william.scherk

Obama 256 "locked up"? I doubt it. Anybody can do his or her own electoral college arithmetic. Here is one of many electoral vote calculators. I lay out one such 'swing-state' scenario, one of the many winning combinations for Obama (click to go to the interactive map at 270towin.com). In this guess, Romney takes Florida, Vermont, Wisconsin, Colorado and Iowa, giving him the benefit of six weeks' hard campaigning to push down Democrat leads. Brant, I agree that lots can happen in seven weeks. But can enough happen in seven weeks that has not already happened in the last thirty weeks? Look at the long procedure from 2008. There were no surges of vote in the last weeks. The trend to Obama established itself by June. When I speak of long-trend polling, you seem to say "polling aside." That's OK, polling aside, we are finger in the wind, left with a lot of murk and guess and blustery weather -- when we are trying to estimate and factor actual voting behaviour, we do look at reliable indices or signals of likely behaviour. Sondage. Soundings. Opinion surveys. Questions, and the record of the answers over time. The record of voting intentions versus actual votes. Thus, despite our disquiet (what is 'scientific opinion polling'?), limitations, lures and traps, this is part of sober political analysis. The most reliable indicators are (for me) the stew of long-term polling lines spread out on a wall, broken down by state. How do you figure in your mind the vote? Who will take Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida? I look forward to seeing other OLers' prognostic numbers. The interactive behind the map above lets us save each guess ...

Jerry, I think you may be starting off with wrong questions. I am more inclined to go back a step or two and examine the premises: What is a 'grey'? What is the evidence that such as 'greys' exist? Answer that instead of your two follow-ons. And then answer a third: Are the claims of encounters with 'grey' aliens bullcrap? We got to think this through, huh, and test the actual claims, verify the information, no? All we have so far is a 1995 video of Phip Schneider, part of a lecture in which he claims the existence of an underground UFO/Alien/US Military base at Dulce, New Mexico (amongst other items). He claims to have 'evidence' of official enounters and photos and also claims to have killed two aliens. Jerry, your next questions also illogically contain their own conclusions. This is begging the question, accepting as settled that which is in dispute. You ask. "Then how did this man kill 2 of them? Did he kill something that didn't exist? You are not answering the more important question: Did this man kill two of "them"? Do you see the problem? The claim from the late Schneider is a plain verbal claim. "I killed two grey aliens." Is there suitable, compelling, converging evidence for this claim? Have you investigated? In a brief trawl of the internets I found some of the documentation for the 'grey encounter' claims. I will tell you this, Jerry: I am CONVINCED. I won't tell you of what I am convinced just yet. Let me know when you have answered the initial questions to your satisfaction. Oh, there's more. Yikes. In his own words: Jerry! How do I interpret this? Help!

I found this part quoted in PJ O'Roarke's 1995 book "Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut" (I wasn't sure if PJ was trashing Hillary or Michelle). I think Carol's notes on Romney campaign brass and their top-heavy structure was from Politico, that KKK-suffused place of liberality, their lengthy article "Inside the campaign: how Mitt Romney stumbled" ... if the marxist fiends at Politico really did get access to the executive suite, it amazes me how the knives were out at HQ. This is hard business. Now, is Stevens an idiot, a panderer, an NWO-Rockefeller, an old-school money maven, a smart operator, or what? It looks like Coach Stevens is fairly nimble. He will absorb the post-election kudos if the long-trend polls are wrong and Romney is headed for victory. I keep my eyes on Nevada, Ohio, Vermont, Colorado, Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin. Florida seems still in play, but the rest of the electoral votes are essentially locked up. Without these eight states decided, Obama could bring in 256 and Romney 191. If Obama takes Florida, it is over. If he loses Florida, but takes some combination of the other states, simple arithmetic tells us how he might do it. This is where the GOP is scrambling and infighting on strategy and tactics. The election party is going to be quite a night here at OL. I confidently predict teeth-gnashing and rue. My guess is that Romney's support will erode a wee bit each week in prime constituencies. If he continues to lose ground among Jewish voters, the Latino electorate (especially women) and if his Independent swing base erodes further, it is hard to see just where he will break out in the next fifty-odd days. The Romney message in places like Michigan and Ohio is just not taking hold. Apparently Stevens (and the other apex-males of the campaign) read Politico just like me and just like Carol. The newest Romney campaign headline there in that commie snakepit is "Romney abruptly shifts strategy." If Ohio is a bellwether of heartland America, then polling is dire for the GOP. If the GOP cannot maintain and advance in Nevada and nail down Colorado -- while Ohio goes blue, then I just do not see the numbers adding up for the man with the magic underwear and the nice hair and the lovely family. America's devolution into Cuban-style KKK-liberal slave camp is almost complete. Run for the borders of the Socialist Hellhole to the north! If it is a good enough redoubt for Jerry Story, it's good enough for you, Adam. With the only conservative government on the continent, Canada and its new refugees can make the final stand against Gog.

I missed this entirely:

The gentle, misunderstood Snapping Turtle (?) of deepest Pennsylvania. A useful instance of Objectivish principles in action, debunking irrational myth, or ... ? Four long, gripping minutes of meat-eater adventure. Not for the grape-hearted. "Took his foot clean off."

Jerry does not give details of his punishing illness here, but interesteed parties have read of a "Jerry Story" and his statements against glutamates and aspartame and for natural "hygiene." If this is the same Jerry, I can understand why Jerry does not use his diagnosis in discussion, and I share a certain distaste for Carol's remarks -- but only if Jerry had not introduced 'not taking meds' ... in the context of his ongoing information collages about natural health, I will leave it up to Jerry if he wants to bring his disease to the forefront. He has my great sympathy for his suffering, and I hope he can maintain his plateaux for as long as possible. There are bright lights in the world who have somehow survived the odds and remained mentally productive in their deepest disability, others who plead for assistance to end it all, and others who maintain a community of the expected-to-die. I have been attendant on a dying person. You are not there yet, Jerry! So, snatch that tomato or grape, with our help, as long as it pleases you and as long as you can. Courage, Canuck.

My best guess is sentient life-forms and the use of mysterious-to-us tools. Secret video of life-forms planning and executing a crop circle. Mongrel stomping-board. Sideways stepping/foot-stomp. Muscle fatique. Mysterious patterns. Wait, there's more! (image courtesy of Circlemakers.org**) ______________ ** For a beginner exploring the mysteries: See also the breezy, simplified C-4's ROUGH GUIDE TO: Creating Crop Circles

Here is Fox News affliate in New York City, featuring Ernie Anastos and Dari Alexander. The story starts with crude alarmism and ends in murk. Do their names appear on the lawsuit? Are they part of the same insane leftist conspiracy to redirect profits from Advanced Meat Recovery systems? I otherwise agree with Dennis on shoddy, ignorant reportage (as a solely leftist infection, perhaps not). In the sense of public perception, pathological food fears, the yuck factor, the story has legs, but by now it has been thrashed out. The USDA says Hey! We test this shit for safety. Lighten up! It is beef, you idiots. Gristle, dessicated cellular debris, defatted tendons, head and cheek meat, vascular and connective tissue, processed down to a lovely standardized foam. Just like Farmer Jenson got every last bit of the cow into his bratwurst, Americans scrape the goodness from every last bone and scrap. It's called industry, you numbskulls. If it is cheap, it is cheap because good old American know-how allowed us to fetch every last bit of value from the hundred and fifty million dead cattle and bison we process each year. The things that stand out for me are the amazing technological advances that led to the bounty on our shelves. Mechanically-deboned chicken and or pork and or beef and or mutton, formed meat chunks, 'lean finely textured beef' ... and on and on. Labels are fascinating things. If it is beef and you grind it, to me it is ground beef. Speaking of vegans, I did an awful thing at tree-planting camp back in the day. Supplier could not deliver me a forty-pound box of 100% vegetable shortening for cakes, cookies, pastries, etcetera. They delivered me forty pounds of 100% beef leaf lard, however. Being hundreds of miles and a week away from a new delivery, what was I to do? Num num num. Have another slice of cake, vegan swine, he muttered to himself. Please ignore the extended commercial for Shake-ology powdered muck mix that follows the breathless Fox report ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=solsInnu9_o

This is murky. In early April 2011 McCain was reported praising Libyan rebels (in Benghazi): What do you say, Michael? You say he "praised these so-called Al-Qaeda terrorists." The way I read this (I hope mistakenly) is that in your opinion, there is no difference between the anti-Gazzafi rebel forces praised by McCain and the people who murdered the US Ambassador, staff and guards. These are the same folks, all of them. Is that a fair way to read your remarks? Because the use of these terrorists ('these so-called Al Qaeda terrorists') is not tied down anywhere. This allows a confound of two things, a defective generalization. Surely you have ways to sort "it" out, if "it" is on the one hand 'praise for Libya rebel forces who toppled Gazzafi' and the other "it" is those who planned and executed murder in 2012. I hope you see my point about reasonable inferences and well-reasoned generalizations. Measurement omission has led to conflation here of things that do not share an actual identity. But hey, you Objectivists all do this, right?

I saw the same argument this morning on CNN from Ed Husain. Husain claims that Arab Spring nations don't yet grasp freedom of dissent. That's a lot of ground to cover. Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Libya. He says, "the populations and lawmakers have yet to grasp that democracy is not only about free elections but creating free societies." This just does not solve any puzzles for me. If it is true, it gives me no further tools to comprehend. Even if I partly grant the conclusions of both gentlemen, stipulating that we can find a common denominator in Islam (in these countries), I want more common denominators. I want a bit of history, I want to compare the claim against findings. What 'freedom of dissent' was ever granted in Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, under the strongmen? What today must happen in Tunis? I underline that I find disappointing Ed Hudgins' Islamic culture as culprit. To what can I compare it? Is the murder in Benghazi and embassy stormings and burnings, and death in Tunis -- are these to be laid at the feet of this diffusely guiltly party Islam, and not persons (Islamic though they must be)? This man is Islamic (and in Benghazi): Michael, my point was that if I must accept that there are common cultural elements that hobble MENA societies, I look to the heritage of violently repressive autocracy. Look at what was the norm. Look at present Syria, Yemen. The struggles to reform the Middle East and North African from authoritarian rule continue. When I look at the news tomorrow, and next week, is an echo of Hudgins' The Islamists Done It going to inform my analysis? Mob behaviour is human behaviour. The extra violence and destruction, burning, looting, these are not unknown in our West. Even peaceable Vancouver has its outbursts. Look at the urban geography of riot-torn America for the traces. I will agree with Husain and Hudgins only on the commonplace that cultural elements determine events. That cultural and religious forces erupted in Benghazi and elsewhere. But I want a more fine-grained opinion or prescription, not a simplistic Dx put on Islam qua Islamic culture with no other suspects interrogated. It is important to keep eyes on multiple balls.There is so much more than that one ball in play. This leaves out of the equation the dead by authority of the state. When police open fire, when soldiers are deployed to crush, when barrel bombs drop, when massacres as in Timisoara or Houla occur, when civilian districts come under siege, where 'cleansing,' detention, torture and summary execution continue. This under "secular" regimes! I just mean fill in the details. Remember those who died before Ceaucescu fell. Remember who were the first fallen in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Homs, in Sana'a. What is the essence of the struggle then? Libya, ordinary Libyans stand with America, and console her. These are your allies (and Canada's allies). We must not turn away from their sorrow and their condolences in contempt or indifference. The pictures are a sample of the popular response in Libya to the attack on the Consulate. This excerpt is from a story detailing the response. It makes a better coda to Hudgins' remarks than my thrashing about.

What a depressing article from Hudgins. I looked in vain for his take on Libya, the outpouring of sorrow and shame from Libyans at the death of the US Ambassador, staff and Libyan security. I looked in vain for his acknowledgement of the Libyan polity's general present allliance with 'western' values, for the statements of condolence and rejection from the new Prime Minister, from others, from ordinary Libyans. I looked for an acknowledgement that Muslim folks are not ALL THE SAME, and here it is: "And no, not all Arabs and Muslims are blood-thirsty Islamists." But? Um, "But the common cultural elements help explain why those countries are impoverished, have repressive governments, and are breeding grounds for mobs in the streets and homicide bombers who do, in fact, thirst for blood." I then looked for an acknowledgement that autocratic (at least) and oppressive government was a 'common' cultural element of the countries of the Arab Spring. I looked for Hudgins to notice that the death of the US Ambassador was accomplished not by a 'mob' but by an active terrorist attack. I then looked for Hudgins fair and rational balanced take on the 'Coptic Christian' production of the provocative film project, on the common cultural elements of hatred and vilification ... one that crosses all borders. I then looked again for the bottom line summary of the whole sorry article: Muslims are bad because of a bad culture. Simple, straightforward, no side issues, no qualifications. Who is to blame for the death of the Ambassador et al? Islam. There. Now we know. Thanks, Ed. What a hopeless, myopic, prejudiced and unhelpful article.

This is exactly what I advertized, except that human cunning is also involved, a bit of cross-species social reciprocity. Turtle provides laughs. Human provides tomato and strategy. I found it today while sounding out more ramifications of the Great Atheist Schism. From the 'Free thought' blog Lousy Canuck. "Turtle Chases a Tomato."

Yes. The internets are infested.

We have had discussion on Molyneux before. To my eyes he is a leader in a pseudo-psychotherapy cult. The mark of a therapy cult is found in his 'de-fooing' procedure, and its borrowings from RMT shibboleths of demonic parents. In line with standard cult retention strategies Molyneuyx recommends 'detachment' from the 'family of origin.' He may be ringing some bells in this video, but to my reckoning of the man, he is almost a grifter and I can't watch his smug certainty any more. He has hurt people and damaged their relationships through his therapeutic recommendations. His income is from pay-counselling in groups via the web. Good cult marketing, iffy product, in my opinion. Mileage may vary. PS -- one wag backstage says Molyneux and his ethically-challenged "Ask a Therapist" wife Christina are "the anarchist version of Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker." _______________ To save the trip to the other thread, wherein OL member Sharon Presley gives a reasonable take on Molyneux and adds this:

I won't post any Persian-language reports, but using GoogleTranslate, OLers can gain a taste for the Iranian media presentation. Though a fiendish news junkie, I haven't yet seen the frothing hysteria on the major networks or cable that we find on fringe commentary sites such as Above Top Secret or Debkafile. As for drums beating for war, the drums have been pounding in the background for some time, in Tel Aviv and Washington. The drummers hardly need an extra boost from Fox and friends. Iran is an enemy nation to the USA, and the USA is an enemy nation to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Each is on a pre-war footing with the other, and each has covert intelligence operations deep inside the other. I think it is both a provocation and a partly-rational action on the part of the Iranians. It is an Iranian provocation of deep significance for some (cue Dennis May with the rumbling contextual certainty that Iran is not only possessive of nuclear bombs, but also has means to launch them from America's shores), and it is a smart move for Iran for some others (notably the Iranians themselves in their delusions). It is an unmistakable provocation if you think no country like Iran has the right to chug its warships around in international waters. For other audiences, like the Persian world at home and abroad, the Arab world, the kind of folks who follow Iran as a beacon of right-behaviour or the most dangerous foe, it will need a day or two to see the full range of reaction. That is when you consult Ha'aretz instead of Debkafile, Al Ahram instead of Alex Jones, and hear the waffly or belligerent response from the White House, and further frothing news cycles. But hey, I am cynical. The audience for this announcement is the Middle East foremost -- and folks in the neighbourhood have witnessed butt-loads of chestbeating, boasts and threats from Tehran, I think. In terms of actual military threat it is like the coast guard being threatened by snorkeling vacationers, not commandos storming a beach, not missiles banged in from the Grand Banks. To rise above the thrumming background thump already sounding, real drums of war would pound out the message that America will fight! Iran. Fight! Send ships out their to harass and harry the evil vacationers with their nuclear slingshots. We need shots fired! Here is how the Iranian external media organ PressTV presents the plan for exercises: I may be entirely wrong in my cynical estimation of the aim of the Iranian sea trip. My take on the provocation may be off-base. It would be interesting to hear from others here on the question; what is the provocation designed to do? Probably, if a kerfuffle erupts over the vacationers/commandos in your country, some dumb lefty appeaser will say that Iran was making a moral point. If the USA has the right to lodge its fleet some 40 miles from Iran, and to pass its vast maritime might in international waters bordering Iran, then it is a corollary right to cruise the watery borders of America. Perhaps the cruise of the mighty Iranians out past the Grand Bank will be page one when it happens, but the gravity of the cruise, its meaning and its weight, will only become evident as the reaction accrues - we will build up to the event in grave expectancy, or we will turn away from it in favour of Kim Kardashian. I find wars begin just after a moment of equipoise is breached violently, after thorough planning and readiness for active engagement, when things reach and exceed a certain balance, when the equation shifts and unleashes the physics of aggression. So what would be at balance off the Grand Banks to trouble the equipoise of cold peace? I say not very much at all. Right now, and until the US election, the only real bloody daily toll of death is taken in Syria. That irregular drumming sound you hear may be a barrel-bomb dropped on Aleppo from a helicopter, or a shell lobbed into Homs for the 89th straight day. The Iranian naval posturing pales in comparison to 25,000 dead.

Thanks for that, Randall. We can now start to publish league standings. Name Score Brant Gaede 75 Bill Scherk 72 Joe Maurone 66 Ethan Dawe 72 William Dwyer 87 Michael Marotta 86 Mike Erickson 69 Test Score Range: 0-60: Minimal understanding (Low) – Basic study needed 61-69: Moderate understanding (Low-Mid) – Basic study needed 70-80: Good understanding (Intermediate) – Basic study review needed 81-90: Competent (High-Mid) – Proceed to more technical studies 91-100: Advanced (High) - Proceed to more technical studies

Here is the part of Rebecca Watson's video blog that set off the whole dreary infighting ... 4 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac-y818KoqI

Rebecca Watson ND has presented a particular side of the story of Rebecca Watson and the "Elevatorgate" debate in the skeptical community. As with Objectivish things, the great majority of quoted, published, promoted and celebrated skeptic/atheist activists are male (though by no means all). The majority of attendants at skeptical conferences (SkepCon, The Amazing Meeting, DragonCon skepstream, etc) are male. As with many exciting conferences, social aspects are strong. Fun, meetings, parties, hookups, flirting, yadda yadda. Watson writes for Skepchick blog, for Skeptical Inquirer, for Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, speaks at CFI events, etcetara. She has been around for a while, and has emerged as a lodestar or point of reference for women skeptics. Reporting on the conference she attended , she posted a video ( , via Youtube) that among other things related an incident she thought worthy of noting. I will cut and paste that particular part later. This is the infamous Rebecca saying "Guys, don't do that" after relating a relatively minor uncomfortable moment where a celebrant and her were alone in an elevator at the very end of the night of socializing in the bar ... Here is Watson's post at Skepchick that returned to the subject, in reaction to the quickly-developing brouhaha**: The Privilege Delusion Well, PZMyers, JenMcCreight, PhilPlait, AmandaMarcotte, GregLaden, MelissaMcEwan and others have all already said it, but I figured I should postthis for the record: yes, Richard Dawkins believes I should be a good girl andjust shut up about being sexually objectified because it doesn’t botherhim. Thanks, wealthy old heterosexual white man! When I started this site, I didn’t call myself a feminist. I had ahazy idea that feminism was a good thing, but it was something that otherpeople worried about, not me. I was living in a time and culture that hadtranscended the need for feminism, because in my world we were all rationalatheists who had thrown off our religious indoctrination so that I could freelymake rape jokes without fear of hurting someone who had been raped. And then I would make a comment about how there could really be more womenin the community, and the responses from my fellow skeptics and atheists rangedfrom “No, they’re not logical like us,” to “Yes, so wecan fuck them!” That seemed weird. So I started speaking more about women. About how they’re not idiots.About how they can think logically but maybe there are other social pressureskeeping them away from our message, like how we tell women they should be quietand polite and not question what is told to them. I spoke about how people needrole models, and there were so few women on stage at these events. And I got messages from women who told me about how they had troubleattending pub gatherings and other events because they felt uncomfortable in aroom full of men. They told me about how they were hit on constantly and itdrove them away. I didn’t fully get it at the time, because Ididn’t mind getting hit on. But I acknowledged their right to feel thatway and I started suggesting to the men that maybe they relax a little and nottry to get in the pants of every woman who walks through the door. Maybe theycould wait for her to make the first move, just in case. And then, for the past few years as the audience for Skepchick and SGU grew,I’ve had more and more messages from men who tell me what they’dlike to do to me, sexually. More and more men touching me without permission atconferences. More and more threats of rape from those who don’t agreewith me, even from those who consider themselves skeptics and atheists. Moreand more people telling me to shut up and go back to talking about Bigfoot andother topics that really matter. And I said no. I learned more about modern feminism and about how theirgoals so clearly overlapped those of the humanists and skeptics andsecularists, and I wrote and spoke more about the issues within that overlapbecause so few other skeptics were doing it. So here we are today. I am a feminist, because skeptics and atheists made meone. Every time I mention, however delicately, a possible issue of misogyny orobjectification in our community, the response I get shows me that the problemis much worse than I thought, and so I grow angrier. I knew that eventually Iwould reach a sort of feminist singularity where I would explode and in myplace would rise some kind of Captain Planet-type superhero but for feminists.I believe that day has nearly arrived. You may recall that I relatedan incident in which I was propositioned, and I said, “Guys,don’t do that.” Really, that’s what I said. I didn’tcall for an end to sex. I didn’t accuse the man in my story of rape. Ididn’t say all men are monsters. I said, “Guys, don’t dothat.” Cue RichardDawkins‘ response: Dear Muslima Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with. Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . . And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin. Richard This is especially interesting since Richard Dawkins sat next to me inDublin and heard me talk about the threats of rape I get. This is one I keep asa screenshot to use an example for people who don’t understand: Everything went haywire from that point on ...

Or, from a transcript of a podcast featuring McKenna's 1994 talk "Eros to Eschaton," at the University of Washington:

Great. I wil hold off my responses and the Sheldrake video mash-up till then.

Carol, the only party I am really engaged with or excited about is the gambol we will be participating in here on the Night of Nights. As you can tell from the 2009 provincial totals, Sex outsells and out-markets Communism, if only by a relatively small margin. I know that you share a certain amusement over being corralled as 'socialists' in the political spectrum. Regaring material on the Your Political Party of BC, here is a the link to their website. It may be active in 2013. (My favourite party in Canada remains, of course, Parti Rhinocéros/Rhinoceros Party.

All British Columbia governments have scandals, and all parties of a certain stature (those with more than fifty members) are prone to scandal of one sort or another. My notes on British Columbia politics are generally obscure for any but Canadians, and as Carol has indicated, Ontarians are not always fully informed on the details. Why should they? Ontario politics are as arcane and unpredictable. Our current BC Premier, Christy Clark, was selected by the Liberal Party. She won a by-election (special election) for her own seat, but has not yet taken the government to the polls (BC is one of two provinces that has adopted fixed election dates). Clark inherited a government from the former Liberal Premier Gordon Campell (now Canadian High Commissioner in Britain). The only Campbell scandal that perhaps rose above the navel of the USA was when he was nabbed drunk-driving in Hawaii. He did not resign then, nor upon his conviction, only resigning his office when his party popularity plunged below 30% (and his personal popularity below 20%). The greatest scandals over BC political history are rather evenly distributed between right and left governments, with more destructive scandals on the NDP side (left) in the past thirty years. In BC, premiers tend to resign when caught in scandal. Premier Vander Zalm of the Social Credit party, for example, resigned upon proof of personal corruption: he accept twenty thousand dollars in cash, in a brown paper bag, for 'facilitating' the sale of his family's Fantasy Garden World. The NDP Premier Glenn Clark resigned after it was revealed a family 'friend' had provided free renovations valued at ten thousand dollars to a 'friend' -- who had strings pulled for a casino license approval. The NDP Premier Mike Harcourt resigned office -- though not personally touched by scandal -- in the wake of Bingogate: this was a scandal in which an NDP member (former legislator and cabinet minister) purloined bingo funds to fund party activities. Harcourt took global responsibility for his party, though there was never a suspicion that he knew of or approved of the bingo money grab. On balance, major and minor scandals historically are often 'political' -- in that they concern governance and finance -- not sleaze as with Vanderzalm, Bingogate or Clark's stupid bribe. For example, Christy Clark recently faced questions over credit card bills ($500,000) incurred by the office of the premier. In this case, nothing illegal was done, not anything personally-corrupt, but the optics were ugly. So, that is the context. Scandals erupt, political fortunes rise and fall, elections sweep old parties (Social Credit) into the dustbin, and the press hounds each government unmercifully in fine old BC politics style. I made no claim that scandals attend only rightist governments; To mention the travails of the current BC Conservative party was to highlight an internal disarray (intra-party fights in public are a 'scandal'). The Conservative party was elected in zero seats last election, their only sitting MLA 'defected' from the government benches. The issue in the Conservatives is a leadership struggle between the 'old guard' and those who smell political advantage as the Liberal support tanks. They stupidly are letting their internal disputes leak and spill and muddy their future. On a light note, I watched the Eastwood ten minutes. It was fine political theatre, if unrehearsed, and effective to some degree: it took attention off Romney's lacklustre 'change' speech later that night. I disregard most pundits, since they play often a zero-sum game of partisan advantage -- or appear a bit like amnesiacs, forgetting everything from the day before (to their disadvantage). A bit more like weathermen, commenting on daily rain squalls but pretending knowledge in general 'climate' matters of which they have no control but sport-fan hysteria and tribalism. I realy don't care what Eastwood did or said in his performance, since he is not on the ballot. If the intent (of the secret 'surprise') of the convention planners was to bask in the glow of a genuine American icon, it was not completely successful in the short-term. But that is politics. In a close race, perhaps marginal but highly publicized moves make a difference at the polls. Generally speaking pundits (here and on the main stages) act as barkers, or play-by-play colour commentators, bound up in daily minutia and point-scoring. I doubt anyone's mind was changed as to which party would garner their vote. Even among the GOP brass who commented disparagingly on their surprise speaker -- did Romney lose one single committed vote? I doubt it. Even the two who most strongly excoriated Romney (Gingrich and Santorum) have shut up criticism, wiped their personal memory banks, and adopted the line of the GOPolitburo ... In a final lighter note, American friends will not be surprised that BC is known for its 'colourful' political culture. If you wonder what this means, look up the story of our second premier -- and only Mormon leader to date -- Amor de Cosmos ... ________________ Our drunk-driving former premier, in his infamous drunken mugshot. He now parties in London on the federal dime:

Yup. In the last election they were the sixth-place finisher. Provincial election results, by party Party Votes Liberal 707,911 NDP 646,523 Green 124,567 Conservative 32,430 Refederation 3,518 Libertarian 1,444 Reform 1,186 Nation Alliance 754 Sex 684 Communist 416 People's Front 382 Marijuana 319 Your Political Party 297 Work Less 291 Western Canada Concept 228 From the 2009 British Columbia electiion totals at the BC Libertarian Party website.

Carol, sorry to break in with Canadian political news. Did you know that our BC Premier Christy Clark is about to lose a few more cabinet ministers? And that the BC Conservatives are knee-deep in scandal? It looks like the Liberal party is heading for a crushing defeat (US readers, BC Liberals are 'conservative' and the 'Conservatives' are the formerly traditional traditional party of higher incomes. The party that is likely to win next year's BC election are the New Democrats). That's right. While America gets its sole final chance to throw off incipient communism, despair, collapse, horror and the final days (under a second Obama term), the west coast numbskulls in Canada bring back the party of Dave Barrett (BC's first Jewish Premier and the one who led a three year socialist experiment 1972-1975). And in less objective terms, from the Globe and Mail: This leaves that cross-eyed socialist windbag Adrian Dix as the most trusted and most popular politician in British Columbia.

I knew you would get to the bigtime before me! That thumbs up is from me, by the way.