I support public subsidies for political parties

Okay, in the midst of all the machinations and coalitions and about-faces going on in Parliament Hill right now, I feel that someone needs to stand up for the public subsidies whose proposed (and retracted) elimination seem to have set off the situation.

I like the subsidy because it makes me feel that my vote counts for something.

Whenever I vote federally, I like knowing that my vote translates to $1.95 (of government money, adjusted for inflation) going to the party of the candidate I voted for. The subsidy adds value to a right and responsibility that I already take seriously because it feels like my vote still means something even if my chosen candidate does not win.

This point is especially salient for dissenting voters in regions that tend to favour one party strongly. I am a leftist-centrist voter who votes in the Conservative stronghold of Alberta. It is, to be frank, a thankless, shitty task. Time and time again, I have watched my home province go entirely blue, wondering how 100% of the ridings can be Conservative when only 65% of the voters supported them. It was depressing. I felt like I was throwing my vote into a dark blue ether.

But with the introduction of the public subsidy, my vote could never be discounted. Never again would it amount to nothing; in fact, it would amount to exactly $1.95. The public subsidy suddenly made my vote count in a way that it had not counted before.

I want my vote to count. I want everyone's vote to count. Keep the subsidy.

P.S. It's not a coup if there is a provision for it in the Constitution.

Things that bug me: Internet edition (part one)

Web video. I love web video. When it works.

But.

I hate the stupid geography controls that prevent me from watching video on American websites, notably the Daily Show and Colbert Report websites, and now Saturday Night Live clips on the NBC website (scoff if you will, but for a few weeks Tina Fey made SNL relevant again, okay?).

I can understand that the Canadian broadcasters who air these shows in Canada don't want to lose potential ad revenue from Canadian viewers. Fine. The Comedy Network and Global TV have their own websites which include web video. The problem is that the video archives are not as extensive or well organized as the ones on the American sites. It really really bothers me that I cannot access John Hodgman's "Iraq War Essay Contest" Daily Show segment on the inadequate Comedy Network/CTV websites while it's available to viewers in America (and overseas! I watched The Daily Show online from the UK this summer!).

The bottom line is this: If you are going to cut off my access to a product because you want my advertising dollars, offer me an alternative that is equally as good or even better. Because right now I cannot watched the clips that I want to, meaning that whatever potential ad dollars I represent are being lost to the ether and that I have negative associations with the Comedy Network, CTV, and Global.

Good job, everyone. You should be so proud of yourselves.

P.S. Also, Ticketmaster.ca's search interface and options suck.

8888

I've seen phone numbers with four 8's in them, but never an address. Until now:


I wonder if there's an unusually high number of Chinese students taking English at SFU.

Edmonton Strathcona goes orange!!

Wow, Edmonton Strathcona. Way to be the orange hole in the blue donut that is Alberta.


In other surreal screenshot news, this is Facebook ad is all kinds of wrong. The image makes it even better.

I mean, it doesn't specify whether your baby's actual hands and feet are stuffed and mounted or if it's just a mould or replica. Like, ew?

Canada does not equal U.S.A.

I'm miffed about a rather depressing "clarification" in a Guardian article about how fashionable reusable shopping bags are. At the end of an article, designer Kresse Wesling describes the impetus behind her latest design for a UK supermarket chain and the Guardian helpfully decides that there is no border between Canada and the US.

'I grew up in Canada,' she says, 'so I love the shape of the brown paper bag [used to carry shopping in the United States]. That's what we've made: a brown bag, double-wide, with a really long shoulder strap.'

The square bracketed "explanation" even occurs in the same sentence in which she mentions growing up in Canada. What, did Canada not have brown paper shopping bags? Did Wesling's family go cross-border shopping (for groceries!) where she would longingly gazing at American brown paper bags?

Well done, Guardian, for implying that Canada and the US are virtually the same country. If only it were, so I could vote for Obama.

Not bad Photoshop, but...

This poster for Clint Eastwood's latest movie is awful awful awful awful...

It looks like she's going to eat him.

Don't meet me on the El-Train

Chicago is wonderful. Really, really wonderful (more, plus photos, to come). But O'Hare is really far away from the heart of the city.

Early this morning I left the B&B I'd been staying at and took the elevated-train (subway/LRT) to Chicago O'Hare airport with a friend of mine who was on the same flight. We were leaving from just north of downtown, so took the Red Line down and transferred onto the Blue Line, which is the only line that goes to O'Hare. On the way in, it had taken me an hour to get in on train and I expected something similiar. All was going well until an announcement that due to construction on the tracks, the Blue Line train ended at Belmont Station, we'd have to disembark and take a shuttel to Addison and Irving Park stations. At Irving Park we could board another train to continue on. So we got off, went on a bus, saw more parts of Chicago, and finally got back onto a fuller, lurchier train.

The delay was due to construction to enable the train to go faster than 15mph on the tracks. How slow is 15 mph? On that part of the Blue Line, the tracks are placed in the middle of what looks like the interstate highway—four lines on each side. At one point, I looked outside, and realized that cars were passing us. Easily.

Construction is scheduled to be finished Dec. 2008, at which point all parts of the Blue Line track from O'Hare to downtown should have top speeds of 55 mph. And oh yeah, the trip out took 1.5 hours in all, and that's not counting the 2o minute walk through O'Hare. It felt like I had already gone on a long trip before even getting on the plane.