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Elizabeth Rubin: Our Strange Dance With Pakistan

Written By 2coder on Saturday, May 7, 2011 | 7:04 AM

New York Review of Books:

Osama bin Laden's death in a mansion in exclusive club house territory of retired Pakistani officers has exposed the terrible paradox at the heart of our war in Afghanistan--Pakistan's hypocrisy and our acquiescence. Bin Laden's Pakistani hosts, two rich businessmen called Arshad and Tariq Khan who owned the house and were killed with him, hail from Charsadda, 15 miles north of Peshawar. Their uncle was a retired Brigadier. (Arshad was apparently the courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who led intelligence officials to the compound.) This is not a lawless land. This is highly controlled territory.

Read the whole story: New York Review of Books

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Women and Dance

Written By 2coder on Friday, May 6, 2011 | 6:59 PM

Many women dance to the music. What about you?

Gabrielle Gaia is 20 years old. When she dances she is incredibly sexy. Many people usually stop to watch her when she is on the dance floor. She likes to dance for the person who owns her heart. She loves belly dance. Her friends say that she is confident, playful, a little dominant, assertive, sensual and naturally sexy.

Gertrude Gemma is 21 years old. Her dance style is elegant. She likes ballroom dance. Her friends say that she is sophisticated, classy, a bit old fashioned, sentimental, nostalgic, tempered and cooperative. She appreciates the beauty of old things. She works well with a partner. She likes to dance for anyone who watches her.

Genevieve Georgia is 22 years old. Her dance style is wild. She likes break dancing. Her friends say that she is a rebel and a rule breaker, a bit weird. She loves to dance for an enthusiastic crowd.

Georgina Geraldine is 23 years old. She likes disco dance. Her sense of rhythm is impeccable. She likes to express the art of music through her body. She could dance all night. She loves dancing in a crowd. Her friends say that she is very energetic, lively, fun loving and social.

.Germaine Giselle is 24 years old. She likes ballets. Her dance style is beautiful. Her friends say that she is quite introverted, dedicated, focused, interesting. She enjoys cultivating her talents. She likes to dance for someone she is trying to seduce.

You might be interested in:

Different Types of Women - Part One

Different Types of Women - Part Two


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Defibrillators in Dance Studios and Bowling Alleys Could Save ...

Creatas/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Have you ever checked to see whether your local bowling alley or dance studio has an automatic external defibrillator? Its presence if someone suffers sudden cardiac arrest could mean the difference between life and death, according to research presented Thursday at the Heart Rhythm Society's annual meeting.

In cases of cardiac arrest, an automatic external defibrillator (AED) is a potentially lifesaving device that can analyze the heart's electrical activity and, if appropriate, shock it back to a normal rhythm. The device has pads that are placed on a person's chest. A voice built into the machine can give rescuers step-by-step instructions.

While AEDs are everywhere from health clubs to offices, other places where people engage in physical activity are probably overlooked, said Dr. Richard Page, chair of the department of medicine at University of Wisconsin and co-author of the study.

"I think we need to consider exercise to be happening at a lot of different places," said Page. "The need for an AED should be recognized at not just traditional exercise facilities."

The study, which looked at data from 960 older adult patients in Seattle who had sudden cardiac arrest, found that some of the most common places where patients experienced sudden cardiac arrest included dancing studios and bowling alleys.

Page said that bowlers in general might not be as physically active, which could lead to a higher risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Dancing, he said, requires strenuous aerobic exercise, which can also increase the risk.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio


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[MP3] new Gang Gang Dance: “Romance Layers”

GangGangDance [MP3] new Gang Gang Dance: Romance Layers

Maybe it was the cup of coffee I just drank to get over the mid-afternoon hump, but I’ve been grooving to this new Gang Gang Dance record ever since the caffeine made its way to my cerebral cortex. Coupled with the below post on EMA, there are some ridiculous releases dropping next week and Eye Contact is right atop my list. I’ve listened to Gang Gang Dance before but they’re not my favorite brand, I would snag them off the shelf and read the back of the box but always end up putting it right back where I found it. Now they’re sitting in the child seat of my shopping cart, safely snuggled in between the bumpin’ bread and eccentric eggs. Cart party!

This is a slow jam I can equally enjoy on a rooftop looking at the sun fade into the horizon or on a foggy dance-floor with a few neon lights and a disco ball above head. It’s got the charm of a Kisses jam and the avant-garde funk of Hot Chip track, slowly snaking through your inner ear canal causing a few “Oh yeah, that’s the spot” murmurs. I’ve got a feeling Eye Contact (out via 4AD) might be the summer LP for me, we’ll see how it holds up in the sunshine.


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Anna Wintour Wouldn't Dance With Beyoncé at the Met Ball -- The Cut

Written By 2coder on Thursday, May 5, 2011 | 10:02 AM

Anna Wintour Wouldn’t Dance With Beyoncé at the Met Ball

Photo: Chance Yeh/PatrickMcMullan.com, Larry Busacca/Getty Images

At last year's Met Gala, P. Diddy got Anna Wintour to dance "a little bit," he later confirmed, after photographic proof of the boogying had emerged. Apparently, Jay-Z and Beyoncé made unsuccessful attempts to get her to dance with them at this year's after-party. But of course she didn't want to dance with Beyoncé! Remember how Gaga looked when she had to do that? [NYDN]


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Ideas For How To Choose Well-Fitting Dance Footwear » Go Info Site

It is extremely essential to have the very best and probably the most snug dancing sneakers UK if one has determined to dedicate all their effort and time to dance. While dancing, most of the stress of the physique is concentrated on the feet and sporting ill-becoming dance shoes will not solely be uncomfortable, but in addition very painful. So will probably be no exaggeration to say that dance gear can either make or break one’s performance. It’s essential that dancers’ feet get the most effective support possible while dancing, otherwise they will be straining their leg muscle tissues unnecessarily and might even fall and injure themselves.

Dancing shoes UK aren’t designed to last for an extended time frame so it is preferable to vary them usually to be able to get one of the best performance possible. It’s also advisable to decide on not simply the sneakers which can be snug but in addition the sort of shoes that might be appealing each to the dancer and the audience. Alternatively, this aesthetic worth mustn’t determine the dancers’ selection as comfort and a perfect match ought to always be the priority. As a matter of truth, there are various factors to consider when choosing and sporting the precise dancing footwear for the correct kind of dance. Here are some helpful tips about how to choose the correct dancing shoes.

Earlier than shopping for any pair of dancing shoes UK, it is very important be sure that in what kind of dance they will be used. Most dance shoes are made specifically for various kinds of dance like ballet, jazz, tap, street dance and many others. That is why it’s important to look for the best shoes as a result of nobody wants to end up carrying ballet shoes for tap dancing and vice versa. And figuring out exactly the kind of dance one will be doing is going to help select the fitting sneakers to use.

The precise match is likewise an vital issue when buying dancing footwear UK since most foot injuries occur as the results of wearing sneakers that don’t fit the dancer well. So before choosing the proper shoes, dancers should contemplate making an attempt them on first and seeing whether they have the correct dimension and shape. When uncertain of the shoe measurement or becoming, it’s better to have one’s toes measured. It is strongly recommended to stroll around a bit in sneakers and see how they feel. If it is potential, one can even strive a couple of dance steps in them too.

Carrying sick-becoming or inappropriate dancing sneakers UK may trigger serious injury to the dancer’s feet. As an example, if sneakers are too comfortable then ft may come into contact with the ground an excessive amount of, if they are too tight, they might rub and trigger blisters and if they have the unsuitable-sized heel, dancers sporting such footwear might endure from leg, foot or again ache in the long run.

All in all, selecting the best dancing sneakers UK just isn’t as simple as it might sound as a result of although there are loads of selections out there in the marketplace, not all of them are excellent for the dancer’s feet. Therefore, dancers should make a listing of the most effective brands and the perfect retailers providing top quality dance shoes that shall be each good when carrying for practice or acting on stage.

Guillaume Guezou writes articles about danse vetements. His latest articles focus on vetements danse classique.


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Michelle Obama dance video - Lynn Sweet

Written By 2coder on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 | 10:05 AM

ABC News (The Note)

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So-called 'Austin Mayor'

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Dance Your Way to a 1 Million Naira Prize as KOGA Entertainment ...

May 2011 is set to be an exciting month for Nigerians who love to dance! From the vibrant young dancers to the non-so-young dance masters; Your passion for dance and dreams of attaining national recognition has received a major lift , thanks to KOGA Entertainment’s brand new dance reality show â€" Dance234.

Dance234 is bringing a refreshingly new dimension to the dance reality industry. According to Jemila Musa, the producer of the show, “this is the first time a dance reality show will be accommodating all genres of dance and according importance to them. What we are looking for are pure dancers, we want you to come just the way you are. If the style of dance you are comfortable with is hip hop, galala, fuji , highlife, traditional dance or what have you, our doors are open. As a matter of fact, we are more than willing to accommodate a new style of dance. What we want are dancers in their purest form and people who can sufficiently express themselves through dance“.

The winner will be going home with a car, N1000000, and an opportunity to attend an international dance training course; the first and second runner-up will get a N1000000 and N750000 respectively.

The forms for entry into the competition are now available in all branches of Zenith Bank nationwide. The forms can be purchased for N3000. Auditions for the show commence in June 2011 and will take place in Lagos, Benin, Abuja and Enugu.

Dance234 will be moving with precision and purposes of fulfilling it promises of unearthing talented dancers and giving them a new lease of life.

Twenty finalists will emerge at the end of tasking auditions. These finalists will go through the most lively and entertaining twenty-week of their lives with evictions taking place weekly. With plans to air the reality show on TV stations across the federation, dancers will not only be in the spotlight, they will have an amazing platform to showcase their talents.

KOGA Entertainment is a complete entertainment outfit with four up-to-date visual studios, a digital and analogue studio, a large capacity hall, up to date movie and commercial making-equipments and a content-generating department for TV, radio and commercials.

KOGA with readiness to go all the way and expertise of Jemila Musa, who has worked on a number of dance-related reality shows, Dance234 promises to be a blast from the word ‘go’. ___________________________________________________________________________________________Sponsored Content

Tags: Dance234, KOGA Entertainment

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Romantic Dance on the Moon LWP ~ Android Application v1.2 By ID ...

Written By 2coder on Tuesday, May 3, 2011 | 10:04 AM

Romantic Dance on the Moon LWP is a Live Wallpaper.

This live wallpaper supports almost all the screen resolutions.

Instructions to installed it:

- go to your home screen;- press the menu button on your device;- select "Wallpaper";- select "Live Wallpapers";- search and select for " Live Wallpaper"- select "Settings" to select "Set wallpaper" to activate it.

Issues, Questions, or Poor Ratings Please send me an e-mail.

We have received comments on wallpapers not working on their particular phones. Unfortunately, some phone are not compatible with live wallpapers, please check the web to see if yours is compatible.If you get any error other than those stated below, please let me know so that we can look into the problem.

Look at our other widgets, wallpaper and applications on the market.

System Requirement:

There are two requirements to use live wallpapers:1) compatible hardware;2) compatible OS.

1) compatible hardware -- any phone that came with Android OS 2.0 or later should work fine. Anything that came with 1.5 / 1.6 may have problems. HTC Droid Eris, Hero, Legend, Spica, and their cousins are known to have problems, even when updated to Android OS 2.X.

2) compatible OS -- Android OS 2.1 (Eclair) or later can use live wallpapers

Developed by ID-TECH

Tags: Live wallpapers fantasy LWP fun widget classic gothic dark funny cool educational photo personal design professional animation animated romantic music sky water clouds star dance night dream

sfondo animato fantasia divertente classico gotico nero educativo foto personalizza disegno professionale animazione romantico musica cielo notte acqua cascata nuvole stella ballo sogno


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Dance Of The Gelatin Cubes [VIDEO]

Asian Shower Dudes Sing Led Zeppelin

Asian Shower Plant returns, this time with Asian Shower Page, …


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Nicki Minaj's Last Lap Dance Goes To Travis Barker [VIDEO]

Written By 2coder on Monday, May 2, 2011 | 10:03 AM

Post by Portia Williams, May 2, 2011 at 8:20 am Speak Up0

Nicki Minaj Lap Dance

Nicki Minaj gave her last lap dance of the “I Am Still Music” tour at the Saddledome in Calgary, Canada on April 29. The Young Money starlet gave former Blink182 drummer, Travis Barker, a lap dance to remember on stage that Friday night. Per her usual instructions, Barker had his legs open, hands behind his back and was all smiles as Nicki popped her booty all over.

And from Nicki herself, the lap dance will be retired for her showing on the “Femme Fatale” tour coming June 17 with none other than music giant, Britney Spears.

Clad in her rainbow brite catsuit, it appeared that Nicki made the “Can A Drummer Get Some?” artist a very happy man. Peep the vid below.


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lovettaburkitt - Usher, Ke$ha And More Help Dance Music Go Pop In 2010

But is it here to stay? Our music-industry experts weigh in.By Akshay Bhansali

Ke$ha Photo: Andreas Rentz/ Getty Images

In 2010, pop princesses, R&B icons and chart-dominating newcomers all danced to the same beat. Not only did dance music go pop, but pop music caught the club-music bug.

Between Katy Perry's "Firework," Ke$ha's "We R Who We R," Rihanna's "Only Girl (In the World)," Enrique Iglesias' "I Like It," Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love" and "OMG" and countless other singles, established artists definitely looked to dance beats for surefire hits. And two of this year's biggest success stories in music were Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz; could there be a soul left in this country who hasn't heard "Dynamite" or "In My Head"?

The love went both ways, with dance music's biggest stars finding mainstream success this year. Dance-music maestro deadmau5 took up house-artist duties at this year's VMAs, and Swedish House Mafia and Usher teamed up for a medley of their gems at the American Music Awards.

So how did this happen? We caught up with some music-industry experts to get their takes.

"You definitely saw tempos go up this year," Jon Caramanica of The New York Times told MTV News. "And I think what you had are a lot of producers who are really familiar with nightclub stuff. They are familiar with Europe. Things are happening on a more global scale now."

"I think everything from Europe, and sometimes even Asia, it comes to America, and we just adopt things a little bit slower," said Jared Eng of JustJared.com. "I think it was just a change. People like different types of music at different times. And dance was of this moment."

Noah Callahan of Complex magazine added: "I think 2010 saw the merging of the pop and dance genres. Pop artists realized that there were best practices that could be borrowed from dance music. And, ultimately, [all] pop music that has been made in the past 20 years had ended up being remixed for the club by dance artists. I think they basically just cut out the middleman and went straight there."

Dance music being introduced into the hip-hop and R&B realms was particularly notable this year.

"I think David Guetta kind of at the end of last year and the beginning of this year spearheaded it," said freelance writer Julianne Escobedo Shepherd. "He produced a lot of tracks. I think as trends go, people revile 'unst-unst.' But it's just coming back around. Big-room techno was a way for people to get decadent in a year that no one could get decadent."

"You have someone like will.i.am, who's like, 'Well, I spent all this time in Ibiza, and this is what they are doing,' and he wants to find a way to bring that into his music," Caramanica said of the Black Eyed Peas mastermind. "R&B especially became dance music. And especially with your Jason Derülos, Taio Cruzes. Guys like that would have literally been blocked at the border two years ago. That would not have made it through customs. And now all of a sudden they have #1 songs. I think will.i.am had a lot to do with that last year."

Elliott Wilson of RapRadar.com added: "It's actually even affected hip-hop. I was talking to Q-Tip, and his next record, I feel like that's gonna kind of go in that vein. I know that was also Jay-Z's thought process with Blueprint 3 at first, that he wanted to make a little bit more of a world music [vibe], a little more dancey. I think the kids today want to go to the clubs. They wanna have a good time. They wanna dance. So I think the artists of today are trying to kind of feed that audience."

"I think it's caught on this year because the people who've done it have been successful," offered Clover Hope of Vibe magazine. "Like 'OMG,' with usher, he didn't have success until he made a dance record. He had 'There Goes My Baby' and these really, like, adult-contemporary records that didn't really catch on. And then once you see that everybody is doing it and that people are liking it, they are like, 'OK, let me just try this out.' It's like Auto-Tune. Like, 'Let me see what I sound like on a record by David Guetta.' They end up liking it and doing more of it."

So does the club-music trend have staying power. According to our tastemakers, not so much.

"I do think it's a blip," Caramanica said. "I don't think that's gonna be something that lasts in America. I think this is gonna be a moment we'll all look back on and go, 'Wasn't that weird when Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz had #1 records?"

"At some point, these R&B artists will get kind of sick of it and be like, 'Let me go back to my soul background,' " Hope said. "When you actually have to say something, dance doesn't really lend itself to substance. And I think that R&B artists, they really want to talk about love and in a deep way, and to do that, you need to do, like, a soul or a traditional R&B record. I want to say that it's kind of a fad."

"I think music is very cyclical," Eng offered. "So I think dance music might be here for a little bit, but I'm sure it will phase out at some point."

Wilson called dance music "the sound of today. I think that people want more aggressive, faster beats, and I think that that probably has legs until at least next summer."

What do you think? Is dance music here to stay? Let us know in the comments!

Related Videos
  • Stories Of 2010
Related Artists
  • Usher
  • Ke$ha

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1655031/usher-keha-more-help-dance-music-go-pop-2010.jhtml

Georgina Grenville Gina Carano


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Traditional Balinese Dance in Ubud | Adventurous Kate

Written By 2coder on Sunday, May 1, 2011 | 10:02 AM

0

Dear Future Husband,

You never expected me to wear a boring white dress, did you?

I’m not traditional.  Not remotely.  But you knew that when you asked me to marry you.

So you shouldn’t be surprised that I have chosen a Balinese dance costume for my wedding gown. Specifically, the one worn by Sita.  (Probably without the headdress, but definitely including the fabric tucked between the feet.)

Of all the activities to enjoy in Ubud, Balinese dance will likely be at the top of your list. Every guidebook and every web site mentions Balinese dance in Ubud at some point.

But is it worth it, or is it just one of those activities that everyone says you should do because it’s there?

Well, I vote for worth it. Balinese dance is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, down to the blessing of the musicians before the show began.

The story is long and it took a few reads before I could follow it. (Like an opera or ballet, the plot is meant to be read before the performance.)  In a nutshell, it’s about the kidnapping of princess Sita and the struggle to bring her home.  It actually could work quite well as a Shakespearean play.

And then the dancing began.  There are several different Balinese dance styles; the one at the Palace is Legong dance.

The music chanted out a haunting, repetitive melody, while the dancers spun and whirled.

I lost my video of the show in the shipwreck, but here is a video from another show attendee:

I was impressed with the dancers’ talents â€" the dancer who played Sita was in tears, and she nearly brought me to tears as well.

If you’re in Ubud, try to see a dance performance at the Palace. It has a reputation as one of the better ones, and I was glad that I went there.

Nightly performances at 7:30 PM last roughly 90 minutes and cost 80,000 rupiah (just under $10).  Get there by 7:00 PM to get a good seat.

And enjoy!  It’s a great show.

 

Related posts:

  • Ubud, Bali: Come Here for the Culture
  • Drinking with Locals? Always a Good Decision.
  • Kuta: The Worst Place In Bali
  • My First Indonesian White Party
  • Water Puppets in Saigon
  • Posted by Adventurous Kate on Sunday, May 1, 2011 at 12:26 pm Filed under Asia, Bali, Blog, Destinations, Featured, Indonesia, Ubud · Tagged with arts, asia, asia jaunt, bali, indonesia, ubud


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    Dance Juniors PAL WII-LOADER - ArberB.com

    Dance Juniors PAL WII-LOADER

    English | Platform: Wii | Release: February 2011 | Publisher: Nintendo | Developer: Ubisoft | 4.33 GB Genre: Dance Based on a simple game mechanic that is easy to pick up and play, and with crazy choreographies from their favourite hits, Dance Juniors offers kids the funniest dancing experience!Screenshort


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    Dance Juniors PAL WII-LOADER - ArberB.com

    Dance Juniors PAL WII-LOADER

    English | Platform: Wii | Release: February 2011 | Publisher: Nintendo | Developer: Ubisoft | 4.33 GB Genre: Dance Based on a simple game mechanic that is easy to pick up and play, and with crazy choreographies from their favourite hits, Dance Juniors offers kids the funniest dancing experience!Screenshort


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    Election forecast: dance on a razor's edge - Colby Cosh - Macleans.ca

    Are you ready to stay up late May 2? Do you have good coffee and plenty of snacks laid in? This may be the election with the highest quantity of uncertainty in my adult experience. The NDP’s dazzling polling gains simply have no obvious recent precedent. I’m not sure a national party has ever made strides of this magnitude and nature in such a bewilderingly short time.

    Think about the questions you have to ask to estimate the impact, in terms of Commons representation, of a shift like this; you have to form ideas about the sincerity of the polling subjects’ intentions, the efficiency of the resulting gains in various regions, and the pure logistical power of the party to get out its vote, all while taking into account the activity and the relative positions of three or four other parties.

    And then, as if all that weren’t enough, some old flatfoot comes along and tells some TV guys about Jack Layton getting naked in a place he ought not to have been naking around in. Nobody knows what will happen on May 2â€"and I don’t mean that in the usual perfunctory way. This time, really, nobody has any idea. Having messed around with election models, I could tell you plausible stories that involve the NDP winning 120 seats; I could tell you stories of roughly equal plausibility that put them at 55.

    Of course, there are limits. I am just about ready to rule out a Diefenbaker-like cross-country rampage by the Conservatives. I am just about ready to promise that Michael Ignatieff will not look happy on Monday evening. (Though even then: how stupefyingly low are expectations for him at this point?) What I can tell you is what how I would bet, if I had to bet. I believe, halfway through the weekend, that the Conservative push for a majority will come down to the wire. And I think they are a little more likely to get there than not.

    I’ve discussed Quebec already. The Tories will probably lose about a half-dozen seats there, but they have a modest nucleus of three or four where their leads are just too huge to be overcome even by the thirty-point gain that the latest Ipsos poll gives the NDP, relative to the last election. The game will be won or lost in Ontarioâ€"and what is hard to appreciate until you do some modelling, some farting around with numbers, is just how good the NDP will be at electing Conservatives there.

    It looks to me as though, throughout the 25%-35% range of vote share the pollsters more or less have the Ontario NDP in right now, uniformly-distributed gains in NDP support at the expense of the Liberals yield more Conservative seats than NDP seats. Stop and read that again if you need to. It is kind of troubling and counterintuitive and may even threaten the reader’s childlike faith in democracy, but within that 25-35 band, most of the benefit of each additional NDP vote will end up in the hands of the Tories. If you hold everything else equal at some reasonable level, and push the NDP from 25% to 35% at the Liberals’ expense, you see the Liberals lose something like 25 seats. And the Tories, without gaining or losing an actual vote for themselves, get 14 to 16 of those.

    Moreover, for the Tories, the optimum level of NDP vote share in Ontario would appear to be above 35%, and more like 38%. The New Democrats don’t start taking seats away from the Conservatives until the point at which the Liberals are exterminated outright; reduced to zero. Which makes sense on a metaphorical level. The NDP and the Conservatives have to chew through the Liberal centre completely to get at each other.

    Is the uniform-swing assumption, the assumption that votes will migrate in the same proportions from riding to riding, a safe one here? It’s never all that safe. But I would venture that it is safer than usual in 2011. The shift to the NDP isn’t a result of appeals to particular economic sectors or social groupings that might vary from riding to riding. It is a personality-driven shift; a true mass movement. It is, in part, surely driven by universal human reactions to Layton’s courage. He is fighting an election he might easily have avoided.

    In fact… if you’ll pardon a digression, I am not sure this is fully appreciated, and maybe it should be said by somebody who wouldn’t willingly let Jack Layton handle the Grade Five milk money. Layton faced a choice: fight an election now, which is a squalid and exhausting task for a healthy person, or take time to recover from cancer and a broken hip in relative peace. This was as a free a choice as can be imagined. Nobody on the face of earth would have blamed him for taking a break. He decided not to, and whether he did it for the advantage of the party or for the interests of the country, the decision boils down to “He did a brutally difficult thing because he thought it needed doing”. If you ask me, it’s pretty damn admirable even if he just thought selfishly that this was his best chance at being Prime Minister.

    Anyway, we are experiencing, as some have called it, a Layton-Mania. However large it ends up being, it should be fairly similar in magnitude from place to place. That’s not good news for the Liberals. I can’t find much good news for the Liberals anywhere I look.

    I think it is natural to suppose that the NDP will disappoint in Quebec, but match or exceed its not-quite-so-absurd polling numbers in Ontario, where the party has a real organization and where most of its candidates are not missing or imaginary or celebrating their 14th birthdays on the Moon. I see no evidence of major surprises anywhere else. Even the minor surprises I can envision would work in favour of the Conservatives. Ralph Goodale slipping on a banana peel in Wascana? The Tories doing unexpectedly well in Newfoundland without “ABC”? Gary Lunn shooing Liz May into the Strait of Juan de Fuca? Linda Duncan losing Alberta’s “orange blob” in Strathcona because of Layton’s oilsands hostility?

    I’m not predicting any of those things; the point is that they are conceivable, yet my guess doesn’t depend on any of them. I’ve gone on too long about this already, given the enormous likelihood that I am completely wrong, but I have the Tories at around 160 seats. The NDP? ‘Bout half that. The Liberals? ‘Bout half that half.


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