May. 3rd, 2011 | 02:10 pm
Well, it seems my Firefox is no longer working as a browser for LJ (started slowing down/acting up yesterday) so now I'm stuck using explorer to write this. Not a huge deal, but for the fact that I can't update explorer anymore (my windows installer broke a couple of years ago during a crash and since the **fix** saved all of my programs/files and I lost nothing, I decided to save myself another repair bill and leave the installer "broken") I could likely fix it by re-installing windows and starting fresh, but I'm really not comfortable doing that on my own for the sake of LJ. What is it about me? Since I've been here, this "journal" has been spotty at best, I'm starting to take it personally!
ETA: It's working, it's working, nobody move or change anything. :P
ETA: It's working, it's working, nobody move or change anything. :P
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Election Direction...
May. 3rd, 2011 | 03:28 pm
Well, the election is finally over. Thank god, now they can finally stop calling my house. It's not that they called to talk about issues, or get my views, or ask what I saw as needs in my community, nope, they were too busy asking if I was going to vote for each of them. Pretty nervy since NOBODY said much of anything. Blah, blah, blah. Old boys' club saying nothing about anything.
SHOCKING that the NDP (New Democratic Party) is now the official opposition (previously, they had struggled to even maintain their status as an official party) but wait...you see my friends, Jack Layton (the NDP leader) is sick. Yes, sick. He has cancer. This helped him in two ways 1) He got some sympathy votes (human nature kicked in) and 2) One of the biggest things Canadians try to protect is "free" healthcare (aka socialized medicine) We believe that "Hey, you may eventually tax us to death, but darned if we aren't going to be healthy while we're here." "Healthy" may be optimistic, but you get my drift:-)
Anyway, Jack has cancer and no way is he going to allow the Conservatives to even THINK about privatizing healthcare while he needs the services and can make hay out of everyone else needing them too.(The Conservatives have been threatening to do this for years, then backed down when we threw them out of office; or gave them a minority government so they pretty much couldn't change anything. (It's like governing with one hand tied behind your back, a way of keeping a government from getting too much power and forcing them to work with others)
Well, it backfired on us.
Instead of keeping the previous government in check, the two OTHER parties (NDP and Liberal) got together and toppled the current government by ganging up and using their votes to force an "incompetence" vote. Not exactly what we meant when Canadians wanted them to "work together."
The Conservatives were forced out, a new election date set, and voila! A majority Conservative government was born. It seems the general consenus was "okay, if you can't work together, then we'll give the smoop full power" (and believe me, he is a smoop, his way or the highway...) The Liberals (party number three) took a beating. In the interest of not boring you to death, I'll just tell you that their leader was a condescending jerk who thought the liberal stronghold was going to back him up. Guess not, since he resigned two seconds after the election thanks to such a poor showing.
In short? They pretty much all stink but Canadians were tired of seeing nothing get done, so we caved and are hoping that a majority might bring some positive change that doesn't include endless bickering.
I wrote all of this down because despite my cynicism, I also understand that voting is a privilege and I do take it seriously. There are so many people out there fighting for that same option, fighting for a voice, so I vote proudly and know that in my own way, I AM making a difference, however miniscule it may seem. So, here's to democracy, long may she reign!
ETA: Remember in a previous post I talked about Elizabeth May (leader of the Green Party) NOT EVEN being invited to SIT IN on a debate? Seems Canadians responded to that too--they elected her in her district, giving her an official seat in parliament. The one and ONLY green seat.
Tell me democracy doesn't rock!! ;-)
SHOCKING that the NDP (New Democratic Party) is now the official opposition (previously, they had struggled to even maintain their status as an official party) but wait...you see my friends, Jack Layton (the NDP leader) is sick. Yes, sick. He has cancer. This helped him in two ways 1) He got some sympathy votes (human nature kicked in) and 2) One of the biggest things Canadians try to protect is "free" healthcare (aka socialized medicine) We believe that "Hey, you may eventually tax us to death, but darned if we aren't going to be healthy while we're here." "Healthy" may be optimistic, but you get my drift:-)
Anyway, Jack has cancer and no way is he going to allow the Conservatives to even THINK about privatizing healthcare while he needs the services and can make hay out of everyone else needing them too.(The Conservatives have been threatening to do this for years, then backed down when we threw them out of office; or gave them a minority government so they pretty much couldn't change anything. (It's like governing with one hand tied behind your back, a way of keeping a government from getting too much power and forcing them to work with others)
Well, it backfired on us.
Instead of keeping the previous government in check, the two OTHER parties (NDP and Liberal) got together and toppled the current government by ganging up and using their votes to force an "incompetence" vote. Not exactly what we meant when Canadians wanted them to "work together."
The Conservatives were forced out, a new election date set, and voila! A majority Conservative government was born. It seems the general consenus was "okay, if you can't work together, then we'll give the smoop full power" (and believe me, he is a smoop, his way or the highway...) The Liberals (party number three) took a beating. In the interest of not boring you to death, I'll just tell you that their leader was a condescending jerk who thought the liberal stronghold was going to back him up. Guess not, since he resigned two seconds after the election thanks to such a poor showing.
In short? They pretty much all stink but Canadians were tired of seeing nothing get done, so we caved and are hoping that a majority might bring some positive change that doesn't include endless bickering.
I wrote all of this down because despite my cynicism, I also understand that voting is a privilege and I do take it seriously. There are so many people out there fighting for that same option, fighting for a voice, so I vote proudly and know that in my own way, I AM making a difference, however miniscule it may seem. So, here's to democracy, long may she reign!
ETA: Remember in a previous post I talked about Elizabeth May (leader of the Green Party) NOT EVEN being invited to SIT IN on a debate? Seems Canadians responded to that too--they elected her in her district, giving her an official seat in parliament. The one and ONLY green seat.
Tell me democracy doesn't rock!! ;-)
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