The 'New' BC Liberals....Do They Only Smear Those That Spurn Them Most?

BaselessSmearsAre
ForeverVille


You may have heard how a BC Liberal Party surrogate named Dr. Kenneth Fung, who is also the Chair of Premier Christy Clark's 'Chinese Community Advisory Panel' recently called up a local radio station, gave a fake name, and then smeared a Dipper candidate named Frank Huang over his past political affiliations by essentially employing a variation of the old 'Are you now or have you ever been a member of the....?' accusation.

Now....

Regardless, the egregiousity of the smear itself, especially given what folks like Mr. Huang, who once lived and worked in Mainland China, had to do/join to make a living there, the following, from Ian Bailey's Twittmachine feed, has just emerged:

#bcndp Frank Huang says Dr. Fung asked him to #bclibs candidate in #yvr -Fraserview. He decided no. #bcpoli
— Ian Bailey (@ianabailey) May 7, 2013

So.

Let me see if I've got this straight, based on the evidence currently at hand....

First, you try and recruit someone to your political party.

Second, when they do not take you up on your offer you smear them.

Third, you commit the smear while pretending to be someone you are not, presumably in an attempt keep people from connecting said smearing to the political party you are affiliated with.

Sure sounds like the 'new' BC Liberals to me.

Of course, it also sounds like the time has come for someone to ask the leader of those new BC Liberals, especially given all that we have already learned about the ethnic 'quick wins' strategy that was being run out of that leader's government office, the following...

"Do you have no sense of decency madam?"

_____
Can't remember where you've heard that simple question before (with a different gender emphasis) and how it helped turn the tide against vicious, anti-democratic/free society smears based on past political affiliations in the past?....Well...This.


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There's No Gord Like Old Gord.

NotAllGordsAre
GoldenVille*



Just in case anyone actually believes that this was all Mr. Wilson's idea...

Image above is of the old Gord getting ready to board a campaign plane to Fort St. John earlier today with Ms. Clark.



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Photo via Sophie Rousseau's Twittmachine feed...Although it is noted, with interest, that the Clark campaign itself is pushing a much glossier indoor version of the same thumby thing...
*With apologies to he who generated the real Gordian Golden thing.

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Griftopia, Inc. (ctd.)....Small Claims Division.

There'sNoAssessmentLike
Re-AssessmentVille


David Bratzer, writing on his blog, has an update about the assessment of the building that houses BC Liberal MLA Eric Foster's constituency office (and see, image, above):

"...Back in January, I filed a complaint regarding the 2012 assessment of the Vernon-Monashee MLA constituency office. The office in question is located at 3209 31 Ave in Vernon (it was purchased by Kalview Park Enterprises just days before the 2009 election).

The original 2012 assessed value was $177,100. This seemed ridiculously low given that the MLA in question, Eric Foster, had arranged for as much as $78,000 to be spent on office renovations.

After receiving the complaint, BC Assessment – to their credit – assigned two senior employees to reexamine the property. The new value from BC Assessment was $214,000. This was an increase of $36,900 (a 20% increase from the original value). The $214,000 assessment was confirmed after a hearing at the Property Assessment Review Panel.

The building owners, who are allegedly related to Eric Foster’s constituency assistant, did not bother to show up at the hearing."...

Now.

This increase, which is based entirely on the value of the building rather than the land, really would be small potatoes in the grand scheme of the big grift except for one thing.

Which is that the Auditor General raised the red flag on this entire matter just before the BC Liberal Party dominated legislative committee chaird by the good Mr. Foster effectively fired said Auditor-General.

Which, of course, suggests that the small claims division of Griftopia, Inc. is vertically integrated with the bigger stuff.

Bigger stuff like, say, this.

OK?


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The Continuing Cost Of The BC Liberals' Griftopia, Inc...The Casino-Industrial-Complex

TheCostOfEverything
TheValueOfNothingVille


In case you missed it, the Casino-Industrial-Complex next to BC Place in downtown Lotusland is on again.

Surprise!

And Sandy Garossino has broken down the deal in an attempt to determine the true costs to taxpayers going forward (which is tough given how much secrecy surrounds the thing).

The upshot is that Ms. Garossino figures that the additional future costs will be at least $400 million dollars based on the current 'rules'.

Unless....

"... (S)omebody's crossing their fingers behind their back, ready to force a huge mega-casino expansion on Vancouver after the provincial election. That's about the only way the public's not going to lose its shirt on this deal..."


But, of course, the fine folks running the BC Liberals' Griftopia, Inc would never say one thing right before an election and then do precisely the opposite after said election.

Would they?


_____
And why do I stress that the $400 million will be an 'additional' cost of our paying for Griftopia's latest boondoggle?....Well.... I am of the opinion, based on the evidence available so far, that the $500 million, plus, we already spent for the renovation and roof replacement for BC Place were actually incurred, at least in part, to make the Casino-Industrial-Complex possible....


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The Real Deficit: What Have Gordon Campbell And Christy Clark Really Saddled Us With?

ThereIsNoBamboozlement
LikeFiscalBamboozlementVille


The citizens of British Columbia know (or should know) that Christy Clark is a bald-faced liar when it comes to her repeated claims that the bond rating services have ratified her ridiculous fantasy island budget for the coming year.

And yet, apparently, a considerable number of British Columbia's citizens are now considering voting for her and hers.

The citizens of British Columbia also know (or should know) that Christy Clark has increased their 'direct' debt by 11 billion dollars over the last two years, which is more than anyone ever (and that would include a whole passel of Dave Barretts), over the same time frame.

And yet, apparently, a considerable number of British Columbia's citizens are now considering voting to continue Ms. Clark's (and Mr. Campbell's) most excellent griftopic adventure.

However, what the citizens of British Columbia are rarely, if ever, told is the total cost of that excellent adventure.

So....

If you go back and look at the costs of all the cronyism, all the boondoggles, and all of the grifts and give aways over the last 12 years, what is the real number that Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark have painted on our, our children, and our children's children's backs?

Well, Rafe Mair describes that number thusly in The Tyee:

"...I do not rely on politically-oriented think tanks for my information, rather noted independent economist Erik Andersen. If you add the $70 Billion in direct debt projected in Clark's latest Budget to secret "taxpayer obligations" relating to private power contracts and public-private partnership (P3) infrastructure deals, you get -- wait for it -- over $170 BILLION, that's with a "B".

By that measure, what is important to know about the debt is that in 2001, when the Liberals took over, every man, woman and child owed a shade over $8,000. Today we each owe $40,000 -- five times what we owed before this so-called business-oriented, fiscally careful bunch of cheats and hypocrites took over..."


And what, besides a few sports edifices, a convention center, an ice-bomb bridge and a condo-king highway have we gotten for that bill that we are going to be paying for, like, forever?

Have we diversified our economy, or are we still pinning our hopes on being hewers of wood and carriers of frack water?

Have we dealt with childhood poverty?

Have we improved longterm care for the elderly?

Have we improved our public schools and made a post-secondary education more affordable for all?

Have we decreased the user-fee burden for average families (of course, this one is laughable on its face)?

Have we made it possible for kids to live anywhere near the neighbourhoods that they grew up in?

Or.

Have we done exactly the opposite for the vast majority of the citizenry that, at least according to last week's polls, now appear willing to vote for four more years of Griftopia?

****

Now.

Given the real cost of Griftopia so far...

Why is no one talking about what the real number will be in 2017 if the BC Liberals are allowed to continue with their cronyism, penchant for boondogglement, and their giving away of/selling off of public assets, unchecked, for another four years?




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Meanwhile, if you are looking for the historical specifics of all havoc that Gordon and Christina's Golden Era Army has wreaked upon us during the big Grift, Laila has updated her Top 100 (which is now actually 146)...


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What If...

...Ms. Clark Spelled Her Last Name Wrong On Purpose?

Laila has the story of a traffic accident that Ms. Clark was involved in that was settled out of court just before the election campaign began.

Which, given that Ms. Clark apparently rear-ended someonw, may or may not say something of significance given all that reckless red light stuff we learned about last weekend.

But that is neither here nore there.

Because the part of the story that I found most interesting was the following:

...Court documents show Christine Joan Clarke and Mark Allan Marissen admitted in the course of legal discussions that Clark did hit the car, but disputed the injuries of the plaintiff among other items. It was countered that the plaintiff was also negligent and contributed to any resulting injuries suffered from the accident. Court staff confirmed the defendant was Christy Clark in 2011, when the story was first reported because of a difference in the spelling of her name on the documents...

In addition, Laila followed-up with the following, in the comments:

...The statement of claim for the plaintiff showed Christina Clarke, the Defence showed Christine Clark...

Now, why is this interesting?


Well....

It turns out that someone Ms. Christina(e) Clark(e) apparently only met once at a Helijet Pad, or some such thing, also added an extra letter to his name in the wake of the public discovery that he had involved in something that, perhaps, he didn't want folks to stumble upon with a quick Google search.

If you get my drift.


OK?


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Laila says she hopes to have more on the mysterious change in spelling soon....You might want to keep an eye out over at her place...


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What If...

...The Puffed-Up Punditry Actually Started Calling Her On It?

So.

What is the latest re-eruption of a blatant, bald-faced, oft-repeated lie....

Well, apprently, according to the Canadian Press...

It is the claim that Adrian Dix wants to steal your baby's money!

Which, I guess, means that the Wizard's no longer feel the need to restrict this particular lie to the non-English language media.

Of course, no mention of the fact, in the CP story linked-too above, that the NDP has a plan to actually begin to deal with British Columbia's Clark/Campbell government-generated child poverty travesty in concrete terms.

But.

Of course, none of it really matters.

Because this is all just a silly game, anyway, right?

Because.

You know....

"We all say things when we are trying to get elected."

Christina Clark

Sept 21, 2012

_______
And, speaking of an absence of truth telling...It would appear that even Ms. Clark(e)'s spelling of her own last name may be an issue...Shades of Eric Bornman(n)?...


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What If...

...The BC Liberals Win?

First off...

I'll get to what it I think it would mean for how the province would actually be governed later.

But for now, just concentrating for the moment on what such an outcome would mean for the next half dozen or so elections in British Columbia.....

I very much agree with what Charlie Smith of the GStraight has to say:

"...If the B.C. Liberals win, the message to future candidates will be to raise as much money as you can from any and all sources, and then go thermonuclear on their opponents. Otherwise, you'll lose.

Or do voters want to give Dix a chance, ensuring that there will be a ban on corporate and union donations?

This will take some of the big money out of politics, which funds the character assassination that some voters have become inured to.

So far, Dix has taken the high road, as has B.C. Green Leader Jane Sterk.

If Dix ends up being punished for this by losing, we probably won't see this for another generation in a B.C. election campaign from one of the front-running parties.

Politics would be further debased in this province, and for that, we would only have ourselves to blame..."


That really is it, don't you think?

Because, after all, if The Wizards of West Annexerly Place show everyone around here that all you need to win is anonymized big money at the front end, a penchant to constantly wurlitzer any and all smears (no matter how trivial, old, or vicious), and a willingness to tell bald-faced lies with sparkly teeth shining bright at all times (and to repeat said lies over and over again even when caught out)....

Well....

We will deserve what we get.

Won't we?


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The Polls...Where Have The Changes Come From?

ThereAreNoNumbersLike
BrokenDownNumbersVille


So....

Yesterday I was all set to write something about methodology to help explain why the Forum poll had things tightening so dramatically (skews towards an older demo, for example)...

Especially given some of the more interesting stuff that Forum's proprietor Loren Bozinoff had to say which, in my opinion, demonstrated that he might not have a really good grasp about what's going on 'round here, or how support is distributed regionally.

But, in the end, I held off to see what Angus Reid would have to say with their latest.

And the upshot is that, based on their most recent polling on May 1st and May 2nd (i.e. after both debates) it looks like things really have tightened.

Because, overall, Mario Canseco is now pegging things 41-34, Dipper, which is down from 45-31 last time out.

So, is this a blanket, 'Big Mo' - type change, given that the differences for both the NDP (4% down) and the BC Liberals (3% up), overall are right on the edges of the MOE?

Well, regionally, I don't think so in most parts of the province except for the Interior where things look to have, perhaps, broken back to the BC Liberals, hard (43/32, Dipper last time vs. 42/29, BC Liberal this time) which is interesting, but not that unexpected given the historical norms...

As for the Demographic breakdowns?

Well, I think there are a couple of things that the Dippers really should be concerned about.

And not on the income level ladder, which is where I thought the big change might have occurred (I thought maybe it would be in the middle income bracket).

Firstly, as utterly bizarre as it may seem, especially given what has been going on around here the last couple of weeks, it would appear that the Wizards and the junior Segretti Army have improved the approval rating of their candidate with women considerably while they have simultaneously whacked Mr. Dix on that score (was 49/24 Dix last time...Is now 43/35 Dix).

Secondly, and this is the really scary part as this group tends to turn out to actually vote, the Freedom 55 Demo has really swung from solid for Dix last time out (43/35) to, essentially, a dead heat this week (40/39, Dix)

So.

Can things keep changing as fast in the next two weeks as they have in the last two weeks?

Well, regionally, if there is any more leakage in Metro Vancouver that could spell trouble, although here there appears to be no loss of Dipper support, and (surprise!) the slight gain for the BCL looks to have come from the Greens.

But if women voters continue to swing towards the Sparkle Ponies and a few more older folks buy into the Fear?

Well... That would really have me worried if I was Dipper strategist.

OK?


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The Power And The Joanie.

AlwaysLookBackWheneverTheHeck
YouWantToVille



It's a full concert from a young Joan Baez in Shepherd's Bush, London, 1965, recorded by the BBC.

On it's own it's an fantastic testament to what a kid with an acoustic guitar, a voice, and an ability to draw an audience into a song can do.

But, when you realize that she had split with Dylan just before this was recorded, and how far he had already moved on musically by then, well, 'Don't Think Twice It's Alright' becomes pretty darned amazing.

Speaking of amazing, the fantabulous Open Culture has more...

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I Guess Even Boomerangs Can Become Zombies These Days.

MakeTheB'stards
DenyEverythingVille

_____

Update: At the bottom of the post...

_____

I have already written about what I feel was an unfair BC Liberal Party smear against the NDP candidate in Burnaby-Lougheed, based on the facts at hand so far. 

And I'm not talking about the matter of their unearthing of a single stupid comment from said candidate on an online thread from 11 years ago when the candidate was 21 years of age.

Instead, I'm talking about the calling into question of, and the belittling of the candidate's academic record.

Interestingly, the BC Liberal Party candidate in the riding of Burnaby-Lougheed has since backed away from that part of the smear, which I also noted yesterday.

The thing that I found most surprising about this particular smear is the fact that the BC Liberal Party could just as easily have run the operation against its own candidate in Vancouver-Point Grey given given the way that candidate has prominently described her own academic credentials in the past.

Which is the potential 'boomerang' aspect of the thing.

Unfortunately the boomerang has not been picked up by the proMedia.

As for the Zombie?

Well....

It appears that creature was unearthed and released on the body politic by Brian Hutchinson in the NaPo earlier today (see the 2nd half of the piece).

OK?


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I have heard from a couple of well-meaning readers off-line who are concerned that I've gone too far out on a limb on this one because, to paraphrase, there may be 'something more to this story'....Well, I guess that's possible but, at this point, based on currently available data, I feel the academic credential portion of the smear is, essentially, baseless...And, personally, I am of the opinion that we ignore baseless smears, in the present, at our peril...If what happens in the future proves me wrong I will gladly write a follow-up and return to the posts already written to provide an update based on facts, but not smears (Zombie or otherwise)...
Update: It turns out that a different BC Liberal candidate, Mike de Jong, is now trumpeting the 'graduate' vs. 'candidate' part of the academic credentials smear that the VSun's Jeff Lee fully debunked yesterday....Thanks to an Anon-O-Mouse reader for the heads-up...Interestingly, the de Jong trumpet also demonstrates that it is at odds with the demonstrable facts on a second point when it claims that the 'graduate' portion of the smear had to do with a claim of graduation from medical school at UBC...We demonstrated why this is not even remotely possible yesterday (see the very bottom of the post - neither cell biology nor genetics degrees that are granted at UBC are M.D. degrees, even if they are at the 'doctoral' level)...And please note the tone of the BC Liberal Party Press release that contains Mr. de Jong's trumpeting of the Zombie...Apparently, this kind of thing is all nothing more than a big joke to these people....



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How Useful Is The VSun's Online Predictor Tool?

There'sNoNumberCrunchingLikeUselessNumberCrunching
ForCrunching'sSakeVille


My view?

Not very useful whatsoever.

Or.

Put another way...

Pretty much useless.

Don't get me wrong - I have a lot of respect and admiration for much of what the VSun's Chad Skelton has done with numbers and maps and stuff, but when you read the following I'm pretty sure your eyebrows will immediately begin to arch:

...The Sun’s online seat prediction tool is based on a relatively simple formula that predicts riding-by-riding results based on each party’s share of the popular vote and the parties’ vote totals in the 2009 provincial election...


So.
Essentially, they are taking the overall party differential between the 2009 election numbers and recent province-wide party preference polls (they use the latest from AReid for the current iteration of the 'tool') which they then apply to the old 2009 numbers at the individual riding level.

And what does this lead to?

Well, for example, the 'tool' is currently predicting that Greeniac Andrew Weaver will get only 11% in Oak Bay-Gordon Head, which is laughable on its face.

And as for Vancouver Pt Grey, they have Dipper David Eby beating Christy Clark by nine full points. Now, I, for one, would like that to be the case. Unfortunately, however, the 'tool' completely ignores the fact that these two candidates went at it head-to-head two years ago and the results were really, really tight.

And finally, there is the really big whopper....According to the 'tool'  the 'other' candidate in Abbotsford South, who we presume is John van Dongen, will receive a mere 5% in Abbotsford South. On the flip-side the LINO, Darryl Plecas, who was foisted on the Abb-South BC Liberal riding association by Darth Vader, is predicted to get 56% which, of course, is only that high because Mr. van Dongen's numbers in 2009 were stratospheric when he was a....

...A BC Liberal.

OK?


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With respect to what's actually going down in A-South....I've heard from a reader who has seen some actual internal/on-the-ground polling numbers, and they say it is a three way race between the Dipper Jhaj, van Dongen and Plecas....That's a little different than what I was suggesting the other day...
And how about that Forum Poll, eh?....More to say about that soon...

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Deconstructing The BC Liberals' Boomerang Smear.

InEdinburghYouCanSeeMaggieThatcher
FromYourDormRoomVille


Yesterday, the BC Liberal Party put out a press release masquerading as a running smear, with boomerang potential, against the NDP candidate running in Burnaby-Lougheed.

Here is the lede from that BC Liberal Press release:

Vancouver - Today’s BC Liberals have uncovered yet another example of Jane Shin appearing to mislead voters about her educational credentials.

In a magazine called The Vankoreans, Jane Shin is featured on page 64 with a list of her education and employment experience.

In it she claims to have “earned a doctorate at UBC in genetics and cell biology.” In fact, according to a resume obtained by the BC Liberals, Ms. Shin describes herself as a “candidate” for a Bachelor’s degree in Science from UBC.

Nowhere in the article does it mention that she attended a Caribbean medical school called Spartan Health Services University (SHSU)....

The press release then goes on to further question the fact that different aspects of Ms. Shin's training and expertise have been highlighted in various publications and websites in different ways.

As a result, the BC Liberal Party press release lists a series of questions that 'must be answered', at least one of which is based on something that Ms. Shin herself did not write, and the others of which center around how one defines a 'practicing' physician (or not).

In addition, the BC Liberal Party candidate who is running against Ms. Shin is quoted as saying the following in the same BC Liberal Party smear which, again, was released yesterday:

...“We now know that Ms. Shin has altered her LinkedIn, BCIT and BCNDP websites once she was asked about her credentials,” says BC Liberal candidate Ken Kramer (in Burnaby-Lougheed). “It is clear that Ms. Shin has not been up front about her education and her experience, which seems to be changing daily."

“It is clear that the NDP is desperately trying to save Ms. Shin’s candidacy by hiding her from the media and refusing to account for her changing credentials.”...

Now.

Also yesterday, I noted that many people highlight the most impressive aspects of their CV's while downplaying others.

Of course, this is very different from claiming (or implying) that, based on the 'impressive' aspects of your CV, that you have, for example, actually received an actual degree from an institution of higher learning when you have not.

Now, with that in mind....

Firstly, did Ms. Shin herself (rather than a magazine called 'Vankoreans') claim that she (i.e. Ms. Shin), actually received a 'doctorate' degree from UBC in Genetics and Cell Biology?

Well, the VSun's Jeff Lee had the answer to that one up last night:

...Eun Yong Kwon, the editor of Vankoreans.com, said a reporter made an error in copying and translating Shin’s biography from an English website.

Shin’s CV states she was a bachelor of science candidate with a major in genetics and cell biology at UBC. It goes on to say she graduated with a doctor of medicine degree from Spartan Health Sciences University...

So.

Have you got that?

The BC Liberal press release/smear led with something from the magazine 'Vankoreans' that was incorrectly written by a reporter and is directly at odds with what Ms. Shin herself actually wrote in her actual CV in which she does not state that she received such a 'doctorate degree' from UBC but rather that she was a Bachelor of Science degree 'candidate' in genetics and cell biology at that post-secondary institution (I'll explain what all this means at the bottom of the post).

Secondly, did Ms. Shin actually receive an M.D. degree from 'Spartan Health Sciences University'  in the Caribbean as she, herself, claims in the CV she actually wrote?

Well, Mr. Lee of the VSun appears to have the answer to that question as well:

...On Tuesday the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons confirmed that Shin is not licensed to practice medicine in B.C. but that she is entitled to call herself a doctor since she has a medical doctorate from Spartan Health Sciences University in St. Lucia. The facility’s program is recognized by both the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Medical Council of Canada...

Thirdly, has Ms. Shin stated or claimed, in the public prints, that she is practicing clinical medicine as a licensed physician in British Columbia? 

Well, apparently not, at least according to the Burnaby NewsLeader's Wanda Chow in a piece published yesterday:

...In an interview last October when Shin won the NDP nomination for Burnaby-Lougheed, she was clear that she is not a practising physician and that she decided to attend medical school after contracting a serious illness when she was 16.

But during her medical training she fell out of love of practising medicine when she found her interactions with patients limited to only about five minutes each. She turned her attention to academic medicine when she completed her training...

Got all  of that?

OK.

So....

Just what is the BC Liberal Party candidate, Mr. Kramer, who is, apparently, a lawyer, and thus presumably knows and understands the libel laws of Canada, now saying about all this, after he and his started the smear rolling yesterday with their press release?

Well, here is what he told the Burnaby Now's Jennifer Moreau in a piece that was published earlier today:

...When asked to comment, Liberal candidate Ken Kramer, Shin's competition in the Burnaby-Lougheed riding, said he's more interested in reaching out to voters than raising questions about other candidates.

"I'm trying to stay away from what others are doing," Kramer said. "My number 1 responsibility is to make sure I'm out there and meeting people right now and telling them about the positives I've accomplished in my career and how I'm going to take that positive and translate that in Victoria."...

Unbelievable.

On a whole lot of levels.

Including the column inches that the smear machine managed to get cranked out on this particular matter in less than 24 hours (which, ironically enough, seems to be the only local rag where it hasn't been wurlitzered - yet).

And I'm not even going into the fact that BC Liberal Party's online Army also found something completely separate, which was an off-colour comment that Ms. Shin typed on an online forum...

11 years ago.

When she was a 21 year old kid.

Charlie Smith wrote about that in the G Straight this morning (and if I was going to go looking for the further evidence of the  'work' of the online Army mentioned above, I would start in the comments below Mr. Smith's piece).

****

As for that Boomerang thing that the architects of the smear now seem to be backing away from?

Well....

Remember how, throughout her entire leadership campaign, for example, we were constantly told how Ms. Christy Clark had attended the University of Edinburgh and the Sorbonne, as well as SFU?

And remember how just two weeks ago Ms. Clark herself told us how she got to know Margaret Thatcher while she was going to school in 'Britain'?

And do you ever remember Ms. Clark ever making it abundantly clear us that she never actually graduated from any of those schools?

Or.

Did Ms. Clark's handlers/wizards/surrogates/press releases/online-resumes imply something very different?


_______
Just to be very clear here, the medical school that Ms. Shin graduated from is most definitely not top-of-the-pops, or even close....But, based on the evidence currently available, it appears that she did carry out legitimate post-MD training at a number of other places not in the Caribbean....This is not unusual, and some of these young folks with this kind of training later go on to successful careers, either in the academic realm, which appears to be the case with Ms. Shin, or in clinical practice...
As for this 'doctorate' thing....If one receives a doctoral degree in either Cell Biology or Genetics at UBC one does not receive an M.D. degree....Instead, one receives something often affectionately called a graduate 'Phud'  degree in the trade....And as for a 'candidate'?...Well this is someone working their way towards a degree...Most often that is used to describe someone working on a graduate degree who has completed their super-scary 'comprehensive exam' about halfway through the ordeal (the 'comp' exam is usually much scarier than the final defense because it is wide-open in terms of subject matter and thus not restricted to the subject of the student's thesis project)...In the case of a 'Bachelor of Science' candidate?...Well, that would refer to an undergraduate student who is majoring in something like, say 'Cell Biology and Genetics'....How do I know all this stuff?.....Well....You could say I have a little direct experience....OK?



.

This Just In...Christy Clark Tells The CP That It Doesn't Matter If She Is...

...Just Making Stuff Up.

Because....

The front page ad she and hers ran on the front of 24 Hrs today was just an ad, and it was clearly stated that it was an ad.

Therefore, according to the logistical pretzels stuck deep within her amygdala at least, Ms. Clark really did win the TeeVee debate the other night.

So there:

...The ad, placed on the front page of the free daily, shows a photo of a triumphant Clark underneath the words "paid advertisement" and it also shows poll figures that indicate Clark is perceived to have sounded most like a premier during the televised leaders debate earlier this week.

The full poll by Ipsos Reid is not referenced in the newspaper ad, but it isn't as flattering as the ad would suggest.

The online results show of the 677 British Columbians surveyed, more people thought Dix had won the debate than Clark and a wide majority thought Dix had better ideas than Clark.

Clark says the front page ad was for sale and her party bought it, adding the fact that it's advertising is clearly marked on the page...


So....

There you have it.

Her party bought it...

As a result, we're supposed to swallow its codswallop, whole.

Except, it turns out that the people of British Columbia do know how to reflexively gag when something is being shoved down their throats and use the Google at the same time.

Right?


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Up Is Down, And Two Plus Two Equals...

...Christy Clark?

The image, above, is the from the front cover of today's edition of QMI/Sun Media's Lotuslandian commuter rag.

Please note the two little words on the top half of the page directly under the logo.

Please also note how one chunk of that bizarre post-debate Ipsos-Reid flash poll is being used as prop-wash at the bottom.

I mean do the Wizards actually think that British Columbians, Mr Cummins apparently excepted according to Ms. Clark herself, don't know how to use teh Google.

Hmmmmm...

What's next...

A new 30 minute infomercial to tell us that red is actually the new green and that $11 billion deficits are actually eleventy quintillion sparkle mountains out back behind Rossland?


______
Image of advertorial courtesy Brian Hutchinson's Twittmachine feed.
More on how it appears that the 'other' Clark campaign is going all Rove/Ailes/Atwater all the time, later.

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