Our key election issue is now bike theft, and the first party to advance a platform that calls for convicted bike thieves to be kicked repeatedly and mercilessly in the gonads will get our vote on January 23rd.

On an unrelated note, if anyone sees this bike around, call the Kingston Police Department at 613-549-4660 and cite file 05-40082, wouldya? (Oh, and if you'd like to independently administer some gonad-kicking to the rider, please don't hesitate.)

Canada's minority Liberal government was just mercifully euthanasized by the Conservatives, Bloquistes and New Democrats. This means campaigning in the snow, a prospect nobody but the now-gainfully-employed Optimuscrime Toronto relishes.

Now, it's not as if the NDP wasn't expecting the gub'mint to fall. Hell, it engineered its demise. And the other parties, based on their websites, are ready to go.

The Libs have issue pages set up. The Tories have podcasts and online lawn-sign ordering. The Bloc's got a damnably catchy anthem about Liberal corruption ("Facile d'avoir bonne conscience / Quand on se rappelle de rien!")

And what does the NDP site have? Uh, a big splashy story about our 'common-sense compromise', with no stirring follow-up about the Arrogance Of The Liberals and their Unwillingness To Work For Canadians and whatever else they deserve to have thrown at them. And there are no issue pages, no platform. No banners or buttons to distribute to their loyal blogsoldiers. What, did the webmaster take a holiday?

At least the Dippers are slightly better-developed in the web business than the Western Block Party (via), who certainly could use a little website tune-up (but whose bold choice of pastel party colours is certain to brighten up a drab January election!)

We'll cross our fingers and hope that Jamey Heath wakes up from his nap and takes the party's site into election mode soon.

So, of course, go call your local NDP candidate for a lawn sign. But first, take a moment to remember those special moments, the laughter and the tenderness, the hopes, joys and frustrations of the 38th Parliament of Canada. Cue up some Dionne Warwick singing 'That's What Friends Are For', and read CalgaryGrit's fond memories of the 38th Parliament.

Today, newspapers in Poland blacked out sections of their front pages in a protest against political interference with the media in neighbouring Belarus.

But what the Polish publishers and their Amnesty International sponsors didn't seem to realize is that redacting headlines with black pens is so altmodisch. The modern puppet press is more subtle in its sycophantic adulation of the ruling party.

Take the CBC, for instance. When opinion data is released that is good news for the Liberals, the public broadcaster titles the report 'Promising Polling'. As Stephen Taylor noted:

"I cannot imagine the CBC putting a "Promising poll" title on a news story suggesting a Conservative majority."

So, for your partisan toadying, CBC, we make a very serious frowny face at you. We'd threaten to stop watching you, but we just can't take Lloyd Robertson's monotonal drone.

Previously: More fun with CBC captions