While I was away...

To put it tritely, since I last posted, some 62 trillion (that's 62 million million) chickens have come home to roost, and we face a future of diminished opportunities and cancelled retirements while we find a way to clean up the mess left by the wizards on Wall Street, which doled out $62 billion to itself in bonuses alone in 06. The meltdown has exposed the US as a clapped-out shell of its former self, creating wealth through the financial equivalent of musical chairs, passing ticking Financial Explosive Devices from one to another, pocketing fees and bonuses in the billions along the way. Millions of Americans are headed for ruin, and they are taking the world down with them.

I regret my amateur fascination with particle and astro-physics. I am now haunted by the likelihood that we may have already passed an "event horizon" and are now plunging into a black hole, our momentum now too much for us to overcome until all the wealth we have accumulated is squeezed into a forlorn single dollar. Or maybe the analogy of the boat headed toward the precipice of a great falls is more apt; past a certain point, all the back-paddling in the world results in diddly. At least in this scenario, we can hear the "roar" of our fall before we go over. Or maybe that "sound" is the flush as we vortex down, down, down into the bowl. 

Into a black hole. Off a cliff. Down the crapper. Take your pick.

There are, however, things to be grateful for. In two weeks, Obama will be elected president, and Conrad Black rots in a cell.

Of course, here we did finally have our election, to the tune of a quarter billion, which ended up changing nothing. An increased minority, but a minority just the same. Harper will have until next May to throw his weight around, at which point the Liberals will choose a new leader, and we'll essentially have a do-over of the last Parliament.

It came down to what I spoke of earlier: a tin ear on Québec. Trashing artists is always good to pump up the Tory yahoo base, but Quebecers actually like their artists. Québec has its own home-grown culture, with its own stars, and doesn't quite guzzle American pop culture like English Canada does. It also, quite unlike the rest of Canada, thinks highly of its record in keeping young people out of jail, and has the stats to show that it works. So it was manna from heaven for the Bloc, who came storming back to deny the Harperites a majority.

I agree with Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail that we are likely to see Harper leave before the next election (assuming he doesn't have one foisted on him). With everything in his favour this time around, he still couldn't get a majority. Next time out, he can't count on a Liberal leader as easy to defeat as Dion. And by that time, we all stand to be considerably worse off than we are now, which won't bode well for the Tories. So I think Steve will take a look at the landscape and pull a Mike Harris, get out of town while the getting is good.

Since my last post, the US election has taken what looks like will be its final shape, with Obama finally pulling away from Cotton McCain and Peggy Palin. McCain is now just a jittery old poot, reduced to flailing and mugging and Palin seems to be more interested in burnishing her far-right cred for '12. Is a chair on The View in her future?

Palin of the Day: Mutt