Bravo! (only here in the U.S.) is airing a marathon of The West Wing today, showing episodes back-to-back all night long. After an hour of CNN, MSNBC and FoxNews, I’m finding the dramatic intrigue of fictional presidential politics far more compelling than the endless arithmetic of the real thing.

I’m watching Anderson Cooper on CNN. When I last checked in, Cooper was the only one who knew the identity of The Mole, which should give him a leg up and predicting the outcome of the election, I guess.

He’s interviewing Ralph Nader, and is taking the same tack that Nader must have endured 10,000 times this election: “you still have blood on your hands from 2000, what are you running if you have no chance of winning?”

I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000: I think he’s a brilliant, impassioned man, and I applaud him for running, fueled by conviction, this time around. I wish interviewers could set the “you have no chance so why bother?” line of questioning aside. Not only for Nader, but for all candidates. It’s boring, it doesn’t teach us anything, and it demeans democracy.

I didn’t vote for Nader this time around. Not because I don’t continue to believe in his message, but because, even though, as a New York elector, I’m not voting in a “swing state,” I couldn’t conscience even the hint of blood on my hands should Bush win.

Of course that’s the same logic that meant I didn’t vote Green in the Canadian election in June, even though I believed in their platform ahead of any other.

Perhaps the next time I vote for someone, I’ll do it with conviction and passion, and not as part of a collective voodoo chess game.

Tomorrow is Election Day here. If you look at this webcam you can see where I’ll be. The white building on the right is Dublin Town Hall and that’s where residents of this village are casting their ballots, so I will have a front-row seat on the proceedings (I’m going to go across the road with some of my colleagues as they go to vote so I can see how it’s done here…).

Matt Rainnie and I are taping a piece for Mainstreet tomorrow afternoon that should air on tomorrow’s show (listen live from here).

I’ll be watching the returns with Real Live Americans tomorrow night.

Should all be over by, what, ten or elevn o’clock…

I haven’t felt this way for a long time, but there’s a drama on the CBC that I really, really enjoyed. And that I’m quite sad I won’t see the second part of (unless, by some miracle, my hotel in New Hampshire carries the CBC).

Today’s experiment in Voice Over IP is as follows: I’m running the free X-Lite software telephone on my Apple iBook here at Yankee in New Hampshire. X-Lite is configured to register with my Asterisk PBX back in the office in Charlottetown.

The end result is that when callers “press 1 for Peter” when calling the office, the calls get routed to my laptop.

Conversely, I have a Charlottetown dial tone here when I need it.

I just got off the phone with Johnny, then Catherine. Quality appears to be fair to poor — possibly because I’m just using the iBook’s built-in microphone. I’m going to do some twiddling.

Air Canada appears to be digging itself out of its financial woes and flying in to Montreal today, things did feel somewhat less teetering. But maybe I’m under the sway of Celine Dion.

Here’s the thing, though, Air Canada: lose Celine, the new visual identity and the new uniforms and upgrade the cardboardesque standard issue “sesame snacks” you serve in lieu of real food, and you would send a much louder, tastier, more effective signal that you’re back.

Last chapter of my year-long U.S. election journey starts tomorrow morning: I’m off for a week in New Hampshire, which is where it all started back in January.

Off to the battleground…

On the off chance that you, as I, were wondering which actor played the kindly priest on the recently aired episode of NCIS titled “A Weak Link,” it was Doug Savant, who played Matt Fielding on Melrose Place.

You may now resume your regular lives.

Princess Alice has died. She was the oldest member of the Royal Family. Here’s where she fit into the family tree (click for big image):

In other words, she was Edward VIII’s sister-in-law.

Trivial fact: the two Linux servers at Elections PEI are named Edward and Wallis.

For some reason, the search feature on the City of Charlottetown website doesn’t search the Bylaws.

To facilitate my own research, I’ve set up an ugly little Bylaw search tool. You’re welcome to use it for your own purposes. Not guaranteed to work, or to work properly.