Traffic for September 5 – 9, 2011

ya know that something is going on when the traffic at ye olde e-scribbles starts jumping up by 25% from the previous month.

And that’s a real 25%, not an hyper-torqued NDP 25% that is actually just one percent. 

If you want to see more on  the story of the NDP’s deceptive news release on small business taxes, it hit the Number 8 slot on the top 10 Bond posts for last week, as chosen by the readers themselves.

Lots of “D”s in the Top 10 last week, including Danny, Desperation,  Donations,  Duff and Doyle, as in Republic of.  Even without putting the words in the headline lots of people found it and likely had a little chuckle as they went.

The week after Labour Day turned out to be highly charged politically and if the trend holds this will be one of the more interesting fall seasons in recent times.

So in case you missed these posts during the week, settle in and enjoy what caught everyone’s attention here at SRBP last week.

1. RCMP investigating SNC Lavalin officials over corruption allegations
2. And he is known by the company he keeps…
3. Democracy Watch:  Duff’s guff
4. Dateline:  Desperation, Newfoundland
5. The Joy of Political Giving:  punch in the bake edition
6. Danny, Gary and Steve:  old inconsistencies die hard
7. Rideout tags Tories for election pork-fest
8. The Politics of Cynicism;  even worse than thought edition and What you can see at the horse race…
9. The Joy of Political Giving:  Look for the union label
10. The Joy of Political Giving:  If you want to build it, they will give

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Traffic Flow: August 29 – September 2, 2011

1. Robots in dead heat (poll goosing)
2. NL ratepayers to carry full load for Muskrat falls plus more
3. The Politics of Cynicism, NDP style
4. Uniting the Left:  a reminder
5. Nalcor royalties:  yet more information
6. Muskrat Falls:  lost opportunity
7. Court docket now online
8. Paving the way (political donations by paving companies)
9. Political Reporting 2011
10. About SRBP

 

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Summer Polling Month Top 10

The weather may have been da pits but this was the sweatiest Summer of Love pre-election poll goosing month in recent Conservative Party history.

And if it wasn’t the steam coming off the overheated Tory news torquing machine it was the sweating in Liberal circles as one leader left and another arrived.

Along the way, the province got its first story where the reporter admitted he “broke” the story from a bar stool. 

Not surprisingly, that story wound up inspiring what became the top post here at Ye Olde Scribble Pile for the month of August.

Very much a surprise was the number two story. It is the tags “Soper Inquiry”, a series of posts that contain the first report by Judge Lloyd Soper in his 1979 inquiry into the leak of police reports into a fire at Elizabeth Towers.

One of the leading figures* in the inquiry – and the leaks – has a new book out, incidentally.  No word on whether he is offering Lysianne Gagnon a cut of the sales given that one of the columns in it seems curiously similar to Gagnon’s column on the first volume of a biography of Pierre Trudeau.  Your humble e-scribbler point out the similarities in 2006 in another post that was popular at the time.

Another surprise is the third place story for the month.  As part of the changed layout, your humble e-scribbler crated a page about the blog itself.  A lot of people found that interesting.

The rest of the top posts are predictable bag of political stuff from the Liberal leadership to Muskrat Falls.

1. If Rick Hillier really runs for the Liberal leadership…
2. Soper Inquiry
3. About SRBP
4. Sun TV/Fox News wannabe?  VOCM hits new low
5. NDP avoids straight answer on Muskrat Falls
6. The continued taberization of political reporting in Canada
7. Westcott packs it in
8. Changing the game
9. Court docket now online
10. Bloc NDP MP backs Tory Premier Dunderdale

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*Add word eaten by wonky Microsoft software

MF Traffic Report

Turns out the MF deal is a mf, at least for the political fortunes of the gang who cooked up the scheme to ship discount power to Nova Scotia paid for entirely by the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The week that an environmental panel demolished the foundation for Danny Williams’ retirement scheme and Kathy Dunderdale’s bid for the history books, here’s what the readers of the Sir Robert Bond Papers picked as their top 10 posts:

1. NDP avoids straight answer on Muskrat Falls
2. A monstrous abuse continues
3. Subsidizing subsidized industry…somewhere else
4. Joint environmental panel slams Muskrat Falls
5. The Power of Confusion:  the Three Amigos Update
6. Layton’s Legacy
7. Venus in Furs:  Muskrat Falls edition
8. Bury my lede at Muskrat Falls and Random Post in Latin:  ALF edition
9. Misleading the House:  recall the whole power recall story
10. Muskrat falls fails joint federal/provincial environmental review

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Playing in Traffic, August 15 to 19, 2011

There will be some other big news next week, but for now, here’s what SRBP readers wanted this past week:

1. Sun TV/Fix News wannabe?  VOCM hits new low.  (The story disappeared the next day)
2. Westcott packs it in.
3. Bloc NDP MP backs Tory Dunderdale
4. Separated at birth:  the eyes have it edition
5. No man is an island:  Mount Pearl edition  (Kent changed his website within two days)
6. A cause for grave concern
7. Feds to announce MOU on loan guarantee
8. Three parties, two leaders, one policy, no sense
9. Then again…election news mine edition
10. Great Gambols with Public Money:  Sprung Cukes 4

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The 2011 Regatta Week Top 10

1. The continued taberization of political reporting in Canada
2. When bullshit fails…
3. No thought, please.  We’re Danny.
4. Debt, electricity rates and Muskrat Falls
5. Jane Taber – Twit
6. Blochead-Dipper Watch
7. The medium of the bread and circuses message
8. Dunderdale tops in senior management churn
9. Opening the doors on government information
10. Resource give-away

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The July 2011 Traffic

Top 10 posts for July 2011, as decided by Bond Papers readers:

1. Trade talks with Europeans = “doing back-room deal with a bunch of serial rapists”
2. Forecasting the fall
3. Skinner makes false statement in letter to Telegram
4. Free tuition at NL university for Nova Scotians:  NL NDP leader
5. Politicians and illness
6. Cross Sheila off your list
7. All three NL parties back Muskrat Falls project
8. Makes it official, then
9. I knew Marilyn Monroe
10. Definitely cabinet material

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The Traffic: 25–29 July 2011

1. Turd buffing
2. Politicians and illness
3. Nalcor ignores natural gas, local studies back cheaper alternative to Muskrat Falls
4. An endorsement that rings a little hollow
5. Follow the money
6. Paternalism in pictures
7. Nutbar Factor 6 and The Politics of Perpetual Panic
8. Where isn’t the democracy in that?
9. Plastic, packaged and preaching to the choir
10. The Politics of Public Spending

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Traffic in the heat of the Summer of Love 2011

Fire trucks, Twitter and a 60 year old who dropped a hundred pounds in six months wanting a job today she didn’t want six months ago.

Must be the Summer of Love 2011.

All that is fodder for another post.  For now let’s just check out the 10 stories most Bond Papers readers were pondering last week.

1. Free tuition at NL university for Nova Scotians;  NL NDP leader
2. Like Momma always said…Part Deux und Trois
3. From the Earth to the moon
4. And Harry won’t be running either
5. Rumpole and the Cardinal Rule
6. Nurturing a democratic revolution
7. Bullshit then or now?  Nalcor boss changes story on Muskrat megadebt project and natural gas
8. Making the Most of our Energy Resources – Oil and Gas in the Future
9. Former Tory fin min not giving up fight against Muskrat
10. Containing Ottawa’s Skyrocketing Power Bill

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Traffic that never flip flops

The weekly top 10 Bond Papers posts for the week of July 11 to 15, 2011, selected by you, the readers.

1. Forecasting the fall
2. All three NL parties back Muskrat project
3. A world of their own
4. Ahem
5. Political parties and debt:  the Kennedy perspective
6. You might know it as bribery, Ma’am
7. Cross yet another one off your list and Not much to see [tie]
8. Cross Sheila off your list
9. The Ballot Question:  October 2011
10. Did I say “yes” to Muskrat?  I meant “no”:  Jones

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Traffic for people lined up at the Basilica

This was an amazing week in Newfoundland and Labrador politics. 

Summer arrived with a vengeance, traffic at the humble e-scribbles is back up and the theme this week seems to be cock-ups.

Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner starred in a couple of posts this week, although one of the incidents wasn’t his fault.

In at the number two spot is noob Bloc NDP member of parliament Ryan Cleary in what is likely to be the first of many appearances in the parliamentary year-end gag reel. He’s getting attention for his poor choice of words.  It should be because the comments were a load of malarkey. 

For those who want some humour with the Saturday morning Internet browsing, the title of this post is a play on Cleary’s inappropriate language (see the Number 10 post) See if you can figure it out.

Number three is a wannabe provincial Conservative candidate who is accused of chucking an electric drill at the cops in an incident that also involved an RV.

And on it goes.

1. Skinner makes false statement in letter to Telegram editor
2. Makes it official, then
3. Definitely cabinet material
4. Loan guarantee for Muskrat Falls “electioneering” says NDP MP from Quebec
5. And this just in from K-L-A-N news
6. Skinner throws AG under a bus
7. You say potato.  I say road apple.
8. And there goes another one
9. Okay, so it wasn’t a bus after all
10. Trade talks with Europeans = “doing back-room deal with group of serial rapists”

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That Was The Canada Week That Was

Political mythology was the top of the reading list here at Bond Papers in the days leading up to Canada Day.

The top post noted that a national Conservative insider complaining about political myths was a bit like Aesop bitching about fables.

The second most popular post brought some evidently embarrassing attention to local lover of political myths who went out for the Olympic medal in political bullshit by making what he himself subsequently criticized as ridiculous comments.

The third post noted some problems with a local news story on the same political controversy that the second post covered. You’ll find another critique of a local news story in the one on gouging consumers that ended up tied for the fifth spot on the Top 10 list.

Not done with the political mythology theme, readers also loved the fourth place post.  Another in the Dundernomics series made a penetrating insight into the obvious:  Premier Kathy Dunderdale can’t seem to get her story straight on Muskrat Falls.

The rest of the stories on the list – with one exception – are all about Kathy Dunderdale and Muskrat Falls.  The exception, the story at Number 8 on the list, is about a huge energy story in Vermont that involves  a local company that just happens to be one of the largest private utility companies in Canada. 

It also went pretty much unreported by media in this province.

1. Payback is a mother
2. The federal government is out to kill you
3. Get me re-write
4. Dundernomics 101:  dazed and confused
5. Gouging consumers on gas and Taken up by the ferries
6. A room with a view of the pork barrel
7. The price of a loan guarantee
8. Fortis, Gaz Metro in war for Vermont utility
9. Wealth transfer
10. A tisket, a tasket... and Phriday Photo Phunny

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The Tops for June

Muskrat Falls.

Provincial Tory political fortunes.

Those are the two main themes running through the most popular posts for June.

1. Nalcor negotiating Muskrat transmission with Hydro-Quebec
2. Dunderdale disapproval doubles
3. Well, she asked for one…
4. Cross Sheila off your list...
5. Will bad Tory polls change candidate slates
6. Payback is a mother:  Conservative edition
7. United the Left and Well, did she know in advance?
8. Nightmare on Muskrat Falls
9. Phriday Photo Phunny
10. Minister Chickenshit

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Traffic that transcends the overpass

1. Well, did she know in advance?
2. Minister Chickenshit
3. Kremlinology 36:  Thinking with your ass
4. Will one of them change parties?
5. Like Momma says, stupid is…
6. Penis Envy
7. Belize dannys Fortis
8. Making the most of our electricity resources – Part I:  Electricity Reform
9. US has surplus electricity
10. Dunderdale dunder-fail on SAR call centre

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The Weekly Traffic Report, June 13 to 17, 2011

1. Nalcor negotiating Muskrat transmission with Hydro-Quebec
2. Cross Sheila off your list
3. Titanic records available from UK National Archives
4. 24 French
5. Belize wants to buy out Fortis interest in Belize power company
6. 15 ideas (and more) for a stronger Newfoundland and Labrador – Introduction
7. Spend ‘em if ya got ‘em:  the Alberta version
8. 15 ideas (and more)  - Setting the Table
9. Building the fishery of the future (15 ideas series)
10. The looming debt problem:  update and Politics and Disasters

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Traffic that doesn’t slam into houses

Here’s what Bond Papers readers found most interesting for the week June 6 to 10, 2011:

1. Dunderdale disapproval doubles; Tory vote drop to 44%
2. Unite the Left
3. Will bad Tory polls change candidate slates?
4. Nightmare on Muskrat Falls
5. Harris Centre:  a prosperity plan for Newfoundland and Labrador
6. The looming debt problem
7. The perils of polling stories
8. Quentin Jurgens he ain’t
9. Williams ex-chief of staff lands at Muskrat project
10. Mythbusting;  not Kari but still worth the look

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Manitoba-mooseless Traffic

All the stuff people were reading at Bond Papers rather than getting excited about a hockey team.

Or maybe it was in addition to.

In any event, here’s the list for may 30 to June 3.

1. Well she asked for one… 
2. Dundernomics 101:  All your toasters are belong to us
3. Give Danny the money
4. Crude price forecasts don’t support Dunderdale’s empire of debt
5. The Galaxy Quest for Relevance
6. Tiny Tories love their leader:  Danny Williams
7. Fortis buys Vermont power utility
8. If this is Friday, it must be “yes”
9. Monday?  Back to “No!”
10. Muskrat Fails and Your world.  Your choice.  Your future.  (tie)

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Traffic by the numbers for May 23 to 27, 2011

Danny Williams says that the provincial government would see a $10 million return on its $500,000 subsidy…that is, if they spent.

If they could make $10 million by spending a half million, it would be a no brainer.

But they won’t.

Heck, if the numbers looked like that, multi-millionaire Williams would be spending his pocket change and fighting to keep others out of it.

So logically we know Danny’s claim is a massive pile of shite.

Even if the Angry Old Man’s numbers don’t add up, folks – and they never, ever do - you can bet these are the top 10 stories at Bond Papers for last week:

1. Meet your newest frankenparty:  the Bloc NDP
2. What am I supporting today?  asks Abbass
3. In which Dunderdale blunders…again
4. Dunderdale using rigged deck against public on Muskrat Falls
5. Tit rejects suck:  no taxpayer cash for hockey franchise after all
6. Dundernomics 101:  how to lose money
7. A tourist in her own land
8. Show us the tit and we’ll such:  AHL franchise edition
9. Dunderdale and her desperation
10. Dunderdale in action:  one Homer moment after another

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Victoria Day Weekend Traffic Report

Here’s what people were reading at Bond Papers last week:

1. Dunderdale and her desperation
2. Dunderdale to hide important Muskrat details from scrutiny/oversight
3. Dunderdale in action:  one Homer moment after another
4. No Dunderdale in Tory battle of Kilbride
5. Dunderdale flips and flops:  Muskrat Exemption Errata
6. Speaker Dunderbunny shows his bias again
7. Dundernomics 101
8. Talk radio on agenda for national political science association
9. Dunderdale opts for mid-level bureaucrat for CEO
10. Long awaited report still under wraps

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Friday the 13th Traffic Report

In a week of disruptions and hiccups at ye olde Bond Papers, let’s see what people were reading:

1. Fortis on Lower Churchill:  No thanks!
2. For the world is hollow…
3. How west coast Newfoundland could beat the Lower Churchill
4. Not a Mommy blogger…not that there’s anything wrong with that
5. Why columnists need editors
6. NB to seek offshore accord with feds
7. Court docket now online
8. Bell 206 crash – photo interpretation
9. Anyone seen John Hickey?
10. Paul Oram:  minister of revisionist history

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