Wideleft

If BC tries to hold him to his rookie contract, Rourke would be nuts not to hold out.

Contrast and compare with his subsequent mayors Katz and Bowman.

Say what you will about Murray, but no other mayor moved Winnipeg forward as much as he did in my 35 years here. I wouldn't have been as upset as many if he had won. Agree about Klein.

Not sure if you subscribe to the Freep, but Dan Lett pretty much nailed it: Winnipeg — meet the mechanic. It would be hard to call Scott Gillingham a visionary. He’s not a bold or risky political leader. His campaign was a mash-up of tried-and-true municipal campaign planks. Heck, his biggest idea is building bigger roads. But in capturing the mayoral election Wednesday night, he demonstrated a grasp on how to take the city he has helped run for the last eight years as a city councillor and make it better. Think of him as that really solid auto mechanic you love to tell other people about. He’s not going to turn your car into an F1 race car, or trick it out to compete with the Sunday-night cruisers. He’s the guy who will keep your car safely and reliably on the road. With only 27.5 per cent of the popular vote, Gillingham had the smallest vote total and slimmest share of total turnout of any winning mayoral candidate since 1971. (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press) The big question for Gillingham — and for the citizens of Winnipeg — is whether fixing what we have is enough to get us to where we, as a community, need to go. In fact, the strongest message we might take from this election is that seven in 10 voters in the mayoral election were not convinced Gillingham was the right person for the job. A win is a win in politics, but Gillingham is, no doubt, aware that this is the closest, thinnest mayoral victory in Winnipeg history. With only 27.5 per cent of the popular vote — roughly 54,000 total votes — Gillingham had the smallest vote total and slimmest share of total turnout of any winning mayoral candidate since 1971, when Unicity (the amalgamation of the old City of Winnipeg and 11 smaller surrounding municipalities) was created. Prior to this year’s vote, the fewest votes ever registered by a winning mayoral candidate was Robert Steen (69,818) in 1977. With a roughly 4,000-vote advantage over Glen Murray, Gillingham registered the second-smallest winning margin of all time. How exactly did this election get so tight? Gillingham and Murray were the true front-runners in the campaign, with Murray holding a commanding lead in pre-election polling over the summer. With the race now concluded, the narrative of this election will be largely told by the strength of the other, non-winning candidates. Kevin Klein and Shaun Loney may not have come close to winning, but they each won about 15 per cent of the total vote, and together pulled more than 57,000 votes, a remarkably strong total that exceeded that accumulated by Gillingham. Candidates that showed well in past elections, including Robert-Falcon Ouellette (2014) and Jenny Motkaluk (2018), could not capture their past magic. Still, together they earned the support of about 25,000 Winnipeggers. Low voter turnout was another factor contributing to how tight the final tally was. Although the official counts will not be available for several days, the unofficial numbers from Wednesday night showed that roughly 194,000 of the 521,000 registered voters in the city cast a ballot for mayor. That is a woeful 37.4 per cent turnout, the lowest ever in the Unicity era. An exceedingly tight margin of victory in an election with historically low turnout is not the kind of backstory that Gillingham wants to carry through his first four years as mayor. He will need quick wins, projects and policies that show progress. Lamentably, his campaign doesn’t contain a lot of potential for those kinds of wins. His biggest and boldest idea was a four-year dedicated tax increase to help pay for the extension of Chief Peguis Trail and widening of Kenaston Boulevard. Although his honesty about the need to generate additional revenue is noble, his single-minded fixation on the city’s roads budget is old and outdated thinking. Both of his road mega-projects are unqualified losers that have — to date — failed to attract matching funds from the federal and provincial budgets. On most of the other high-profile challenges facing the mayor, Gillingham’s campaign is a triumph in understatement and pragmatism. On things such as public safety, downtown redevelopment and affordable housing, Gillingham is mostly supportive, with no real plans to make any significant changes. Gillingham wants to turn more downtown and Exchange District alleys into arts and culture attractions, and will fund more active-transportation routes to help link existing bike paths and low-speed arteries together for a more seamless experience. But on just about everything else, it’s commitments to study, consult and devise solutions that will arrive sometime in the non-specific future. In so many ways, Gillingham is exactly the kind of mayor that Winnipeg deserves. Voters here eschew bold ideas, as witnessed by the decision four years ago by suburban Winnipeggers with no skin in the game to smite a proposal to open Portage and Main to pedestrians. How afraid were the 2022 mayoral candidates of this ultimately modest proposal? Of all the candidates, only Rana Bokhari waded into that minefield. Ultimately, a risk-averse city will end up with risk-averse mayor. It’s as inevitable as icy ruts on residential streets in February. One can only hope that once Gillingham begins to fix the city we have, he finds opportunities to turn it into the city it needs to be. Time to grab those wrenches and get to work. dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com

I'm pretty familiar with him as he was my councilor, ran our mixed curling league for a number of years and also lives a couple blocks away and often walks down our street with his wife. When he first ran for councilor, I took his call and we talked for about 20-30 minutes. We had some agreements (impact fees on new developments) and disagreements (he was against opening Portage and Main). He is a very considerate conversationalist. He is the one Conservative that I know that isn't a full-blown idiot - probably not even quarter-blown. Our street rehabilitation went horribly wrong. We were under the understanding (due to his communications) that our 70 year old street would get the full treatment (dug up, new sewers, curb installs with curb drains), but all we got was a grind and refill which does not fix our street drainage problems. He took the complaints like a man, but did nothing to help. I'm kind of concerned that our street "renewal" is going to reflect his approach to the city - half-ass it so we can cut business taxes. He is after all a fiscal conservative first. Socially, he has changed his opinion on LGBT rights publicly and I believe him to be a genuine kind of guy. He's not my cup of tea politically, but I don't think he's going to break things. It will be more of the Brian Bowman approach: no vision - fix streets, and be polite to those that disagree with you.

For the first time in 6,000 years, a bison is born in the wild in the U.K. ‘In a world that’s on fire, in this little corner of Kent, here’s this little ray of hope,’ said Paul Whitfield, director general of Wildwood Trust By Sydney Page October 27, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT Tom Gibbs was getting worried. He was deep in the remote woodland of South East England, anxiously searching for Female 2, a bison that had strayed from the herd. “You start to think of the worst-case scenario,” said Gibbs, a bison ranger at Kent Wildlife Trust, a British-based conservation charity. A few days later, he heard tiny hoofs ambling around and noticed a tail swishing in the distance. Relief washed over him — followed by disbelief and delight. “I didn’t even believe my own eyes,” he said. Gibbs discovered that Female 2’s days-long departure from the herd was actually the best-case scenario: She had secluded herself to give birth to the first wild bison born in Britain in more than six millennia. “It was such a magical moment, and so iconic what it represents for conservation and wilding in this country,” said Gibbs, who first spotted the baby bison on Sept. 9. “I saw this little face pop out from behind mom,” he said. Gibbs stood there for two hours, “just watching the calf and the mom,” he said, adding that bison naturally conceal signs of pregnancy to stave off predators, so the rangers had no clue she was expecting. “I wanted to scream it from the rooftops.” The birth was a happy surprise for the team of rangers working on the Wilder Blean project, which brings grazing animals to the West Blean and Thornden Woods in Kent as a way to address climate and biodiversity crises. “Bison are this amazing, versatile tool,” said Gibbs, adding that he hopes they will be one of the keys to help reverse troubling environmental trends in the area. Bison serve as ecosystem engineers — a term used to describe species that can alter and maintain a habitat. The shaggy-haired animals, which have been described as “woolly bulldozers,” are seen by scientists as climate heroes. “They are quite big and robust, so they can really shape and engineer the landscape around them,” said Gibbs explaining that their fur debarks trees, they mow grass with their mouths, their large bodies create pathways throughout the dense forest and their nutrient-rich manure helps other species flourish. “Everything they do has this positive impact and shapes the world around them.” The project is run by two local conservation charities — Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood Trust — and is the first of its kind in Britain, though similar initiatives are underway in other parts of Europe and North America. Three female bison were brought from wildlife parks in Scotland and Ireland to a 500-acre area in July and will eventually be joined by wild horses and pigs. While the goal is for the animals to fend for themselves in the wild, they are being closely monitored and slowly weaned off supplemental food — which is what they were fed previously in parks. “We want to remain as hands-off as possible, but their welfare is at the absolute heart of what we do,” Gibbs said. The team is paying close attention to the calf — who is the fourth member of the herd. The birth is a big deal for a number of reasons, including that bison were once on the brink of extinction. European bison were nearly driven to their demise in the early-20th century due to excessive hunting. Only a small number survived and were kept in wildlife parks and zoos. In fact, according to Paul Whitfield, the director general of Wildwood Trust, all 9,000 bison living in Europe are descended from only 12 zoo animals. The calf’s recent birth, he said, is a major step toward growing the population. Bison have a life span of about 15 to 20 years in the wild. “In the U.K., we’ve lost almost all our mammals,” said Whitfield, adding that it’s one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world. “We’ve just slowly eaten away at all the wild places. Over time, and through hundreds of years of hunting, we’ve basically just killed everything.” The Wilder Blean project, Whitfield said, is an effort to reverse that damage — and it’s already working. “It’s very much putting back in place the missing ecosystem processes,” he said. “We’ve been intensely farming and managing the land for hundreds of years. There isn’t really much wilderness or wild left.” Funds are being raised for Wilder Blean, all of which will go toward rewilding — a conservation effort intended to replenish land and restore it to its natural state. “To me, rewilding is about working with nature and using nature’s natural processes to regenerate wildlife,” Whitfield said, explaining that the bison will accomplish that task “just by living and moving through the woodland.” Traditional conservation methods managed by humans — such as woodland coppicing, a practice of cutting down trees to stimulate new growth — aren’t as effective, he said, “which is why we need rewilding approaches where we’re not trying to keep it as is, we’re trying to make it much, much better.” Unlike humans, bison naturally nurture the land and work intuitively to create “niches for other species to move in and thrive,” Whitfield said. “It creates a far more complicated, rich, diverse habitat.” (more) https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/27/baby-bison-uk-rewilding-wildlife/

What it looks like as drought strangles the mighty Mississippi By Brady Dennis, Laris Karklis, Scott Dance and Tim Meko October 26, 2022 at 3:59 p.m. EDT Gift Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/26/mississippi-river-drying-up/

It will probably be a Chris Sky anti-vax protest at centre field or Scott Moe driving around hammered trying not to run over the frisbee dog handlers.

My wife and I saw Waking Ned Devine when it was still playing in the theatres! It took me a while to warm up to Colin Ferrell, but now I think he's freaking brilliant.

Maier doesn't scare me in the least bit. Their running game on the other hand.... Still think we beat them, though.

The reviews are (not surprisingly) fantastic. Still no Winnipeg showtimes that I can find. From the guy who brought us In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths and 3 Billboards....: Can't wait!

Nobody talks about the Goldeyes... They've got the Katz-stink.

It sure worked against Winnipeg.

Won't claim to know more than you, but he might be the quickest learner I've ever seen.

I love this show so much! I bought DVD box sets of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Augie Doggie and Bugs Bunny to make sure my kids were raised right. They turned out to be very funny people.

Because 14 targets is an interesting amount?

I like Rasheed Bailey as much as the next person, but targeting him 14 times was......interesting.

Not in his first CFL start. "Willy made his first CFL start on September 16, 2012, in Montreal against the Montreal Alouettes. He completed 22-of-35 passes for 225 yards and a touchdown with two interceptions in a losing effort.[11] Willy earned his first CFL win as a starter on July 27, 2013, against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats where he completed 14 of 25 pass attempts for 269 yards with three touchdowns and zero interceptions in relief of the injured Darian Durant.[12] In two seasons with the Roughriders, Willy was utilized in a backup role. He dressed in all 36 games over his two years with the team, and started four, passing for 1,182 yards with nine touchdowns and five interceptions. Willy was also a part of the 101st Grey Cup champion team in 2013." His first start in Winnipeg: PASSING DATE WEEK OPP COMP ATT YDS TD INT AVG 06-26 1 TOR 19 27 308 4 1 11.4

More like: 1. Punch (Rourke) 2. Slap with a satin glove. (VAJ)

Am I the only one who remembers how good Jeffcoat has been in the playoffs? Or do I have a bad memory?

Glenn would have a Grey Cup if not for an arm injury.

Russians flee by boat to Alaska after Putin’s military mobilization The incident underscores the lengths to which some Russians have gone to avoid being called up as Ukraine’s military inflicts heavy losses By Alex Horton October 6, 2022 at 5:34 p.m. EDT Two Russian nationals fleeing President Vladimir Putin’s call-up of military reservists landed by boat on a remote Alaskan island in the Bering Sea and are seeking asylum in the United States, the state’s two senators and U.S. government officials said Thursday. The unusual incident highlights the lengths some Russians have gone to avoid a mobilization of up to 300,000 as Putin’s military, having suffered heavy losses in Ukraine, has made multiple retreats in recent weeks amid an aggressive offensive push by Ukrainian forces. An estimated 200,000 Russians have fled since the call-up. The two appeared this week at a beach near Gambell, a tiny community on the northwest tip of St. Lawrence Island about 40 miles from mainland Russia, where they reported having fled “to avoid compulsory military service,” a spokesperson for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told the Associated Press. Murkowski and fellow Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said the incident has exposed a need of greater security in the Arctic, where Russian military ships and aircraft have increasingly asserted their presence. Seven military vessels from Russia and China were spotted in the Bering Sea last month sailing in international waters. “We are actively engaged with federal officials and residents in Gambell to determine who these individuals are, but right now, we already know that the federal response was lacking,” Murkowski said. “Only local officials and state law enforcement had the capability to immediately respond to the asylum seekers, while Customs and Border Protection had to dispatch a Coast Guard aircraft from over 750 miles away to get on scene.” The Coast Guard referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which said the Russians were transported to Anchorage for processing. Sullivan said in a statement that the incident made clear that “the Russian people don’t want to fight Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”