Old Man Yells At Cloud and Other Stories

I taped the all-candidates debate hosted by the Chamber of Commerce Monday night because I was unable to attend in person. Apparently I missed the best part when Independent candidate John Turmel spent the better the first 25 minutes of the debate - oh, how did the Mercury blog put it - "having a tantrum." Turmel was upset because the debate was limited to the four main parties. Apparently the whole thing ended with the Guelph Police escorting the candidate from the Co-Operators' Hall at the River Run Centre. You can read the Merc's story about the incident here.

But back to the issues, and there's a story in the ether this week that says that Linamar will announce sometime later this week the layoff of upwards of 1,000 works or less. A spokesperson described the layoffs as "temporary," whatever that means, but it's another strong indication for everyone that's yet to get the message that our manufacturing sector's in trouble. Linamar is probably Guelph's biggest corporation with offices based not only across the city, but across the globe. The impact here of even the loss of 1,000 jobs is tremendous, not to mention a terrible indication that the economic downward slide is still in full motion. This will surely be a hot button in future debates.

As for the actual campaigning, it looks like sign vandalism itself continues to find new lows to plummet to. If there's been anything that can be done damagingly to a sign in the ground, it's been done in this election. Here's what one Frank Valeriote volunteer said about the sign horrors he's seen on the trail:

"Valeriote signs have been set alight, cleaved in half with a blowtorch, slashed into pieces, tossed into cornfields and vanished all together, they said."

Okay, kicking down signs, although ultimately stupid regardless, is one thing. But if you've got a Li'l Bastard Election Sign Vandalism Kit and you're setting fire to signs, your problems go deeper than politics. Hearing this, I felt like I was in the middle of a "Criminal Minds" episode: "The unsub clearly has difficult expressing himself in a manner befitting a human being... Oh, and he burns election signs because he hates his mother's politics."

This is more than a waste of material, it's a waste of time and money and I don't mean in the cost and production of these election signs. Do you really think that the campaigns are going to see their damaged signs and go, "Meh... Oh well." Of course not! Now you're wasting some poor volunteer's time cleaning up your mess, not to mention the fact that probably entrenching them in the opinion they're backing the right horse because obviously the mental defective taking a blowtorch to an election sign is someone whose mindset, I don't want to share.

Phew. What else is going on? Well, there's still no news as to whether or not the entire Canadian electorate is heading to the polls, although it pretty much seems the safe bet if you listen to the news. The Word of the Day prize goes to CKCO's Frank Lynn, who noted in his story about the Guelph by-election that Mike Nagy was "perturbed" by the possibility of a general election stamping out the pressing need for a by-election. Now the thing I'm wondering is if "perturbed" was Nagy's word or Lynn's. If anyone from the Nagy campaign is reading this, than let me know in the comment section as to whether he's truly perturbed or merely flummoxed.