Optimist Prime

got him right where i want him.

Your Seattle Kraken have worked out a deal to keep our starting tendie, who will be exposed but safevouched via future considerations in a deal with Anaheim. This freed me up to attend to the protection list, which we know is able to be updated right up to the deadline. In light of that, and in case of unforeseen circumstances, I am naming my protected list today, and will possibly update it in the last days of the window. Without further ado... Seattle Kraken Protected Player List (we will go with the 8-3-1 model): F Kevin Fiala F Mathew Barzal F Gustav Nyquist F Evgeni Malkin F William Eklund F JT Compher F Andre Burakovsky F Pierre Engvall D Ivan Provorov D Matt Grzelcyk D Vladislav Gavrikov

Collarbone? Just a guess, I hip checked a Finn player once playing in Israel (in Metula, which is currently being rocketed by Hezbollah) and only our hips made contact and it broke his collarbone.

Your Nickname here always reminds me of this song... and now it fitting to share, as you awoke..cheers Bounce000

De La Couer? Hehe

I hadn't heard about this until today. I think from the end of March:

5 hours ago The first batch of Ukrainian pilots have graduated from F-16 training at an Arizona military base, a crucial step toward putting modern, American-made fighter jets in Ukraine's skies

kaboomed.

3 of 4 finalist clubs are in my bracket still. Anyone got all 4?

speaking of which, this might be a piece of that who is paying the tab puzzle: Another would-be Conservative nominee alleges 'irregularities' in race to carry party banner 'There were quite a few things that didn't seem kosher,' Aurora, Ont., town councillor says of nomination race https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-nomination-race-aurora-irregularities-1.7212142

by the guy whose only life experience is being a politician for 20+ years yet somehow got 25 million squirrelled away...one day we will find out who bought him low and will sell him high.

excellent! I had a Drill Sgt on my basic qualification course while we were doing chinups...he was yelling "GET THOSE CHINS UP!" then he looked right at me and added "ALL OF THEM". fml

Wish you could retire my dude, we need you in Fantasy Hockey, lol I get it though, all the best and if you do find time, come back!!

Anyone that wishes to discuss Vaccines are free to do so in the off topic forums: If you got nothing else to say, don't say it here.

My favourite disciple was Ringo. (you have to say it with a yellow submarine era accent)

Petey's body of work is not summed up in the emotional and incredible timeline from the Allstar game to this moment in time. 90 days doesn't inform me of any players net worth in the NHL. Let's relax, see where this incredible core takes us in the new era. Petey is still 2 or three years away from 'peak' and Hughes is 4 years away, hogs is four years away. Next year Boeser should hit his peak Brock. We have Miller for the next six years at a reasonable cap. This was peak Garland, but we have him reasonably for the next two years as well. Of the ufa's we need Lindholm, Joshua, Zadorov back for sure. This team will be amazing entertainment for at least the next handful of years, and I think we have the right people making the decisions in place to see that extend to a decade of awesome Canucks Fandom. Like everyone else, Petey will learn from this experience and be better next time, he might also have different support personnel on his line. I hear that lekkerimaki is dreamy.

That is where I am at on this: he is a politician and needs to campaign in his off time like every other politician: if we are creating extrenuous hardships on politicians who are chosen to be the speaker, then we will have less and less capable speakers until no one wants the job at all. It was wrong of him last year to tag the speakers robes into a partisan tribute video, and I agree he needed to be admonished for that, and he apologized, but this kind of tag line on a political event is there with every single one of the MP's in Ottawa this summer...the opposition just want to chip away at the cracks and see what shales off of the ruling party. Suck eggs Pepi Le Pew, thou protesteth too much, and it is obvious you are mad you were not allowed to break the rules of the house when you started being a child again and were sent out to think about your words by the very person you are now trying to impeach.

When i proposed, silly word but a better word doesn't exist for our conversation. I made a proposition to my wife on a rock bluff overlooking some of our stomping grounds as teenagers. My proposition in short was this: "We really like each other, we get along, have never had an argument. Why not get married, and take turns sort of slingshoting each other up along the hurdles of life. You want to go to college, I am almost done mine, I can work while you get your education and then you work while I try to better my situation, and we can do that all the way up the 'chain of life." this was over a few hours time..so heavily paraphrased. She thought that was a great plan and we actually pulled it off. I managed a brilliant career in information technologies and the armed forces/law enforcement/national security, and at peak times she taught an engineering class at the Royal Military College and clerked at the supreme court, with some other career highlights of working with a small government organization that trains and retrains the highest level of bureaucrats when they change ministries. Things like the need for bilingualism, or a ten month crash course in Mining and Resources in Canada or what have you...it is a very niche department where she got to meet and know Ministers in the Federal Cabinet, the highest civil servants and parliamentary secretaries, senators, what have you. We were both highly satisfied with our respective careers at times, and we were both at other times suffering some damages as with any life. On the whole though, we went where we could afford to live, and make our living and only came to this most expensive part of Canada to retire back to where we were raised at the end of our careers. I don't see many people willing to take those risks, adventures and seek their fortunes like that these days, but the young people who do, at least in my family, are all doing very well. of the nephews and nieces who moved away, every one of them owns their own home now. Of the few who stayed put, most are renters. That is a small sample size but tells me a lot.

Speaking of voting, this is an interesting little subset from Angus Reid that was sent to me last night. I glanced at it just before falling asleep but now over coffee it is even more interesting to me. Oh, i should include the date: May 16th 2024.

This is true, along with high cost of buying a house, while bad for those in the housing market is great for those who already own their homes. There is a duality to almost everything in 'politics', 'markets' and 'finances'. A lot of folks who would be renters for life even if housing costs were rolled back 15 or 20 years are still mad about the price of a house today. People serving coffee for minimum wage in Vancouver don't think about serving coffee in Newfoundland instead where a house is 1/4 the price. It is a lot easier to blame the prime minister for our choices, our education, our parenting and the way we were raised, and Pepi Le Pew has tapped into that. edit: even the cost of living effects folks differently. For the last two years my household income went up 4.8% and then 3.5% because our pensions are linked directly to the annual cost of living inflation. My mom, rest in peace, was confused by this and suggested we save for when inflation drops below zero and we lose money. It doesn't work that way. If it were to ever drop to a negative number, pensioners do not lose money. 8.3% rise in our income has been nice. Folks without income linked to inflation are suffering though, and need this situation eased. I would choose to vote for parties who are interested in tying wage increases to inflation, generally your progressive parties... but a lot of folks with low income really want to vote for the champion of the Oil Execs. I don't know why.

So, historically, the actual vote tends to reflect the older age brackets intentions rather than say the 30 somethings, 20 somethings and even the 40 somethings. Therefore I decided to look at just the trendlines for the older age bracket across Canada. They are simply more inclined to vote and generally have a locked in vote intention. The others are so volatile, up and down like a hoors drawers as they say. it is much closer than the total vote intention of all age brackets. Keeping in mind the prairies are 65% CON supporters to 13% Lib and 13% NDP supporters, I am pretty sure any election between now and Oct 2025 will be much much closer than anyone might think looking at the general polling this week. Poilievre still has a good lead, but its swing share is only 4.4%, the margin of error for instance is 3.5%. I am posting this so folks get an idea of just what is the underlying reasoning for our Prime Minister to think he can win again. 4.4% swing is not that hard to pull off with 17 months to go. In fact, all the Liberals have to do is not have a huge scandal and wait, and that 4.4% will ease to a reasonable margin. Again, the heavy outweighing of the CONS in the Prairies relative to anywhere else also plays to Trudeau's hand in the next election. What can i say, I am an optimist, and I hate rage farmers. it is my sincere wish that anyone but Pierre Poilievre is the next Prime Minister, and so to allow a flush of the con toilet and a new candidate to emerge, I hope to see Justin Trudeau win another term. then 'flush' that turd and try again. CON: 39.85% LIB: 31.04% NDP: 13.81% GRN: 3.09% PPC: 0.79% Bloc: 11.29% (included in the canada wide, even though they only vote in QC where their support is 30.58%)

I always assumed a slight nod to Brocket-99. Kind of glad to find out 'not at all'.

I have to admit, for a long time now every time I see one of your posts I say in my head the Trout part of your name not just the Kilgore part. Was a great novel. It has been decades, but was it BoC where Kilgore walks through a ditch and the petro chemicals in the run off water harden into plastic on his pants? Or was that another Vonnegut novel i read in my youth? It stuck with me though over the years. What a descriptive writer.

Some slight movement polling wise this week. Atlantic Canada now prefers the federal Liberals: LIB: 38.37% CON: 36.03% NDP: 16.11% PPC: 8.57% GRN: 0.92% In Quebec the stark rise of the Bloc has come back down to earth. for almost two months the Bloc averaged 38%, now down to 30.58% Bloc: 30.58% LIB: 28.53% CON: 20.73% NDP: 13.02% GRN: 4.34% PPC: 1.11% Ontario remains largely unchanged at the moment, although CONs are down from a peak of 49.93% on March 1st to now sit at 45.03% CON: 45.03% LIB: 28.82% NDP: 18.69% GRN: 5.89% PPC: 1.56% the Prairies are still hot for Pepi Le Pew north of 60% CON support, liberals and ndp tied around 14% each. And that brings us to B.C. where the CONS are enjoying unprecedented popularity, currently at 50% support levels, down slightly from an all time high of 59.7% Notably this is the only province where the NDP is in 2nd place with 25.58%, while the Liberals trail at 17.43%. Languishing are the PPC (0.84%) and GRN's (6.16%) Among Female voters coast to coast to coast CONs enjoy their highest support since tracking started in 2014 : CON: 35.85% LIB: 29.45% NDP: 20.21% GRN: 4.87% PPC: 1.88% And lastly, Male voters coast to coast to coast which has been a little volatile for five weeks, but always on top by a wide margin: CON: 49.95% LIB: 20.40% NDP: 13.92% GRN: 4.02% PPC: 3.18% of interest to me is the fact that Canada Wide, the Liberal and NDP vote shares equal 42.08%, while the CON vote share, as they seem to stand on an island policy wise is 42.81% The next 17 months are going to be a wild ride in the polls. Ontario is a crucial battle ground, but it also remains to be seen if the Rage Farm in BC can keep it up in this historically unsettled province. Over the past year in BC alone, the NDP, the Liberals and the Conservatives have all had the lead by wide margins. Our province is as volatile as it gets for voter intentions. Can the CONS hold on to the top spot in BC long enough to matter in the Federal Election scheduled for October 2025? The CPC is already down ten points in the past month here. In January they were in a statistical tie with the Liberals, and in September they were tied with the NDP. Both the Liberals and NDP are trending up over the last four weeks in BC.

Substantial. He had quite an inheritance, his investment portfolio, run at arms length, includes proprietary rights and copyrights and a decent manufacturing company. He worked and ran his investments for most of his life before politics. I know the narrative is that he is a moron with nice hair, but he is an incredibly intelligent and educated guy, obviously, he was a teacher in his chosen profession. All before politics. Now, conversely, Pierre Poilievre had no substantial inheritance, no investment portfolio and no proprietary rights or copyrights, nor did he own a successful company before he sadled up to the trough 20 years ago, in the 2004 election. He went to school, joined a political organization led by Preston Manning, which has since 'evolved' to the CPC and then was elected. It remains a mystery how he amassed his fortune as a poor scholar turned politician for 20 years. OOhhhhh that explains it. Sheep for Wolves is a great protest sign, but really shortsighted. edit: you really can't make this stuff up folks...it is in a book and he authored the essay: yet 20 years later he is still there, and now wants to be Prime Minister, so you know he has no intention of resigning before 25 or even 30 years in office. "everyone but me should only do 2 terms as an elected official". what a joke.