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Random observations from election night:

-1982: 'The West' wants out. 1987: 'The West' wants in. 2006: 'The West' gets in, but notices 'The East' is still sitting in the comfortable chair, and doesn't appear willing to leave anytime soon. For those of you scoring at home, 'The West' really means Alberta Conservatives, and to British Columbians, everyone else in Canada are Easterners who shouldn't be trusted.

-Did anyone see Jack Layton in Vancouver the Saturday before the election? Did anyone else notice how disinterested Svend Robinson looked? Did anyone else get the impression that the NDP was putting its final push in Kingsway rather than Centre?

-It was nice of Duceppe and Martin to get off the stage early in recognition of the gains made by Layton and Harper.

-John Chan's 9,000 or so votes in Calgary North-Centre is impressive. Dave Haggard's 9,000 or so votes in Vancouver East is pathetic.

-Anyone watching CBC's election coverage could have been convinced that the Bloc Quebecois wasn't a real party, until one looked at the bottom of the screen and saw their 51 seats. What's the French term for "balance of power" again?

-Mind you, Peter Mansbridge's "Don't ask me" retort about Stockwell Day's cabinet prospects easily made up for any of the network's shortcomings on election night.

-Thanks to the Mercator Projection, the NDP is a now a force to be reckoned with. Winning Skeena-Bulkley Valley, Western Arctic, AND Timmins-James Bay looks damned impressive on the electoral map - look at all that orange...

-So...who gets more attention? Conservative cabinet appointments or Liberal leadership prospects? This page can't remember seeing anyone change the game so dramatically by taking his ball and going home.

-Social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage will be slipping off the radar soon, as the Conservatives struggle to achieve minority rights of their own...