On CBC Power & Politics today it was described as a gamble. Lots for the BCNDP to potentially lose but lots also to potentially gain. It worked for Doug Ford but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for Eby.

The BC Cons were a bit of an unknown in Oct 2024, they were close to power but then fell apart continuously over two years. The same folks are in and around the alphabet soup of conservative parties that might reconstitute themselves into something, but one thing I am confident in is that trying the same playbook as just be anti-Eby and try to look competent for long enough, isn’t going to work out for them. Eby has room for one or two unforced errors compared to the chaotic summer of Conservative unforced errors, but I’ll keep my feelers out on the rate a new unified centre-right party picks up steam. Oh, and up until Friday, KLF was confident she wasn’t going anywhere, the BCNDP were already signalling election moves and didn’t just start thinking about it when they became leaderless, so it’s not that strong of a point even if it is a technically unprecedented situation to call an election without a decided election leader.

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I’m good with that, in fact if they do care about the rule of law, that’s what they should be doing.

House Republicans did the ‘smart’ thing and went on their umpteenth early recess, kicking the vote until after the midterms just so Democrats could hold it over their heads!

Chek News did a video discussion segment on whether the snap election would be good or not…

I feel like the local media and the UBCM have been saying “snap election? snap election?” continuously like the seagulls from Finding Nemo, that hearing it now is not really a surprise for people moderately in the know. For people not in the know, the municipal elections would be just as much news to them and possibly they’d think it convenient as a 2-for-1 election season. I think the “opportunism” critique will become an afterthought within days, at most. Political analysts have been figuratively screaming at Eby to take advantage of BC Conservative chaos over the summer so some are pretty much surprised he’s been as patient as he was.

I think the earlier 2026 issues like DRIPA and condo buyout suggestion are largely behind Eby, but a valid potential weakness is that since Oct 2024, no big province wide ribbon-cutting accomplishments have happened that the BCNDP can really tout. (Repurposing the Site C dam worker housing is a small one that happened, the Stalewasem bridge opening is another). And typical support bases have had run ins with the government (public sector union strikes, Indigenous groups, environmentalists etc.).

So all in all, we’ll see.

Yes, any Middle East issue is complex and unrest has been ongoing for centuries, but at least mass displacement, killing children and other innocent people, destruction and blockading of humanitarian resources, and incursion into sovreign territory should be condemned, don’t you think, Ed? And the words “Free Palestine” are not anti-Israel, no one seemed to have a big problem with any of Macklemore’s words, until some billionaire ten days later phoned him up about it.

As a general point the judge would agree with what you wrote.

“These reasons and judgment should not be viewed, however, as any kind of blanket determination that a transgender or gender-diverse inmate who is designated as a [dangerous offender] cannot be transferred to an institution that aligns with their gender identity, and that may happen eventually for Ms. Cooper. Each such case will depend on their unique circumstances.”

Just in this specific circumstance, and at this point in time, the judge assessed and ruled accordingly in this case. My focus of this comment is not to debate the case (your argument has merit) but to highlight the difference in care for the rights of both parties in a similar Canadian trial, though of course not everybody got what they wanted. In the American case, even the states’ lawyers were scratching their heads with the unprompted bigotry coming from the judges out of left field.

There do exist unique cases (in Canada) where I think it is justified to keep specific trans women out of female prisons, if a pattern of criminal sexual behvaiour towards women is established. I encourage you to read that article as yet another example of Canadian judges taking their job way more seriously than these nutcase Federalist Society judges. They appear to be out to make a point instead of studying the arguments, precedent in law and assessing the trial court’s judgement on a legal and constitutional basis rather than a partisan one.

I think networks should just start splicing in helicopter noises whenever this guy opens his mouth.

Shhh… if orange baby hears, he’s going to rename the bird to Canada America…

I always heard bald eagle calls as an “ukikiki” sound, they are pretty common here in my part of British Columbia.

Habitat 67 in Montréal, built for Canada’s centennial and the World Expo.

An awards ceremony thread will be coming in October, dw I haven’t forgotten about the promised prize

There are things that can be done to show the Senate that people are not uniformly for Bill C-22 despite legislators and police wanting it for whatever reason. like signing petition e-7416, closing today.

More and more I am getting the feeling that the USA is being ruled by NatalieGPT, which goes like this: Trump whines about something like not having potash, Natalie queries an LLM where else has potash then tells Trump that he just made a stupendous trade deal there so he can post about it or share some more AI slop.

Canada should charge an additional 0.1% export tax on potash every time Trump says or posts something dumb. Probably would be over 100% before the midterms.

Yep. Same guy said managers will ask why they can’t use AI for that job. It seems that he has answered that hypothetical question here.

Yes. I have had my own changed as well.

In my encounters it’s more often that a counter argument to what I say is not wrong either. When a morsel of nuance can be introduced, we can understand each others’ argument without necessarily having anyone flip around their opinion to the opposite.

However I have tried sometimes to no avail, if there’s no progress after around 3 back-and-forths I end the conversation.

If you want some advice to increase your success in getting people to consider, try this: Start with the part you agree or share with the other person’s perspective. Try for a “Yes… and…” if possible, or “Yes… but…” if you can’t. After the and/but, that’s where you can go into the difference in opinion you have.

A bit of cynicism and skepticism is healthy, but you don’t have to do the GOP’s job and manifest the outcome for them. I.e. do more to get out the vote for Talarico, and pre-emptively block or actively counter the methods used to help Paxton’s odds. Cook Political Report puts Texas as a Toss Up, so neither Paxton nor Talarico’s win is likely or assured.

If a county reduces voting locations in bluer districts, offer more services to transport voters to the polls in those areas. If there’s attempt at interference, put that to the courts. In fact draft up a suit that prohibits federal agents of any kind from “monitoring” poll locations, in case Trump decides to fart some kind of threat out in the next couple months.