Second ballot results
Michael Ignatieff first ballot 1412 second ballot 1481
Bob Rae first ballot 977 second ballot 1132
Stephane Dion first ballot 856 second ballot 974
Gerard Kennedy first ballot 854 second ballot 884
Ken Dryden first ballot 238 second ballot 219

Dryden will be dropped for the third ballot, where his supporters go is going to make a huge difference if they move en masse. If they split up more or less evenly, Kennedy is probably done and who he backs (I'd guess Rae) could very well determine the outcome.

In terms of momentum, of the votes freed up by candidates bowing out - a total of 478 plus the 19 voters who defected from Dryden (so much for my prediction of him gaining support - I guess the speeches really don't matter) makes a grand total of 497 swing votes.

Ignatieff gains 69
Rae gains 155
Dion gains 118
Kennedy gains 30

Frankly, I think Kennedy gaining 30 is a bigger boost than the front runner Ignatieff gaining 69. I think Kennedy might be toast, but unless he throws to Ignatieff -- well lets just hope they kept Iggy' s seat at Harvard warm for him. I don't think Iggy can do it without Kennedy or Dion throwing in with him. I don't think Rae would do it, I doubt Kennedy would do it. Since it is 2:30 in the morning Tokyo time I'll make my bet now and find out who actually won and how when I wake up later today.

Possible scenarios:
Kennedy supports Rae, who takes it on the fourth (possibly third) ballot. I'd call this the most likely as they agree on the "Quebec as a nation" question and are the two furthest left of center.

Kennedy supports Dion after being dropped following the third ballot, Dion wins on the fifth in a showdown with Iggy or Rae.

Dion supports Ignatieff prior to the third ballot, giving him the win - not so likely, as Dion thinks he can win and a lot of his supporters hate Iggy more than any other candidate.

Total long shot would be that Dryden backs Kennedy, who pushes past Dion to come third on the third ballot, Dion then supports Kennedy (very unlikely I know, in light of the "nation" thing) who wins on the fourth or fifth ballot.

My Prediction: this time next year we will be talking about how similar Prime Minister Bob Rae is to Jean Chretien and how cool Dryden's early education and child care plan is.

Kennedy supports Dion

Liberal shuffle - waiting for the second ballot results

As we await the result of the second ballot, let me recap the shifting alliances:
Ignatieff is still on his own and I'm betting he loses votes in the second ballot.
Rae has picked up the support of Joe Volpe and Scott Brison and should increase his share of votes this round, possibly even taking the lead
Dion has picked up the support of Martha Hall Findlay and may get more votes from Ignatieff defectors - he will stay in third, but he will close in on second
Kennedy will finish a very strong fourth, not far off the pace
Dryden will finish fifth, but increase the number of votes from the first ballot. Unless Kennedy throws to Dion or Rae, Dryden just might be the kingmaker, though I have read speculation from some in the Kennedy and Dion camps that Iggy could bow out and back Dion, but I think that is unlikely at this stage.

I'll be home for Christmas

I couldn't agree more if I had written the speech myself
Ken Dryden in the House of Commons addressing the government motion on recognizing Quebec as a nation within a nation.
Somebody please explain to me why he is running 5th in the leadership race at this point and not an overwhelming first. I keep reading all these reports about how his was the best speech at the convention, the polls all said he had the best chance of beating Harper and not one single person in the Liberal Party seems to have a bad thing to say about him. Why is the party trying to decide between a flashy neo-con in Liberal clothing and the most unpopular Ontario premier in recent memory (NB: No provincial premier has ever become PM) when there is a decent, thoughtful, proven, popular and broadly appealing candidate like this?

First ballot result and irresponsible speculation

Ignatieff 29.3%
Rae 20.3%
Dion 17.8%
Kennedy 17.7%
Dryden 4.9%
Brison 4.0%
Volpe 3.2%
Hall Findlay 2.7%

Joe Volpe has already announced he is dropping out to support Rae, though apparently several of his campaign staff have joined Ignatieff's team. Brison has announced he will drop out and throw his support to an as yet unnamed candidate (One of the four front runners obviously, and my guess is most likely Ignatieff)

I suspect Hall Findlay will join the Rae team and Dryden will hold out until the second ballot is done. I would have liked to have seen Dryden do a little better, but with all the delegates forced to dance with the fella that brung 'em on the first ballot, I didn't really expect much more. I do on the second ballot. I heard his speech was a great one and I think he is a popular second choice on his electability.

I think Ignatieff is likely to lose support in the second round, while Rae, Kennedy and Dion pick up more -- it will be interesting to see if there is some kind of backroom move by Rae and Ignatieff to throw a few votes to Kennedy to make sure he and not Dion finishes third in the next few rounds. I don't know if Rae wants to go mano a mano with his old Uof T roommate just yet or not, but I think that is what it is going to come down to in the end.

The envelope please...

Please tell me this is a joke. The next great Canadian Prime Minister is to be chosen by a panel of ex-Prime Ministers that includes such luminaries as the most hated Prime Minister in Canadian history (Brian Mulroney) the most unlikely Prime Minister in Canadian history (Joe "Who?" Clark) the most disappointing Prime Minister of the 20th century (John Turner) and some one who, while breaking ground for the 15 minutes she was in office as Canada's first female prime minister, was undoubtably the least successful PM ever (Kim Campbell). Surely this like asking Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson to vote on who gets the Nobel Prize for evolutionary biology, or the college of Cardinals in Rome to choose the porn star of the year. While the fifty grand would be nice, I have to think that for any 21-year-old with serious political ambitions the seal of approval from these four would pretty much be the kiss of death.

Tomayto - Tomahto
What's in a name? That which we call an abattoir would still stink as bad.
If they can't even decide what to call it, what makes anyone think this delusional bunch of crooks, dolts and reactionary true-believers have the slightest chance of fixing the problem?

White House Wages War of Words Over 'Civil' Term
By Peter BakerWashington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, November 29, 2006; PageA16

The carnage in Iraq is "sectarian violence," President Bush says. It's a
"struggle for freedom," the "central front in the war on terror." It is not, no matter how much it may look like it, a civil war.Forget the debate over what to do about the war in Iraq. The White House is still debating what to call the war in Iraq. With retired generals, analysts, politicians and pundits increasingly using the term "civil war," the Bush administration insists that the definition does not fit as part of its latest effort to control the words of war.

Because what we call it and how we frame the debate is so much more important than what we do about it. How about instead of "cancer" we call it "happyfluffybunnyitis" instead? Sort of the way they call it a "setback at the polls" instead of a "complete electoral ass-kicking."

First wanker of the Christmas season sighted
And his name is Bob Kearns. He's the autocratic nutzoid head of the president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs in Southwestern Colorado, where they are fining a resident $25 a day for putting up a christmas wreath shaped like a peace symbol. Bob seems to feel it is a "Satanic symbol"
I guess he'd hate my idea to write "Lucifer Lives" in gasoline on his front lawn and set it ablaze for Halloween next year. I sure hope nobody makes fun him for the rest of his natural life for this. Because that would be wrong. He should be made fun of for much, much longer. Like Quisling, Gerrymander and Santorum before him, his name should become part of the lexicon. Any time someone shows themselves to be an ignorant, narrowminded, petty, pedantic, power-abusing nit-wit they should henceforth be known as a "Kearns" and abusing power in an ignorant, narrowminded, petty, pedantic, nit-witted way should henceforth be known as "Kearnsing."
(ie) "My high-school Vice-Principal sent me home from school for wearing a pair of FCUK jeans -- What a Kearns!" or "They Kearnsed me at the Post Office -- I let someone go ahead of me in line while I finished addressing a Christmas card and they made me go to the back of the line. What a bunch of Santorum-eating O'Reilys!"


Update: In the face of massive public protest, the Homeowners Association has backed off and declared the whole thing a big misunderstanding. As in, they misunderstood that bit in the constitution about "freedom of expression" and mistakenly thought they were living in Stalinist Russia.

Winning hearts and minds




"Thanks for the free exercise, G.I.! America is No.1!"
I bet these kids grow up to love America.
Five years ago that kid could have just turned on a tap in his kitchen.
Happy Thanksgiving America.

Poonoka's finest
Once again we bring you the RCMP's fantastically talented Cst. Douglas Enns and the the world's greatest small town police blotter

The Turner Diaries
Poor, poor Garth Turner. After being a lifelong member of the Tory party, an MP on and off since 1988 and even a cabinet minister in the Mulroney government, he is just now realizing that the Conservative Party of Canada is an elitist old-boys network with little interest in democracy. Well boo-hoo-hoo.

"But my Conservative party believes in free speech, diversity of opinion, co-operation, equality of all people, progressive social values, true environmental protection and stands firm against intolerance, bigotry exclusion."

Umm, yeah, and I used to believe in the tooth fairy - then I turned six and got wise. Anyone who believe that about the Conservative party probably also believe in unicorns that shit rainbows and that the Queen runs England. For a former Mulroney footsoldier like Turner to be spouting all this naive claptrap about how the Conservative Party used to be some sort hippie love-in is disgusting - and what is more disgusting is the free pass that progressives are giving him simply because he is against Harper. Guess what, Osama Bin Laden probably hates Steve Harper too, but that doesn't make him my best pal. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend and just because the conservatives kicked him out for going against the grain does not make Garth Turner any less of a total frickin' wanker. Even if he paints himself Green, it is still going to all be about Garth.

IN YOUR EAR

Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

TOM WAITS
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards
Sony Music/Epitaph, 6,300 yen

The great American lo-fi junkyard genius and hobo poet-philosopher clanks, chugs, cackles, wails and croons his way through an astonishing 56 tracks--about three hours of material--on his latest release.

Orphans began as an attempt to collect various Waits tracks originally recorded for films and tribute albums, and other assorted bits and pieces that had never made it onto any of Waits' albums. Somewhere in the collecting process, Waits and his wife and creative partner Kathleen Brennan were inspired to come up with 30 new compositions.

Along with all the new works, the material on Orphans includes a broad spectrum of covers, including the Ramones' "The Return of Jackie and Judy," the '50s R&B favorite "Sea of Love," Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter's classic "Goodnight Irene" and sentimental chestnut "Young at Heart" as well as lyrics by Beat icon Jack Kerouac and meat poet Charles Bukowski set to Waits' music. And just wait until you hear his cover of the Walt Disney classic "Heigh Ho."

Waits' genius for avant-garde arrangements and unorthodox soundscapes gives a continuity to the diverse tracks that span decades in time and light years in outlook.

The first of the three CDs in the set, Brawlers, is Waits in his barroom piano-player and song-and-dance man persona, barking out blues about breaking out of jail with a fish bone ("Fish in the Jailhouse") and his baby leaving on the "2:19." Much of Brawlers sounds like material that could have come from 1999's Mule Variations.

The second CD, Bawlers showcases Waits' tenderhearted side with ballads sweet and sad, and sly love songs--if there is a hit on this album, it is the hummable "Long Way Home" from the soundtrack to the 2001 movie Big Bad Love.

The third disc, Bastards, is a trip into dark territory that includes recitations of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, a bedtime story bound to send most kids into therapy, a dirgelike cover of Daniel Johnston's "King Kong," stand-up comedy and a weird subterranean monologue about bugs.

"Orphans are rough and tender tunes. Rhumbas about mermaids, shuffles about train wrecks, tarantellas about insects, madrigals about drowning," says Waits in a press release accompanying the review copy. "Scared, mean orphan songs of rapture and melancholy. Songs that grew up hard. Songs of dubious origin rescued from cruel fate."

Take them home and give them the love they deserve.

ERIC CLAPTON AND J.J. CALE
The Road to Escondido
Warner, 2,580 yen

Just in time for Eric Clapton's latest Japan tour, The Road to Escondido is a reunion of the duo responsible for two of Clapton's biggest hits: "After Midnight" and "Cocaine." J.J. Cale wrote most of the 14 songs on the album and the two veteran blues rockers share guitar duties with Albert Lee, Derek Trucks, John Mayer and occasional Clapton and B.B. King sideman Doyle Bramhall II (who will be making the journey with Clapton to Japan along with Trucks).

Other guests include journeyman bassist Pino Palladino, bluesman Taj Mahal and the late, great Billy Preston.

Nothing here matches the intensity or energy of Clapton's earlier covers of Cale in the 1970s, but there is plenty of relaxed, foot-tapping blues, rock and countrified jazz. For a pair of guitar heroes, Cale and Clapton show admirable restraint in their solos and never push to hard, going for taste over flash.
(Nov. 11, 2006)

Let the trials begin

Depending which version of events you believe Donald Rumsfeld has resign or been fired in disgrace over the blazing clusterfuck that is the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He may have been pushed over the side to placate the Democrats in light of last week's electoral "thumping" they gave the Republicans. He may have quit to avoid the humiliation of a congressional investigation into just how badly he screwed up. He may be gone, but he is not forgotten

"And the war criminals must be brought to justice - beginning with Donald Rumsfeld. On November 14, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, and other organizations will ask the German federal prosecutor to initiate a criminal investigation into the war crimes of Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials. Although Bush has immunized his team from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, they could be tried in any country under the well-established principle of universal jurisdiction."

And if not war crimes charges, then how about a civil suit for the wrongful deaths of about half a million Iraqis and three thousand Americans? Anyone for a criminal negligence suit? That ought to put a dent in Rummy's bank account.

The genius of Brian Mulroney
Admittedly this is not a phrase I ever expected to type, but this week I've been listening to the 2005 Massey Lectures on CBC podcasts and I have come to the realization that the appointment of Stephen Lewis as UN ambassador was a masterstroke. Because if he hadn't been distracted by the horrible problems of Africa at the UN and had stayed focused on Canadian politics, he'd have kicked Mulroney and John Turner's collective butts around the block and been Prime Minister for the last 10 or 15 years and probably the next 10 or 15. And we would all mourn his departure when he stepped down.

Certainly, both Canada and Africa would have been better off with him at the G8 meetings. Just listen to the lectures and tell me he wouldn't have been handed the Prime Minister's office by acclaimation after a 15 minute debate with Harper or Martin. Or Harper and Chretien. Or any other political combo in the last 20 years you might care to name. Christ, if he had gotten into federal politics back in the day, he'd have eaten Mulroney alive.He could have made Pierre Trudeau looked tongue-tied. He's been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world and not without very good reason.

If only he would come back to Canadian politics, I'd suggest that he would be one of the great PM's of all time, but I don't think he would take the step down from the UN. So let's make him the next Governor-General as a stepping stone to becoming UN Secretary-General

Electoral Crystal Ball
In the U.S. Senate elections, Joe Lieberman will squeak out a narrow win (not more than 5%) against Ned Lamont and join the Republicans by Christmas unless the Democrats have a majority of at least three seats in the Senate - which they probably won't.
George Allen and Jim Webb will be so close that it will take a month to recount the votes, which means the Republicans will win the seat because they are better at fighting dirty in the clinches and control the bench in Virgina.
Rick Santorum will get his ass handed to him in Pennsylvania, Casey will beat him like a rented mule.
My best guess is the Democrats will take 15 to 20 new seats in the house, giving them a majority, though it may be a slim margin. They should take five seats in the Senate, counting the independent socialist (!!!) that is poised to take a seat in Vermont. Look for them to win in Montana, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, and (please, please, please oh Flying Spagetti Monster) Tennessee.
For all you eligible Americans, get out and vote and take friends to the poll with you. Be prepared to have your right to vote challenged, expect long lines and hundreds if not thousands of "accidental" technical screw-up with the voting machines. Rove will do his best to supress the vote, because a good turnout in which all the votes are accurately counted means a sweep for the Democrats.

What's Farsi for "Last Stand"?
By the end of the year, at least 3,000 U.S. soldiers will have "died with their boots on." Somehow I'm not surprised to learn the head of the intelligence directorate of U.S. Central Command is Brigadier General John M. Custer. I'm busy this week, write your own jokes.

Media Matters vs. the MSM Hacks
This plea for less crapulous horserace coverage and more (any) substance should be nailed to the door of every newsroom, stuck on every computer screen on every news desk and slipped into every reporters pocket (or in the case of CNN, stapled to certain people's foreheads).

More Spankers!

"Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV" has drawn over 12,000 hits to this blog in the last month (and over a quarter of a million on YouTube) so I thought I'd treat all of you to some more from God's Favorite Band. This one is from the video of their tenth anniversary show in Austin. Check the links on the side of the page for their homepage and go BUY ALL THEIR ALBUMS!!! NOW!!

True punditry, thy name is Billmon
Sometimes, I write something and read it and pat myself on the back. Other times I read what someone else has written and think to myself, "Why do I bother to do this when someone else has already done it so much better than I ever will?" Sometimes that someone is Hemingway or Shakespeare or Bob Dylan or Raymond Carver. Sometimes it is Billmon. If you are one of the few people who read this blog that doesn't also read the "Free thinking in a dirty glass" at Billmon's Whiskey Bar, go smack yourself upside your own head and get wise.

When he is on, he is one of the best writers on current affairs you'll ever read, not just on the internet, but anywhere. For sheer elegance in turning a phrase and clarity of thought and expression, I'd put up against any of the TV talking heads and current newspaper and magazine opinion columnist. He could kick David Brooks' sorry ass and eat a dozen Friedmans for dessert. Comparing him with the lamer-than-lame bleating of James Lieks or the cognitive dissonance on parade that is The Corner, would be tooling up with a helicopter gunship for a knife fight against a double amputee.

"None of this babbling makes any sense, in other words. Nor is it remotely in scale with the size of the Cheney administration's failure in Iraq. Part of me thinks it's all being driven by the need of beltway journalists and think tankers alike to have something new to say about Iraq, something that isn't a variation on: "Yep. We're still fucked." But there's obviously a hard edge of real desperation -- if not despair -- behind this. America's ruling elites have had things largely their own way for the past couple of decades. But now they're looking at a bottomless quagimire that may have a much bigger disaster (like loss of access to Persian Gulf oil) hidden somewhere in the mud. And they don't
have a clue about what to do. They've lost control, which is the last thing any ruling elite can afford to admit."