Election hangover.

Well our election is done, and boy was it useless.


Let's back it up 8 weeks or so.

"I do think it's fair to say that in the past few months, and particularly over the summer, we have seen increasing signs that this Parliament is really not working very well anymore, it's becoming increasingly dysfunctional," said Prime Minister Stephen Harper on August 14.

So, this is going to be a bit of an outrageous question. It's really crazy guys... really really wacky. I doubt anyone else has the opinion. What the shit is different? What is stopping this new parliament from being "dysfunctional".

Let's not even get into the fact that Stephen Harper was the only person in Canada who thought that the last parliament was dysfunctional. But if it was dysfunctional before, how will it be any different now. It's still a Conservative minority, there's just a few small difference in numbers. I would almost say the opposite.

If anything I think this is going to cause more problems. Brand new cabinet ministers. Remember how good an environment minister Rona Ambrose was?

Ok. I'll be alright.


In hockey news, an update on the cause of Alexei Cherepanov's death, story from the Canadian Press is below:

MOSCOW - Russian hockey player Alexei Cherepanov, who collapsed and died during a game, had heart problems and probably should not have been allowed to play, a regional investigator suggested Tuesday.

Yulia Zhukova said Cherepanov, who died Monday playing for Avangard Omsk in a Continental Hockey League game outside of Moscow, apparently had chronic ischemia - a medical condition that occurs when the heart or other organs do not get enough blood.

"Checks will be conducted to clarify, in particular, why the sportsman with such an illness went onto the ice," Zhukova said.

Cherepanov's agent, however, said NHL tests showed him to be healthy.

A lawmaker suggested that the 19-year-old first-round draft pick for the New York Rangers may have died due to negligence on the part of paramedics.

Pavel Krasheninnikov, who sits on the Russian Hockey Federation's supervisory council and is a member of the State Duma, said there was no ambulance on duty at the Moscow region arena where Cherepanov was playing.

He also asserted emergency workers took too long to respond and didn't have a defibrillator - a medical machine that shocks the heart. It was unclear how much time it took paramedics to respond.

"There are elements of negligence here," Krasheninnikov said.

Vladimir Shalayev, the managing director for the newly formed Russian league, said a preliminary autopsy showed Cherepanov had a "hypertrophied heart."

"It has nothing to do with yesterday's game, there were absolutely no injuries," Shalayev said in televised comments. "He was not injured during this game."

Cherepanov's agent, Jay Grossman, said the player had tests at the NHL combine before last year's draft that didn't reveal any heart problems. He has been told that players in the Russian league receive regular heart and blood tests, similar to those given in the NHL.

The incident caught the attention of a high-level government meeting, chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev, to discuss how to revitalize Russia's deep sporting traditions.

"A person should not be allowed to take part in competition if he has ischemic heart disease," Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said. "This means that in fact there is no preliminary health control and monitoring. And this system should be very well-defined."

Former Rangers captain Jaromir Jagr played a shift with Cherepanov and was talking to him on the bench shortly after they left the ice. Cherepanov then suddenly collapsed, according to a Rangers spokesman who talked to Jagr.

There was no collision that preceded the collapse, the spokesman said.

Amateur video taken at the match showed players and coaches gathered around the Avangard bench and then carrying a player who appeared to be Cherepanov.

Cherepanov scored the first goal Monday and had eight goals in 15 games this season, his third with Avangard Omsk.

"It was really kind of a surreal thing for the players," Grossman told The Associated Press. "He was skating in on a 2-on-1 with Jaromir and then they came back to the bench. Jaromir was talking to him and he told him he has to score on that play. The next thing you know, he collapsed.

"(Jagr) went with him into the dressing room area and they revived him for some time and then he didn't make it," he said.