That narrative changed quickly

About a week ago I posted about former Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams' attempts to arrange for an AHL team for St. John's. At the time the province's refusal to provide a $500 000 subsidy seemed likely to sink the proposal.

Amazingly, about a week later Williams seemed to have come up with a new deal that would see the team re-locate to St. John's without the public money.

Is it just me or was that turnaround fast?

Also, is Danny Williams not the guy who criticized the current provincial government for not taking the time to properly analyze the proposal? I get the sense that he is not drawing attention to the fact that it seems that he didn't really take that much time to run the numbers in the first place if just a week ago the project was only possible with public money and now it is not.

I am curious to see how many more curious developments are associated with this story as the final details relating to the re-location of the team are settled.

West Coast By-election

Just few days ago I learned that a acquaintance ours, Rosie Myers, is running for the NDP in the by-election in Humber West to replace the recently departed Danny Williams. This has made the by-election a little more interesting.

It seems that the results just started to come in and will continued to come in for the next while. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Elections Newfoundland and Labrador even has a live elections results page. (At the moment only one polling station has reported any results).

Anyway, some will probably suggest that this by-election is an early test of the Dunderdale administration and the post-Danny PCs.

I never know how to understand by-elections, there is just so much that can be going on that they seem hard to decisively read.

Anyway, no matter what happens people will surely have plenty to say about the results.

Score
Cameron 40
Neil 0

A Few Quick Notes 478

-We are in the midst of a multi-hour rainfall. When this rainfall started I was hopeful that it would be brief and relatively inconsequential. As time has passed the rain has continued to come down with increasing intensity. Bummer.

-Yesterday evening I was one of about 12 people to attend my union local's meeting. At time we had trouble making quorum. For one reason or another we dropped the pretense of calling each other "Brother so-and-so" and "Sister so-and-so" during the meeting.

-I made a rather large batch of chicken noodle soup for lunch. It is a good thing that this batch turned out pretty well as there is quite a bit left.

-Due to popular demand I have decided to provide our readers with another puppy video.



[Embedded video]

While these videos still have some way to go before they become YouTube classics, I do think that this one is a fair bit better than the one I posted a few days ago.

-It seems that Danny Williams will be leaving politics and that Kathy Dunderdale will soon be Newfoundland's premier. Given that between now and October 2011 there will be a leadership convention and provincial election I think it is fair to think that Newfoundland politics will soon start to become a little more exciting.

Big news from Newfoundland

The word on the street this morning in Newfoundland is that Danny Williams will soon be leaving politics (and thus no longer be the Premier). In some ways this isn't surprising in others it is.

The aspect of the prospect of Danny's departure that I find the most surprising is the thought that Newfoundland might actually have a premier who is not Danny. Though I am sure that many cabinet ministers have been thinking about this eventuality for some time, I really have no idea who might try to step up and become leader. I also have to imagine that this departure will change the power dynamic in the government caucus.

Anyway, I guess this will all work itself out over the coming days and weeks.