The big news, other than I got up too early, is:

• Ben at Haavaad had a few last night and joined in the Canadian conservative song of the long knives which has broken out early in this campaign. The polls are not annointing their own so it is time to pack it in even though there are six weeks left in the campaign. Look a the comments under this thread at sensible Stephen Taylor's blog. Are any of these moaners and groaners out knocking on doors for the candidates, stuffing envelopes at 11 pm and speaking up for the local candidate...making them appear attractive to the swing voter? Nope. Just adding to the image that the Tories are so comfortable with losing that you might as well admit it before you've actually begun the fight.

  So here is my challenge to those of the party whch I will not vote for. Let us know what you have done to forward your cause. One problem Canada has had to deal with for the last decade is a disfunctional right, the weak opposition. What are you doing to get it on its feet again in this campaign? Are you, like Stephen, fighting for what you believe in?

• The Red Sox and their weirdness with their shortstop role has gotten weirder. They got rid of team leader Garciaparra, then got Cabrera, win with Cabrera but then ditched Cabrera, got Renteria and then ditched Renteria and their is now no shortstop. None. Tejada? Tejada would be good. What do you have to pay a divisional opponent for its team leader? Send Manny. Money and Manny.

• OK. Where were we? Oh ya. The Gen X at 40 nation map is a real wasteland compared to the map for the nation of A Good Beer Blog. There are a few interesting stats that may explain. This space is about 51% Canadian, 25% US, 5% UK and the ROW the rest. The beer blog is about 51% US, 25% Canadian, 9% UK and the ROW the rest. Beer blog visits are up to over 1500 a day from over 700 visitors while here it is down to about 8500 visits a day and 1900 visitors, down from August's heights of 11,000 visits...by around 1900 visitors. So, it is the bots. The bots are bailing and that means no one is signing up for mapping duty. I say show up the bots, humans. Join the nation.
• By the way, some of these stats were brought to you by Google Analystics, proof in itself that that particular bubble is in fact a bubble. Has anyone noticed that the works of Lord Goog has fallen drastically in quality. As far as I can tell Google Analytics simply does not function, most of the charting being blank despite it preparing reports for me for weeks now. When the megolomaniacs at Google get around to a line of Google jams and jellies, be prepared for something awful.
• Christmas time food is good. Pomegranates and persimmons. Cahill's Porter Cheese. And gifties set to go. Someone is getting the best thing but I can't say who or what. Yuletide.