Tune in later this week for a completely serious cartoon about a totally serious topic for sober, reasoned discussion.
Meanwhile, here's something not to tell your Republican uncle who gets all worked up about imaginary aliens voting in U.S. elections: while searching through Canadian newspaper articles about the West Middlesex special election, I came across UFO vote totals.
The first references I found assumed that the paper's readership knew what the UFO was; I had to do a little searching to come up with the answer.
The United Farmers of Ontario Party (founded 1914, dissolved 1944) actually won enough seats in the Ontario Legislative Assembly to form a coalition government with the Independent Labour Party from 1919 to 1923. According to Wikipedia, "The UFO platform called for the abolition of political patronage, better educational opportunities in rural areas, cheap electric power, conservation of forests, proportional representation and "direct legislation". The UFO also favoured prohibition [passing it into Ontario law in 1919; prohibition was repealed in 1927] and budgetary restraint."
Its last member in the Ontario Legislative Assembly joined the Liberal Party in 1940, well after the UFO had become a spent political force.
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