the daily snivel

  Grown men also cry, Mr. Lebowski. Grown men ... also cry.

I was a little surprised today not to see clouds of black smoke rolling over the city out of the Parliament buildings following today's harrowing votes in the House of Commons over the proposed budget (which was expected to pass) and the proposed NDP-backed amended budget (which was not). Call it schadenfreude, call it bloodymindedness, but I was grimly pleased that the Liberal government survived the Commons voting. Had either vote failed, the government would be in a decisive position of non-confidence and by Constitutional Convention, Prime Minister Paul Martin would have been asking the Governor General to dissolve Parliament tomorrow morning.

This is frankly because I do not believe the Conservatives deserve to have an election at this time. They knew quite well their electoral success in a snap election would come in the form of the protest vote from Canadians fed up with the apparent corruption and back-room dealing of the Federal Liberal Party. And despite howls of outrage, they made shady deals of their own in an attempt to ensure that such an election would be forced upon us at a time when most Canadians would prefer to hear the final report of the Gomery Inquiry into the sponsorship scandal before an election is ultimately called. I actually admire the progressive platform generally endorsed by Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Québecois, but a party with national ambitions like the Conservative Party is hard pressed to win appeal by forming a cynical and strategic single-issue (bring down the Liberals) coalition with a single-issue party (separate from Canada). By rejecting the social spending required in the 2005 budget in exchange for the support of the NDP, the credibility of the Bloc has significantly withered (in my reckoning of such things).

The overall level of political discourse has been nothing short of childish for the past two months, and though I am glad that the Conservatives are all having a stiff drink tonight (and the wretchedly unsympathetic Peter Mackay cries into his beer -- do what the rest of us do when we get dumped, pal... start a blog!), the Liberals themselves have precious little to be proud of themselves over. This was a one-vote victory, and nothing more. In the end, I'm forced to agree with those who have remarked that there will be precious few, if any, adults left in the House of Commons once Ed Broadbent steps down.

Meanwhile, here's another great Canadian blog for you: The Amazing Wonderdog...

Dear Steve
Look, I hate to be the one to kick a man while he's down, but there's a rumour you're going to be unemployed soon, and I want my money. It's not personal, but I really can't afford to be giving money away to indigent Conservative party leaders. I'm sure that you'll agree. It's just not fiscally responsible.

So anyways, tough luck on the vote but we all saw that one coming. Things are going to get ugly for you, now, I think. I can hear the rats moving in the walls.

I warned you, but you didn't listen. You just can't go charging around like that, taking a hefty lead in the polls and turning it into a dead heat. Your buddies expect you to win. That means that your polling numbers have to go up.

And I don't think your friends are going to be too pleased with the optics of driving out a moderate member just before the big vote. Oh, sure, she may have been equally unwilling to accommodate your point of view, but you know, you're the one with the image problem. They can't vote her out. And I hear Peter is kind of pissed off at you about, you know, yelling at his girlfriend until she decided to make him look a fool on national television.

I don't think your cronies will depose you in the near future, because after all there's that promised election for next year, and if Paulie goes back on that promise, well, he's still got a weak minority, right? And who wants to thrash their way through a nasty leadership race just before an election, and then roll into the thing with a stale platform that belongs to the dope they just tossed out? That would be dumb. But then again, they've done dumb things before, too.

Whoops. Scratch that "dope" bit. Substitute "nice feller."

Anyways, keep your back covered, and pls send that cash right away. Two Jetsgo dollars, remember?

And always remember, it could be worse. You could be Peter MacKay. And hey, if things start to get you down, just remember that there's always a place for you at the Fraser Home for Former Conservative Leaders, where you can sit down with Mike and Preston and burble out renditions of "My Way" until the nurse comes to put you to bed.

Yrs,

Skippy.

 

  Shoes and ships and sealing wax....

Everyone is running around with the vapours now that Belinda Stronach has crossed the aisle and joined the Liberal Party, and so I thought it was high time that I started paying more attention to Canadian politics given that I am a Canadian and all, even though it's the diabolical machinations of the far right in the US that get me most worked up. I found a rather nice progressive Canadian blog, and will henceforth be adding it to my selection of links (located in the column on the right). And it shall be known as POGGE, or "Peace Order and Good Government, Eh?" 

  And the results are in!

Now that the exams and essays are marked and reported, I'm pleased to see that I did quite well this term, despite the marked third-year "I've got an articling position, please just let me out of here!" ennui that routinely afflicts law students and in any case had virulently ravaged me. I'm essentially a straight B+ student this term, save the "S" (for "satisfactory") I got in the pass/fail Clinic course (though I'm eagerly awaiting my transcript which will indicate whether, as it did last year, I was satisfactory "with distinction" or not) and the A- I received for the Exonerating the Wrongfully Convicted course, which is pass/fail for one term (of case work) and graded on a major paper in the second.

I worked extremely hard on that final paper, putting the better part of two weeks just into the writing, but had been lamely dodging my professor's request for a rough draft that he could review and comment upon all semester. Finally, I just handed in the finished version on the last possible day. This made his comments e-mailed to me most appropriate:

I have graded your paper and gave you an A-; it would
have been an A with a good edit, but that's life with
deadlines.

A parting jab, and one that is well-deserved. Still, I really enjoyed writing that paper and am pleased that I did so well with it. An A- in law school is no small feat (and while a full A is by implication even rarer, I'm thrilled enough at the one to not mind missing out on the other).