RWG

I'd totally forgotten what December in Victoria was like: rain, rain, cloudy with showers, rain, rain, cloudy with sunny breaks, cloudy with showers, rain, rain. Germany just had eight players test postive. They play their first game the 25th and then Canada again on the 26th. Sweden had two more staff members test positive, after just sending their coach home to Sweden after he tested positive. So yeah, not a great start. It's hard to say. In B.C., the restrictions seem to be glacially moving the daily case counts in the right direction. In Ontario, they don't seem to have had any impact at all, as people aren't following them. Donnelly did a radio interview the night Aquilini fired him on Twitter and it was funny. He started off speaking calmly and by the end was just screaming about how all this is fake and ridiculous. His first controversy wasn't politics but the fact he underwent some controversial and unsafe weight loss procedure where they sucked like a hundred pounds off. I remember the Flames H1N1 thing. The Flames or Alberta Health or both had to fire people over it, if I recall correctly. Iginla is impossible to dislike. Just elite tier classiness. John Shannon is a huge tool for the NHL. He is very tight with the league though and has good information. Apparently he was pretty fierce/yelled at people a lot when he produced Hockey Night in Canada. Yeah, the Holtby thing tee'd off a whole conversation about the logo. Obviously, different Inigenous people will have different views, and I hope the team listens to the ones who have issues with it. That said, if it were truly as problematic as alleged, I feel like it would have come up at some point in the previous 20 years. I like the horse. Is his name really Blasty though? That can't be for real. They're saying mid-January now. The NHL and NHLPA have an agreement in place. The NHL still needs approval from the five provinces' health officers to allow the teams to travel between provinces, and to play their games, which violate gathering restrictions. The meetings are continuing tomorrow. It is good to know that the NHL is just allowed to demand the time and resources of these taxpayer-funded public health authorities. After Markstrom, Tanev, Leivo, and Domingue, seeing the Flames steal the exact colours used in the Canucks' existing alternate/throwback jerseys was not shocking. According to Friedman, four of the provinces have caved to the NHL's demands RE travel and games. The lone standout is rumored to be B.C. Friedman said a possible resolution, if that province can't agree, would be to have that province's team play in another Canadian city. So Calgary may as well just take the whole enchilada and have the Calgary Canucks this year too.

I don't know who O'Toole is supposed to appeal to that Scheer can't. They maybe could have expected him to be a firmer or more competent figure, but otherwise I don't get it. If this analysis by Grenier clocks with what the Liberals have internally, and it more or less holds until there is widespread vaccine availability in the summer, I do think we'll have an election in 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-polls-year-end-1.5845852

^ That's pretty good. New federal polling shows the NDP up to 23 per cent nationally. https://leger360.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Legers-North-American-Tracker-December-14th-2020-min.pdf?x43558 Liberals are up in Quebec. NDP are up big in BC. I'm guessing that's tied to the provincial gov't. The Liberals haven't had a major ethics scandal in over six months, but that makes me feel like we're due.

A good chunk of them will never accept it. After inauguration, when Trump's only option is to tweet and do remote interviews as a sort of anti-president from his home, they'll probably still send him money.

Sorry to hear. Glad they are doing ok now. 2020 blows. They named the Team Canada roster today. I hope they are able play the world juniors, but getting all the players from all over the world there and keeping the virus out will be difficult. I think most of the country except the Atlantic provinces has no gathering restrictions in place for Christmas. I understand the need for the restriction and will follow it, but it does feel like the way this pandemic has played out, how fast they re-opened everything and how slow they were to close it again, it's like they timed it specfiically so that the worst part would play out at Christmas. We could have had a more normal Christmas, but oh well. Thanks for asking, I'm pretty good! I kind of had to move back because of a parent's health thing that is unfortunate, but it is otherwise nice to be back. BC weather at this time is just rainy and cold... southern Ontario is actually nicer in fall. But I suppose either is preferable to Alberta weather. Apparently Mark Donnelly was only singing 7 games a year as of last season. I think the Saturday night ones on HNIC. His bizarre political activities have been coming up more and more in recent years, and I think the team got sick of hearing about it and started using other people more. Also, the Canucks, like every NHL team, have had to lay off a good chunk of its office and operations staff because of the virus. The owner has lost millions of dollars because of it and desperately wants it to end ASAP, so I can understand him getting mad at the singer for wanting to do a public event for people who think it's fake. Considering Aquilini fired him on Twitter and did it almost right after the story about the anti-mask rally came out, I think it's safe to say he can have a short temper. lol I love how Jarome Iginla spent 20 years having to answer dumb questions about the power play yet is happy to participate in a "local citizens weigh in" segment for the local news. And people wonder why hockey players like playing and living in the U.S. Besides the taxes, they can just live normal lives there. John Shannon leaked a scoop about the NHL planning to buy private doses of the coronavirus vaccine for its upcoming season, right after they finish robbing an orphanage of its Christmas food. The reaction was very funny as you can see by the number of replies. I don't know who at the NHL thought this would be a smart thing to leak. Shannon had to issue another tweet clarifying that the NHL would not want to do until the vaccine is available for private purchase and that they won't cut the line. That doesn't make sense though, because the first tweet says "upcoming season," which starts in a few weeks. I do get why the NHL would try that though. They are going head on into the pandemic with teams travelling around the continent and there is a hard stop because of the Olympics. If teams pick up the virus and have outbreaks, the league isn't able to move games back like the NFL and MLB have when they've had teams knocked out of play. NBC wouldn't broadcast the games. It feels like there's a lot of pressure on Bettman right now, especially after the owners just lost cash because of the MOU he encouraged them to sign. We still don't have a start date!

I'm not really looking to leave my job, but if contact tracing it entails what I imagine it does--calling people and doing research--I'd probably enjoy it more than what I do now. It seems like most of the postings prefer someone who is a registered nurse or equivalent, though. It sounds like, in most provinces, they'll generally vaccinate healthcare workers first, then vaccinate people over 75, then scale their way down to healthy middle-aged people by the end of the summer. The Pfizer one hasn't been approved for people who are immunocompromised, people younger than 16, and pregnant women, in Canada at least. I'll be curious to see what % will actually be vaccinated once demand drops. Fauci has said they need 75%. I'll be surprised if the United States or Canada is able to crest 60%.

How much each province supports its COVID restrictions. Not especially surprising either.

I remember when Pallister was one of the most popular premiers in the country. Kenney is not so surprising. Pandemic handling aside, the guy has the likability of a salad. Recent polling in Alberta shows the UCP trailing Rachel Notley's NDP 47-40 among decided voters. No vote splitting on the right to blame it on this time.

Let's hope they bring out the tweets!

I don't think I've ever watched a live U.S. legislative proceeding in my life, but I'll be damned if I'm not making popcorn for the Neera Tanden confirmation hearing.

So, this is just a full-on right-wing conspiracy theory thread now.

You got Leivo too. =/ Calgary signed him for very little and the Canucks apparently couldn't match. There is obviously an internal salary cap here. Daddy told Jim Benning he can't have a new toy this year. I'm not even that mad that the Canucks have effectively decided to take a step back this year. It is going to be a weird, short year, with an all-Canadian division probably for the whole regular season. If last year's cup didn't have an asterisk (I think it did), this year's certainly will. It will be a treat for Markstrom too, not needing to make 35 saves every night to win. Vancouver is one of North America's most left-wing cities, in a province with an NDP premier and a country with a Liberal prime minster. I am actually moving back to BC next week, but unlike with Todd, it has nothing to do with politics. I didn't think Seattle would have as good a first season as Vegas did, because the other teams wouldn't allow the expansion drafter to walk all over them like they did Vegas. I still don't think they will, but because of all the economic damage the coronavirus has inflicted, Seattle may end up with as big of an advantage that Vegas had all the same. Perhaps moreso of an advantage than Vegas had. The league and players just agreed to a new CBA four months ago, and Bettman is already asking the players to defer more escrow. I'm guessing Gary just told the owners to agree to what they did to get them back into the bubble and told them they'd renegotiate if they can't get fans in the stands in the fall. I think the players will probably cave as usual, because Bettman will always be successful in blaming them for any stoppages. But with players angered a new and probably about a third of owners not wanting to play without fans at all, they may just not come back until next season.

While Democrats infight over how toxic leftist economic gestures make them to rural voters, imo, it is actually The Wokes™ who make them repellent to so many. I can't remember who said it, but a statement I generally agree with is, "Identity politics are necessary but not sufficient." Biden imo is a conservative Democrat. In most industrialized nations, he'd be in the right-of-centre party. He's probably to the right of my country's last Conservative Prime Minister, given his views on health insurance.

I hope it happens! As much as I dislike Trump, he is at his funniest when he's ruining the careers of established members of the GOP politcal class, like he did to Jeb and Rubio in 2016. If Trump runs again in 2024, he'll get the nomination, and Cruz, Cotton et al. will be out of luck for another four years. My gut says I don't think he'll run again in 2024. Maybe he's not able to resist the chance to beat Biden, but I think the scrutiny that being president brings to his personal life and finances will keep him away from the office.

I was active in it wayyyy back in the day. I remember Mike/Kernz and Cam (TOCTenor? or something).

I think Trump needed the 270-268 scenario, or something close to it, to get the election into field-goal range for the courts. Whatever legal strategy Barr comes up with is going to need to throw out a *lot* of votes. Plus, I don't think a lot of house Republicans will see it as worth their while to try to save him. Many of them had a great night. They gained in the house, they probably kept the senate, they finally get an offramp to Trump, meaning they can execute strategies without disruption, and they'll have probably have strong maps in 2022 and 2024, given the situation Biden is inheriting.

Pensylvannia to Biden. That's the ballgame.

I thought of her the other day when I heard "Mary Jane" in a store. RIP.

That Game 6 will end up as a watershed moment for the role of analytics/sabremetrics in baseball/sports.

^ The NDP doesn't want an election any time soon. If Trudeau wants an election he's probably going to have to come out and say it. The BC NDP got their majority last night. The current count is NDP - 55 Liberal - 29 Green - 3 A few thoughts: The NDP will probably add an additional 3ish seats when the mail-in votes are counted. They could get as high as 60. The NDP didn't get much of a pick up in the interior, but they completely chased the Liberals out of the Metro Vancouver area. The BC Conservative Party did indeed cost the Liberals seats. Probably 3-5, after mail-ins are counted. That's a lot. In the Bible-thumpy areas like Chilliwack and Langley, the Liberals and their leader denounced their own candidates who complained about things like rainbow crosswalks and contraception. The Liberal incumbants in these ridings lost their seats to the NDP by fewer votes than the Conservative candidate got. The Liberals also continue to lose higher-income voters to the Green Party, which the West Vancouver-Sea to Sky riding flipping Green this time. The Greens have to be thrilled with keeping their seat count at three, losing one in Victoria but finally picking up one not on the island. They probably would have been happy with two. It wouldn't have been shocking if they were wiped out. Andrew Wilkinson's election-night speech included no concession and no congratulations to his opponents. His position throughout the campaign was that the Liberals have nothing to apologize for for the handling of ICBC, BC Hydro, and housing affordability during their 16-year government.

Canucks did rebound a bit by getting Nate Schmidt for a 3rd-round pick in 2020 from Vegas. Vegas was in cap hell because of the Pietrangelo signing, so they had to give up a lower-end top-pairing dman for basically nothing, to a divisional opponent. That's obviously a win for the Canucks, but they've still had a bad offseason on aggregate. The Pietrangelo signing by Vegas was a little surprising to me. I respect that they want to make a huge splash every offseason and be in on every #1 free-agent, but when they were eliminated, nobody thought "Vegas needs a #1 dman." It was, "Vegas needs scorers who can finish." There's also the ruthlessness of them getting rid of whoever they need to to make cap space for such players. You can do it once or twice, but eventually, the room is going to get ansty and unhappy that all their fiends are being jettisoned because the group isn't given more than one chance.

The Astros were supposed to be booed and bean-balled all summer. As a Blue Jays fan, I hate the Rays. I'll hate them even more if they lose this series.

I'm not sure they would. They're the Democrats... In a vacuum, I think whoever is the president should be able to fill vacancies regardless of how close it is to the election. It's obviously ridiculous for Republicans doing this after the rationale they used for not confirming Garland, but again they don't care about being hypocrites and that's why they have power. Getting rid of the lifetime appointments would do a lot to make these supreme court vacancies less insane. No other country does lifetime appointments, because it's stupid.