Canada — Page 11

Thanks to two people

November 13, 2000 by Michael Boyle

, Peter Merholz and Meg Hourihan, for pointing out this map of the US election results by county. The additional level of granularity yields some really interesting information – particularly concerning the urban/rural split in US politics.

The same thing exists in Canadian politics as well, with the ruling Liberals electing MPs in most major cities while the upstart Reform/Alliance has otherwise swept the West and is threatening a breakthrough in outlying parts of Ontario. Likewise, in Quebec the Bloc is predominant except in Montreal, and didn’t sweep Quebec City either. An important difference between Canada and the US is that Canada is slightly more urban than the US – though it’s only marginally so.

With the big mess

November 10, 2000 by Michael Boyle

down in Florida going on now and our election coming up, I’ve had occasion to check out the Elections Canada website. Elections Canada is the commission that runs all federal elections here, and I was surprised to see that their website is quite lovely and very well organized. It features excellent use of rollovers in the main menu structure, and generally a really clean layout. No sample ballot that I could find though.

One of my favourite things

November 7, 2000 by Michael Boyle

in the world is to watch election results. I’m an election geek. I caught the bug early, and I’m sure it was enhanced living in Quebec and participating in referendums and elections about the very future of my adoptive home in Canada. Anyhow, the tracking polls were too close to call as recently as last night, which will make for extra fun viewing tonight. I know I’ll have to hold myself in control to keep from throwing things at my teevee – that’s part of the appeal.

And to my cousins down there in the US… VOTE!

The new Mike’s Message

November 5, 2000 by Michael Boyle

The new Mike’s Message from Michael Moore is a great open letter to Al Gore. I still think I’d vote for Gore (if I could vote), but at the same time I have the same general feeling as Moore and would ask some of the same questions as Moore poses.

It’s funny – my attitude to the NDP in Canada is practically the opposite of my feelings about the Democratic Party in the US. Dems have moved, as has our Liberal Party, to the right – due to changing circumstances, a changing electorate, a new world that we live in. In doing so, parties like those represent me even less than they ever did – which was never that much. At the same time though, the NDP here hasn’t seemingly changed at all to face the different sort of world we live in now. And so they too don’t represent me – and in fact seem openly hostile to people in a situation such as mine. So if anything I’m even more screwed here than I would be in the US.

I did have a moment

October 16, 2000 by Michael Boyle

to go back to re-read The Web is like Canada though, which was kind of bugging me all weekend. And I agree with Aaron and Cameron that the article is a) a little trite in saying the web is “like Canada” and, b) it is a little muddled. It was one of those articles that I enjoyed on first reading but stuck with me as somehow incomplete, unfinished, unfocused. I think Ed put it best, referring to the judgement one must make about management in the web business (I paraphrase): “would they just as soon be selling potatoes, if there were money in it?” I know in my case, they wouldn’t, and hence even older non-technical people have a perfectly appropriate and interesting business plan with the web at its heart. For others – not so much. But I’ve spoken to a ton of “real web people” who don’t have the first clue either, at least in a commercial sense.