(no subject)

Canada's prime minister calls early election

"Analysts believe the Conservatives will have a better shot of winning than if they waited until being forced into an election by the opposition with a confidence vote when the Canadian economy might be worse off."

The bad thing is that, reading this article, I was thinking "plus Harper doesn't want to run against Obama" - and then I got to this part:

"Observers also say Harper wanted a ballot ahead of the U.S. election. Bothwell said if Democrat Barack Obama surges in the next month in the United States, it will help Canada's opposition Liberal party.

"It will be bad for Harper. Canadian politics don't exactly mirror those of the United States but if something happens in the United States it will find an echo in Canada," Bothwell said.

1) We are not the 51st State!!!! I swear!

2) Canadians know that, despite getting news channels from the States, they can't actually vote in the American election. Most of us know this, anyway. I don't doubt there will be a few confused souls who hope that if they vote liberal that nice Obama man might get to become president.

3) But political attacks on the other side of the border have an effect. If Canadian viewers are subjected to a bunch of McCain attack ads claiming that Obama is a nasty socialist out to force universal health care on us all, the Canadian viewer is likely to think, "But I like my healthcare! Conservatives are clearly bad people," and vote for the Canadian liberals on pure suspicion that, deep down, Harper really wants to dismantle our health care system and appoint some gun-toting, anti-abortion soccer mom as Governor General or something.

4) ...and I think most Canadians would be preferring to vote for Obama.

Er.

More Canadian politics as they continue, I guess.

Taking a break from dissertation writing...

Is it a sign of my immense geekitude that the history of the study of tides has become immensely interesting? Here you have a natural force that routinely wrecks ships and screws up military plans, but nobody (in the early 19th century) really understands what tides are or how to predict them. There's a frenzy of backstabbing and plagiarism as scientists try to predict the tides using stolen records and the hard work of human computers who are forced to work day and night on laborious calculations. Charles Babbage decides to build a mechanical computer to aid in solving this problem and is charged for scientific elitism for arguing that there should be a difference between scientific theory and the labor of calculation. London gets flooded, Whewall coins the term "scientist" and Britain tries belatedly to "rule the waves" in truth. It's all in Michael S. Reidy's Tides of History: Ocean Science and Her Majesty's Navy. Probably dead boring for non-history-of-the-ocean people, but I enjoyed it.

Bryn, you might be interested in the "Bridging the Thames" section. It has some suggestive passages on the all-important London bridge: "London Bridge held a unique vertical and horizontal significance. From Flamsteed and Halley in the seventeenth century to the tide table calculators in the eighteenth, it was the obvious place where the rising and setting of the sea was observed. But it was also where mariners determined zero longitude until 1738, when Greenwich took over as prime meridian. Thus London Bridge was the zero point for both dimensions, a position that the third dimension, time, amplified in the decades and centuries that followed."

Update on yesterday

The Indy Art Museum was great - a decided much of a muchness. I'll have to go back to see the Asian and African art collection. I could have done without the massive crowds gathered for the Penrod Art Fair (yikes!), but the shuttle busses from the parking lots were helpful. Afterwards I went a bit crazy at Trader Joes, but I am now the proud owner of curry sauces and cool desserts, so it's all for the best.