Blog: OPTIMUSCRIME.COM

We just got an email from the student intern at our work, who's something of an avid politics-watcher. She draws our attention to the fact that Stephen Harper drops his kids off at school not with a hug, but with a handshake . No wonder Canadians can't get behind this guy: "Ben, have a great day at public school. You're a hell of an asset to the organization. Your mother said as much at our last annual general meeting."

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We're really not sure how we missed J. Kelly Nestruck's electoral liveblogging , which was perhaps the best blow-by-blow of the 23rd of any we've read. A sample: 11:14PM -- Garneau: I'm unemployed. Politics more difficult than astronauting.

Tonight, Peter Mansbridge introduced the CBC's coverage as the '... snap, crackle and pop of Canadian politics'. Based on the numbers we're seeing onscreen right now, the results are less like Rice Krispies pop, and more like Bran Flakes: Probably healthy, but nonetheless dull, and not particularly satisfying. We're quite glad that the Tories have been given an extraordinarily short lead. We're quite glad that there's a chance for some stability. It would seem that the Tories will need to keep a centrist tack to survive. But just in case, we'll be spending [...]

Sofi , Matt and the Stillepost gang all win a shiny gold star for the most hilarious exchange of the election. Reposted in part from the original thread on Stillepost: Sofi: Mr. and Mrs. Harper will be having TONS of fat, pasty sex tonight. Matty: That mental image will keep me up all night. NewPolluter: Gwoss. NewPolluter: Not that layton/chow sex is totally hot to visualize... DirtNap: ...if she wins her riding she'll be [...]

We'll blog tomorrow with our complete reaction. Considering that Paulie is relinquishing the leadership, the Tories can basically count on an unchallenged reign until the Liberal leadership race wraps up. The NDP don't really have the numbers to hold the Tories' feet to the fire, and they would get spanked hard by the electorate if they were to force another election anyhow. Some notes: Olivia's in, though she chose a hellish outfit for the occasion. Purple suit, orange scarf, knee-high black shit-kicker boots? Private memo to Jack: Please [...]

20:03 Jack marvels at the fact that he was unable to disappear. We might suggest that Jack consider moving more than a few hours away than LA next time. 20:05 We totally want to join CTU, if only so we can ride around on the running board of an SUV. 'Hey, that's even cooler than the Dukes of Hazzard window-jump,' observes Shannon. 20:12. While CTU uses user-friendly computers, we have learned that shadowy terrorists use green-on-black command-line interfaces. 20:12 Yep, another mole in CTU. Could someone please send a memo [...]

Tonight, Peter Mansbridge introduced the CBC's coverage as the '... snap, crackle and pop of Canadian politics'. Based on the numbers we're seeing onscreen right now, the results are less like Rice Krispies pop, and more like Bran Flakes: Probably healthy, but nonetheless dull, and not particularly satisfying. We're quite glad that the Tories have been given an extraordinarily short lead. We're quite glad that there's a chance for some stability. It would seem that the Tories will need to keep a centrist tack to survive. But just in case, we'll be spending [...]

We're fresh from our very last round of canvassing for the New Democrats. Some campaign-trail observations: 1) A 'Save Our Pets In Case Of Fire' sign that listed no fewer than a half dozen cats, as well as a ferret and a snake . For some reason, we have a tough time picturing a firefighter bounding back into a collapsing house to save Mr. Biteyfangs. We hope that we're wrong on that front. 2) We now know precisely how elderly Kingstoners feel about issues ranging from abortion to energy rebate cheques, [...]

Paul Summerville puts the Tory GST cut in perspective : Enough change for a Kit-Kat bar every four days for a low-income Canadian, or a comprehensive NDP child-care strategy. Greg Sinister on the Tories' uncosted promises : "I want to be charitable... but this is the party of accountants. If they are this free and loose with the imaginary books now, what will it be like if and when they get hold of the government's?" The Vote Marriage Coalition is namin' names , not that [...]

(What actually happened: NDP Election Injury )

20:03 We only wish that movie theatres enforced their no-cellphone rules as ruthlessly as these terrorists. Novelty ringtone during the show? Shot to the head with a Tokarev TT. 20:07 We are shocked at Jack's declaration that he plans to do things 'his way.' We had expected, based on previous seasons, that he would be a stickler for detail, protocol and procedures. We will have to come to grips with the loss of Season 5 Episode 6: Jack Fills Out The Appropriate Paperwork. [...]

Ah, another season of 24, our favourite Televised Republican Wet-Dream, begins! Who will threaten America's security this time? Will Jack ruthlessly torture them in time? Will gay Amnesty International lawyers interfere again? Don't worry -- we'll be there to liveblog away as it happens. Uh, and so will Dave Barry and the trolls in TV w/o Pity's forums . 2000 Football? We're missing the world's most entertaining needless violence because of the world's most boring needless violence. 2005 [...]

Jonathan "The Impaler" Sharkey, aka Rocky Flash, aka Lord Ares, is running for election as Governor of Minnesota, and plans to run again in 2008 as a Presidential candidate. His campaign site , a staggeringly comprehensive compendeum of uncomfortably blunt personal information, esoteric religious beliefs and a platform promising death by impalement for terrorists and drunk drivers. We tend to lean towards the NDP, ourselves, but it's really only for lack of a Canadian party that gives impaling the policy focus it so richly deserves. Perhaps if the '08 Prez bid doesn't work out, [...]

"Tonight ain't your night, kid." Like a mafia chieftain at a boxing match, Abbotsford Liberal candidate David Oliver offered his NDP opponent a plum Ottawa job and support in municipal electoral races, so long as his competitor was willing to concede the race and throw his support behind the Big Red Machine. "You're gonna take a fall in the fourth round." And elsewhere in BC, Tory voters are wondering how to vote after their candidate got ousted from his party when it was revealed he was facing criminal [...]

We're disappointed to report that the Tories have just captured the mantle from our beloved NDP for the most hilarious press release of the campaign. The silver medal belongs to the NDP's faux-retraction , where the party corrects itself: "...an NDP press release claimed ... David Peterson was backing Michael Ignatieff in the ongoing Liberal leadership race. We were wrong. Peterson is backing Frank McKenna." But the new gold medal goes to the CPC for the tersest release we've ever seen. The communique, in its entirity, reads: [...]

Sam Bulte, pictured above with Kingston & The Islands MP Peter Milliken, is waging a defensive war against the opponents of the copyright cartel, calling those opposed to draconian anti-P2P measures "... pro-user zealots and Electronic Frontier Foundations members." Whereas, of course, Bulte responds to no special interests (except, of course, for the entertainment industry members who have seen fit to make her the sole beneficiary of their fundraising largesse.) Boing Boing responds with a call for a Revenge of the Nerds on 23 January 2006: [...]

Sometimes people will gush about Google and the power of contextual advertising. We never understood the hype, until we saw the ad pictured above: Half a million suppliers for Canadian politics? We thought we were stuck with just the five of them . We'll be issuing an RFP shortly.

Pretties, we admit it: We didn't watch the debates. Not because we were particularly busy, either. We spent the evening watching Anthony Asquith's adaptation of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. Our sister tells us that we saw much better repartee in our choice of evening's entertainment. She swears (as we did in the 2004 English debates) that Gilles won the round. And besides, we can't be guilty for missing it. In our riding, we're in quite good company. In our riding of Kingston and The Islands, the conservative challenger was planning [...]

The Office québécois de la langue française , the ne plus ultra of bureaucratized language protection, is facing an uphill battle against franponais -- the French-language equivalent of Engrish . As international manufacturers market to Quebec, an increasing amount of product packaging is translated poorly or machine-translated for particularly comic effect : "'You have a translation that says 'Safe for children'. And in French they will have ' coffre fort pour enfant.' Well coffre fort [...]