Question Answered

After the federal election, I asked, "Can the Conservatives keep chasing the Quebec nationalists without alienating their rural anglophone supporters in the rest of the country? Or will they refocus on the 905 region which could also provide them enough extra seats to form a majority?"

I guess we know the answer to that one!

On the other hand, in the same post I predicted that the Liberals, "seem likely to elect Ignatieff as their new leader and swing to the right in an attempt to regain the ground they have lost to the Conservatives over the last two elections."

Which is going as predicted so far, and I suspect having Ignatieff in charge of the LIberals will make it harder for the Conservatives to make inroads into the 905 area.

What to Expect?

Well, not 3 posts a day for starters!

I expect the topics covered to be mainly political (mostly Canadian with some U.S. and occasionally the rest of the world), with some personal life stuff, some pop. culture comments, some sports talk (I'll try to spare you from complaints about the bad luck of my pool teams) and maybe some technology stuff (but I tend to be a little behind the curve here, so don't expect anything cutting edge).

Another thing to expect is lots of little digressions in brackets (like this one).

In terms of politics, political compass (http://www.politicalcompass.org/) puts me down as a strong libertarian, and pretty much in the middle on the left-right economic axis. The environment, electoral form and taxation are a few of the issues I care most about.

Still on the topic of politics, my aim will be to search for what is right and what is best for society rather than trying to push a particular ideological viewpoint. Things I will try (and likely fail, on occasion - let me know if you see instances) to avoid will include:

Ignoring events which don't support my point.
Quoting out of context.
Arguments which attempt to persuade rather than enlighten.
Flawed reasoning including: Straw man arguments, Ad Hominem attacks and any other bias which would serve to obscure rather than illumine the best solution.

I know, it sounds awfully dull, but I'll try to keep it interesting as well. I guess we'll see.

At any rate, it will be interesting (for me) to see how the Blog evolves in terms of writing style, topics covered, whether it ever actually attracts readers and/or comments etc.

Hopefully I'll post often enough to at least give it a chance. Good luck little Blog!

Why is this Blog here?

Here is some speculation (you may think that I should know for certain, but I'm never really so sure I understand just why I do things):

1. I don't have enough friends who are willing to listen to me talk about this stuff so I am searching the globe for more listeners (victims).

2. Even if nobody's listening, maybe it will be cathartic (in the medical sense of the word: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cathartic)

3. Practice my writing.

4. I've found lots of Blogs to be useful/helpful/entertaining/enlightening/inspiring etc. and it would be cool to think I could do the same for others

5. I'm a big believer in peer-to-peer, no-filter, no middleman communications so I should put my fingers where my mind is (not in the medical sense, this time)

6. Deep down, I am drawn to a fantasy of becoming famous and powerful and some part of my sub-conscious thinks this is the way to do it (I don't really buy this one, but I had to put it in to keep Nietzsche happy).

7. Other