My Morning (Plane) Ride.

There'sNoCigarTube
LikeARedEyedCigarTubeVille


Had to go east for science geek business tomorrow.

So I took the Red-Eye 12 hours early, landed at Dorval at 7:30 in the morning...took the '747' bus into downtown Montreal and climbed the hill up past the Royal Vic and the MNI to see Bigger E. on her last weekend in residence.

It was a madhouse.

And melancholy in the extreme - at least for me. The kids themselves seemed to be pretty alright with it.

E. took me for a walk over to 'The Plateau' which is a hipster zone just Northeast of campus where she will be living with a bunch of kids next year in a chunk of kinda/sorta brownstone not far from the bright lights and happening scenes of St. Laurent.

Best of all though, we walked over to a little park with a bandstand with a chicken on top...Something to do with the history of the area apparently, and we played.

Not too long, and not too loud, but king-heckfire nice nonetheless.

Then we walked back to the residences, in through the backdoor past the Tam-Tams.

I helped her start packing (barely), and then left her to say real good-byes to all her new friends.

It really is a crazy, mixed-up world we live in.


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Typing this out on the train to OttaWash....I highly recommend it...The train I mean....Ottawa, not so much (although that's only because it always means the worst kind of grant review nightmare work for me)...And for the record, I'm actually saving the folks I'm working for money...Flight cheaper to Dorval; Train on my dime, upfront...So don't be goin' fittin' me for no BOdaHorns, OK?

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What's That You Say...Both Sides Don't Do It?

OpEdsStillMatter
WhenPunditsSpeakTheTruthVille

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Update: For those of you arriving from the Driftier one's place....I know he's written at least a 1000 posts on this very topic over the last 5 or 7 years...That's why I cued him up at the bottom in the original post...OK?

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Jay Rosen, the PressThink guy, is calling Thomas E. Mann and Norman Ornstein's recent piece in the WaPo 'The most important (American) OpEd since Joseph Wilson explained what he didn't find in Africa'.

Why?

Because it essentially comes clean on an essential myth of mass media life that is killing America's body politic.

And that is the myth that 'both sides do it'.

Essentially, Mann and Ornstein come right out and say it.

It is Republicans that do it and do it and do it and do it.

And do it.

And what they are doing and keep doing, with the help of their enablers, is screw the American people over (and over and over and over again).

Here's a slice or five:

...The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.....


{snippety doo-dah}


...“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach....


{snippety doodle-dandy}


...Today, thanks to the GOP, compromise has gone out the window in Washington. In the first two years of the Obama administration, nearly every presidential initiative met with vehement, rancorous and unanimous Republican opposition in the House and the Senate, followed by efforts to delegitimize the results and repeal the policies...


{snippety doodle-dandier}


...In the third and now fourth years of the Obama presidency, divided government has produced something closer to complete gridlock than we have ever seen in our time in Washington, with partisan divides even leading last year to America’s first credit downgrade.


On financial stabilization and economic recovery, on deficits and debt, on climate change and health-care reform, Republicans have been the force behind the widening ideological gaps and the strategic use of partisanship. In the presidential campaign and in Congress, GOP leaders have embraced fanciful policies on taxes and spending, kowtowing to their party’s most strident voices...


{snippety doodle-dandiest}


...The results can border on the absurd: In early 2009, several of the eight Republican co-sponsors of a bipartisan health-care reform plan dropped their support; by early 2010, the others had turned on their own proposal so that there would be zero GOP backing for any bill that came within a mile of Obama’s reform initiative....



It's important stuff.

So.

How to fix the problem?

Simple:

"...We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality...

...Our advice to the press: Don’t seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?..."

Or, put another way, call demonstrable falsehoods precisely what they are.

Everytime.

OK?





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Wrote this while listening to ESolomon talk about the evisceration of Kevin Page by his (own?) government on the longwave for calling demonstrable falsehoods precisely what they are...Do not for one second think that we are not heading down our own GOP scorched-earth-Northern branch-plant road right now...After all, we live in a country where Grover Norquist and George Bush The Younger are actually one and the same personna ruling over us...Lawrence Martin takes a little stroll down this road, here...
And just in case you have forgotten how powerful (and important) it was.... Joe Wilson's 2003 'Dick Cheney in yellow-cake face' piece is here.
Oh, and cue Driftglass, soon, I reckon....


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Nevermind The Frame...$500K Is $500K

AllTheShillingThatFits
ResearchSupportVille


Great bit of investigative digging by Alexis Stoymenoff in the Vancouver Observer wherein she used American tax returns to determine that the Koch Brothers gave $500,000 to the Fraser Institute over the last few years. 

Now.

Look.

I don't give a crap about all these false frames that have been put around things like 'lobbying', 'political activism', 'research', 'education'  by the projectionists recently.

Because the important thing here is that a group of Americans is backing the Fraser Institute, which acts to move public opinion in Canada on a whole lotta levels, with big money.

And that information is all that really matters.

OK?

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RoboCalls Revisited: What If They Knew They Would Be Found Out...

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...And Didn't Care?

As is often the case, mostly because she digs and sifts and analyzes the public record with real depth and effort, it is hard to disagree with Alison at Creekside.

This time it's her bottom line opinion on the EKOS poll commissioned for the Council of Canadians that I'd like to comment on, which is:

"...(I)f the EKOS poll is accurate, then up to 15% of the vote in those seven closest vote margin ridings -some 50,000 people - received phone calls deliberately intended to suppress the non-Steve vote...."

Now.

Here's the thing.

If it really was 50,000 in those seven ridings and say, 50,000 more in a bunch of other ridings, it's hard for me to imagine that it wasn't a concerted, coordinated effort.

Right?

But here's something else to consider.

If tens of thousands of Canadian citizens received fraudulent calls bent on targeted voter suppression, which, to be absolutely clear here, are very, very different than calls telling telling people not to vote for a certain candidate because their uncle's cousin's son-in-law eats babies, or worse....

...Could the members of the mythical group behind such a concerted effort have actually been thinking that this stuff would not come out in the wash post-election suppression?

And, further, if members of the mythical group knew it likely would come out, does that mean that those who allegedly committed voter fraud on a massive scale, with malice aforethought, did so knowing that any slap on the wrist-type consequence would just be the cost of doing business?

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Our Morning Ride

There'sNoGradeLike
SeventhGradeVille


I remember my last days of Grade 7 like they were yesterday.

Which is neither here nor there.

More interestingly, when I think of how I thought then I'm amazed by how much I was pretty much fully formed by the age of 12.

Not in terms of the physical.

But in terms of inner voice stuff and all that.

****

Littler e. is in the last of her Grade 7 days right now.

We rode across town under the last of the most spectacular of the pink blossoms this morning.

It's hard for me to think of her as fully formed in any way.

After all, there is still so much to come.

+28, 597

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And If We Had An NRA In Canada....

...Would The (not)Premier Support Them To?

From the Comox Valley Record, under Scott Stanfield's byline:

BC Wildlife Federation delegates in Courtney hear premier support hunting.....



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What's that you say?... The Canadian branch plant  the NRA's lobbying arm, the 'Institute for Legislative Action', has been very active North of the 49th parallel?....Say it ain't so....

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Stay Christy, Stay! (v6.0)

TheCoalitionOfTheShilling
NotSoFreeEnterpriseVille


Of course the (not)Premier can turn it all around.

Especially if people would just stop complaining about trivial stuff like cronyism and incompetence and the shredding of the social safety net for no economically advantageous reason at all.

Oh, ya.

And the HST.

Which is why we are so happy to see big Rich Coleman out on the shilling floor. Dan Burritt and John Ackerman have a pretty good longform story up on the matter at the  WX1130 website:

...Housing Minister and Langley-Aldergrove MLA Rich Colemansays even though some leaders within the BC Conservatives have said "no" to advances from Liberal power-brokers to come into what has been called the "coalition tent," there are some who are open to joining the Liberals to try to cement the centre-right vote ahead of the May 2013 election.

"[The ones that I've spoken to] recognize now [that] the conversation was cordial and really basic," says Coleman. "What it came down to [is that] we recognize if we all look at the results [of the recent by-elections], particularly in Chilliwack, that we need to have a conversation on how we can bring this thing together."

"I never got any re-buffing from anybody I spoke to," Coleman adds. "I've spoken to a number of folks who are all interested in sitting down and chatting and looking at how we can make sure we build this thing for the future with the centre-right coalition."...

Vive Le Coalition!


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Meanwhile, in real government news of stuff that actually matters, Big Rich says the Boss Power payout of millions that could have been used to build stuff or fund stuff was due to 'internal advice' that was all the NDP's fault in 1995....Or some such thing.

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The Meme That Took Me For A Ride...

MisunderstandingThroughTooMuchUnderstanding
DamnYouTwitterVille


So.

Because I was sitting in the barbershop yesterday afternoon, I turned on the Twit thing and used if for more than chasing news for awhile.

And darned if @RobCottingham didn't suck me right in.

With something about Watson and Crick being as awestruck by their discovery of the Double-Helix as was that Yosemite Bear guy by his discovery of a Double-Rainbow in the sky.

And being the approximately 32.35875% pedant that I am, I couldn't stop myself from pointing out to Mr. Cottingham that Franny and Jimmy were over-the-moon precisely because they fully understood the significance of the perfect, stackable basepairs coiled into a DNA molecule's double-stranded phosphate-backboned rope ladder. In constrast, Hungry Bear was over-the-rainbow precisely because he kept wondering what his double-strand 'Really, really means?' man.

Which, of course, was very different than young Johnny Lydon et al. really meanin' it man when they dissed the Queen about halfway back back down the time tunnel towards 1953.

****

And, now.....

This is the part where we eschew things multimedia and go right to the small, fire-hardened golden nugget of the thing.

And to do that all you really have to do is have a look at Watson and Crick's original paper in Nature.

Which, itself, is a thing of beauty and elegance that changed the study of life forever in just one single printed page.

And as for that bit about them being awestruck?

Well, it comes in just one sentence of pure, unadulterated understatement right near the end that goes like this:

"It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material."

Incredible that, really, because in that single sentence they are saying that they realize that the double-stranded structure of the rope ladder means that when you unwind it and rip it open down the center you can make two identical new rope ladders based on the precise nature of the basepairing/rungs in the ladder. And therein lies the secret of heredity, from Mendel to Kary Mullis' midnight polymerase chain reaction run through the Santa Cruz Mountains.


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Interestingly, Linus Pauling who tried to solve the structure before Watson and Crick, had it all wrong....He figured there were three strands of rope, which made no sense at all....Then again, Pauling didn't get to go to King's College London to see Rosalind Franklin's X-Ray Specs photo 51 (yes, 51!) that was the actual experimental backing for the symmetry of the double helix....But here's the real thing, it wasn't Franklin who showed Watson her unpublished photo.....And thus, in the end, she was scooped by her own data....Which was a real shame...Especially when Crick and Watson didn't make that very, very (as in explicitly) clear subsequently.

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The Canadian Currency Conspiracy

PeaceOrderAndGooderGovernment
UniversalHealthinessVille


Apparently, Mr. Colbert is on to us.

My Morning Ride.

Hey! Where'd Those Mountains Go?

(looking North, down Cambie)

I thought the era of thievery by the Cronies of the Golden Gord was over.

Or.

Did the Port Authority have them reduced to rubble to fill in the harbour?

+26/530

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Calling Dark Dungeons Glittering Castles, And Really Meaning It

AllTheWishesThatBecame
MagnificentWildHorsesRidingVille


When my two kids and I started our busking project awhile back we didn't know what the heckfire we were doing.

Or why.

And for some reason one of John Darnielle's songs became one of our early favourites. And it it still lives, especially, apparently, on the island fortress of Formosa.

Imagine that.

Anyway....

Darnielle is getting ready to go out on a solo tour, sans the Mountain Goats.

First he'll take Australia.

And then the Rio.

I think I'll get a drink.

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Ronnie Wood's Mum Can't Always Get What She Wants...

...But If She Tries Sometimes, She Just Might Find

...She gets what she needs!

....errrrr

Deserves.

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What's The Frequency Kenneth?

PhysicsFor(Not)Dummies

PublicSchoolVille

Well, well, well.

Whadd'ya know.

When it comes to performance in first year University Physics at least, it looks like a public school education beats a private school education, hands-down in the wave pool.

Kate Hammer had the story in yesterday's Globe. Here's her doppler effect(ive) lede:

A new study is raising questions about the information parents commonly use to chose a school for their children, especially in provinces like Alberta and British Columbia, where families commonly shop around for an education.

The authors looked at the academic performance of more than 4,500 students in a first-year physics class at the University of British Columbia between 2002 and 2006. They found that those who had graduated from public schools in the Metro Vancouver area outperformed their peers arriving from private schools and school districts in more remote parts of the province.

The findings, which were published last week in the International Journal of Science Education, contradict some commonly held beliefs, including that independent (i.e. private) schools give students an academic head start while those in low-income urban schools fall behind.....

So.....

The Fraser Institute's solution?

Don't know for sure, but if, suddenly they came out with the following missive to 'level' the playing field for all those poor kids at private schools with the not-so-poor-parents that fill the FI's coffers every year I, for one, would not be surprised:

"Privatize all the Universities!"

Ha!

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Then again, maybe I shouldn't be giving them any ideas....

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You Want A Blueman Group With That Funke?

CrossComedy

InterestingAndFunnyVille

For those who dug David Cross as Tobias Funke in Arrested Development.

Or those who were fans of Mr. Show.

Or those who just like to hear interesting people converse about both their craft and their real, real lives, Marc Maron's longform conversation with Mr. Cross is well worth the listen.

It's here.

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Why, Exactly, Is Ronnie Wood's Mum Working For...

....Stephen Harper?

Start her up, indeed.

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Is The (not)Premier's 'Grove' Good Prop?

There'sNoGrowthLike

FirstGrowthVille

It's an interesting idea from the 'Ancient Forest Alliance'.

Specifically, they are trying to flip propaganda on its head and use it to accomplish tangible good.

Here's the short version of the story:

...“We’re hoping that Christy Clark won’t let the Christy Clark Grove get cut down, and will show some leadership by creating a plan to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests,” stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance photographer and campaigner, and discoverer of the Christy Clark Grove.“Already 75% of Vancouver Island’s productive old-growth forests have been logged, including 90% of the biggest trees in the valley bottoms. Why go to the end of an ecosystem when there is an extensive second-growth alternative now to sustain the forest industry?”

The newly found grove is on unprotected public (Crown) lands not far from the town of Port Renfrew in the Gordon River Valley on southern Vancouver Island, just a half an hour drive from the famous Avatar Grove that was recently protected due to public pressure....

Clearly, the story is working to some degree given the amount of proMedia spin it has managed to wurlitzer up on pretty short order.

But here's something I was wondering, which is a slightly different spin-free version of a tangentially similar political conundrum....

Does a time ever come for a sitting politician when they see they writing on the wall and just start doing the right thing, regardless?

****

I put this question to someone who was once in the game, and whose opinion I trust....

And guess what....

They pretty much laughed at the fact that I was even naive enough to ask the question.

Why?

Well, as near as I can figure it, it would appear that, based on the way the game actually works these days, those who who self-select to play it are physically incapable of even attempting to reduce the political expediency variable to zero.

Or, put another way, those who insist on trying to ignore politically expediency, not to mention ideological rigidity, are soon drummed out of the sport.

Or they quit at the first available opportunity.

That is not a good thing.

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And despite the positives I can see in the AFA's attempts to use propaganda for good I do not approve.....Sure, they might do something tangible in this specific case, and that is good....But...What if this allows the (not)Premier to use this as green cover to, say, frack up a storm in the Peace River Valley?....In otherwords, in my opinion, there is no-prop that is good-prop...

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You Want A Little Conscience With Those Wild Dogwood Party Rights?

ThereIsNoRightLikeTheWayWayWayWayFarthestGone

RightVille

I have a confession to make.

For a while there I had great difficulty figuring out what the real endgame for the FedCons was in the provincial politics of British Columbia.

More specifically, I couldn't figure out why they have operatives working for both the right-sided BC Liberals and the farther-right BC Conservatives.

Then a sharp anonymous commenter gave me a good, stiff smack up the side of the head when they explained that the real FCon game is total political war at all times on all electoral battlefields, oil-soaked or otherwise.

And once one battle is won the FCon foot-soldiers push on, ever rightward, in an effort to incrementally yank the sleepy middle to a place where things like 'Conscience Rights' start to look reasonable or, at the very least, inevitable.

You want evidence that trying on thoughts such as these is something more useful than aimless tinfoil hatting in front of the funhouse mirror?

Well, look who is running the Lake O' Fire campaign of the photogenic bamboozler in Alberta.

Surprise!

...When the writ (in Alberta) dropped, the Wildrose campaign, led by ex-Harper adviser Tom Flanagan, grabbed the initiative, rolling out tight, succinct promises day after day: balanced budgets, health-care guarantees and direct cash rebates from oil and gas surpluses.

The party took an early lead in the opinion surveys but as the campaign wound down, slid back over concern with its social conservative policies.

The Christian right has always been a part of the recombinant DNA of the Wildrose — as it had been for the Tories — giving it oxygen but at the same time threatening to strangle any bid to build a big tent party...

So there you have it.

Right-on-right.....

Which doesn't matter as long as the endgame is farther.

As in farther right.

OK?

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Pooh-poohing the possibility of conscience rights ever coming to enlightened Lotusland? Think again...Because the thin, shiny edge of the shiv is already in.

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This Is What Double-Speak Looks Like

MuzzleWhatMuzzle?

2+2=5Ville

The following is an E-Mail that was sent to Environment Canada scientists on the eve of a big conference on the environment where said scientists will present data and then state their conclusions based on those data.

Allegedly.

The Email was leaked to Postmedia:

"Good morning,

You are one of approximately fifty EC specialists that have been identified as participating in the final International Polar Year conference. Media will be present, and all presentations are open to media. Media interest in EC science is expected.

If you are approached by the media, ask them for their business card and tell them that you will get back to them with a time for interview. Send a message to your media relations contact with the media contact information and they will organize the interview. They will most probably be with you during the interview to assist and record. For anything outside of your area of expertise, including other research or policy issues, refer the journalist to the media relations contact.

Once your interview is completed, please provide a recording to Media Relations. If a recording is unavailable, you can complete a media interview form and submit to Media Relations.

Enjoy the conference!"

Which begs the question.....If the ice were to disappear from the poles tomorrow, would it be denied until the story was vetted by 'Communications Directors'?

More background in Margaret Munro's PMedia story, here.

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Late Night In The Land-O'-Crazy...

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....Guns Don't Kill People; Heart-Attack Guns Do!

Apparently, that is the meme rolling round 'n round in the round corners of the minds of many of the screamers who must find the unreal in the real explanation for Mr. Andrew Brietbart's passing.

T'Bogg trolls the depths to bring back the story.

It is scary, funny, ha-ha, not to mention deeply sad, all at the same time.

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Sub-Header courtesy of 'Spaghetti Lee', commenter #25 at Mr. Bogg's place.

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Big Game Five Goals For Canuckleheads

AllTheOvertimesThatFit

DownThree-To-OneVille

April 1994....Overtime in Game 5 down 3-1 to the Flames....It was a goal that sent the Canucks on their big run towards the Big Apple.

And it was scored by a never-drafted sign-and-follow who ended up playing more than 1000 games in the NHL while scoring all kinds of big goals for a whole whack of teams along the way.

Interestingly though, despite being forced to leave the game because of multiple concussions, Geoff Courtnall's biggest battles came both before and after his NHL career.

And no, those battles had nothing whatsoever to do with almost being forced to wear Cooperall's while playing for his hometown Victoria Cougars as an over-aged junior in 1982.

Surpisingly (or maybe not), Lindsay Kines had that story not long ago too.

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Northern Gateway: Is Snooki A Silent Sock Puppet?

AllTheStraussianFootShouldersThatFit

(not)PremierVille

Dave of The Galloping Beaver, leaning heavily on the good work of others in the Lotuslandian Bloggodome and the fine public service words of Robyn Allan, thinks that is indeed the case:

...Since the signing away of the rights of the citizens of the Province of British Columbia, Stephen Harper and Joe Oliver have labeled First Nations and activists opposed to the project(s) as terrorists, unpatriotic and only stopped short of declaring them treasonous...

{snippety doo-dah}

...Christy Clark has been telling us that she won't have a BC government position on the Northern Gateway project until the JRP completes its work. Even she knows that by then it will be far too late.

All of this provides an even better explanation as to the sudden influx of Harper operatives into the inner circle of the office of the BC Premier, and why Christy Clark's chief-of-staff is a former Enbridge lobbyist...

And now that her job as a quisling is done, she is being Hochsteined, big time.

And there is a reason why Harper operatives are also simultaneously working for The Curmudgeon, right?

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Laila has more on Ms. Allan's letter, here...

And Grant G. gets to the heart of the matter, which takes things right back to Mr. Gordon Campbell, here...

And whadd'ya know, Mr. Holman's rabble-rousers are suddenly talking about a coup....And a note to Charlie Smith...Good point about what Walkerton did to the Harris Gov't in Ontario, but times and, especially, total media domination have changed...Case in point.....Did Listeriosis bring down the Harper minority government?

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Saturday Night's Alright For (Uke) Cover Fighting!

There'sNoUke

LikeCoverUkeVille

First, the Original, by a bunch of weirdo Philly Cheesy-Staked originals...

Next the Uke Cover, mostly because the re-worked arrangement is pure 'lele:

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The DeadMilkmen have a helluva backstory, worth reading, here...

And for you aficionados out there (and if you aren't already, how come?) here's a bonus solo acoustic version by Joe Jack Talcum, with harmonica!

As always, the Uke Peg Head image at the top of the post is courtesy of Los Angelino Photo-Maven Ellen Bloom.

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The Wicked Witch Of The West Wants In Says...

..."Come To Me, My Pretties!"

Shorter Ken Boessenkool To BC Conservatives

There are a whole lotta stories out there on all the backroomin' and wheelin' and dealin' that has been goin' down 'round here since the Bye-Byes in an effort to bring the lunatic fringe, which has been safely parked with the Curmudgeon for a while now, back into the slightly smelly free-enterprise big tent whose lease is, apparently, safely hidden in an old marmite jar behind the manure pile out in Paddy the K's back stable.

In our opinion Rob Shaw's pieces, including those at his VT-C blog, have been the best. The following is from his wrap-around story today:

....Premier Christy Clark's chief of staff, (former Alberta Firewaller and Stephen Harper strategist) Ken Boessenkool, started phoning Conservative organizers Friday in an attempt to open discussions between the two parties...


{snippety doo-dah}


...Conservative party deputy campaign manager Jeff Bridge said Boessenkool asked him during a phone call Friday if changing the B.C. Liberal Party name would help the two parties work together. Boessenkool also said changing the Liberal party leadership isn't up for negotiation, said Bridge.


"That's what they want is to join together and not split the vote," said Bridge. "But the fact is, and I said this, we're on the way up and you're on the way down.


"He said, 'Well, what if we change the name of the party?' I said, 'That doesn't change the name of the players.' "...

But here's the thing.

Dipper Gwen O'Mahony garnered 41% of the vote in Wacky-Hope.

Forty-One percent.

In the Fundie-Belt.

And Mr. Trassolini was well above 50% in the former BC Liberal stronghold of PoMoCo.

So.

Just keep on keepin' on tellin' yourselves (and your watercarriers) all these fictional tales about how a cold-fusion will save you Lib-Cons....

Meanwhile, what does the Snook herself have to say?

Well, according to Mr. Shaw, it is the following:

"I don't think people want to see politicians cooking up deals behind closed doors"

Ha!

_____

Please note, no 'g's' were harmed despite their bein' repeatedly dropped in this post, on purpose.

Next up....What 'conscience rights' would mean at the pharmacist's counter 'round here if the Wicked Witches win their ultimate long game and we go full on Wild Dogwood Party here in British Columbia.

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Lindsay Kines: This Is What Public Service Journalism Looks Like.

ThePowerOfThePress

NoWretchingOnTheseInkStainsVille

The work of Mr. Kines, in the Victoria Times-Colonist, has been nominated for a Michener Award because:

...The Times Colonist in Victoria used its resources and expertise to expose a stealth policy by the B.C. government that forced people with developmental disabilities to move from group homes to cheaper accommodation. The newspaper’s sustained campaign – featuring many personal stories of developmentally disabled individuals and their families struggling with government cutbacks – spoke for the powerless and the voiceless. The coverage forced the province to change course and commit $40 million to improve services, demote the minister of social development and announce policy changes. As well, the CEO of Community Living BC resigned and an internal audit of its operations were ordered....

And, just in case you are not entirely familiar with them, the following are the criteria for being nominated:

...The Michener Awards Foundation honours, celebrates and promotes excellence in Canadian public service journalism.....Entries are judged particularly for their professionalism, their impact on the public, and the degree of arms-length public benefit that is generated....

****

Now, just in case you have forgotten, when Mr. Kines and other folks at the VT-C first started exposing the fact that the BC Liberal Government's 'Community Living British Columbia' was throwing our most vulnerable citizens out on the street for no good reason at all, the leader of said party, Ms. Christy Clark, accused the Opposition of playing 'games' when they raised this issue in the people's house.

Families first?

_______

Need a little more background and/or a memory jog?...You can find it here...

The accordion player extraordinare has much more....

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Ron Obvious Pulls The Birdman Out Of His Hat.

AllTheChichesterCathedralsThatFit

JumpingTheChannelSharksVille

From Mr. Mason's latest, a clutch of chalky post-bye-bye pearls:

"...(T)he Conservatives have no interest in joining forces in any party that is led by Premier Christy Clark – someone they see as a big-L Liberal. And that could end up being the deal breaker in any talks that take place.

If, under some set of unforeseen circumstances, Ms. Clark stepped down to allow someone else to lead a newly constituted coalition, then the Conservatives might be interested. And the name I hear on that front is Kevin Falcon – grassroots conservatives could live with him as the head of a new coalition...."

Gosh.

Where have we heard that before?

****

Of course, as is his M.O., the almost always obvious Mr. Mason immediately changed course to give himself room to back-peddle into a safety touch if needed:

"...But that is extremely unlikely to happen. Ms. Clark has stated her intention of being the leader of any newly named, newly constituted centre-right alliance. And who could blame her? There are any number of things that could happen between now and next year’s election call that could upset the current political dynamics in the province..."

Sheesh.

______

More on the original return of Mr. Obvious, here....

More on the original Birdman hypothesis, here...

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Bye-Bye Analysis Going Down....Mr. Willcocks Crunches Real Numbers Real Hard

There'sNoUnderdogLikeA(n)

HonduranHockeyUnderdogVille

Really good stuff from Mr. Willcocks looking at things from a whole lot of angles.

The following is just one of those angles, and it's an important one, but probably too 'difficult' for most of the puffed-up pro-punditry to explain to the great Lotuslandian unwashed:

...(T)he results confirm the Liberals' problems are much deeper than a split in the non-NDP vote. Look at those numbers in the first paragraph above. Liberals support dropped by 5,490 votes; Conservative support only increased by 2,350 votes. Some people who voted Liberal in 2009 voted NDP; many more just stayed home. One of the fallacies in the argument that making the Conservatives go away would solve the Liberals' problems is that Conservative support would all migrate to the Liberals. Many Conservative voters would not vote at all, based on these results...

Go read it all. It's free, and there is no paywall.

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However, if you are so inclined, you could help Mr. Willcocks and his partner the accordion wizard do the good stuff they are doing down in Latin America by visiting them here....

Subheader?...Blame it on Mr. Beer 'N Hockey...

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Flashmaster Mash-Up.

AllTheInanitiesThatFit

MoCoGoin'DownVille

Pretty much verbatim Rick Cluff on CBC Radio One this morning

"All of a sudden the Conservatives are not the Liberals allies on the right."

Ya think.

Really?

Sheesh.

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And why, exactly, was the Pumice Stone Pundit, Les Leyne, filling in for the Ceeb's traffic reporter, Stephen Smart, on the show this morning...Is it possible that, like the Premier, Mr. Smart was given his marching orders by certain parties to stay out of the media's glare this morning?

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Bye-Byes Goin' Down...Polls Are Now Closed

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Thursday Night, 10pm Closin'-Up Shop Update....Dippers Win Two!....Trassolini crushes in PoMoCo...O'Mahony wins historic WackyHope seat for NDP...Party of the Curmudgeon finishes third in both (although respectable 25% the latter riding)....Stay Christy, Stay!

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8:07pm...The Dean reports that John Cummins says they are expecting a 'strong second' in C'Wack-Hope...Expectations lowerin' going down?

8:08pm...Keith Baldrey comin' on..Hang on a second while I turn my radio off for a moment...

8:09pm...Bill Tieleman posts up a little 'night of the long knives' pre-results foment...

8:11pm...The Dean invokes John Reynolds to make the case for post-disaster 'merger' talks...Baldrey pipes up (arrggghhhh...he's back! thought he was off in smartphone la-la land for good) and pooh-poohs all by saying these things 'take a long time' to play out...

8:18pm....VSun's JFowlie asks how often he can hit 'refresh' on his browser....We reckon he is referring to the so-far results-free Elections BC C'Wack-Hope site...

8:22pm...Early returns in PoMoCo...4/132 polls - nouveauDipper Trassolini stomping...

8:25pm...First two polls (of 126) in CWackHope in....Dipper O'Mahony in lead...Straight split Lib-Con...Really, really geography-dependent in that riding I reckon (Dipper support rises as you move East towards labour-centric Hope apparently)...

8:29pm....7/132 in PoMoCo....Trassolini still stompin with 2/3 of votes so far...Faux Christ(y)ine Clarke Con candidate a joke-like distant third (as expected by anyone who has been even remotely paying attention)...And why, exactly, does Joe T. sound so much like this guy on the radio?....

8:32pm....7/126 in CWackHope....It's a Forum/AReid-ish split...45 Dipper....29/25 Lib-Con...

8:35pm...Former GordCo man-about town Mike Morton comes on 'NW to slather a little more lipstick on the pig just as number of C'WackHope polls reporting double-up with Dipper pulling further ahead...

8:39pm....The Boys from Spam-A-Lot are now reporting CWackHope as 'Dipper v. Combined Lib-Con' vote...In WackyHope?....Are you joking me?...

8:41pm...Sean Leslie on 'NW now plays the add-em-up game now too...Guess he has the Spammers on his Twit-mobile...Meanwhile, amazing to me that the waterheads not considering the geographic effect in that riding...Are they just reading the numbers, straight-up, off the ECBC website...

8:45pm...For those playing the 'add up the Lib-Con aggregate' game in WackyHope, they may wish to remember that the very same Dipper lost with 33% in 2009, which means that she's up by about 12% at the moment....LibCons now dead-split there...Must have been closer-in polls in that last chunk as things tightened a little...

8:51pm...Joe T. effect shrinking in PoMoCo...He's down to 50%...Still way ahead but that means there must have been some complete flips in those last polls...I don't know enough about that area to know what it means in the slice 'n dice demo game...But you can bet that the (not)Premier sure as heckfire does...Wonder if she's reaching inside that wastebin lookin' for SMills' old darts right about now?

8:55pm...Poor Laura Baziuk, NW's gal in PoMoCo...She's at least half-an-hour behind as she gets lost in the Joe T. big crowd...

8:55pm...Dipper O'Mahony dips a little more with 49/126 polls reporting in WackyHope...Down to 42%...

9:02pm...Pundit/Reporter Uncle Bob Mackin, who is not part of 'The Club' and who was recently published somewhere grey, where even the Dean has never had his stuff seriously sniffed at, just Tweeted the following, "Those who spew vote-splitting argument assume Cons would've voted for Libs. Assumptions not always reality."....

9:05pm....Dipper O'Mahony now below 42 and LINO Throness at 31% with 58/16 polls...Geographic stuff interesting...Wonder if those late ballot boxes will be the far-flung reaches of the riding that should lean Dipper...Waterheads have nothing to say of significance...

9:09pm...Go ahead LINO party lipstick-on-pig smearers, feel free to play the Lib-Con add-up game in PoMoCo...It is over there...Only question is how much Joe T. will be above 50 at the end...

9:12pm...Absolutely no numbers available on turnout yet...But looking at the aggregates with more than half the polls reporting in both ridings it looks pretty low...

9:15pm...How often will we hear John Reynolds speak in Hochstein-like tongues during the coming days and weeks?

9:16pm...75 of 126 polls in CWackHope...Dipper O'Mahony back up above 42%...It's over?...Dipper win?...NW's S. Woodward called it, based on nothing more (he said) than sidewalk exit poll conversations earlier today...But why should anybody talk to him further when you've got Ledgie Boys who put themselves out by travelling all the way out to the 'Wack on a rainy Thursday night...Or some such thing...Leslie quips that Woodward will not get paid more for getting right...Sure thing Mr. L.....But here's to hoping he gets your job....

9:18pm....Grant G. calls it a BC LINO 'Flame Out'....

9:21pm....Just a wee twinge in WackyHope....What's up with advance polls?...Have they been counted yet...Don't forget what happened in PGrey when it was tied with 4 polls left to report and then the advance stuff 'suddenly' came in...

9:25pm...Absolutely Awesome Barry Penner now foreshadowing a very, very late poll flip by noting that WackyHope is gradually tightening...Waterhead Leslie finally raises the geographic question...Penner says that the tightening likely suggests that early polls may have been from Dipper friendly outlying regions of the riding...

9:27pm...WackyHope now down to less than 8% lead for Dipper O'Mahony...I wonder....Awesome Barry's advice for the (not)Premier?...Take a deep breath and go for a walk...Really?...That's it?...No wonder he had his own website of Awesomeness before he ran away from the (not)Premier as fast as he could...

9:31pm...94/126 polls in WackyHope now in....Dipper lead holding at 7.5%...If there's going to be a 'surprising' geographic/advance poll flip, it will have to start very, very soon...And yes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that somebody isn't out to get you...

9:34pm...The Curmudgeon is on...Funny, but not 'Ha-Ha' because he's not even making sense....And, sadly, I'm absolutely certain it has nothing whatsoever to do with anything even remotely similar to an Ibogaine-type effect...And he should stop talking smack about Voter ID and Lists etc. when he, himself, ran a joke candidate in PoMoCo...To her credit Simi Sara pushes him...

9:38pm...Mr. Beer 'N Hockey reports, in the comments, that his labour brethern should probably hold their horses tomorrow because this has been nothing but blue pill-assisted foreplay to next May's Big 'O'...

9:40pm...109/126 polls reporting in WackyHope, and Dipper is holding with 7.5% lead over LINO/RealCon Throness...Sure will be interesting to see who spent what in these Bye-Byes...Me thinks that maybe, just maybe, the cost per vote may have been astronomical for the LINO/RealCon candidate...

9:43pm...Remember how I took umbrage with FABula calling the (not)Premier a 'Warrior' a couple of weeks ago....Well...Where was the so-called 'Warrior' the last few days (and especially today) in WackyHope?...Huh?...Regardless, wonder if she (the [not]Premier, not FABula) is throwing a fit at the geniuses pulling her strings right about now?

9:48pm...117/126 polls in WackyHope now in...Dipper O'Mahony back up by almost 9% over LINO/RealCon Throness...Important to remember that, regardless the 'split' babble, this is an historic win for the NDP in that riding...

9:50pm...That's it for me...Once again, the only thing I really have to stay is....'Stay Christy, Stay!'...Ha!

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