Tag Archives: mike silley

Endorsements Part 1: The Midweek Mark

3 Replies

ENDORSEMENTS. As in years past, we’ve based these on our impressions in the debates and interviews with the candidates. We always weight towards the Ubyssey‘s official interviews, in part because we believe it’s fairest to judge candidates on the basis of their considered opinions in print—and because it’s easier than taking notes. NB: As a Voter-Funded Media candidate, we are technically available for dis-endorsement. Please consider us when writing your FB screeds!

Continue reading →

Liveblogging is Overated, Anyways @ CiTR Debates One

4 Replies

If you weren’t listening to CiTR 101.9 today or don’t read the Minimalist Owl Blog because it may/may not hurt your “Arts student” eyes , then you might have missed the first of many (and sometimes simultaneous) debates of this election. Well, do we have a treat for you!

Yeah, that's what I said, too

Yeah, that's what I said, too

Continue reading →

People Who May or May Not Run

7 Replies

AMS Elections are currently a shitshow, and they haven’t even started yet.

  1. Nominations close on Friday and there is no AMS Elections website. Maybe if they advertised we wouldn’t have three slates of people who are always involved?
  2. There is no schedule of events anywhere…debates? Beer garden? Anything?
  3. There are also no elections dates or campaigning dates posted anywhere except on the Facebook page, which ~50 people like and hasn’t been updated since November (same with Twitter).
  4. There is no VFM funding right now and elections are about to start!
  5. Oh, and NO ONE KNOWS WHAT VOTING SYSTEM WE ARE USING.

The Elections budget is approximately $50,000. Isn’t there a little referendum coming up that has to do with fiscal responsibility? We get that the EA is probably working on the new online voting system, but he has also hired four co-ordinators to help him, and it’s THREE DAYS before elections start.

Anyway, we are coping by giving you GOSSIP. Hot Gossip.

At the end of the day, candidates are supposed to be running individually and not as part of a slate (fancy way of saying political party). Except this year, there are Three Groups Who Are Not A Slate.

  1. The Frat Boys and Token Sorority Girl (Bijan’s picks to continue his legacy of UBC’s Got Talent)
  2. The Incumbents (the political hacks who think they can change the world with the AMS)
  3. The SJC/Knollies (the people who only care about the AMS when something pisses them off)

With that in mind, we give you the gossip!

The Frat Boys and Token Sorority Girl

President: Michael Moll is Alpha Delta Phi and part of the CUS, from Kenya, and shows up to AMS Council occasionally.

VP Academic: Matt Parson is Phi Delta Theta, the President of the Inter Fraternity Council at UBC (which EA Erik Mackinnon sits on), and is probably the hottest of all the candidates running. [Though some of our editors are on record as disagreeing.]

VP External: Katherine Tyson (isn’t technically in a sorority, she was too sick to rush this year) has been on AMS Council for a year and a half and is the Chair of UnECoRn, the committee that deals with things in the VPX’s portfolio. Was known this year for being rather antagonistic to Bijan—right until elections season rolled around. What gives, KT? We were way into your powerful woman schtick.

VP Finance: Arash Ehteshami is Kappa Sigma, the VP Internal of the AUS, and dating the President of SUS.

VP Administration: Mike Silley is Sigma Chi, has been on AMS Council for a long time, and is the Chair of BAFCOM, the committee that deals with AMS Businesses.

The Incumbents/Hacks

President: Jeremy McElroy is the current VP External, former AUS/RBF guy who hearts the AMS.

VP Academic: Justin Yang is the current VP Finance of AUS, former VP Finance of SUS, former Student Senator, and is the current AMS Tutoring co-ordinator.

VP External: Mitch Wright  is the current Associate VP External, former elections administrator, former AUS dude and all around hack.

VP Finance: Elin Tayyar is Beta Theta Pi, the current VP Finance, former SAC Vice-Chair, and last year’s hottest candidate.

VP Admin: A BLACK SHEEP. Er, dark horse?

The SJC/Knollies

They keep their Facebook profiles quite limited, unfortunately. Why do these people have no overly involved student profiles?! We’ll give you more details as we learn them.

President: Gord Katic is a kid we met off of Twitter who is a part of the SJC. He’s incredibly verbose. That’s all we know.

VP Academic: Omar Shaban is part of SPHR whose passion in life is “a secular Palestinian state where anybody regardless of his/her religion or race can live.” Awwwww!

VP External: Rory Breasail has been on AMS Council for nine months, and sits on the UnECoRn committee. He is also part of the SJC.

VP Finance: Arielle Friedman (also known as Care-ielle?!?) is part of the SJC, and a frequent contributor to The Knoll.

Other

There’s some random guy from RezLife at Totem who is also probably running for VP Finance, and a rumoured FIFTH candidate that we don’t know about.

Things to bitch about: We’ve only heard of ONE candidate for VP Admin, so if there’s any of you who like SUB/Clubs, you should run…the more the merrier! There’s also an extreme lack of women running, with only TWO femmes fatale garnering for your votes. Oh, and no joke candidates? Where is Princess Leia, Kommander Keg, the Invisible Man, or Water Fountain?

BoG: Sean Heisler (current BoAwesome), Andrew Carne (hacktastic engineer), Sean Cregten (current Associate VP Academic)

Senate: Thomas Brennan, Sean Cregten, AJ Hajir Hajian, <insert ten other random students here, five of whom will drop out within the first week>.

Nominations close on Friday!

Abandon Ship

35 Replies

DOES NOT APPROVE

The AUS Phailboat is going dowwnnnn.

Yesterday, my beloved Arts Undergraduate Society selected an interm President. They picked someone who already lost in the previous election, and was essentially a sore loser. FML.

After I straggled in, got a slice of delicious pizza, and started to listen, turns out there were four nominees for the vacant President seat. Who were these four fine candidates? The lovely Cheryl Kornder, former SUB Queen Crystal Hon, Mr. “FUCK THE AUS/LET’S MAKE IT AWESOMER” Brian Platt, and eventual winner, Ryan “I’m so happy and easy to work with vote for me even though my speech was complete hogshit garbage” Trasolini.

After the first round of voting, Cheryl and Crystal were eliminated. Hmm… both start with the letter C. Both eliminated. Conspiracy? I think so. Conspiracy even starts with the same letter (WHOA MIND BLOWN). Better take this up with student court so they can analyze something completely different about the council meeting. Eliminating these two was the first mistake council made.

Second round, everyone voted again. Turned out to be 12-9 or 11-9 or something like that for Ryan. Or Brian. “WHAT? With a B or an R?” With an R. Ryan. Ryan won. Hokay. Agreed. D’accord.

all eyes on you. all two of 'em.

@ginohhh’s tweet pretty much sums up how I feel about the situation: “Congratulations to the AUS for achieving new heights of incompetence. I’m out.”

Seriously. Council… WTF? You went though a month or two of elections / agony / student court / useless banter / resignations /complaining … and you end up appointing the same cry baby which put you into this whole mess? Smart. Real fucking smart. Maybe I shouldn’t even bemoan council, seeing as though it was all proxies there. Yeah, let’s let Mike Silley vote, even though he was kinda/sorta involved in the elections clusterfuck. Great fucking idea. No Offense, Mike.

I don’t know what to rant about. That council appointed Ryan, or you didn’t pick other, much more qualified candidates that weren’t involved in the clusterfuck of an election. You should have appointed someone impartial. Someone removed from the previous debacle. Someone that could have gotten the AUS back on track. Someone who could have led the recovery, and bring the AUS back to what it used to be (some of us still remember the ACF days).

Dammit council, you failed. I guess whining enough does pay off.

Gossip Sunday: Too Many Memes

4 Replies

Lazy Sunday.  We’ve been called a gossip rag enough times that we may as well act like it.

Anyone sick of tsk-tsking the AUS for innumerable (okay, three) candidate mis-steps yet?  We’re watching you, Mary Leong and Michael Haack, but HOLY JESUS Ryan “Not Too Fine to Fine” Trasolini, read the manual, son.  Additionally, rumor & our inbox have it that one of the Presidential candidates has started offering cash money for VFM coverage. But of course, we’re all way too srs jrnalism bsns to take that deal, amirite?

Friday night also saw the kickoff of UBC Votes events, beginning with a well-attended concert at the Pit. Your Confidentialites were too busy being anonymous/sucking face to pay much attention, but luckily AUS Voting Committee Superstar Taylor L. brought along her camera.  Hence, we’ve got these for you:

First, AUS presidential candidate Mike Silley.

imminent warning: lacks logo, date, time, approval

AMS Elections EA & CRO, also Second-Cutest Couple [#barf]

cause : effect

But by far the highlight of these photos was our first opportunity to cry APPARENT SLATE

quick, while he's facing away

CANOODLIN’!!1!!!11! OUT. RAGEOUS.

aus throwdown/showdown

7 Replies

Gossip Guy here. Happy to see me? I know you are. I can practically see the smile on your face from wherever I’m currently sitting/stumbling.

Well, fellow Artsies… we have a lot of tough choices this year. We’ll have to pick Yes or No in four different races, one involving a Star Wars character (WIN). Three guys going for President, and two ladies and purple lightsaber-wielding Sammy J for VPX. Then a bunch of General Officers and AMS reps. But c’mon… let’s focus on what’s really important here (Not that they aren’t all important. Just some things take priority, k?). So yes… EL PRESIDENTE. How are we going to decide who to support this year? We’ll leave it to…

the crudely rendered semi-androgynous pink and black gambling addicted elections mascot

I now realize I spent all my bloody time making that stupid graphic, and didn’t write anything of substance. Make sure you read the contest at the end of the post, and actually enter, so I don’t end up crying alone tonight because I wasted so much time. [Kai sez: welcome to the Confidential Editorial board, GG. You’ll get used to it.]

We’ll do some in-depth analyses in the coming days – and be assured, we WILL penetrate into the inner recesses, unlike the EUS elections, which we know nothing about. Full candidate list and some useless links after the jump y’all. AND THE CONTEST.

Continue reading →