French lessons?
But what about all that time spent at the Sorbonne?
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'The Sound Of The Apocalypse Will Be Like...Final Jeopardy, But Somehow Ghostly.' I. Felice
Data guy, whose work I miss in the Vancouver Sun, Chad Skelton, has been tracking the rate of change in the close ridings in the BC Election so far. He presents a cogent case that none of the ridings where the NDP has a slight lead will flip Con. Conversely, he does think that Surrey Guildford, but not Kelowna Centre will change from blue to red....4.5 Stars.Speaking of the Vancouver Sun....Vaughn Palmer blames Sonia Furstenau for sticking by her principles and not playing footsie with John Rustad because, apparently, it will prevent her from gaining leverage over David Eby. What's worse, the Dean of the Legislative Press Gallery, with an assist from current BC Conservative supporter Andrew Weaver, blames Furstenau, who was not the leader at the time, for doing the same thing in 2017.... 0.5 Stars.It's very difficult for anyone who has been following election updates, even official Elections BC updates, on social media feeds not to notice that the whackaloons are already starting to bleat about voting machines, unreasonable delays, phone-assisted voting, 'late' votes and Brinks trucks, et cetera....Negative Eleventy Billion Stars.
BC Election Count Update....Early Sat Afternoon, October 26th...
So.
It looks like those mail-in ballots are swinging, hard, toward the NDP.
The two seats they were ahead by a whisker in, Juan de Luca and Surrey Centre, are now looking a little more comfortable (the former has gone from 20 ahead to 106 in the lead; the latter has gone from 96 ahead to 162).
That would leave things at Dipper 46, Con 45, Green 2 (you need 47 for a majority, plus you need a speaker which would make commenter Trailblazer's suggestion of one of the two Greeniacs becoming the speaker a realistic possibility).
But...
The gap has closed considerably in Surrey Guildford where the election night Con lead of 102 is now down to 14.
And, get this, Castanet is reporting that the relatively close Kelowna Centre (Con by 148 on election night) has 800+ mail-in & absentees still to count. If that flips orange....Well?
Next Elections BC update should come soon, maybe even later this afternoon...
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On Friday, the Washington Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, announced that the paper would no longer make endorsements for president—after its journalists had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The decision was made by Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner...
...If the worst case for the NDP happens next week and they lose two seats in the recounts, the NDP would fall to 44 (or 46 with Green support) and the Conservatives would bump up to 47 but because they would have to produce a Speaker they’d be back down to 46...
...(M)ost of the people who report on politics aren’t trying to advance an ideology. But I think they have an ideology, a belief system that holds their world together and tells them what to report about. It’s not left, or right, or center, really. It’s trickier than that. The name I’ve given to the ideology of our political press is savviness.
In politics, our journalists believe, it is better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere, thoughtful or humane. Savviness is what journalists admire in others. Savvy is what they themselves dearly wish to be. (And to be unsavvy is far worse than being wrong.)
Savviness is that quality of being shrewd, practical, hyper-informed, perceptive, ironic, “with it,” and unsentimental in all things political. And what is the truest mark of savviness? Winning, of course! Or knowing who the winners are...
G. Meggs: So, Kory was challenging BC United to die with dignity. On a scale of zero to ten how did he do?K. Hammer: (through the giggles) How much dignity was there?K. Teneycke: Zero being, you know, 'your corpse being dragged through the streets behind a chariot' and ten being 'a respectful funeral', I'll give him about a four.M. McDonald: That's generous.K. Teneycke: Ya. I don't know. Umm. Ya. It's ahh, it was ultimately, ahh, a made sort of action.
Taxpayers could be bailing out B.C. United for upwards of a million dollars for the severance owed to 25 of the party's caucus employees who are about to lose their jobs.The Official Opposition party brought the request to the Legislative Assembly Management Committee (LAMC) on Monday because it doesn't have enough money to cover the severances.A motion to "authorize" and "facilitate" the severance packages was passed by the committee after in-camera discussion. Committee member and government House leader Ravi Kahlon told CBC News the price tag will be over a million dollars...
...LAMC and Green Party member Adam Olsen said whatever money is left in B.C. United caucus and non-returning MLA constituency coffers will be used for the severances first. Only then will additional dollars from the legislative assembly budget kick in."This was [LAMC] doing our business and this was us recognizing that all this funding comes from the legislature anyway," said Olsen. "This is something Kevin Falcon probably should have dealt with before shutting down operations."...
Just before she passed away, in 2001, my Grandma E., who always liked to tell people, especially real doctors, that her grandson was also a 'doctor', asked me if I was ever going to finish going to school.At the time I'd already been holding down a 'real' academic job long enough that I also had tenure.Which meant that I was a lifer.So I smiled and told her no - I was going to go to school until I retired, maybe longer.Not sure what she thought about that...
...No government in Canada (Manitoba is still catching up after the recent 7 year rule of a f*cked up Conservative government very much like BC's own Conservatives) got us through the Covid years better. This is notable because emergencies are when governments are supposed to shine yet rarely do so.Despite the enormous challenges faced over the past four years our province has continued to excel. The outlook for housing, healthcare, the environment, community safety, employment, affordability and more all look promising. The Taylor Swift Free Press trusts David Eby to continue to fulfill that promise and deliver more of what British Columbians need in the next four years...