The fighters are in the ring and the bell has sounded for the election bouts both north and south of the border. Although we anticipated a lot of low blows from both sides, so far that kind of approach seems to be coming mainly from one side in each election.

Despite the family man image of Harper in the sweater, his followers don’t seem to have fully accepted that look any more than the voters, and have blundered ahead into several errors in judgment as they coordinate attacks on Stephane Dion with few holds barred. The famous Puffin-Poop-Gate stumble will probably go down in the folklore of elections (link below) as just one of those things that “seemed right at the time”, blamed on an over-zealous web ad artist who got carried away. At least that’s where the blame landed, and if you can imagine an ad like that gets put on the air without someone much higher up approving it, you’re naïve indeed.

Harder to find humor in the slip-up where an important Harper staffer emailed Canada AM following the show appearance of the father of a Nova Scotia soldier lost in Afghanistan. The father decried Harper’s announcement of a 2011 pull-out, and argued that a fixed pull-out date made his son’s death in vain. The staffer responded that the father was motivated as a known Liberal supporter. I can imagine Harper’s comment when that story came out in the Conservative camp: “It could well be that his comments are politically motivated, but you just don’t say that about a father who has lost his son!”
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We hope Harper is going to actually announce it at some point, but since all parties have started the campaign ball rolling, it seems obvious now to Canadians that we will be at the polls again about October 14th. I anticipate our being in Edmonton at that time, so my wife and I will see what the business of “advance polls” is all about.

In the States, where it seems to have been a land of constant campaigning for the last two years, finally they are down to actual party against party electioneering, since the Democrats have settled on Obama. Whether there will be any knives in the back of Obama, courtesy of the Clinton camp remains to be seen. Hillary might see a win for her in 2012 to be easier against an older McCain looking for a second term (with Obama faded from the picture) than against a possibly successful Obama.

So it’s fall elections all around. I’ve never been one to hold back on predictions on these things, though I conveniently forget what my accuracy record has been. On occasion I do recall making the comment, “I never saw that coming!”

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The Olympics ended this morning, or I guess last night, or this evening, or whatever it works out to depending on where you are in the world. I always enjoy the Olympic year events, and try to watch it when I can. This year, as with any Olympics, there were some exciting moments.

Our Canadian athletes went from a worry that they were winning nothing to a final count of 18, a reasonable showing in comparison to other Olympics. We don’t win a lot, compared to some other countries, but we have to keep it in perspective. We’re a relatively small nation, just over 33 million now I believe, the US is about ten times larger (and China about forty times). Quite likely we don’t devote enough funding to the Olympics and sports in general, that’s an issue that always comes up at this time, but our governments obviously don’t consider it the priority that it is in some nations.

The Olympics is always filled with dark horse competitors, like Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, who stubbornly charged out of nowhere in Row 8 to win bronze for Canada in the 100 meter hurtles, and with the thrilling come-back stories like Eric Lamaze in the Equestrian Jumping (suddenly millions of people know who “Hickstead” is), and these people and their stories provide the thrills of any Olympics. I followed the curious path of the American basketball “Dream Team” as they remained undefeated through their competitions, a situation that could be anticipated, but never has been since they were beaten in the last Olympics by Argentina for the Gold Medal. Early this morning (“last night”) they won the Gold Medal by a margin of only 11 points in a game against Spain, certainly not indicative of their skill. These “prima-donnas” of the basketball court have been difficult to motivate in any Olympics, often playing great and exciting basketball in the first quarter and then demonstrating almost boredom for the balance of the game. Their main motivation this time around was shame for their performance in 2004, when some of them admitted they were almost afraid to go home to the US after the loss. One of their coaches put it on the mark when he said, “You’ll win this competition when your desire is as great as that of the other teams.” They came through, but I think their desire was far less, and limited them to what had to be done.
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I wrote this column originally about three weeks ago, but never posted it, when the number of Canadian soldiers lost in Afghanistan was 88. As of a few days ago, it’s apparently at 90. It’s possible that before Christmas, we will break the 100 mark, not a national achievement that we will accept with pride. While it’s a statistic that pales in comparison to the world wars, it’s a statistic that is gradually eroding away the support of the Canadian public for that engagement, and no doubt number 100 will bring a louder call to “Do something about it!”

I think most of us support our military. When support rallies are held, they generally carefully phrase the purpose as being for the military, not for supporting the conflict in Afghanistan. People are more divided on that, and I would not be surprised if only a minority of Canadians support the rationale for that “war on terrorism”.

We’re “between a rock and a hard place”, as the old saying goes. There is a generally accepted belief that if we and others pull out of Afghanistan, there will be chaos, bloodshed, and many things they’ve accomplished over the last few years will be gone in a heartbeat. I have little doubt that will happen. That fact is the main reason we are there, and for the next year at least, staying there.
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It’s difficult to know what to do with telemarketers. I know some people have their own approach to the nuisance phone calls from them, but few of the responses seem completely ideal. I’m aware that one common approach is to immediately hang up, while another is to issue a stream of profanity and replace the receiver with some force, but I’m not sure how much of a deterrent this might be. I doubt that it stops anything, and the latter technique (although telemarketers voluntarily invade your space) might get you reported to the phone company.

There’s a side of me that is aware of many of these people being stuck in cubicles all day, trying to build a record of sales or donations, struggling to get by in this world. Accents will tell you that a lot of them might be immigrants who need the work, though this might be a misconception from the belief that you are receiving the call to donate to the Canadian Disabled Bearded Motorcycle Repairmen Fund from someone in Toronto, when in fact it’s really Mujubar calling from Calcutta.

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