My Morning Ride.

AllYourDensifications'R
UsVille


One thing I've been noticing in the vicinity of Cambie while riding around these days is how fast the houses go downhill once the land assemblies are, well, assembled.

In this one, there were still kids living in the place in the foreground in July.

Granted, the landlord had clearly started to let things go before then, but still...


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Scorecard:
Good - The great Eastern at my back for all 13 kilometres this morning
Bad - The long black clouds coming down with that easterly.
Ugly - My rushing a traffic circle to gain a little speed to get up out of the Discovery trough on 12th avenue and almost paying for it...Darned hard to hear the hybrids coming sometimes.


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Recommended Sunday Morning Read...How A Vote For A Green Could (Still) Elect A FedCon.

IfTheLeadersWon'tWorkTogetherToDefeatTheConsWeThe
SeventyPercentMustDoTheJobOurselvesVille


I stumbled across Taylor Lewis' blog via the Twittmachine.

And I can't figure out how I didn't know about it and his writing already.

Because it's really good stuff.

On Friday Mr. Lewis posted up a breakdown/analysis of Elizabeth May's five claims that voting Green won't elect Conservatives.

The entire post is really, really worth a read (and I will be returning to it often), but here is Mr. Lewis' kicker:

...Elizabeth May calls vote splitting rhetoric “fear mongering.” Andrew Weaverhas called it a form of voter suppression. While I am sympathetic to their concerns, the data says what it says. If the Conservatives start consistentlytanking in the polls, then ABC voters might consider the Green candidate in areas, say, west of the Okanagan.

If the Conservatives maintain their base Canada-wide, though, then current polls don’t suggest the Greens are an option, unless you can point to strong riding-level polling and a Green candidate who has worked years to build up a profile.

Furthermore, Harper has cheated in every election he has won, and there’s no reason he won’t this time. He has stacked the deck against us with actualvoter suppression tactics, and progressives need to be vigilant and at times pragmatic in order to defeat him. Sources like votetogether.ca will help.

What the Green Party needs is for Canadians to elect a government that will end First Past The Post; that, at least, is a realistic possibility, as the NDP is committed to mixed member proportional representation and the Liberals are committed to some type of electoral reform, such as PR or ranked ballots, pending further study (for what it’s worth the Law Commission of Canada recommended MMPR in a 2004 report).

Don’t mistake this as being patronizing; Speaking as a one-time Green voter, I would love a situation where a strong Green caucus could push for a basic livable income and stymie the other parties’ half-measures on environmental protections.

It just isn’t going to happen this time...


Now go and read the entire thing.

Because it really is clear-eyed, detailed, well-researched and even-handed analysis.

OK?


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Saturday Night's Alright For (Uke) Cover Fighting....The Ace Of Spades!

FasterAndFasterAndFaster
ThanTheFastestOfSpeedsVille


The Original, Lemmy, was on Maron last week.

Which got me to wondering if there is a good Uke Cover out there somewhere.

And there is:

But...

Then I found this!

Holy Doodles!

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Previous Saturday Cover Fighting sessions can be found....Here (scroll down).


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Sparkle Ponies On Parade...The Dean Takes Us To The Fainting Couch.

RealIndignancyOnThe
Sly?Ville


After initially hiding behind a 'prepared statement', the Deputy Premier of British Columbia subsequently agreed to a phone interview with the VSun's Vaughn Palmer about that safety audit of his chief Sparkle Pony purveyor, Petronas of Malasyia.

And it would appear that the Dean of the Legislative Press Gallery was not happy with what he heard.

Because, after first making it clear that Dep-Preem Coleman told him that we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about the audit despite the fact that he (i.e. Coleman) didn't actually know what is in the audit, Mr. Palmer ran through a polite but roaring stream of damned-up consciousness before finishing with the following:

...In short, neither safety concerns nor a dubious environmental record nor that mysterious $700 million will shake Rich Coleman’s confidence in Petronas and the likelihood that it will go ahead and build here in B.C.

“I’m bullish,” he told me. Bullish. Change the spelling of that word slightly, and you’ve got another way of looking at it.

Which is good, strong stuff.

Some might even call it vintage Palmer.

Now one can only wonder if the bile has risen high enough in the Dean's throat to make this the start of something more than a one-off.

We shall see.


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And why didn't the actual, you know, Premier speak to this matter?...No one but the Wizards and the Third Man know for sure (take that Markerbuoy!), but I reckon it would not be unreasonable to speculate that the good Ms. Clark is probably working on her super-secret plan to defeat that dastardly threat to her Iron Snowbirdness, Miley Cyrus....Or some such thing.
Reader EG asked, in all seriousness, why the Premier would even bother to take a run at the former Hannah Montana...Our best guess?....Well, wasn't there just a wee bit of a problem with another junked-up hunk-o-software from one of those finest-of-the-fine super most-favoured multinats that day?....Which was bad enough on the face of it...But just imagine if people had started dredging up those old Lindsay Kines stories about the homegrown system that the Clarklandians trashed a while back...So, when in doubt...Deflector Spike Spin Uber-Alles!


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At The End Of The Day...

...Sometimes I Feel Like A Herzog Out Of Water.

Werner with the anime kids at Comic Con.

Me with the kids who are crawling all over the place where I work out  on the far western edge of Lotusland again.

And this afternoon those kids had one of their 'Welcome Back!' bashes right outside my office window.

Actually had to go in the lab and do some real work to escape the racket.


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#Elxn42....Who You Gonna Call?

...Poll Busters!

Which is just another way of saying that strategic voting might still really matter (i.e. because the demise of the FedCons has been greatly exaggerated by the long tail of the Duffmaster Flash thingy, which is all gone now for the duration).

But there is some good news.

And it can be found in Nanos' '2nd Choice Poll (scroll down)':

But here's the thing...

Those bendy-shoot Green-leaners (and the rest of us Con-Stoppers who are willing to be flexible) in Lotusland need to know who to actually vote for to be useful strategically.

And for that we need on-the-ground, riding-specific polls with decent statistical power (i.e. the National and Regional numbers mean less than zero from a strat-vote point-of-view).

And, just in case you don't believe me, that's the way it worked in Esquimalt in 2011.

OK?


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This Day In Clarkland...Corroding With The One That Brung Ya.

OooooYouMakeMyPonyRunMySparklePonyRun
MyMyMyMyPetronasVille


From Peter O'Neil and Gordon Hoekstra's VSun piece on the safety 'audit' of Petronas' Malaysian operations:

...Auditors found six "pressure vessels" — containers on offshore platforms holding pressurized gas or oil — that were found to have internal corrosion and yet hadn't been inspected for at least 20 years...


But never fear, Big Rich is here:

...B.C. deputy premier Rich Coleman, the minister responsible for natural gas development, wouldn't say if the government was aware of Petronas's internal problems in Malaysia. But in a prepared statement he did stress that LNG operators will have to adhere to a "strict" regulatory regime operated by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission...

Gosh.

And here I thought Mr. Coleman et al. were doing their darndest to get rid of all that icky/awful regulatory red tape that used to prevent the draining of wilderness lakes, deadly fireball explosions in sawdust-filled mills, and the bursting of tailing pond dams around here.

And lest you think this all just enviro-hooey and/or something that went on in the distant past, there is the following, also from the O'Neil/Hoekstra piece, to consider:

...(L)ast year, Petronas's new gas pipeline on Borneo Island was shut down, and remains out of use, due to a massive explosion because of construction on soil that proved unstable...


'Nuff said?


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My Morning Ride.

Because the Greeniacs were giving me a hard time about riding by it yesterday....

I decided to ride through Mountain View cemetery this morning.

Another ridiculously beautiful day.


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Scorecard:
Good -1...The little black cat who comes looking for an ear scratch if I stop for a second at 26th and Ash.
Bad - 1...The leaf blower guy who blew crap from the Subway parking lot into my eyes at 16th and Macdonald
Poopy - 1...The dozens of geese on the playing fields at Hillside Park...Will have to keep the Whackadoodle out of there for awhile to prevent the ear grinding


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This Evening In Clarkland...But What About The Yoga?

Aren'tThereWolvesInHannah's
MontanaVille


According to the Canadian Press noted environmental expert Ms. Christy Clark is not happy with the fact that the entertainer Miley Cyrus agrees with at least some real environmental experts about BC's wolf kill:

British Columbia's premier is suggesting singer Miley Cyrus stick to twerking instead of interfering with the province's environmental policies.

Christy Clark says Cyrus doesn't know anything about the reasons behind B.C.'s wolf cull, which she says is necessary to protect endangered caribou.

Cyrus has urged fans to sign an online petition against the wolf hunt, saying it's a "tax-payer funded kill program."

Environmentalists have criticized the government's plans to hunt 184 wolves in the South Selkirk and South Peace.

The petition was posted online by a group in January.

Clark says that if the province needs any advice on twerking -- or dancing provocatively -- it may contact Cyrus...


Gosh.

Guess our fine Premier doesn't know that Ms. Cyrus is really into yoga.

Because if she did you'd think she might invite the singer up for a Downward Facing Dogathon on the Ice Bomb Bridge.

Or some such thing.


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Interwebz Comments Fell Another Candidate.

GotchaGotchaEverywhere
DigitalNeverForgetsVille


Already wrote a post on how this smacking down of candidates for past statements, particularly online, is worrisome, mostly because I'm not sure where the line is and/or where it should be.

And then reader Glen Clark weighed in on how this kind of thing will ultimately prevent good and interesting people from running.

Anyway.

It happened again today as Stephen Hui notes in the GStraight:

Facebook comments touting the benefits of marijuana have torched the federal-election hopes of Joy Davies in South Surrey-White Rock.

Today (September 10), Davies quit as the Liberal candidate in the B.C. riding after party leader Justin Trudeau rejected her two-year-old remarks....


So.

Where is that line, exactly?

Because....

Mostly this looks like the candidate's comments, while a wee bit whacky, were not at odds with Mr. Trudeau's position on marijuana legalization.


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This Day In Sparkle Ponyland...Something Scary This Way Cometh.

AllTheirAudits'RUs
RammedThroughLegislationVille


So scary that the VSun has posted a 'teaser':

Who is B.C. dealing with when it invites Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned global energy giant, to play a lead role in developing an LNG industry?

In the first of a two-part examination of the company by reporters Peter O’Neil and Gordon Hoekstra, The Vancouver Sun will post at 9 p.m. PT tonight, and publish in Friday’s newspaper, a story with explosive new information on the company’s problems in Malaysia...


Go figure.


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Thanks to the StraightGoods for the heads up on the Twittmachine.


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And Now A Word From A Reader About The Online Shaming Of Candidates For Past Minor Transgressions.

WhyCommentThreadsCan
MatterVille


The other day I wrote a post about how all this online shaming of candidates and campaign-associated folks for their past transgressions/actions/points of view is starting to make me uncomfortable.

Mostly it's the 'gotcha!' of the thing, particularly when it has nothing to do with issues or policy positions, or even ideology, that concerns me.

But, to be perfectly honest, there is also a wee bit of the 'There but the grace (and parmesan) of the spaghetti monster go I'  mixed into my discomfort.

But it turns out that there is also something else to consider here.

Which is a point that was raised in the comment thread by a reader that some of you might know/remember:

Glen Clark said...

"...Hard to see how this 'morality test' applied to old social media posts can survive much longer. 

I hate to think of things I would have posted when I was younger. Clearly had I had the opportunity to display my 'thoughts' I would have been disqualified for public office (course some may be applauding now!). 

But I really fear that we risk alienating all but the most boring, careful risk-avoiding people from even competing for public office if we continue to react with outrage at every old tweet."


Hard to argue with that last part, eh?


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And ya, it was that guy named Glen...I checked, and he was OK with me bringing this to the front page.


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#Elxn42....The Weirdness Of The Rolling Polls.

AllTheNumbersThatFit
Kinda/SortaVille


Looks like there is some sustained movement towards Mr. Trudeau, particularly in riding rich Ontario.

And this is reflected in the overall numbers.

But the regional rolling polls show just how weird things are.

First off, Nanos has the Cons bouncing around wildly nationally.

And, in BC, things look flat out crazy:

Granted, there is a big MoE here.

Still, all that coming together of the orange, red and blue yesterday tells me that, now, more than ever, we progressives who are willing to swing our votes to stop the Cons (which is a significant number according to Nanos' second choice poll) have to do our best to make sure that, Trudeau + Harper does not equal a majority.

Now...

I know that "Justin would never do it" is what many of you are likely muttering to yourselves.

Especially you folks who are starting to get an inkling that it just might be safe to vote Green in any riding outside of Saanich.

But...

There is that classic Liberal 'Run left, govern right' thing to keep in mind.

OK?


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My Morning Ride.

SprocketsKeepOnTurning
IntoTheFutureVille


Was pedalling past the cemetery on East 31st this morning when I noticed the light streaming in, the temperature, and the absolute calm....

And then I realized there probably will only be a half dozen more rides as nice as this between now and next May.

Oh boy.


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Scorecard:
Good - 1 (the nice lady who pulled up a few feet short so that I could get across Cambie at 26th)
Bad - 2 (both going up the hill on 12th west of Alma, both black European SUV's in a hurry for school apparently)
Ugly - 0


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A Stunning Admission From The New York Times' Public Editor.

AllTheNewsThatFits
ButNotReally/SeriouslyVille


Margaret Sullivan is the Grey Lady's current PE.

Here is what she had to say on her NYT 'blog' in response to readers' raising the issue of the Times' 'coverage' of longtime progressive and current US Senator Bernie Sanders' run to become the Democratic party's presidential nominee in 2016:

..."Here’s my take: The Times has not ignored Mr. Sanders’s campaign by any means, but it also hasn’t always taken it very seriously. The tone of some stories does seem regrettably dismissive, even mocking at times. Some of it is focused on the candidate’s age, appearance and style rather than what he has to say..."

Stunning admission or what?

****

Meanwhile, as you might expect, the Times' low priest of high-Broderism, David Brooks, pretty much simultaneously sees Mr. Sanders and the Donald as being two sides of the same (completely fictional) coin on the NYT's OpEd page.

Former News Blog denizen, Driftglass, does the fisking:

...David Brooks really hates hippies.

And no one represents the spirit of what David Brooks hates most in this world -- a spirit now gone gray but still radical, thoughtful but still clarion-clear, politically pragmatic but still mission-driven -- than Bernie Sanders.

Ergo Mr. Brooks must destroy Bernie Sanders.

QED.

And being David Brooks, he has one and only one, tried-and-true method of destroying that which is terrifyingly true and beautiful and unabashedly Liberal: by cooking up some lie flexible enough to yoke something decent and Liberal to whatever misshapen monstrosity has slouched out of the Conservative ghoul factory this week and then heaving them both from the fantail of the good ship Centrism into the great, dark sea of Political Unseriousness, where they slip beneath the waves and never trouble the beautiful minds of the Villagers, who are all up on the lido deck getting drunk with Chuck Todd and Mark Halperin.

Which is, or course, exactly what Mr. Brooks did, following the accepted recipe of the Villager Both Siderist Playbook...


Don't know about you, but when I read stuff like that I can feel the fire of the greatest of Left Blogistan's greatest of all time Steve Gilliard.

(and smell the Beer Can Chicken)


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In case you missed it, Driftglass does a weekly podcast with his wife Bluegal...The recently hit their three millionth download...It's hard-headed lefty politics, proMedia criticism, and more....Try it.
Tip 'O The Toque to Jay Rosen for calling attention to the money quote from Ms. Sullivan on the Twittmachine.


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