an association of community activists who, among other things, try to get people involved in the political process by getting them to register to vote. ACORN employs people (often homeless or otherwise unemployed) to register voters and pays them by the number of registrations. Not surprisingly, in an attempt to pad their paychecks, some of these new voter lists are inflated by fictional people, or fictional characters like Mickey Mouse, Ronald MacDonald and Tony Roma. The Right is up in arms about all of this so-called voter fraud. This is all nonsense. Just because ACORN registers new voters, it doesn't mean they are automatically on the voter rolls. All states have some way of screening new voters, and most require some form of ID at the polls. It's hard to imagine Ronald MacDonald showing up to try to vote.

The people tearing at the fabric of the Amercian democracy are the lunatic-right-wing fringe. They are the ones who advocate torture, unlimited presidential power, unlimited electronic eavesdropping, and suspension of habeas corpus. They are the ones who have disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of people (see Florida 2000) by purging them from voter roles for the most specious reasons. Now as well as demonizing Obama, they are trying to delegitimize the results of what appears to be a landslide election in advance. The scary part is that there are lots of these whackos around. Even here in Seattle, one of the bluest of blue cities, and even in the limited group of people I know personally well enough to talk politics, I know several otherwise intelligent people who are certifiably right-wing lunatics. Scary stuff!

And for those of you who wonder what I do when I'm not doing absolutely nothing, here are a couple of photos of a work in progress that's been keeping me busy for a while. I'll post more photos as the project progresses.