I attended a LPC convention in Toronto in the mid 80s and I was thoroughly impressed by the caliber of the delegates from across the country. I was impressed that these were intelligent and principled individuals pursuing the highest political ideal in the way they believed best.

I worked for the LPC (I even ran in the 1988 election as a Libertarian) until 1990 when I met Preston Manning. After hearing him speak I asked Mr. Manning if there was room in his party for a libertarian. He answered that he believed the economic principles upon which the Reform Party was based were essentially libertarian. He said he thought of the Reform Party as a broad political coalition of libertarians, conservatives and political reformers with sufficient common ground to allow us to work together effectively.

I was, and remain, persuaded by the argument that it is better to accomplish some of our objectives in alliance with others than to remain isolated and accomplish little or nothing. I joined the Reform Party and continue to actively support its successor, the Conservative Party. I will do so as long as it appears that implementing its platform will make Canada more libertarian than it is.

So, I believe the LPC is a great bunch of people doing what they believe is best. But I wish they would add their considerable talents and intellects to the CPC.

I do not believe there is any utility in the term “libertarian conservative”. If you mean “libertarian Conservative”, to refer to a libertarian who is a member of the CPC then I can see it, but not without the upper case “C”. If it means a social conservative who supports libertarian economics I think the label “conservative” is adequate. I believe the unmodified label “libertarian” implies support for the general application of the libertarian principle which would exclude the coercive social policies usually supported by social conservatives.

Any Christmas shows on? Well the best Christmas show there is, actually a mini-series, gets underway on Boxing Day. Here’s a great article on Canada’s favourite Christmas tradition.

Luddites and liberals look up at the night sky and say, “I am but an insignificant speck in the midst of an enormous, indifferent universe.” I look up and say, “Wow, all this is for me?”

The latest hard evidence that the CBC is NOT Canada’s broadcaster but the broadcaster of the Liberal Party can be found in the revelation that it was the CBC that was coming up with the questions for the Liberal members of the Ethics Committee to ask Brian Mulroney. You can read the report exposing the CBC and see the news clip here.

Now here’s something you don’t see too often - a poll with only a 2.5 point margin of error 19 times out of 20 showing voter preference in the Atlantic Provinces. Mind you, the Herald story doesn’t provide all the details (typical). But the details for Nova Scotia are there with a slightly higer margin of error. Applying these figures to the UBC Election Forecaster the results in seats in NS would be:

Lib = 5 (-1)
CPC = 4 (+1)
NDP = 2 (same)

The two wild card ridings in this are the neighbouring ones of Central Nova (where no Liberal will be running) and Cumberland-Colchester (where Bill Casey is the incumbent). First Cumberland-Colchester: the UBC results show that there should be enough “blue” support there that Casey and the CPC candidate could slit the vote right down the middle and still have enough that whichever one is slightly ahead will beat the NDP and Liberals. So it might be 4 CPC seats or 3 plus an independent. Despite his political heritage Casey has voted with the opposition more often than the government since his ouster so that would really be a loss for the Conservatives.

In Central Nova, Dion is the only one expecting Liberals to vote Green. May will trail the field and the only issue is whether enough disenfranchised Liberals will vote NDP to upset Peter MacKay. According to this poll MacKay is still in the drivers seat by a still-comfortable margin.

So where is that extra CPC seat? In West Nova where the poll has Robert Thibault, lead Liberal on the House Ethics Committee, losing to the CPC candidate by 6 points.

The situation for the Conservatives in the region should improve even more with the war between Ottawa and St. John’s blowing over. Here’s hoping.

This article explains that all the models used now based on global warming assumptions are at odds with the actual data.

This article makes a lot of sense about what needs to be done, and what should not be done, to make hockey more appealing.

The best point the author makes is that more goals does NOT make the game more exciting and yet that is where all the emphasis is being placed. Bigger nets? Smaller pads? Who wants to see teams score on every decent scoring chance, almost as automatically as a 7 footer ramming a basketball trough an unguarded hoop several dozen times per game.

As he rightly points out, it is not more scoring but more scoring chances that we want to see. Yes, more scoring chances will result in more scoring but it’s a question of where to place the emphasis. Think of the existing game, more or less, with some relatively innocuous change resulting in a dozen more legitimate scoring chances each game. That is the ideal.

So, the challenge is to come up with this relatively subtle but elusive change. I wonder what would happen if blue-line offsides were eliminated and the two line offside rule returned but without the center red line. For example, a pass from inside your blue line to inside the opposing blue line would be an offside, but there were no other offsides. That would open up the ice as wingers would be able to rush into the offensive end while defencemen passed to puck up to center where the center could forward it ahead. I can see many 3 on 2 and 2 on 1s resulting from this, not to mention many fewer stoppages in play.

Yes, defencemen would have to play more conservatively but giving up slapshots from the blueline for pretty passing plays among forwards would be worth it.

As for overtimes: I would love to see them get rid of shootouts. After fighting to a standstill for 3 periods shootouts are like saying, “enough of this game, let’s settle the result by a game of tiddeliwinks.” Shootouts have no resemblance to the rest of the game other than the once in a blue moon penalty shot.

Instead let’s start the overtime with 5 minutes of 4 on 4 followed by 5 minutes of 3 on 3. If its still a tie, so be it - and no points for losing in overtime.

Now that’s a game I would like to watch.