The Birdman, Kevin Falcon, swooped into the Okanagan this week to pile on the 'good' news about all the great things he and his BC Liberal Party compatriots have done.
...He (Falcon) pointed to efforts to sell wood to China, and open new ports and trade routes, as evidence that the Liberal government has made an effort to diversify the economy and focus on job creation....
Hmmmmm.....
There is codswallop.
And then there is pure, gold-plated codswallop of the stinkiest kind.
Frankly, however, I don't even know where to place the claim that 'More Raw Logs' to China = 'Diversification' on the spectrum of the truly putrid.
Remember when we learned, back in 2009, that BC Liberal Party insider Mr. Patrick Kinsella was paid $6,000 per month for 49 straight months by BC Rail before, during and after the lease of BC Rail to CN Rail (ie. between 2002 and 2005)?
So, what, exactly was Mr. Kinsella doing to earn all that money, which turned out to be approximately $297,000 in aggregate?
Well, that was something that Mr. Kinsella's own company, 'The Progressive Group', soon made crystal clear in a press release:
THE PROGRESSIVE GROUP
March 12, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VANCOUVER BC - The following is in response to questions raised in the BC Legislature today regarding the contractual relationship between BC Rail and Mr. Patrick Kinsella of the Vancouver-based Progressive Holdings.
Mr. Kinsella was engaged by BC Rail to assist in understanding and interpreting the Core Review Process as to its potential impact on the Corporation. BC Rail sought counsel on what implications, if any, might affect the Crown Corporation's operations and their strategic plan going forward.
The review process was the focus of the discussions between the Corporation and Progressive Holdings during the four-year term of the contract.
Progressive Holdings charged a monthly retainer for professional services including strategic communication counsel and interpretation of public policy initiatives.
Patrick Kinsella is the President of Progressive Holdings and the Chairman of The Progressive Group. His firm provides strategic counsel to clients on political and public policy initiatives in British Columbia.
Well....
It turns out that the fellow who did the most to uncover that working relationship between the good Mr. Kinsella and the BC Rail, Mr. Ian Reid, is now in possession of documents received as a result of a recent FOI request that today led him to write the following over at his blog:
...Over the next few days I’ll write about a shocking disclosure regarding the role of Patrick Kinsella (in the lease process)....
Now.
I don't know if it would be 'shocking' or not, but I, for one, sure hope that the documents most recently obtained by Mr. Reid might answer a question directed to then premier Gordon Campbell by Joy McPhail way, way back in May of 2003 at a time when, as was established much later (ie. in 2009), the good Mr. Kinsella was already ‘working’ for the not yet ‘leased’ BC Rail:
J. MacPhail: A longtime Liberal Party fundraiser is Patrick Kinsella. He is the lobbyist for CN. Has the Premier or any of his ministers met with Mr. Kinsella and representatives of CN?
In fact, if this question, which was asked in the legislature, could be answered using documents obtained by FOI request it would be most appropriate given Mr. Campbell’s response at the time:
Hon. G. Campbell: I don’t have an answer for that. As the member opposite knows, if she wants to know about specific meeting times with either myself or the minister, she can do that through freedom of information.
OK?
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I wrote about the exchange between Ms. McPhail and Mr. Campbellsome time ago because a commenter left the exchange, which is taken from Hansard, over at Paul Willcocks' place... And, despite what Gary Mason later wrote in a column in The Globe, I have never seen the question definitively answered one way or the other....One thing Mr. Mason did get on the record, for sure, was a non-denial denial from a CN spokethingy who he quoted as saying, "We have nothing to say."
Donald Trump may be a proud New Yorker, but he’s thinking about spending eternity in New Jersey.
The colorful real estate mogul will soon seek the blessing of a state board to build a private cemetery beside the rolling hills and silken greens of his prized Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.
The 1.5-acre site would become the exclusive final resting place for wealthy club members who pay as much as $300,000 in membership fees. And a section of the lush plot would be carved out for Trump and his next of kin, said Ed Russo, a Trump consultant....
B.C. government bureaucrats were urging their political masters last spring to take a position on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project. But a technical review due at the end of February still won’t provide an answer on whether Premier Christy Clark’s government supports or opposes the $5.5-billion proposal.
The wait-and-see approach has been entrenched since the province, under former premier Gordon Campbell, signed away B.C.’s right to conduct its own hearing. An agreement signed with Ottawa in July of 2010, making the National Energy Board the sole arbiter, provided Mr. Campbell and his ministers with cover to avoid direct questions about the proposal...
{snippety doo-dah}
....The province still has the opportunity to raise questions at the hearing, but there is no indication that it is planning to intercede.
Though there are myriad environmental issues raised by the pipeline that will have to managed by the province – ranging from tunnel development to waste handling, handling of hazardous materials, spill prevention and response – it now looks quite possible that B.C. will leave the National Energy Board entirely on the hook for the decision.
Here's the heart of the matter as Ms. Hoover sees it:
...January 28 (2012) marks a black day in B.C. history, a decade since (Christy) Clark as education minister stripped 70 teacher collective agreements of working conditions and classsize provisions without any consultation.
This action cut over $300 million a year from public education and, in exchange, gave the same amount of money as major tax concessions to multinational corporations.
Teachers believe Clark personifies the worst qualities of a bully, abusing power without remorse...
“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”
Well, for thousands of kids right now it does happen.
With a guy who writes fiction for younger-than-thou adults named John Green.
"I'm very fortunate. I know them. I like hearing from them. I feel fortunate to interact with them. I like reading their YouTube comments. I like reading their reviews on book review websites. I like the engagement that we have with each other, because the truth is, the world extends outside the world of books. And I feel fortunate to be able to have a relationship with the them."
And it's really, literally true that such a relationship does exist between Mr. Green and his readers.
For all kinds of reasons, some of which are based on the age-old need of the artist to, as I heard that bastard Hansard once explain it, 'expand their draw'.
But when it is sincere that is neither here nor there, as you can see in the clip below, which is just one of dozens like it on the Interwebz...
And below is something else that I, as an older-than-most-of thou adult, really dig from Mr. Green's cannon....
A YouTube series in which he explains to his young charges that if they were to meet Holden Caulfield on the street, or in Central Park by the duckpond, or Facebook if it had existed in New York City in the late 1940's, they would not like, or even notice, him.
Why?
Because, as Mr. Green explains it is Mr. Caulfield's ability to explain his inner life that engenders the true empathy that readers, young and old, really connect with.
And then, as you might expect given that Mr. Green is also a master wordsmith, there is a whole bunch of crazy-assed author stuff about the 'miracle of text'.
Or some such thing.
______
And, ya, I put all those digressive commas, above, in this post, on purpose, because, well, you know....
While Dave already skewered Margaret Wente's Saturday column on class and caste over at The Beaver, it was impossible not to return to it, based on the following sentence:
...To prove his (latest) case, Mr. (Charles) Murray (of 'Bell Curve' fame) compares data from two fictitious neighbourhoods called Belmont and Fishtown....
Now.
Two things.
First, even in the most social of social sciences you can't 'prove' anything.
Instead, you can only find supporting evidence that keeps an hypothesis (i.e. the 'case') going, or, on the flipside, you find evidence that completely destroys it.
The hypothesis/case, I mean.
But here's the real thing.
Real evidence is cannot be 'fictitious' either way.
Unless, of course, you are peddling codswallop and/or wurlitzering the same.
...On the long-standing, drawn-out 19 month effort by his government to keep the shredded $800,000 IPad-assisted 'HST-Booster' pamphlet from public view, the current Campbell/Clark government Finance Minister, Mr. Kevin Falcon, had this to say:
“My direction to staff was really clear: just release the damn thing,” he (Falcon) said.
VICTORIA — The B.C. Liberal government planned to use Olympic nostalgia and free iPads to persuade a reluctant public to support the harmonized sales tax.
“The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games gave British Columbia a foundation to build a stronger province and create new opportunities for workers and families,” said a 10-page pamphlet the government had planned to mail to each home in 2010, not long after the Games had finished...
{snippety doo-dah}
...The government never sent out the pamphlet, shredding all copies not long after having spent $780,000 to have them designed and printed...
{snippety doodle-dandy}
...One part of the pamphlet contained a contest giving people a chance to win one of three Apple iPads, valued, it said, at about $750 each...
Heckfire.
Why didn't they just take us to the pub and buy us a bushel of beer or two as the anti-Tax Shift revolt started cranking up for real?
We first met in the comment threads at Billmon's now defunct Whiskey Bar, way back in the dinosaur days when the feverswamps were the only place to find a little truth, and a whole lotta conversation, in a dirty glass.
And while l.g. may take umbrage at the following description, I always think of him as a hard-headed leftist with a heckuva slap-shot.
****
Anyway....
l.g. stopped by recently and left a late comment at the bottom of the now kinda/sorta infamous Schlieffen Plan/Snooki/Birdman/Curmudgeon post in which I wondered if the BC-Dippers 39% would hold if, say, the LINO's and the hived-off Cons were to suddenly reunite, at the last minute, just before the spring 2013 election.
It is now, officially, a semi-infamous post (at least in my own mind), because my favourite Public Eye Radio rabble-rouser, Eleanor Gregory, quoted from it verbatim on this morning's show.
In addition, Ms. Gregory also offered to send me brownies when I thanked her for.....errrr...'accused' her of stealing my stuff.
But all this self-congratulatory babble is really nothing more than bubble-wrap around the heart of the matter, which l.g. got straight to with his comment:
"The real issue is whether or not the dippers have their sh*t together to run a government properly...."
So.
I ask l.g., and anyone else out there that wishes to comment also.
Are they?
Ready to govern, I mean.
______
It was actually a fantastic week for comments on a whole lotta levels, including a clutch of new folks stopping by....In that regard, John G's comment wherein he wondered where the line for conflict with the Lotuslandian political punditry actually lies was a great one....And then there was the running conversation with Santa Rosa Jon and Mr. Beer 'N Hockey about their poetry that became a song....And thanks a million to music man Don F. for the digital recording advice.
