I just realized when writing this post that we’re probably in something resembling the home stretch for the 42nd Federal election. While we’re still talking about some issues, I’ve noticed that we aren’t talking about the actual electoral system. In two weeks from today, I’m going to guess we’re going to start debating if we’ve outgrown first past the post. It works for a two-horse race but I’m not convinced that FPTP works when there are three parties. I’d say it’s almost a certainty that the result of the election in terms of seats won’t accurately reflect the popular vote. Maybe that means we need to consider a mixed electoral system that adds proportional representation seating on to the traditional FPTP seats.

Anyway, we can argue that after we get evidence the system is broken. For now, it’s time to do the links. Since we’re talking Canadian politics, let’s kick off with Canadian actress Nina Dobrev.

Harper says pot is “infinitely worse” than tobacco. Experts say there’s “simply no evidence” that’s true. Blogger says Harper is infinitely worse than the alternatives. Experts say there’s simply all sorts of evidence that’s true. (National Post)

My name is Steve and I may be a second-class Canadian citizen because my dad was born in Scotland. I’m one of nearly 900,000 second-class Canadians in Harper’s Canada. (Vancouver Sun)

An agreement has been reached in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks. This is bad news. This may be worse than another Conservative government news. (BBC)

At a hockey pool draft the other day, I had a conversation with one of the older fellows about the election. Despite a sizeable age gap (he’s better than twice my age), we both agreed that the Harper social policies were too extreme to overcome any approval for other policies like military spending and… I’ll get back to you if I like another one of his policies. We aren’t the only ones done with the Conservatives. (Huffington Post)

One issue that may come up in the US election is offshore tax shelters and the repatriation of those profits. Currently, corporations are sheltering $2.1 trillion outside America’s borders which would result in $620 billion in tax revenue upon repatriation. Sure, the total debt is like $18.4 trillion but a penny saved is a penny earned. (Reuters)

The Pope is reportedly going to quietly fire the archbishop that got Kim Davis a brief receiving line meeting with His Holiness. (Daily News Bin)

How do you quiet a copy who was exposing the truth behind police arrest quotas? You throw him in a psych ward. (Police State Daily)

Now that scientists have found water on Mars, science’s next major goal is Armageddon. Well, sort of. A team of scientists is working on a project to change the course of an asteroid in case they have to do that to save the Earth. To hell with the scientists. Has anyone seen Bruce Willis? (The Independent)

If you don’t like the current state of Reddit’s front page, good news. The company is working on updating the algorithm so links cycle to the top more quickly. (Motherboard)

There’s a doings a transpiring in the world of gaming. The developers of Star Citizen and gaming news site The Escapist are fighting over an Escapist article accusing the dev’s CEO of embezzlement and illegal hiring practices. (Game Informer)