Nominations closed today, and really the only remaining question was which riding legendary Independent candidate John C. Turmel would decide to run in this time.

Confession: John Turmel sat in one time as a guest lecturer to my "Statistics and Probability of Gambling" course at university, back in the day. He specialized in the probabilities of blackjack, and I guess he did his engineering honours research project as a computer program to calculate these probabilities. Our prof was his advisor.

The engineering students were allowed to take this course as an arts elective, and not only was I one of the few artsies in the class, I was also one of the only women. I used to joke that my prof nearly flunked me because I said poker was stupid, and I was not very interested in blackjack either, but then I beat the president of the engineering society in a backgammon tournament final, and in the end passed the course. Some years later when I ran to be a student rep on the university board of governors, I actually got a decent vote in the engineering building which surprised some observers. But hey, the engineers had to respect a broad who could wup their ... well let's say, I was a pretty good backgammon player. But I digress ...

• John C. Turmel has decided to run as an independent candidate this time in Guelph, ON.
• Régent Millette, himself with a fairly prolific career in independent politics from Alfred-Pellan to Repentigny, will run this time in Westmount – Ville-Marie, QC.

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I'd also like to thank the folks who took a bit of time to write and comment today, after finding the site through National Newswatch the past two days and via other new linkers. For those who've sent along corrections, I'll be making them now. Cheers and welcome.

Labels: Fall 2008 By-elections