Peace, order and good government, eh?

If you're not wide awake yet, this should do the trick.

This is Rory Gallagher playing solo on Too Much Alcohol.

Well, having had my whining rant, I might as well get in on the post mortem. I'm substantially in agreement with Greg Fingas of Accidental Deliberations' column here, which helped crystallize some of this. So this is a piece of my take on what the NDP should do and didn't. I'll start with the summary:

Stick it to 'em. Have a strong narrative. Use the strong narrative to build strong positions. Use that strong narrative to attack, and never back up or apologize for it no matter how the pundits try to dismiss. Relate both our policies and opponents' attributes, not just obvious failings but even perceived strengths, to that narrative.

Adrian Dix did not have a strong narrative. He was too busy being moderate, which is to say fearing his own message.

CBC News on Monday night:

Liberals take Labrador, as Jones wins big over Penashue

I have to confess to being caught by surprise when Labrador MP Peter Penashue suddenly announced his resignation from the House of Commons and his intention to run in the subsequent by-election. It made a lot more sense when it was later reported that Elections Canada was putting pressure on him to address the problems with his 2011 campaign and might continue to press. And while things may not have worked out quite the way Penashue hoped, the Conservative Party might be just as happy that now the whole thing will go away.

So, the BC Liberals won last night's election. I'm sure there will be lots of post mortems over the next week or two, and some soul searching going on well past that. People will point out the flaws in the campaign, whinge about media coverage, wonder whether the NDP had the right leader, and so on. All of it will no doubt have some validity.

But ultimately, this is a democracy. The people choose. And they'd had years and years of the BC Liberals, who had spent the time taking bribes from cronies and systematically hosing the public. They shouldn't have needed the media or the NDP campaign to remind them of half this shit. The speed of forgetfulness required to ignore their consistently awful record is staggering; it's not like they'd ever stopped fucking up right until the election campaign began. Meanwhile Christy Clark is the emptiest suit I have ever seen, her desire for power so completely lacking in any notion of what she might want to actually accomplish with it that she was like a deer in the headlights every time there was occasion for her to have to make a decision. Her campaign was polished--but so polished it was obvious there was nothing there but the high gloss. Anyone voting for her had no choice but to realize they weren't electing a candidate but a slick hairdo.

And yet they did just that. I can only conclude that the majority of my fellow British Columbians are morons.

Last week I posted a version of this song by the Asylum Street Spankers. Here's a different interpretation, and a different spelling of the title, by Blackberry Smoke. This is Deep Elem Blues.

"We've been lying all this time; turns out free markets don't work after all."

Well I'm glad we finally agree. Let's remind them of that every time from now on when they go on about how X policy that's good for people must be abandoned because it's not free-markety enough.

Enbridge pipeline protesters close Ontario highway

A highway near Hamilton, Ont., was shut down for almost 90 minutes Monday morning as a group stopped traffic to protest Enbridge's plan to reverse the flow of its pipeline that cuts through a rural area of Hamilton.

About 40 protesters staged a mock oil spill and cleanup on Highway 6 near Concession Road 6 to express their concerns about the pipeline. Six Ontario Provincial Police cruisers and two Hamilton police cruisers arrived at the scene shortly after the protest started at around 11 a.m. The road reopened around 12:30 p.m.

The hearings about Enbridge's plan for this pipeline are the first instance where the NEB's new rules regarding public participation come into play. Yesterday's news suggested that making the normal means of expressing opposition more difficult had silenced a certain amount of dissent. Today's news reminds us that some won't settle for being silenced; they'll seek alternative means to express themselves. Things will escalate and the government will attempt to marginalize the dissenters.

Expect Joe Oliver to resume blustering about radical environmentalists any moment now.

Few complete application to reverse Ontario, Quebec pipeline

Fewer than 200 interested parties have completed a 10-page application form asking the National Energy Board to accept their written comments about the reversal of a pipeline that would carry diluted Alberta oil sands bitumen across Southern Ontario and into Quebec.

That compares to the more than 9,000 letters that were written during the approvals process for the Northern Gateway pipeline that would transport the same material over 1,177 kilometres to a tanker port in Northern British Columbia.

The authors of "more than 9,000 letters" didn't have to fill out that 10-page application. That's a new process the NEB has set up and as I suggested here, it's having the desired effect. By discouraging feedback from the public, the government can claim there's much less opposition to the project. This kind of obstruction to public participation in the decision-making process is just another form of voter suppression.

Mission accomplished.

This evening's proceedings will begin in a recording studio and finish up at the White House. This the Tedeschi Trucks band live in the studio with Learn How to Love.