Five Strikes, You're In!

TheRealFaceOfPrivatization
NoContestVille

Well, it's official.

The huge multinational Maximus is being fined for the 5th consecutive assessment period for not meeting benchmarks for 'interfacing' (ie. answering phone calls and mail requests) with British Columbia Medicare and Pharmacare 'customers' (ie you and me).

And for this we are paying them hundreds of millions of dollars.

How long will this go on before we force the Minister responsible, George Abbott, to say:

"You are costing us money....
You are throwing our own people out of work....
You are not as good as our own people....
You are in breach of contract.....
Game over....
Good-bye."

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Teachers Strike, Day 2

InconvenienceAndTheLivingIsEasy
LotusLandia

Last Friday was Day 1 of the Big B.C. (justified) Teachers' strike.

Can't even remember Day 1 as it was so long ago on the other side of the long weekend (Canuckistanian Thanksgiving was yesterday).

Today was day 2. Both kids spent morning with Mom at work singing and dancing with toddlers. Oldest spent the afternoon with me pipetting, answering phones and downloading Ramones videos off one of the lab computers. Can't wait for the institutional firewall sniffers to catch up with that one. Then it was off to Richmond for theatre class with oldest and back into town again to pick up youngest from Mom's chorus. Stop at gas station, only $1.05 per litre (~$4.00 CDN/US Gallon), buy two packs of Sweet Hearts for treats ($0.39 each; best buy in candyville).

Heckfire!

Haven't spent so much time with my kids on a work day in ages. Hope that doesn't destroy their education.

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Death And Glory

It'sJustAnotherStory
NakedAggressionVille


"People worry a lot about how the Arab street is going to react. Well, I see that the Arab street has gotten very, very quiet since we started blowing things up."

Donald Kagan, Co-Chairman, Project For A New American Century
Interview with Paul William Roberts, Sept. 2002, In: A War Against Truth, Raincoast, pg 39.

Very, very quiet, indeed.

But then again, these people decided a long time ago to never let reality get in the way of their Empire building:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Bush Admin Official Speaking (Derisively) to Ron Suskind, Summer 2002
First published Oct 17, 2004, NY Times

All of which is fine and good, especially if the Empire Loyalists are successful in portraying the Iraqi resistance through an Islamo-Fascist lens.

But what happens if and when their countrymen begin to seriously 'study' things like this?

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Shining A Light On The Underbelly

Leak-O-Rama
DingDongVille

Sean Holman has been tearing it up lately, especially when it comes to giving the great unwashed a peak at the inner workings of rightside-leaning local (ie. Southwestern British Columbia) political parties.

And the bonus is the comment threads, where the insiders go ballistic on Mr. Holman and each other. Here's just one example, taken from the NPA shoot out at the Circle Sam Corral (2nd link above):

Ah, my dear Mr. Biltmore...some background to help fill in the blanks for you...

1) Sean Holman and the NPA's now marginalized chief dimwit Greg Wilson are old pals from federal Grit days, they both of the left wing of that Sliperal spectrum (Rock, Copps etc.)

2) Mr. Wilson has been leaking very inside information to Mr. Holman for months. The story is ALWAYS favourable to either their own political end of the spectrum or highly supportive of the whackstar antics of one Mr. Wilson. Of course, those moves are always masked as newsworthy and the reportage allegedly coming from several sources. Not even the combined gray matter of Messers. Holman and Wilson are good enough to BS theri way through that.

3) As strong evidence of number 2 above, Mr. Holman didn't even cover the news that Mr. Wilson had basically been cast aside fro Mike Hillman so the NPA would have a real campaign boss and not the nutbar Wilson who pisses off candidates, and their staff by ruling by fiat and misses deadlines only to provide feeble and pathetic excuses in their place.

Nothing is covered with any balance anymore on this blog (like in the beginning)

But it is sure a great place to come read of what the asses far left of center think and are leaking.

This leak, truthfully, will certainly get someone fired.

Take good care.

Posted by NoSurpriseAtAll on October 7, 2005 04:41 PM


I like the bolded line (emphasis mine) because, based on these threads and others like them, I would suggest otherwise.

That is not to say that Mr. Holman hasn't, and won't continue to, shine his light leftward. It's just that when the leftsided insiders get mad at each other they are much less often vindictive and usually come off as human.

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By the way: Mr. Holman, who really is the last of the journalistic independents in this Province (don't forget, he walked away from a fulltime gig with the Vancouver Sun for reasons officially unknown) is starting his own radio show this weekend. It's Sundays @ 6pm on CFAX in Victoria. For those outside of the insular SouthVI/Mainland listening area you can stream it from here.

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Smells Like.....

HSTFridays
10thEditionVille

.....Optimism

War of naked aggression gone bad.....Economists beginning to flay the stag.....Congresscritters indicted....Lobbyists justifying.....Base ankle biting....Braintrust re-upping with prosecutor.....Poll numbers supertanking....

That is today's Bushworld in a nutshell, one year before midterm elections that could give Americans hope, especially if the Democrats manage to seize control of one of the two houses of Congress and force real committee hearings before Bush III Comes To Washington.

But now is not the time for the Dems to sit back, play it safe, and wait for good things to happen at the ballot box in 2006 and 2008.

After all the very fine folks with their hands around the neck of American Democracy have been in trouble like this before. And that was before redistricting, electronic voting machines and trickle-down cronyism:

"Political gibberish is not a purely American art form, like jazz and the safety blitz. But in only 200 years we have raised it to a level of eloquence beyond anything since the time of the Caesars or even Genghis Khan.....

The Democrats' game plan, until then, was to lay low and talk like The Universal Underdog - just another bunch of good guys and athletes who got victimized by the cruel ignorance of Ronald Reagan......They felt strangely out of place, like Mike Tomczak or Turk Schonert, thrust into starting roles they hadn't played for years. Barney Frank, apparently worried that his party members would drool all over themselves in some sort of presidential feeding frenzy, counseled moderation, "There's no point in us trying to reform the NSC....there's no way for us to keep cowboys like North off the staff. It's not wise to try an institutional solution of personal defects," thereby earning a place of his own next to immortals like Hubert Humphrey, Al Haig and Yogi Berra.....

After all, Oliver North is not a Cuban burglar. He is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corp....."

Hunter S. Thompson, 'The Lord And A Good Lawyer', Dec. 1st 1986
The San Francisco Examiner, Reprinted in Generation of Swine, Summit, 1988 pg. 182

And Karl Rove is neither Cuban nor a Marine, except perhaps in his wildest dreams and/or his favorite Village People video.

But that is neither here nor there. The point is, if the Dems allow Plamegate to go the way of Contragate, start making book on The Jebbinator in 2008.

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The Angel Of What, Exactly?

EveryLongMarchBeginsWithTheFirstStep
GrandJuryVille


Even if it is voluntary, two things about Karl Rove's decision to give in and make an 11th hour (re)appearance before Patrick Fitzgerald's PlameGate Grand Jury, have many wondering if all those mega-indictments really are coming after all.

First, despite the fact that Mr. Fitzgerald did not deliver a 'target letter' to Mr. Rove may protect him from having to take the 5th on the entire deal, but it did not preclude the possibility of an indictment at a later time.

Second, the fact that Mr. Rove's lawyer, Mr. Luskin, has been all over the map regarding his client's position and intentions suggests that they have not yet figured out a way to manage the newscycle on this one because they, themselves, don't know what is going to happen.

And both are good news, because together they strongly suggest that Mr. Fitzgerald is not carrying the Cheney Administration's water on this one.

Regardless, it's important to remember that this entire business of the press being informed that undercover CIA agent Ms. Plame was 'fair game' was all about revenge right from the start.

Revenge against her husband Joseph Wilson for blowing the whistle on the bogus Niger uranium thing and thus forcing the Rovians to fess up that those 16 words inserted into the 2003 State of the Union Address were little more than bald-faced lies.

And with the revenge motive in mind, it is important to remember that Mr. Rove's feelings about the subject are not exactly a secret in Washington circles. Here is Ron Suskind's illuminating description, from a 2003 article published in Esquire.

"I arrived at his office a few minutes early, just in time to witness the Rove Treatment, which, like LBJ’s famous browbeating style, is becoming legend but is seldom reported. Rove’s assistant, Susan Ralston, said he’d be just a minute. She’s very nice, witty and polite. Over her shoulder was a small back room where a few young men were toiling away. I squeezed into a chair near the open door to Rove’s modest chamber, my back against his doorframe.

Inside, Rove was talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him. I paid it no mind and reviewed a jotted list of questions I hoped to ask. But after a moment, it was like ignoring a tornado flinging parked cars. "We will f*ck him. Do you hear me? We will f*ck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever f*cked him!" As a reporter, you get around—curse words, anger, passionate intensity are not notable events—but the ferocity, the bellicosity, the violent imputations were, well, shocking. This went on without a break for a minute or two. Then the aide slipped out looking a bit ashen, and Rove, his face ruddy from the exertions of the past few moments, looked at me and smiled a gentle, Clarence-the-Angel smile. "Come on in." And I did."

And the best thing?

Unlike hatchet men, Angels have no need to walk over their own grandmothers to get what they want or to undergo religious conversions while they are in prison.

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Standing Up For Their Right To....

SecretPlans
DuplicitousVille

...Bargain

I grew up in 1970's British Columbia and remember two big teachers strikes very well.

As a kid they were the best of times and they were the even better times.

During the first, when I was younger, my friends and I had wicked, non-stop, up against red brick wall road hockey games every single day.

During the second, when I was a little older, a girl named Wendy taught me, amongst other things, how to play tennis.

What I'm really trying to say is that a few days of no school definitely will be an inconvenience for us parents, but it is not going to irrevocably 'hurt kids' as the SS Gordon Campbell and the local media are so fond of saying (over and over and over again).

Because somebody has to stand up to this government. This business of ripping up contracts and shutting down negotiations on a whim whenever it strikes their fancy has to stop.

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And when you hear those CanWest 'Trumpets Red Blare' on this issue, please don't forget this.

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Fortress North America

HuntMeDownByTheWaterfrontDocks
WhereTheSailorsAllComeInVille

Last night I got to watch the orange-purple, autumnal high-sky sundown from Vancouver's waterfront docks.

Not the Ferry docks, which are located far from downtown Vancouver, and which Colin Powell, back in the days when he was still carrying water for the Rovians, once told us were sure to be a terrorist target.

No.

I'm talking about the real thing. The deepwater harbour docks right next to where my Dad used to go to work when he left for Alaska on the tugboats.

But this time I wasn't going to watch my Dad go to sea.

Instead, I was going to a fancy-schmancy restaurant.

And it was a truly beautiful sight from the deep end of the harbour looking west, back towards the city skyline with the northshore mountains shooting straight up into the stratosphere across the water.

But whatever you do, don't try head down there just for the heck of it, either to check out the view or to find yourself a sailor or two.

Because this is Mr. Bush's Fortress North America. And as such this very Canadian waterfront is now closed to all but those on official business, or those who can afford to hob nob with the fancy-schmancy pants set (a visit to the Cannery is a rare event and much more than just a simple twist of fate, indeed, for my wife and I).

But I digress, because what I really wanted to say was.....

Hey, Rovians! Give us back our sovereignty!

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The ironic thing about all of this is that the Economist magazine has just named Vancouver as the most liveable city in the world for the fourth straight year, and not just because of the beautiful landscape, the mild climate and the multiculturalism. What really puts us up top is the fact that, on an overall global scale, Vancouver is a large metropolitan area that has been deemed by people who actually know something to NOT be a likely terrorist target.
Thanks to Scott from Montreal for the liveable city tip.

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Comments Make The Blog Go Round

Speaker's Corner
ElectricAvenueVille

Moon of Alabama is a damn fine a replacement for the old Whiskey Bar.

But it can never be the real thing.

Why?

Because, one of the things I found most interesting was that, in addition to his wicked posts, Billmon always patrolled, and participated in, the comment threads at the old place.

I understand why he had to shut down the comments (ie. with 500 or more comments per post he was going crazy, now matter how good the conversation) but I really miss the multilayered stratification of the dialogue that went on there - and the kicker is, just like subway stations, when there is a real person watching over you rather than a machine or a video surveillance camera, the discourse and the human interactions are somehow more civilized.

Rowdy maybe, but still civilized, even when they wandered into the darkness on the edge of town*.

Anyway, in the spirit of civilized discourse I'd like to bring the following comment to everyone's attention. This is from new reader ' surf's up' who responded to our earlier post about CanWest wanting an editorial writer for the Ottawa Citizen who believes in the ideology of 'small government and personal freedom':

"Code words for: government outsourced to cronies in the private sector at two or three times the cost or more, rampant corporatism, and total information awareness."

Good stuff that. And an important issue to explore. Maybe we should start by collating all the specific examples where privatization has failed miserably.


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*My favorite comment on the Billmon thread in question was from SusanG., who later went on to great blogging fame and fortune herself when she helped get Joseph Wilson's story out and did a lot to expose Gannon/GuckertGate over at dKOS. She had this to say about the great value in the inspiration of art: "That's what great art has always done. It's like heroin mainlined straight to the brain, unexpected truth in all its glory."

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Ice Melts While The Twig Fiddles

PolesOnTheRocks
PermaMeltVille


This just in from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and NASA:

"For the fourth consecutive year, NSIDC and NASA scientists using satellite data have tracked a stunning reduction in arctic sea ice at the end of the northern summer. The persistence of near-record low extents leads the group to conclude that Arctic sea ice is likely on an accelerating, long-term decline."

“Considering the record low amounts of sea ice this year leading up to the month of September, 2005 will almost certainly surpass 2002 as the lowest amount of ice cover in more than a century,” said Julienne Stroeve of NSIDC. If current rates of decline in sea ice continue, the summertime Arctic could be completely ice-free well before the end of this century."


Didn't NASA get the memo that all research satellites are now to be used to blow stuff up real good?

And as for those NSDIC scientists - you can be darned sure that they will receive no more of their technology-driven, athesist-based politically-slanted research funding next year. Not to mention the fact that Scooter Libby is reportedly getting ready to give Judy Miller her next big scoop - that NSDIC scientist Julienne Stroeve was recently spotted on a Houston freeway riding shotgun in a hopped-up Cadillac Escalade driven by that notorious commie-loving bugman-hater Ronnie Earle.

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Update: The NSDIC is also reporting that the Northwest Passage was essentially ice free for the first time ever last winter.
Double Secret Probation Update: And you thought we were just joking about the change in policy on the use of research satellites, right?

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Only The Close Minded Need Apply

GoSmallYoungMan
AspersonVille

Scott in Montreal has stumbled upon something extremely revealing about the editorial policy of the Canned West (not)Global Media Empire.

Specifically, here is what those not-so-magnificent AsperSons want in an Editorial Writer for the Ottawa Citizen:

"The successful applicant should be an elegant writer with a commitment to the principles of small government and individual freedom."


The silver lining in this very ominous dark cloud given this chain's market hegemony in many Canadian locales?

Guess this means they will soon start going after the size-inflated, freedom-suppressing Bush Administration, or at very least the Canadian representative of said Administration .

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Moonlighting, Reprised

BadSequel
MustNotSeeTeeVeeVille


It's nice to see that the bugman, US House Leader Tom Delay, was gracious enough to step down after he was indicted, in Texas no-less, for money laundering.

And we really found it interesting that another bigtime republican pol, feline extinguisher Bill Frist, is being investigated by the SEC after he bailed out bigbigbigtime on a huge pile of family private healthcare company stock just before it took a nose dive earlier this year.

But the latter news has us a little nervous.

Why?

Well, given that the Martha Stewart insider trading/prison story was just played to the hilt on the small screen by Cybill Sheppard, does this mean that if Frist does go down that the Waterheads running the TV Networks will go berserk and bring us a Cybill-Martha/Bruce-Bill hybrid thinly disguised as a shoulder pad-assisted Rethuglican Reagancomical Reprise of this?

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The Other Side Of The Story

TheLotuslandJungle
TeacherVille

The first phase of job action by British Columbia's public school teachers began today and they are taking a lot of flack from the usual mediamavens.

Over at the Tyee, John Malcomson takes Keith Baldrey to task over the latter's sloppy analysis. Mr. Malcomson also explains why the government might be happy to have set up an untenable bargaining climate.

"In looking at the current impasse, a better case can be made for the provincial government purposefully constructing a non-workable negotiating structure, one incapable of yielding any purposeful outcomes for teachers. Why do this? The answers are largely financial and budget-related. It saves money. It makes a freeze on public education spending easier. It allows Victoria to give out more tax cuts. And to spend money in other areas that have been given higher political priority."

Good stuff, and required to keep folks with influence like Mr. Baldrey on their toes.

In other words, it's the kind of piece that will help inject a little rigour into our local mainstream media.

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Never Mind The Chicken....

MoneySpeaksLouderThanPolls
InvisibleHandVille

.....Here Come The Tightwad Hawks!

Man, as if those protest(100,000) vs. anti-protest(400) numbers from last weekend in Washington weren't a stark enough illustration of how Americans really feel about the war, it looks like the 'Billionares For Bush' have not yet rallied the rank and file to start forking over hard earned cash to help increase their profit margins in Iraq:

"An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337).....

(snip)

The public's reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration's attempt to offer citizens 'a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq' has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.

This coincides with concern over the increasing cost of the war. More than $30 billion has been appropriated for the reconstruction. Initially, America's overseas aid agency, USaid, expected it to cost taxpayers no more than $1.7bn, but it is now asking the public if they want to contribute even more."

And the Cheney administration's response?

USaid's Heather Layman denied it was disappointed with the meagre sum raised after a fortnight. 'Every little (bit) helps,' she said.

Wow.

Is it possible that folks down south just might be ignoring the corporate media and instead are starting to let their current leaders know that they don't believe in naked aggression in ways that really count (at least for those leaders)?


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At Least It's Not Maximus.....

MayTheSourceBeWithYou
OUTVille

Up until all the recent kuffufle demonstrated that US giant Maximus has been completely useless at taking care of British Columbia's MSP and Pharmacare inquiries, there was a lot of speculation that these Masters of Call-Line Disaster were also going to get the private contract to run the province's NurseLine.

The NurseLine allows anyone in BC to call up a nurse anytime to get advice. It's good practice, it gives assurance (my wife and I have used it with sick babies), and it's designed to cut down on needless emergency room visits.

And it is so successful that last year it reportedly received 250,000 calls.

So, apparently, we should all be immensely relieved that the contract has gone to the private company 'Clinidata' which is described in the official BC Govt Press Release in the following manner:

"An established provider of telehealth services in Canada has been selected to proceed to contract development negotiations, as government seeks a new contractor to deliver BC NurseLine and other related services in British Columbia.

Following an intensive nine-month competitive process, Clinidata Corporation has emerged as the preferred candidate. As Canada’s leading provider of patient-centred telehealth advisory, nursing triage and health information services, Clinidata has the program management and information technology skills to address the current and future requirements of BC NurseLine and BC HealthGuide.

The company already operates telehealth services in both Ontario and New Brunswick. With more than 350 professional nurses across six telehealth centres, Clinidata is the largest nursing triage service in Canada, and among the top five providers of nurse tele-triage in the world."

Sounds pretty good, huh. After all, couldn't help but notice that emphasis on Clinidata's 'Canadianness' in every single paragraph of the lead.

So why then did the propaganda-puff-piece also slip the following statement?

"The new proponent will be required to meet or exceed all of British Columbia’s stringent privacy laws."

That raised our eyebrows, perhaps even more so than Sean Holman's suggestion that Clinidata has had Maximus-like problems of it's own in the past.

Specifically, we went sniffing about to find out who actually controls Clinidata.

Turns out that it used to be owned by a Canadian company called 'Oracle - The Assistance Group' until late 1998 when it was swallowed whole by Sykes Enterprises Inc. of, you guessed it, Tampa Florida.

Which means that like Accenture and Maximus before it, when push comes to shove, Clinidata is subject to the whims of the clampdown.....errrr.......the US Patriot Act.

But still, that's not so bad, right. Everything's going to be alright because, for sure, according to B.C. Health Minister Boy George Abbott:

"....the contractor will be required to operate in BC and employ BC Registered Nurses."

So rest assured, with this decision, the SS Gordon Campbell has made sure that nobody is going to try and outsource those nursing jobs to ensure that profit margins be met.

But then we read this, from the front page of the parent company's website:

"Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated ("SYKES" or the "Company") (Nasdaq:SYKE), a global leader in providing outsourced customer contact management solutions and services in the business process outsourcing (BPO) arena....."


Hmmmm.......that's interesting, we thought, as we rubbed our chin before writing ever more complicated boolean script which generated stuff, a whole lotta stuff, like this:

"Sykes Enterprises has informed Florida officials that it will close its Marianna call center, and will lay off 145 of its Marianna employees Saturday and the remaining 121 on Oct. 2 (2004). The disclosure came just weeks after the Tampa company said it would shutter its only other Florida call center, located in Palatka. The announcement Tuesday brings to nine the number of U.S. call centers that Sykes plans to close in 2004. Only five other U.S. call centers will remain: Bismarck, N.D.; Wise, Va.; Morganfield, Ky.; Ponca City, Okla.; and Sterling, Colo. At one time, Sykes had nearly 20 call centers in the United States.

Total layoffs among the nine facilities to be closed this year is expected to exceed 2,500.....

(snip)

Like many of its competitors, the company is shutting down U.S. call centers and opening up new ones in offshore locales like the Philippines and India, where relatively low wages allow Sykes to meet client demands for reduced pricing."

Feel better now?

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Original Link Source: on the outsourcing from the 'Left Coaster'
Just in case you need another jolt in the spine: turns out that Mr. John Sykes the founder of Sykes Enterprises Inc. (ie. not the Infinity Broadcasting guy or the musician) likes to stay on the good side of the Cheney Administration. For example, in 2001 Mr. Sykes gave $100,000 to the Bush Cheney Inagural Committee.

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