The French, They Have A Different Word For Everything.

 

Link

French lessons?

But what about all that time spent at the Sorbonne?

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On A Sunday Morning Sidewalk...

Ain'tNoRoadsLikeScholarly

RhodesVille


A few notes for this weepy Sunday morning coming down...

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.

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Earworm at the top of the post?...This!

Want more on Mr. Kristofferson, including the genesis for his biggest hit?...This.

And why not just call the post the title of the song?....Because, Driftglass.



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Will The Orange Stay The New Green?

BC Election Count Update....Early Sat Afternoon, October 26th...

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Saturday at 4pm...Update at bottom of post

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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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Elections BC explains the process they are using - which should conclude Monday....Here.

Meanwhile...While we're still looking back at last week's election here in Lotusland, the good Doctor has gone east and is already working on the next one.

And, just in case you thought the 49th parallel was protecting us from such codswallop, Mr. Musk's algorithm is amplifying the braying of the whackaloons re: election rigging.

Update, 4pm Saturday Oct 26th...JDF, Dipper by 106...Surrey Centre, Dipper by 178...Surrey Guildford, Con now only up by 12...Kelowna Centre Con lead shrunk to 72...Elections BC says that mail-in ballot counting is continuing and the next update is scheduled for tomorrow/Sunday at 1pm.

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We Don't Need No Stinking Endorsements!

AmazonStateOfMind
NotTheRiverVille


From Sewell Chan, writing in the venerable Columbia Journalism Review yesterday:

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...

For the record, the same thing just happened at the Los Angeles Times.

Ian Bassin and Maximillian Potter, also writing in the CJR, have dubbed this type of cowardly hedging of bets as 'anticipatory obedience' from such titans of the US'ian (formerly) free press.

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Image at the top of the post...Extreme weather fuelled drought in the Amazon basin.


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This Speaker Thing...

It'sAll

InTheChairVille

So.

You've probably heard all the blurble and gurgle about this speaker thing on the TeeVee and in the public prints without having the situation actually spelled out in terms of the, you know, basic math of the thing.

Essentially, you need 47 plus 1 (for the speaker) to rule the province of British Columbia. So with the Dippers currently at 46, total,  they would still be fine if they made a deal with the 2 Greeniacs.

But if the Dippers lose one of the recounts going on in either Juan de Fuca (NDP up by 20*) or Surrey Centre (NDP up by 96), they would lose that majority and, to rule, would have to find Darryl Plecas 2.0 from the other side to act as speaker which could be tough given the vice grip of the Whackaloons on the Conservative party.

And then there is the 'worst case scenario', explained by Cindy Harnett in the Times Colonist with an assist from political scientist David Black:

...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...

Can you imagine any Dipper flipping in that worst case?

Me neither.

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*I assume that the JDF lead has shrunk from Saturday night's 23 to 20 today given that Elections BC is now indicating that the 100% of the ballot boxes (rather than Saturday night's 99.77%) have been reported.
Something else interesting from Ms. Harnett's piece is that she quotes Adam Olsen as saying that Sonia Furstenau can play any part she wishes to with the Greens moving forward...

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Is Orange The New Green...Again?

EveryVote

CountsVille

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Update: Monday morning...In the original post written Sunday morning below, I mention two ridings, Juan De Fuca (Dipper up by 23) and Surrey-Guildford (Con up by 102) where things could still change...I had missed one, Surrey Centre (Dipper up by 96)...That changes the analysis a little because, in the unlikely event that those two orange seats were to go Con we would be in real base-bent crazy town territory...I'm starting to hold my breath again.

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There are now 93 provincial ridings in British Columbia.

Which means that you need 47 to form government.

As you can see from the screenshot, taken this morning from the Elections BC website, the Dippers and the Cons both fall just short.

Which, of course, means that, if things stay the same, the Greens will hold the balance of power.

Of course, that was also the case in 2017 when John Horgan and Andrew Weaver made their deal that, in my opinion at least, gave us a pretty darned good government.

Could the same thing happen again?

Well, luckily, given his recent comments in support of the climate change denier Mr. Rustad, Mr. Weaver no longer leads the provincial Greens.

But the big question is - who will actually lead the Greeniacs going forward?

Will it be Sonia Furstenau, who lost her race, not in Cowichan, but instead in Beacon Hill?

It's going to be interesting to see what happens there, given the potential for both the power and the glory, not to mention good policy, down the road.

And it looks like the Greens and Mr. Eby might have a little time to sort things out because, as you can see from the image above there are still 0.23% of the votes to count. This small sliver represents out of district votes and mail-in ballots which, apparently, will take about a week to collect, collate and count.

Do those votes matter?

Potentially, yes, but it is unlikely.

By my reading the two ridings that could flip are Surrey-Guilford, where the Con is currently up by 102, and Juan de Fuca, where the Dipper is up by just 23.

So.

Let's say, worse case scenario, the Cons hold Surrey-G and the Dippers lose JDF...That would make it 46 Cons (not enough to win) vs. the Dippers 45 (enough to hold on if they make a deal with Greens to go to 47).

Thus, I for one am now able to exhale and almost relax while we wait for the final numbers to be posted by Elections BC next Saturday.

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One of the big surprises was the Greens winning handily in the fully vote split riding of West Van Sea-to-Sky...That, I think, is ironic given how the riding that GordCo's development bund built, may very well have saved us...Somewhere, I'm pretty sure the ghost of Rafe Mair has a little smile on his face this morning.

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This Band Could(n't) Be Their Life (Anymore)

MayAllTheirNickelsBe
DoubledVille

Those who stop by here once in awhile may know that I've been hooked on the music of Japandroids, the sometimes shambolic Lotuslandian duo, for quite awhile now.

The basis of the hooking is pretty straightforward, barb-free and clean.

I listen to their stuff and/or use my digital whiz-bang cheater amp to generate cheesy takes on their most iconic riff because doing such things makes me feel like a kid again.

And when I was a kid I always hated it when my favourite bands broke up - usually for the most squalid and/or saddest of reasons.

But now Brian King and David Prowse have just put out their latest album and simultaneously called it quits, the latter for the best of reasons.

Essentially, they both know that they have lives to live and that doing it with their band behind them is their best chance to do just that.

I'm not sure that I could have handled that explanation when I was twenty-five but now that I am (this very day to be precise) sixty-five, their decision makes me very, very happy indeed.

Selah.


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Earworm in the header?...This!

As for the Bookworm?...Well, begrudgingly due to the faintest whiff of the co-optation (that's the snotty 'No  Sellouts!' kid in me coming out again)...This!



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Doing That Thing You (Used To) Do...

NoHorseRace

NoSaneWashVille


From Marcy Wheeler's post on questions put to Mr. Trump by folks in the audience at a Unavision TeeVee Town Hall yesterday:

...Six minutes in, a man named Jorge Velázquez took the mic (after Trump offered a smarmy compliment him on his hair, which is the kind of beautiful thick mane that Trump covets). Velázquez described that he used to pick strawberries and broccoli and asked, if Trump deports everyone he wants, who will do that work and how much will food prices go up. ...

{snip}

...Trump immediately said he was the best thing to happen to farmers. He seemed to suggest he would bring back the bracero [temporary foreign worker] program (since Elon Musk has begun paying Trump’s bills, Trump has been pushing to greatly expand legal immigration). But he ultimately didn’t answer the question. It was an unresponsive answer to a question that every person who imagines themselves a journalist should be asking.

That wasn’t the only challenging question Trump dodged. After 25 minutes, José Saralegui asked Trump why he lied about the Haitians in Springfield. After 33 minutes, Ramiro González, a Republican who has dropped his registration in the party, invited Trump to win back his support by explaining his inaction on January 6. Trump not only offered the platitudes he always does, lied about his supporters bringing guns, and used the first person plural to align himself with the mob (which may end up being useful to Jack Smith), but he did not answer the question. By that point, a number of the viewers in the audience had a hostile body language to Trump. After 40 minutes, Jesús González asked Trump to explain his gun control policy to victims of school shootings. After 43 minutes, Carlos Aguilera asked Trump if he still considered climate change a hoax...

[stuff in square brackets, above, mine]


Gosh.

As Ms. Wheeler points out, aren't those the kinds of questions that actual journalists used to ask?



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Earworm in the header?....The Own Eee Ders!



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The Season For Training And Camping Is Now Officially Over.

WhenWestWas

EastVille


Given that this year's edition of the Canuckleheads appear, at least for the moment, to be playing like a brand new expansion team...




Wasn't that something?

And, despite the fact that he was only 34 at the time, isn't it amazing to realize that O. J. Kurtenbach still looks like he's your Dad in that video.

As for the big Irishman, Pat Quinn....Don't forget that he was at the time little more than a Maple Laff's cast-off who's main claim to fame was knocking Bobby Orr out cold with a vicious 'shelbow' in the 1969 playoffs.

Ahhhh...

The old days.

When the boards were clean and you could take the whole family, and maybe the kid down the street as well, to the game without skipping an entire mortgage payment.

Imagine that!

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My Afternoon Ride.

EastOfEden
AlmostSookeVille


We made the trip over to the People's Republic of South Van Isle, again, for Thanksgiving with eleventy billion running maniacs.

It was a full ferry on a flip-flop-infested Friday night. But all went smoothly.

Additionally, all went pretty much as well as it could go with our grown-up kids getting together with their cousins on both sides of the family, in shifts, through the weekend.

As for me, I took a bit of break Saturday afternoon and rode out to Matheson Lake.

The idyll was it, news on the dead tree page included.

Monday will be crazy times on the trip back across the Salish Sea I reckon.

Selah.

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No Official Role.

CircumentingThe

SixVille


Courtesy Marcy Wheeler, the following is the entire first paragraph from special prosecutor Jack Smith's (Anti) Immunity Brief in the case of The United States of America v. Donald Trump.

Very strong, straightforward language.

Essentially, Smith has cut out the White House/official business ties to make it clear that Mr. Trump acted culpably as a private person/candidate with 'no official role' in the election fraud case. 

This was necessary given the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling that US'ian Presidents are immune from prosecution when they engage in official acts.

Importantly, it was the (non-supreme) judge in the case who unsealed portions of Mr. Smith's brief in redacted form.

This could get most interesting as folks work to figure out who all the redacted co-conspirators are. Ms. Wheeler, who really, really pays attention to this stuff, has already thrown the first pitch in that particular name game.

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The Savvy Comes To Lotusland.

KierensLewisAndCamp
TheyAreMostDecidedlyNotVille


Jay Rosen, a media watcher down south, began to decry the emergence of 'The Cult Of Savviness' in the US'ian world of political journalism more than a decade ago:

...(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...

Well.

Just in case you missed it, the latest wave of the cult of the savvy has arrived in Lotusland.

It has washed up on our shores in the form of a podcast called 'Hotel Pacifico' that it is currently being hosted by a couple of old, apparently now out of the game but likely still very much plugged-in, pols from each side of the Lotuslandian political divide, Mike McDonald and Geoff Meggs. They are joined by former corpmedia journo turned Comms runner for one of Vancouver's biggest foundations, Kate Hammer.

I decided to give it a regular listen during the election campaign thinking I might learn something about what the two big sides are really about, what they really want to do, and how and why they are doing the things they are doing during the current campaign.

After all, these are insiders who know what's really what, right?

And, because they are no longer being reigned in by the bridle and bit of their political machines, they'll give us the straight goods and take a real chance by telling us what they really think, right?

Wrong.

Because, except for one interesting episode on battleground ridings with Richard Zussman, mostly notable for the zingers that Zussman hurled at McDonald for his past electoral campaign state(r)gies, it has pretty much been nothing but paper-thin wafers of minutiae wrapped around huge, glop-laden bangers stuffed to bursting with the savvy.

Which is fine, as far as it goes, I guess.

Until, of course, the savvy swells and swells until it finally explodes in everyone's faces to little apparent chagrin and, instead, much laughter.

Just like it did on Friday's episode with Kory Teneycke:

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.

Instead of actually asking the noted Conservative insider, Mr. Teneycke, what he meant when he said that the political killing of the Soccer Party was a  'made sort of action', and why, the local folks immediately made jokes about how it it was 'more like a murder' and that it 'was more like a pillow' that did the deed. This led the suddenly off-the-hook Teneycke to further joke that, because it happened in B.C., it was likely done with 'a giant syringe of opioids'.

Gosh.

With quips like that there is really no need for 'Air Quotes', eh?

Zero stars.


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Subheader ghost in the machine?....This!

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What, He Worry?

AllHisRowdy

FriendsVille


In case you missed it, it looks like Kevin Falcon's demolition of the B.C. Soccer Party is going to cost you and yours money.

The following is from a report by Karin Larsen published by the CBC last week before the writ came down:

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...

So.

Should the Mr. Falcon have foreseen this significant consequence of his action and built this expense into the deal he made with the honourable Mr. Rustad?

Of course he should have:

...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."...

And, even if Mr. Rustad had not ponied up, it's not like Mr. Falcon does not have friends with deep pockets.

After all, he once raised big money, in just one night, for that noted paragon of good sense and good government that I'm sure all of those former Soccer Party centrist voters could get behind, Maxime Bernier.


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And don't get me wrong...These folks, some of whom apparently worked for the previous iteration of the Soccer Party for as much as two decades, should receive their severance...It's just somewhat surprising that Mr. Falcon seems not to have thought of/taken care of these long term loyalists before he pushed the self-destruct button.


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Sunday Set...Harvest, With Or Without Moon.

HeirOfThe
LoomsVille

I wrote this awhile back:

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...

The point?

Well, September, and the start of school, is always the real New Year for me.

And this particular New Year has been an extra busy one as I've picked up an extra course this term. Of course that has threatened to cut into time spent in the lab but  I've done my best to make sure it doesn't which means, well, time.

Of course, September is also harvest time, as the image at the top of the post, which is just a small portion of C's tomato bounty this year.

Which brings us to this month's Sunday Set.

It consists of a couple of tunes from Uncle Neil, one from Alex Chilton and Chris Bell (it's not the one with September in the title), and a wee bit of Gord's Gold just to make sure we keep up with can-con-on-the-interwebz bonafides.

Why that last one from Mr. Lightfoot, really?

Because the cold winds of November will be here soon enough.

OK?

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My Dad always hated the start of school when he was a kid because it ruined the party...His birthday is September 4th.

And, for the record, I'm not a real doctor...Also, I never force the kids I work with to use that moniker...It's dumb, especially given that everything I learned about teaching I actually learned while working at summer camp...As for the other stuff?...Well, just like a decent welder, auto-mechanic, or tugboat driver, I had a good long apprenticeship that has served me well.


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I Read The News Today, Oh Boy...

WritDropping
TimeVille

...And decided to go read Mr.  Dr. Beer 'N Hockey instead:

...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...

Fire away!


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Today's ear worm in the sub-header is a bit of stretch, although it does have tangential relevance to one of our most difficult problems that will not be solved by throwing harm reduction out with the bath water...Beer, as is his want, goes for something a little more traditional from the Bard of Barking.

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