I had some downtime there while my webhost fussed with my credit card, and thus missed discussing a lot of stuff.

Stuff I missed include an animated bird shitting on Stéphane Dion being national news for a day, Sarah Palin doing all kinds of entertaining nonsense, and the big HOLY SHIT moment when John McCain tried to cancel the debate, only to realise that letting Obama have 90 minutes of screentime by himself (or God forbid, debating third-party candidates for the lulz) would be a bad idea.

Meanwhile the NDP is on ‘roids and Dion is puttering around in a Honda promising to dump the green shift and outlaw abortion or whatever conservative policies he’s tried to steal lately.

See what happens when I can’t blog? I forget everything that recently happened.

Debate: (reposted from my own journal)
My family and I watched the debate on CBC Newsworld, but switched over to MSNBC for the post-mortem and the sweet sweet partisan commentary. Most people seem to be agreeing that it was more or less a tie. They were pretty evenly matched and neither candidate did the typical things their supporters were dreading: McCain didn’t look sick, blow up, or give a lacklustre performance; Obama didn’t stall while searching for a word and he wasn’t excessively deferential (although Democrats are hungry for blood and nothing he did would have been enough for some of them). He handled the questions well enough but his rhetorical style only really shines when he has time to build up momentum, which he didn’t get.

Both of them very pretty evasive in answering Lehrer’s questions.

I’m not sure what I think of the free-flowing format–on the one hand it kept things interesting, but on the other hand any time there seemed to be a good fight brewing Lehrer would call them off and give them another question. This makes me wonder what the point of free-flowing debates actually is. I really loathe cross-talk and candidates interrupting each other.

Torture was the big moment that made everyone in my living room go OH NO HE DI-IN’T. First of all, there was the use of the word “again”, which is quite an admission. Second, there was McCain’s defence of waterboarding. I respected the man a lot when he was a lone voice speaking out against torture, and he lost my good opinion when he started to toe the party line instead. I really do not like seeing torture of prisoners used as a political football. Barack could have hit him on this point and didn’t–there were time constraints, but I wish he’d made the time for it.

If I were an undecided American voter, I don’t think this debate would move me one way or the other. [edit: it appears that I suck at pretending to be an undecided American voter, since Obama is up in the polls now.]

Small bits:
- C’mon, Ahmadinejad could happen to anybody.
- Only one “my friends” that I counted, and only one POW mention. Good for you, John.
- Flag pin count: 1. Where’s McCain’s?
- If I hear one more “Wall Street vs Main Street” I will put a hole through my TV screen.
- What’s more ridiculous and exploitative than a dead soldier’s bracelet? Two dead soldiers’ bracelets.

Okay, I am a Liberal sympathiser and have voted only Liberal or NDP in every election. Barring a very impressive performance by Layton I’ll be voting Dion. But this is the funniest shit I’ve seen in Canadian elections.

Granted, it does not quite have the intended effect on me–I don’t find the following revelations to be evidence of inability to lead the country:

• Dion eats his hot dogs with a knife and fork, even when members of the media and real life people are watching!
• Dion is a decorated seabirds enthusiast.
• He had a turtle named Trotsky, as well as his dog Kyoto.
• He wants to “defend Canada with parks and scientists.”
• He will “fight crime with music.”

He’s got my vote.

If you saw this link on Bourque but didn’t want to waste a whole seven minutes on something simply labelled as “Shocker: Racist video unleashed online …” then I’ll make it quick.

It purports to have important video proof of…something…and kicks things off with a quote about bilingualism under Trudeau, which uses the word “revolution” and “kicking and screaming” so you know they literally wanted to chop those têtes carrés right off. They just didn’t get to it somehow.

This video is created to draw attention to the ugly consequence of Parliament’s lack of leadership and intends to demonstrate the divisive nature that enforced bilingualism is having on all Canadians. [coughs] I got a frog in my throat. Sorry, I got a Gilles Duceppe in my throat!

Annnnnnnd you see where we’re headed, right?

After a bunch of very short and grainy clips of random people saying things in English and French, it becomes clear that the proof is just “Separatists exist”, which I guess might be wild and astonishing to eight-year-olds in Alberta.

So now you know.

1. The Bloc: It’s not just for separatists anymore!
2. How did we lose all those seats to the Tories? Hell if I know!

CanWest does know, however. “The Conservatives, who hadn’t been a serious threat in Quebec in years, weren’t expected to win more than a couple of seats. Consequently, the Bloc Quebecois focused its campaign on wresting a handful of heavily multi-ethnic seats in Montreal away from the Liberals.”

Obviously Duceppe couldn’t say this to a reporter. But I’m pretty gobsmacked that the Tories did so well in Quebec too. And, desperate as it sounds, it might not be a bad idea to play to federalists. Over the course of a political conversation, I’ve often heard people say, “You know, I’d vote for the Bloc if they ran candidates in the rest of Canada. They have sensible ideas.” These people were all, of course, in Ontario–in Quebec it’s understandable that they’re tired of backing a party that’s perennially in opposition–but if Duceppe wants the infamous “ethnic vote” in Quebec and to woo voters away from Stéphane Dion it makes sense to get federalists onside.

But, uhh, doesn’t this sound like the same tactic Duceppe tried before? The one that didn’t work? You’re not going to convince me that those seats in Quebec City are now 100% blue and a lost cause, and if Harper wins Quebec then the race is over. Get back out there, Gilles.

Meanwhile, this is a good point that deserves to get more traction:

«Je ne suis pas surpris. À Ottawa, on a des ministres qui ne parlent pas, a dit M. Duceppe. À la dernière élection, c’était la même chose. On tassait les candidats pour pas qu’ils s’adressent aux journalistes. Imaginez s’ils ne peuvent pas parler dans une campagne, ça vous donne une idée de ce qu’ils font dans leur caucus et au parlement ! Comment peut-on élire des gens qui n’ont pas le droit de parler ?»

Be nice if people heard this south of the border, too.

Harper called it, you guys are gonna eat it, read ‘em and weep, put ‘em on the–what?

When asked about what the outcome of the vote might be, Harper said, “We believe it is going to be a tough election. We believe it will be a tight election. And, yes, we believe in all likelihood it will be a minority.”

Stephen. Honey. Listen.

YOU ALREADY HAVE A MINORITY. It is not time for another election yet, by your own rules. You think this government is “dysfunctional” but you admit that you’re only likely to get another minority? What exactly are you trying to pull here? Do you think you’re going to work any better with whatever crop of Liberals/NDP/Bloc/Greens-maybe we elect to keep you in their sights? What, precisely, did you mean by “dysfunctional” if not “they won’t do what I want”? Because I’m confused. Are you trying to tell us Jack Layton is an abusive alcoholic or something?

At least give us some bombast here, c’mon.

But all right, fine, evidently Michaëlle Jean agrees with me about the value of election lulz, regardless of legality. I’m not complaining. I’m bemused, shall we say, but I’m not complaining.

May the best party win.

Hearing people describe Todd Palin as “part Eskimo” has been making me twitch lately, but evidently without reason. I was always taught that “Eskimo” is a pejorative that was only used by ignorant people, and that it doesn’t apply to non-Inuit aboriginal people living in the north. Wrong on both counts, as it happens–it’s an accepted term in Alaska, if not in Canada, and there it does indeed refer both to Indians and Inuit/Inupiak peoples.

What also surprised me was reading about the demographics in Alaska. 15.6% Native American or Alaska Native sounds strange–I had wondered why Palin doesn’t seem to have had much to do with Native issues (or if she did she doesn’t talk about it a lot), but I guess there’s my answer. I had thought that maybe this was because the tribes governed themselves in large part, since that’s true to some extent in other places; the Akwesasne reservation around here is independent enough that it’s considered both Canadian and American territory, for instance.

Instead it seems like sovereignty is a live issue in Alaska, where “Senator Ted Stevens, among others, has proposed that funding for programs and services for Alaska Natives be funneled through state agencies and large regional corporations rather than through tribes.” (“Indian Country” and the nature and scope of tribal self-government in Alaska)

Quoth the Anchorage Daily News in 2006:

Another disconnect is with the state’s Native corporations. Palin backed away from a scheduled meeting with Native executives several weeks ago, her campaign conceding she wasn’t ready to talk about tribal recognition and other Native concerns raised by the group. Subsistence was prominent on the executives’ list.

This stuff may seem regional or not relevant to white Americans in the lower 48, but it reflects whether Palin pays attention to issues that involve people unlike herself, people who probably don’t vote Republican in big numbers. It reflects whether she serves her entire state or only 80% of it. I’ll buy that she isn’t ready to talk to the press now on foreign policy issues, but what was her excuse in 2006 for not being ready to talk to Native corporations about tribal recognition? She’s lived in Alaska as far back as she can remember, so what, was she not keeping up with the news?

Alaska’s Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts make up more than 15 percent of the state’s population. Indian activist groups there have protested discrimination and disparities in health and education, and also disparities over their hunting and fishing rights. There is no record that Palin has spoken out on their plight. (Palin’s record on race a blank sheet)

The same article points out that Bush and McCain both have records of talking about diversity issues. Whether you agree with them or not, at least we have some idea what they think.

I’ve seen the rumours around the blogs about Palin’s racist comments and the sentiment “that’s