Not just the USA

It seems to have got lost in the excitement of the US presidential election and Gordy's difficulties here, but Canada is holding a federal election at the moment as well.

It is still early days, but the combination of Stephane Dion's charisma (somewhere between Gordon Brown and Michael Meacher) and an impressive election machine look set to return Stephen Harper to Sussex Drive, perhaps with a majority.

DNCer backs McCain

It seems that there is a DNC member about to endorse John McCain.

Obama supporters will no doubt dismiss her as a disgruntled Clintonista and the nutroots will probably try and paint her as some sort of fringe fascist in the same way that they did Zell Miller four years ago, but it is difficult to see how this can be anything other than more bad news for Obama.

Whatever their individual motivations, he now has a member of the DNC and a US senator from his own party openly supporting and campaigning for his opponent.

Every day I get more and more confident that things might work out well this November after all.

Play Fair boys.

There was a piece in the Sun yesterday (I was bored while waiting in chinese takeaway) talking about Brown sufffering death by a thousand cuts, and it stated that the danger for Labour was that they destroyed Brown without actually replacing him. It seems however that this has advanced into reality.

The anti Brown plotters seem incapable of persuading a credible challenger to throw their career down the toilet by actually declaring against him, but the credibility of both Prime Minister and government drop daily.

If it were a boxing match, the referee would have stopped the fight, but the lack of an alternative means that the plotters just keep kicking the corpse. I may loathe and despise the labour party, but this has gone beyond funny and is now just pitiful.

Bouncing along.

The conventions have been and gone, and both candidates have benefitted from whatever bounces they will generate.

The result is that McCain is up 50-46 according to Zogby, 54-44 according to USA Today/Gallup, 48-47 accoding to Rasmussen and tied according to CNN. The RCP acverage has McCain up 47.5 to 45.

Interestingly, the only one of those to poll likely voters as opposed to registered voters is USA Today/Gallup.

Also of note is that the intrade odds have narrowed to 53-47 in Obama's favour having not so long ago been about 3-1.

None of this amounts to a whole lot with a couple of months left to go, but what looked like being a sure thing for the Democrat now looks a whole lot less certain. Indeed, all things remaining equal (which of course they will not) I would go so far as to say it favours McCain.

There will no doubt be lots of predictions to come, so I will stick my neck out and make mine now. McCain wins by 295 electoral votes to 243.

We're doomed. (possibly)

The sun ran a story a few days back about how the experiment to be conducted a CERN next week could result in the creation of a black hole and the destruction of the earth.

It was a surprisingly (by Sun standards at least) non sensationalist article in that it did at least acknowledge that there were some scientists who feel that this is unlikely, but the overall tone was very much one of it being reckless and irresponsible. It also referred to attempts by some other scientists to get the experiment stopped.

I doubt I'm in the majority here, but I find myself firmly in the get on with it ad be damned camp. One of the things which makes human beings such a wonderful and successful species is the sense of curiosity. Be it the urge to see what is over the next hill or across the ocean, or the impulse to see what happens when I mix this with that, this curiosity has lead us to accomplishment and understanding, and it should be encouraged.

And if it all goes wrong, at least it will be over quickly.

Sarah Palin's daughter is pregnant.

There are stories apearing (I saw it in the Telegraph, but it is elsewhere as well.) that Sarah Palin's teenage (but legal) daughter Bristol is pregnant. A statement from the Palin family states that she will be marrying the father.

The fact that the story is being released by the Palins at this point shows that the lesson of 2000 (when the democrats released a story about George Bush having been in trouble for drink driving 72 hours before the election). There will be time for the story to die off before the election.

I think that the attitude of the Palin family is praiseworthy as well. Commenting on the pregnancy, Palin states that the parents will have the support of the family, but will learn the difficulties of yung parenthood. As a governor, Palin is clearly in a position to cushion her daughter from the realities of the situation and from any inconvenience. That she is making her daughter face up to her responsibilities while promising to support her suggest she will not.

No doubt a few religious nuts will wish to criticise Bristol Palin and her boyfriend, but I hope most reasonable people would join me in wishing them a happy future.

Abortion rights and wrongs.

On my morning flick through my favourite blogs I spotted a story on Iain Dale's blog (The Desperation of the Left to Kill Sarah Palin's Candidacy: No 94 ) about a post on Daily Kos purporting to show that Sarah Palin is not in fact the mother of her fifth child, but it's grandmother.

There are various discussions online about veracity of the claim, and I don't intend to go into it here, but while following the arguments I came across a couple of responses which I found quite disturbing. A couple of people said that because Palin did not, upon discovering her child would have downs syndrome, immediately have it aborted she was morally wrong.

I make no bones about being generally anti abortion, but it was not the posters' obviously pro abortion opinions which distressed me as much as the fact that far exceeding the usual mantra of a woman's right to choose, they were seeming to suggest it was both insane (one of the posters referred to needing a "brain implant") and imoral not to abort the child.

I have not children at all, and do not know anybody caring for someone with down's syndrome, but there are many parents out there who readily talk of the issue in positive terms. Any disability will make life more difficult for all concerned, but to suggest that it should lead to the child being automatically exterminated without even having the chance to lve is unforgiveable.

Regardless of whether one agrees with Palin's views on abortion, to criticise her for holding to those beliefs despite the difficulty for herself and her family is a step to far.