True names

Regarding the current falling out of DJ with PB:

There are trends on the interwebs and in the blogosphere which haven't made me all that happy. I'm not in favour of the tendency towards creating isolated opinion silos. I want there to be places where opposing views confront one another, not only a tendency towards separation and safety that I think has gone a little far, though it is appropriate in some places.

But...I think it's just as important to call things by their true names. It has long been my felling that "Progressive Bloggers" doesn't really live up to its appellation. I'm generally OK with sharing the same tent who has an overall similar mental framework and conceptualization of
ends, even if they happen to think in a very different way about how to get there and what to say.

This stopped being the case for PB some time ago. I was there quite early on in its history, and even then it was admitting blogs whose underlying world view, well, was not recognizably similar to my own. Calling it all by one name, "progressive", risked giving left-wing credibility to people who were, well, probably not.

For DJ, it's basically unacceptable to accept the same political label as those who would be willing to legislate special limits on pregnant women to control critical parameters of their health. And so, this is the logical destination of that relationship.

Women and Iggy: A DAMMIT JANET! Inquiry

By Michael Valpy: Women and Ignatieff: What went wrong?

Dubbed a cerebral sex symbol when he entered politics, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff now faces a wall in his appeal to women. They don't much like him.

The issue is hugely significant for his party, which historically has enjoyed high levels of women's support. Ignatieff predecessors such as Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien held 20-point leads in the polls with women over their Conservative opponents.

But Monday's Strategic Counsel poll shows women age 35 and over – and particularly women age 50 and over – have rejected the Liberals in droves in the past six months.

As for the issue of leadership, a summertime poll indicated women had the same lack of interest in Mr. Ignatieff as they do in Prime Minister Stephen Harper, even though women are inclined to vote left of centre and Mr. Harper has been labelled the most right-of-centre national party leader in modern Canadian history.

Only 30 per cent of women favoured each leader and a plurality liked neither.

I don't like Iggy. Mainly for his support of pre-emptive war and 'torture lite'. But, like many of the women interviewed in that piece, I find him stiff, condescending, and inauthentic. Not to mention opportunistic.

I had to laugh when I saw which demographic dislikes him most -- mine!

So, step up to the mic, er, comments section. You don't have to tell your age if you don't want to, but DJ! wants to know -- who likes Iggy? Anybody here?

Hard(ly) News

Leaders of Canada's largest political parties pledged yesterday to increase the number of women in the House of Commons as a public opinion poll found Canadians want to see more women in Parliament.

The Environics poll, conducted for the group Equal Voice, found that 85% of respondents support efforts to increase the number of women elected to public office, compared to 11% who opposed those efforts. The poll also found 63% believe women are under-represented in the House of Commons.

Did this make the front page of any newspaper in Canada? Uh-uh. Didn't think so.

Update: Website for Equal Voice.