Twitter or Huckster? Political uses of social media

Front page of the Telegram with a glorious picture. 

Way better advertising than he could ever buy with cash and Steve Kent nailed it.

Of course, Steve Kent is one thing above anything else:  a marketer.  He knows how to sell you something and the commodity he sells best his himself.  You can tell Steve Kent is good at it because he has done very well for himself in a relatively short period of time.

You can also tell because he uses the textbook lines to describe his interest in social media:

Twitter is really about having a dialogue. It’s about engaging people in conversation and it’s not just another approach to communicating messages in the traditional sense

The front page Telegram story would have you believe that Kent is a keen political trendsetter using social media like Twitter in order to “have ‘more human’ interactions with his constituents.”

Here is an example of those “more human” interactions, the dialogue, the conversations:

-  The Provincial Government is investing $2 million so schools across Newfoundland and Labrador can receive 1,450...

-  Storm has started, but dinner theatre is a go at Reid Centre for @mount_pearl Frosty Festival!

There’s some stuff about a pothole and a flat tire, lots of repeating of other people’s messages – called re-tweeting – and a few sports scores. Not very deep or detailed and all pretty pedestrian stuff.  If this is “more human”, then you’d hate to see the other “interactions.”

Still, good on Kent for going with this sort of thing.  He’s not alone;  he might be the only provincial politician to embrace twitter professionally but there are plenty of others out there.  Most locally tend to use Twitter this way:  very sterile and pretty much for putting on the official face.

Not all of them are like that, though.  Take Tony Clement, the federal cabinet minister.  this guy is on Twitter and he and his personality are right there.

And these guys are distinctly different from other high-profile people who are using Twitter.  News media types are especially notable for just putting themselves and their distinctive personalities out there for people to take or leave as they see fit. They don’t just tweet news or mundane lines teasing up a story on the conventional media for television or radio. Sports, movies, personal comments, jokes are all as much part of the twitter mix as something about what stories they are working on. Two that come easily to mind are Kady O’Malley from CBC Ottawa and David Cochrane, CBC’s provincial affairs reporter in  from Newfoundland and Labrador.

The contrast between the pols and the media is night and day.  One is carefully packaged and guarded, by and large, while the other is more natural.  Guess which one better reflects the online, social media world? 

Yeah.

It’s the news media types.  They have no less at risk than the pols but the ones who are using successfully have come to understand that a key part of their overall success is rooted in them being anything but a coif and a voice. Their personality and their personability has become part of the overall package that draws loyal followers. They aren’t “more human”, they are just human.

Authenticity, it seems, is like sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made in politics. Odd thing is, most politicians real don’t need to fake either.  Why some do remains a mystery.

Incidentally, it’s interesting to see how Twitter turns up in some election campaigns. In Humber West, Liberal Mark Watton has been using his Twitter feed to push out campaign-related information.  He’s tweeted at least once a day.  Conservative Vaughn Granter tweeted on Sunday but hadn’t done anything with Twitter since Tuesday of last week. The NDP candidate – Rosie Meyers – doesn’t appear to have a Twitter feed.

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Canada’s SAR system: an insider view

Ottawa Citizen defence columnist David Pugliese posted this comment from a former Coast Guard employee on search and rescue.  Interesting to see the quote from the Ocean Ranger inquiry report.

Some people like to quote selectively from it to suit their purposes.  The helicopter basing discussion  - the St. John’s base recommendation from the report was supposedly not implemented - is a classic example of an issue that was essentially invented by someone based entirely on a misrepresentation (deliberate or otherwise) of that report.

Pugliese’s correspondent offers a useful and possibly provocative perspective.

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Traffic that needs no loan guarantee

1. Cheryl Gallant sinks
2. Here’s hoping… (political campaigning in Humber West)
3. The road not taken (public debt, Conservative fiscal mismanagement)
4. If only… (Search and Rescue)
5. Humber West:  Mark Watton on CBC Morning Show
6. Will the fake Premier Dunderdale please stand up?
7. A rose by any other name would still stink to high heavens (patronage politics)
8. Abuse and power
9. Taking the voters for grantered
10. The Force

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If only…

One of the most tragic and despicable beliefs to come out of the Cougar 491 crash in 2009 is that the outcome might have been different except for search and rescue service in Canada.

These days, politicians and others are latching onto is something they call “response time”.  Now we’ll get back to that term in a minute but let us establish right from the outset that the most recent version of the search and rescue belief, whether from a grieving family member or a politician, is rooted firmly in the claim that search and rescue helicopters made the difference or could have made or will in the future make all the difference,  “if only…”.

That basic idea has been there from the beginning:  if only a helicopter from the Canadian Forces had been in St. John’s then more people might have been saved that day. If only the squadron -  or a helicopter – had been in St. John’s, then more might have been saved.  If only search and rescue didn’t have two different response times, then things would have been different.

The Transportation Safety Board report issued Wednesday is the most thorough and technically proficient examination of the crash to date. It identifies 16 factors that contributed to the disaster.  Altering any one of them may have saved lives.

Not one of the factors identified was search and rescue “response” time or anything else related to search and rescue helicopters.

There’s a reason for that.

There is not now nor has there ever been a single shred of evidence that anything – absolutely anything -  related to search and rescue response would have made the slightest bit of difference in this case or one comparable to it.

This brings us back to the idea of response time.  People are using that term to mean the time it takes a helicopter crew to receive an order to go, to board the aircraft, warm up, do pre-flight checks and then launch the aircraft from the airport where it is. 

That’s really “launch time”.  Right now 103 Squadron in Gander launches within 30 minutes during daytime working hours and up to 120 minutes at other times.  In practice, the launch time is much lower during “off hours”.

What people with the SAR fixation need to realise is that in order to deliver a response time of 30 minutes (as they are demanding), Canada would have to spend every penny of public money and even then there’d be no guarantee it could deliver that response time in all cases at all times.

You see, response time is really about the distance from the helicopter or ship to the incident. 

Take a look at any map of Canada and the surrounding ocean and you’ll get an idea of the magnitude of that demand and why it is ludicrous. Just think how many ships, helicopters and crews would it take to have someone ready at any given location with 30 minutes of a crash, all day long, all year long.

That’s what a 30 minute response time means.

And if you want to talk about 30 minute launch time you can understand that the Canadian Forces currently hits that time to launch helicopters more often than not.  Even after normal working hours, the sorts of launch times are not – apparently – trending toward that extreme time of 120 minutes.

Families whose loved ones died in a tragedy can be understood for their beliefs and their actions both as a natural part of grief and out of a human desire to ensure no one else feels the sort of soul-wrenching pain they have endured. Theirs is tragic belief in ever sense of the word tragedy

But for others, for the politicians and journalists, the ones who, even inadvertently, feed the belief in falsehood despite all the evidence, it isn’t so easy to find any generosity for them.

And the men and women who provide search and rescue service across Canada when the rest of us are fat and happy in our cozy beds?

They can only look in amazement at the ignorant critics, shake their heads and mutter how much better off we’d all be “if only…” as they head back to do their duty.

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Cheryl Gallant sinks

Youtube is a deadly instrument.

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Kremlinology 30: The Vanishing ‘Stache

Jerome’s shaved off his moustache.

Again.

Last time the province’s health minister went out in public sans ‘stache, he came up with some explanation for it and grew the thing back.

After your humble e-scribbler pointed it out and someone asked him about it, of course.

So what happened this time?

 

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TSB issues S-92 crash report, recommends major changes to civil helo safety regime

A complex series of events involving 16 significant factors contributed to the crash of Cougar Helicopters Flight 491 in early 2009 and the loss of 17 souls according to the Transportation Safety Board released Wednesday after a two year investigation.

The complete report is available here:  S-92 investigation report.  It is comprehensive and covers all relevant factors from crew backgrounds to key operating systems to passenger injuries and safety equipment.

The TSB investigation made four recommendations:

• The Federal Aviation Administration, Transport Canada and the European Aviation Safety Agency remove the "extremely remote" provision from the rule requiring 30 minutes of safe operation following the loss of main gearbox lubricant for all newly constructed Category A transport helicopters and, after a phase-in period, for all existing ones.
• The Federal Aviation Administration assess the adequacy of the 30 minute main gearbox run dry requirement for Category A transport helicopters.
• Transport Canada prohibit commercial operation of Category A transport helicopters over water when the sea state will not permit safe ditching and successful evacuation.
• Transport Canada require that supplemental underwater breathing apparatus be mandatory for all occupants of helicopters involved in overwater flights who are required to wear a Passenger Transportation Suit System.

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Humber West: Mark Watton on CBC Morning Show

The audio is now available online. [mp3]

CBC set this up correctly:  in-studio interviews so that none of the candidates can hear the others’ interviews and then airing them by random draw.  Watton wound up on first.

Mark got the chance to highlight his considerable experience dealing with issues that are important to Newfoundland and Labrador and talk up his connection to the district. 

Then he turned to dealing with issues he’s getting on the doorstep:  housing, concern about pensions and retirement.  The housing one is particularly striking since, as Mark points out, the city is experiencing a housing shortage despite growth. 

Mark nails a number of hard critiques of the current administration  - if housing is so important for the Conservatives it is odd they’ve never raised it in the legislature  - and then and delivers his ballot question cleanly:  do you want a member who speaks for the government or one who speaks for you?

No one can say that voters don’t have a clear choice in Humber West.

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Who’s the Boss, again?

Now it can be stuck in someone’s head like Level 42 has been haunting your humble e-scribbler for a week now.

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Will the fake Premier Dunderdale please stand up?

Seriously, gang…

Is it more disturbing that someone started an obviously fake Twitter account for Kathy Dunderdale in the general style of a dozen humourous fake accounts, including one during her predecessor’s term of office?

Or that she was so shit-baked people couldn’t tell the difference between the real Kathy and the fake Kathy that she sent out a media advisory proclaiming she doesn’t have a Twitter account?

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Imagine if they were fiscally responsible

Feast your eyes on labradore’s latest offering about public debt in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The only people left who think the current administration (since 2003) acted and are acting in a fiscally responsible manner are those who just refuse to see the obvious.

Labradore offers this projection of the provincial net debt if a quarter of oil revenues had gone to actually paying off debt over the past few years.  The light coloured bits are what would have disappeared.  The dark green are what would have remained. The two together are what the Conservatives actual record looks like from basically doing nothing except paying off what came due.

Never Read Stuff Late at Night Update and Correction:  The charts are based on the assumption of taking 25% of the windfall oil revenues for spending and 75% for debt reduction. That's what happens sometimes when you read things late at night.

It actually doesn't change the overall thrust of this post or labradore's original, though since the charts illustrate what an aggressive debt reduction approach could have achieved while at the same time fueling significant increases in public spending.

Consider this to be the complete opposite of the Williams and Marshall approach in which they basically did shag all to reduce the province's debt burden to any meaningful degree.

*original continues*



And the share of the public debt borne by each man, woman and child in the province?

In the cleverly colour-coded chart you can see the blue line – what the Tories did – and the red line representing what might have been, had the current administration done as labradore and a few other brave souls recommended.



Odds are pretty good that a government with the fiscal track record shown in this chart could actually raise the cash on its own to build a viable Lower Churchill project.  On its own, that is, which would be in contrast to going cap in hand to Uncle Ottawa looking for a gigantic multi-billion dollar handout. Like say both Danny Williams and his hand-picked successor have been doing.

There’s a provincial government that is genuine in its aspirations and one that can be legitimately proud of the efforts it has made to ensure Newfoundlanders and Labradorians live in a province that is strong and fiscally sound.

And then there are the people who talk about legitimate aspirations but who fail repeatedly to embody them, let alone achieve them.

Just for good measure, let’s give labradore the final words on this.  They are all too accurate:

There was, of course, nothing responsible or prudent about Danny Williams’ tenure as Premier, and nothing, other than name, that was conservative about it. He chose a different track. 

That is why a government that collected over $9-billion in oil revenues during its tenure still presides over a $9-billion net provincial debt. 

And that is why the provincial net debt per capita this fiscal year was over $17,000 and rising, when in the alternative universe it would have been $7,000 and falling, and falling fast.

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Abuse and power

Last fall when the provincial government debated a resolution to appoint the current child advocate, the minister then responsible for the department of child, youth and family services - Joan Burke  - reminded everyone that the advocate’s position came from a recommendation by some very thoughtful members of the House of Assembly.

They comprised a Select Committee on Children’s Interests created by the House of Assembly in 1994.  Their report, issued in 1996 after two years of study and consultation recommended a number of actions designed to change fundamentally the way the provincial government approached children's’ issues

Those thoughtful members, interestingly enough, specifically rejected the very idea Burke embodied as minister, namely the creation of a separate department to deal with children, youth and family issues within government. They were concerned that such an approach was unnecessarily costly, may serve to marginalize family issues with government and would not encourage the fundamental change in attitudes to children and family issues they felt families and children in the province needed:

It seems contrary to Committee members, therefore, to isolate the needs of children and youth into a single ministry. It is the fear of the Committee that issues affecting children and youth would be "marginalized" into a junior ministry. The goal of government, however, should be to educate and involve all departments and levels of government in designing and implementing appropriate social programs and policy.

The purpose of the child advocate was to speak for the interests of specific children and children generally.  The select committee recommended and Roger Grimes’ administration established the position as an officer of the House of Assembly, separate from the government. In that way, the advocate’s office was supposed to speak for children and families to those with power.

This is a crucial point.  It’s hard to imagine anyone in our society with less power than children. Families are often not much better off, especially when dealing with government.  Just as children are the least powerful of our society, it is equally hard to imagine anyone more powerful than the provincial government armed with all the legal means to accomplish whatever purposes it wants.  The advocate was supposed to provide some balance, largely by making much louder the weakened voice of the child.

All that background is what makes the child advocate’s intervention in most recent story of child protection in the province troubling in the extreme.

Carol Chafe is responding, in largest part, to a complaint brought by a minister of the Crown against the news media and the parents of two children taken into custody by officials of the minister’s department. The parents complained to the news media and the news media dutifully reported the story.

The minister, for her own reasons, decided to try and use the child advocate’s office to a purpose for which it was clearly never intended:  namely as an agent acting on behalf of the most powerful authority in the province. 

Note that Chafe did not make any public comment – as she should have – when the story first broke.  Neither she nor any of her officials appear to have made any efforts to intervene in the case, to deal with the media or the family.

Not until now, that is. 

After Charlene Johnson lodged her complaint.

In a very poorly written statement, Chafe acknowledges that people have a right to know certain things and that the media ought to report.  Then comes the “but” and it is a big one:

However, when children are the central part of the story their right to confidentiality, privacy and safety must trump all other interests.

Asked by CBC’s Ted Blades in an interview on Tuesday to balance the need to discuss a significant issue with the trump card, Chafe couldn’t do it. That isn’t really surprising.  This story carried on for a week.  if Chafe genuinely understood her role and was convinced that the children’s interests “trumped all other interests” she’d have been on this before Charlene Johnson called her in.

Chafe didn’t need anyone’s approval to get in on the case. She has a wide scope of action under the act that governs her office.

Well, the correct phrase is actually had a wide range of powers.

Under changes made to the child advocate’s act in 2008, an entirely new clause (15.2) inserted in 2008 gives a cabinet minister the right to order the advocate to cease an investigation based on the very vague claim that an investigation is not in the public interest. There is no requirement for proof nor does the advocate have any right to appeal the decision to a third party. One letter from the minister and the investigation stops.

Period.

On the face of it, what the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are seeing here is yet another example of how the current administration has steadily reduced, muzzled or eliminated any means by which someone may question its decisions.  The process, as Carol Chafe likes to talk about, has been one of erosion. 

Piece by piece.

Slowly.

Almost imperceptibly.

But once they emerge into the light, as with Carol Chafe’s intervention a handful of months into her new job, there can be no mistake about the result.

Power, once appropriately constrained, has its hands free.

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Here’s to hoping…

That all those cabinet ministers and political staffers working hard to take Humber West for Grantered and the Conservatives are not campaigning on the public dime. 

Annual leave or leave without pay.

But campaigning on the public payroll?

Not on.

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Rio Tinto capex of US$277 million for Phase 2 expansion at Labrador mine

From a Rio Tinto news release issued Tuesday:

“Rio Tinto has given the go-ahead to a further US$277 million investment (Rio Tinto share US$163 million) in the next phase of a project that will ultimately raise the Iron Ore Company of Canada’s (IOC) concentrate production capacity by 40 per cent to 26 million tonnes per year (Mt/a).  

This is the second phase of a three stage expansion that was announced in May 2010 with a US$400 million investment (Rio Tinto share US$235 million) to raise production capacity from 18 Mt/a to 22 Mt/a. 

Phase two of the project will increase IOC’s spiral and magnetite concentrate production capacity by an average of 1.3 Mt/a to 23.3 Mt/a from 2013.

Recent studies have highlighted an opportunity to improve time to market through
bringing forward some capital items from the third stage, resulting in higher level of
production earlier. The third stage of the planned expansion to 26 Mt/a is currently under study and a final investment decision is expected by 2012. 

Rio Tinto chief executive, Iron ore and Australia, Sam Walsh said the project was an
important development in increasing IOC’s production at a time when global demand is escalating.

“Global seaborne iron ore demand is projected to increase substantially over the next decade, and IOC’s concentrate is well placed to complement the increasing use of lower quality ore to meet that demand,” he said.

“With high iron content and very low levels of impurities, IOC’s concentrate provides
significant value to steel producers as ore grades from direct shipping mines continue to decline.” 

The project’s construction is set to start immediately to capitalise on the brief Labrador summer construction season and will be fully commissioned by the end of 2012.”

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Taking the voters for grantered!

Last week Humber West Conservative candidate Vaughn Granter didn’t have the time to discuss issues.

He would need – by his own estimate – a couple of days at least to get up on the issues and that would take time away from his goal of knocking on all the doors in the district before polling day.

Fast forward a week and after he’s been taking a sh*t-knocking from people for his stance, Vaughn is changing his tune.

Here’s one of his recent twitter updates:

Having a great day door-to-door with Ministers Clyde Jackman and Darin King. Enjoying good conversations of all the issues. 8 days to go!

Conversation on the issues?  Given Vaughn’s admission last week he wasn’t up on the issues and that he didn’t have the time to bone up, he must have stood quietly on the door step while Darin and Clyde did all the talking.

Either that or Vaughn’s just good at taking voters for grantered, already,

Ah well.  Time will tell. Voting day is seven days away.

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Building permits value drops again in December

The value of building permits in Newfoundland and Labrador dropped again in December, to $76 million from $90 million in November according to figures released on Monday by Statistics Canada.

Permit values during 2010 peaked in October at $191 million.

Consistent with previous months, St. John’s accounted for the lion’s share of the permit values with $42 million worth.

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Feds and province release Lower Churchill transmission line EIS document

The federal and provincial governments released the environmental impact study scoping document on Monday for the proposed transmission line that will carry electricity from the Lower Churchill to St. John’s.

The draft environmental impact study guidelines and scoping document identify the information that Nalcor will be required to address in order to prepare the environmental impact study.

Members of the public now have until March 21 to submit comments on the document. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has up to $200,000 to assist groups and individuals to participate in the project review.

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A rose by any other name would still stink to high heavens

Pity Clayton Forsey.

He’s the Conservative member of the provincial legislature from the district of Exploits. Like many of his colleagues, he visited a town in his district recently and handed out a cheque from the provincial government as a “donation” toward the town’s up-coming tourism festival.

The regional weekly newspaper covered the event and described it this way:

Denise Chippett is the chairperson of the Come Home Year committee. She said the celebrations was enjoyable for all; what also helped were substantial donations from Exploits MHA Clayton Forsey and the town's volunteer fire department.

This week the Telegram picked up that line and started poking into it. The story appeared in the Saturday edition this weekend but sadly it isn’t available on line. The Telegram noted that Chief Justice Derek Green’s report into the House of Assembly spending scandal recommended that members of the legislature not make “donations” from their constituency allowances or with other government money.  If they did so out of their own pockets,  the politician is supposed to make it clear where the money came from.

Forsey is clearly bothered by the Telegram’s questions and, as the Saturday quotes him,  Forsey is quick to distance himself from that scandal.  The money is from a government department, Forsey says.  There’s a small fund in the municipal affairs department to help out with anniversary celebrations, as in this case.

"I've always presented cheques on behalf of departments. Ministers
don't always get out to these districts," Forsey said.

Of course you have to pity Forsey on two counts.  On the the first, he is merely getting nailed publicly for what his fellow government caucus members do on a regular basis.  As Forsey says, he “always” hands out government cheques. it isn’t really fair that he gets singled out in this way.

On the second, you have to pity Forsey for not appreciating that what he and his Tory buds are doing is exactly what the House of Assembly mess was really all about;  they are just using a different means to get there. You see, the main problem with the spending scandal was not that a few fellows defrauded the Crown, although that was bad enough.  The allowances system that existed in the House between 1996 and 2006 allowed individual members to engage in the old political practice of doling out goodies to constituents.

In his report, Green calls it “treating – providing food, drink or entertainment for the purpose of influencing a decision to vote or not to vote.”  That’s not exactly what this is, but the idea is related to the term more people know:  “patronage”.

As George Perlin described it nearly 40 years ago, “the dominant factor in Newfoundland politics has been the use of public resources to make personal allocations or allocations which can be perceived in personal terms….” The objective of this exercise is to connect the politician personally with the distribution of government benefits and garner political support in the process.

Consider that in this example, Forsey holds no government office and therefore has no right to hand out a cheque for government funds in preference to anyone else. Do opposition politicians get the same consideration?  Doubtful.  It’s more likely that a backbencher from the majority party caucus would carry the cheque.

In truth, the money did need to come in a cheque at all.  These days, the money could just as easily have come in a bank transfer from the department to the town.  Nor was there any need for a politician to have anything to do with it.  After all, as Forsey explains, there is a small fund available to any town holding some sort of anniversary celebration.  All the town had to do was fill out a form and wait for the bureaucrats to process it. The same thing should happen no matter where the town is, that is, no matter the political stripe of the person sitting in the legislature for that district.

But there’d be no political value in that, hence Forsey and his colleagues carry right on in the fine old tradition of pork.

The real value – the political value  - of the whole set-up, after all,  can be easily seen in the comment the chairperson of the anniversary committee gave to the paper.  It tied the money to Forsey.  And as Forsey noted he does this sort of thing all the time. Of course he does; so do his colleagues.  The money comes from municipal affairs or from the tourism, culture and recreation department where a bunch of small grant programs keep Tory politicians busy with cheque presentations.

There is absolutely no difference in what Forsey and his colleagues are doing and what virtually all of his predecessors  - leave the convicted criminals out - did with their constituency allowances between 1996 and 2006. All that happened in 2007 was that the pork-barrelling and patronage became the exclusive domain of the majority party in the legislature.

And in the end, that wasn’t really much of a change at all.

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The Force

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Environmentally debatable traffic, Jan 31 to February 4

Two stories this week to lighten the mood.

First:  a poster in the Health Sciences Centre announcing an event for February.  Someone crossed out the first “r” as a spelling mistake.  Likely the same person changed the spelling just down the hall to read nook-yoo-lur medicine.

Second:  Surely to merciful jumpin’s Conservative candidate Vaughn Granter did not dismiss Liberal Mark Watton’s experience in the Prime Minister’s Office or a federal cabinet minister’s office as cavalierly as it sounded.

“Some experience”?

“Could be some advantage”?

Could be a disadvantage?

That’s pretty sad for a guy who isn’t from Corner Brook originally who is trying to play himself as the local boy.

Take a listen to the campaign report linked above, by the way and notice that Granter did little besides run down his opponent and talk himself up personally.  Mark Watton, on the other hand, talked sensibly about issues that are actually of concern to the people in the district.

Huge difference.

Anyway, for those who came for the weekly hit parade, here are the week’s top stories as selected by readers.

1. Tweet of the week (early edition)
2. More of the same…
3. Financials key to Lower Churchill
4. Not the best campaign strategy, maybe
5. A Hugh Shea for our time
6. Strings and all
7. The old hum on the Humber
8. PIFO:  newly minted minister in trouble in own district
9. Ronald Harper
10. Finance minister cops to unsustainable spending

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