2010 in Pictures: Hello Sports Fans

Meanwhile, in BC

The BC Libs have set the rules to replace Gordon Campbell...kind of.

The plan is to use a riding-by-riding weighted point system, similar to how the federal Tories picked Harper and how the Ontario Tories picked Hudak. It's also the system the federal grits will use the next time they have a leadership race, unless of course they feel like just appointing someone again.

The catch is that they'll need to hold a special AGM in February to change the rules. As you might imagine, changing the rules for a leadership race in the midst of a leadership race isn't the easiest thing to accomplish.

So this leaves a lot of uncertainty, and could mean Gordon Campbell stays on until May.

As for the contenders, Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts (who struck me as the best candidate from what little I know of the candidates) has decided to take a pass. Carole Taylor has also ruled out a return to politics, although from what I've read, the door is still somewhat ajar there.

Among other high profile candidates, some rumours have circled around Harper Cabmin James Moore, though I have a hard time seeing why a 34 year old Cabinet Minister would want to jump into a job that could very likely leave him unemployed in a little over two years. Plus, it's not like being Heritage Minister is a bad gig - you get to go to movie premiers and meet cool wrestlers. Sounds like more fun than selling the HST to me.

The recently retired Keith Martin has also been rumoured, though I feel that speculation is more based on "let's toss out random names of BC politicians" than on any sort of reality.

So that leaves us with possible candidates Rich Coleman, Kevin Falcon, George Abbott, Mike de Jong, Christy Clark and Blair Lekstrom. And, presumably, Frank McKenna.

I don't know nearly enough about these candidates to offer any kind of insight on this race. From what I've seen online so far, BC2013 seems to be the go-to site but if you know of other blogs, feel free to post links in the comments section.


UPDATE: The leadership vote will be February 26th...less than two weeks after the vote to change the leadership selection rules.

One would think this kind of chaos could be avoided by a party in power, with an outgoing leader everyone knew was leaving, and two and a half years out from the next fixed date election. But, I guess not.

Canada's Team

I've posted my thoughts on the James Moore hockey tweet "controversy" over at PuckProb. The short of it is this - Moore's been a Canucks fan his entire life, so I tend to think he has suffered enough already. No need to pile on here.

And, while I'm cross-promoting, here's a look at the biggest first round upsets of the last 16 years and the players looking like the best playoff pool picks so far.

ScantilyCladWoman-gate

Finally, we understand why James Moore is deemed less competent for a Cabinet position than Gordon O'Connor, Michael Fortier, or Jason Kenney - he's a pervert. Yes, NDP MP Irene Mathyssen, has dropped the bombshell that I can only imagine will splash across the front page of the Globe & Mail tomorrow morning. Rather than snoozing, heckling, or pretending to laugh at Peter Van Loan's jokes, James Moore spent question period...on the Internet...looking at...a scantily clad woman!

"There was an image of a scantily clad woman in very flimsy lingerie" on the computer of Parliamentary Secretary for Public Works James Moore, New Democrat MP Irene Mathyssen told reporters. "It was dark in color and she was a brunette."

"It was, I would say, not hard porn by any stretch," she said.

"I would describe it as soft porn, Playboy-type stuff .

My first thought upon reading this was: ewww...Irene Mathyssen is, like, some sort of pornography classification expert. But those unnerving thoughts quickly turned to feelings of anger and rage. While Moore has flimsily tried to defend himself, this is perhaps Canada's biggest sex scandal since the Munsinger Affair. I am therefore proud to be the first to call for a full public inquiry in order to answer the following lingering questions:

Was Stephen Harper aware of this? Just how flimsy was her lingerie? Was this "playboy-type" soft porn or "Toronto Sun-type" soft porn? Is she Moore's "girlfriend" as reported in some stories or just his "friend" as reported in others? Are they "in a relationship" on facebook or are they at "it's complicated"? If she's single, what is her phone number? Given it's a sex scandal, I assume Peter MacKay must be somehow involved - how? Who is Irene Mathyssen and why have we never heard about her before? Did James Moore ever donate money to Jean Charest's leadership campaign? Has he ever signed golf balls? Did he dream of being a back bench MP when he was in kindergarten?

Canadians demand answers. We're mad as hell and, come hell or high water, we need to get to the bottom of this!