so long, paul

ok, i'm finally willing to call it: stephen "stepford" harper is our new prime minister. yay.

thank you canada, i guess, for not sending a harper majority to the house.

so it would seem that the tories have won themselves what we call a minority government. i'm hardly looking at the results anymore. i don't imagine any sort of janga will happen to the numbers by the time i wake up a few hours from now. i just don't.

is the house still fractured? yes. perilous? maybe. paralyzed? i fear so.

harper is nothing if not deft, but he will have to do some cirque de soleil manoeuvering to get any serious big ticket shit done. fine by me. the lib+ndp number will be a factor, though perhaps not as big a factor as that dreaded bloc caucus - they might be able to stir some shit up.

my orange and lime popsicle coloured peeps gained 11 seats, bringing our caucus to 29 (unless things change overnight, which happened in 04 so who fucking knows). on a personal level, i feel some satisfaction about how our party fared in quebec - we made some significant electoral increases here, reaching and even surpassing some of our percentage goals. of note:

outremont 17.64%
papineau 16.87
hull-aylmer 15.5
westmount ville marie 14.9
manicaouagan 12.84

here's what went down tonight:

- the electorate i so mistrust came out in high numbers today

- paul martin said he's going to step down as leader of the liberal party - that will likely happen sometime in the next few months - people i know are terrified that he will be succeeded by this guy, a scary intellectual (an american, no less - gasp!) who may sell well but does not necessariliy bode well for the things we worry about

- ndp victories that yielded from me a particularly hysterical squeal of delight, not just because i think they'll make spectacular additions to the caucus, but in some cases, because of whose ass they spanked: bevington, nash, chow, marston

- i was more surprised that tina keeper was declared elected than when i heard she was running

- matt was a-bloggin' in the cool kids room as part of cbc's elaborate election coverage (which in the main studio, resembled a well lit disco lounge), though things look garbled over there at this second

- bonnie was over for the hoopla and we grappled with waves of fear, boredom, and sarcasm by consuming my homemade carrot & sweet potato soup, hint-o-lime tostidos, green grapes, mango sherbet, and diet dr. pepper

- we wound up expressing ridiculous amounts of concern for the health of various newscasters, wondering if martin stringer lost all that weight because of an illness

- to my shock and awe, footage of ralph goodale arriving at his victory party featured both of my parents, close ups and all

gotta go to sleep now. hope the sky doesn't fall overnight.