Ya, But Is It 'Restricted'?

AllTheJinglesThatFit
CanuckistanmikitaVille


Amazingly, there is a story that has nothing whastoever to do with cleavage or Biker gangs that managed to knock the plight of poor Max 'My Head Is NOT An Empty Suitcase' Bernier off the front pages the last couple of days.

Which is that there has been a change in ownership of a jingle that fronts hockey games on the TeeVee in Canuckistan.

Essentially the CBC didn't want to pony-up for the rights to the song so BellGlobeCTVCHUMTSNMedia swooped in and snapped them up for a reported $3,000,000.00.

Which, of course, is about half what a decent hockey player costs these days.

Now, there has been all kinds of discussion and bombast on the subject - most of it ridiculous in the extreme.

But there was one great line.

And it came from sportswriter Jim Kelley while he was kibbitzing with Dan Russell on the latter's sports talk show last night:

'The song was a free agent. And I'm sure it just did what was right for its family.'

No word yet whether another local Lotuslandian sports talk host named David Pratt plans to 'recycle' the line.

Stay tuned......

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Abstination For A Fundified Nation

AllTheStupidThatFits
WingnuttiaWorldVille


Doesn't work?

Doesn't matter.

Why?

Because you can always invoke a fanciful bit of self-delusional flim-flammery known as 'Second Virginity'.

All of which is fully explained in a new, shiny-smooth abstinence-only magazine called 'Just For Girls' from the very fine folks at the 'Human Life Alliance'.

Now, most of the time stupid is just that.

But sometimes it is downright dangerous, like when it makes the following statement:

"There is also an increased risk of breast cancer in women who have an abortion."

Why dangerous?

Because this is crap.

As in 'total crap', as explained by a slightly more reliable source than the Human Life Alliance, which is the U.S National Cancer Institute. I am going to reprint an entire paragraph from them here which is long, I realize, for some who want to most fervently to believe in stupid, dangerous stuff, but it is important to do so as it gives true context before the final unequivocal kicker.

So here goes.....

The relationship between induced and spontaneous abortion and breast cancer risk has been the subject of extensive research beginning in the late 1950s. Until the mid-1990s, the evidence was inconsistent. Findings from some studies suggested there was no increase in risk of breast cancer among women who had had an abortion, while findings from other studies suggested there was an increased risk. Most of these studies, however, were flawed in a number of ways that can lead to unreliable results. Only a small number of women were included in many of these studies, and for most, the data were collected only after breast cancer had been diagnosed, and women’s histories of miscarriage and abortion were based on their “self-report” rather than on their medical records. Since then, better-designed studies have been conducted. These newer studies examined large numbers of women, collected data before breast cancer was found, and gathered medical history information from medical records rather than simply from self-reports, thereby generating more reliable findings. The newer studies consistently showed no association between induced and spontaneous abortions and breast cancer risk.


I will now repeat that last phrase one more time for those who have a problem with the disavowing of demonstrable falsehoods. Specifically, all the best new fully complete, large cohort studies have consistently showed...

...no association between induced and spontaneous abortions and breast cancer risk.

As in none.

Otherwise known as zero.

Therefore, given that this is public knowledge one can only conclude that the fine folks at the 'Human Life Alliance' have no concerns about burdening young women with a lifetime of guilt that could actually do them real psychological harm.

Because fears of being diagnosed with breast cancer because of something you did as a kid can last a lifetime.

But who cares about all that.

After all, the health and well being of the very kids you are trying to 'save' mean nothing when there are ideological battles to be won.

Right?

Wrong.


_____
Thanks to Dave, by way of Jezebel, for bringing this story to our attention.
There's also a 'Just For Guys' version. They both go by the cool, hip, moniker 'J4G' (do ya' get it?).
The 'abortion causes cancer' crap was found in a cute little bit called 'Dr. Mary Paquette anwers (sic) your questions'. Apparently, Dr. Paquette can neither spell nor keep up with the medical literature. Below is a screen shot of her craptacularly crappy answer to a supposed 'question' from a newly knocked-up kid (click on the image for a larger view):

RailGate Goin'Down - Prosecutor Has Cake And Eats It Too

TheWheelsOfJustice
SinkingLikeStonesVille

And now the very full and satisfied prosecutor is threatening to blame the judge as he prepares to abandon ship.

Details (as always) at Mary's.

____
'Cake and Eat It Too' line swiped from one of Mary's Anon-O-Mice.

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Looks Like We Don't Have Smilin' Sammy's....

Don'tCryForHe
SammytinaVille

.....Website To Kick Around Anymore.

Because he's wiped it, clean and shiny-toothed.

Gosh, maybe the War Chest really is empty.

_____
Update: Well, well, well....... Looks like even the abysmal YouTube Channel that we reported on yesterday has received a scrubbing too. Still only six (count 'em 6!) subscribers, but the number of videos has dropped from ten down to one slick little 78 second Sammymercial.

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Is All Of British Columbia Now 'Progressive'?

Corrective Update:
Originally we had the wrong 'Arthur' attributed to the accounting firm now known as 'Accenture'. We apologize for that, and thank 'R.B.' in the comment threads for pointing out our mistake.

AllTheLobbyingThatFits
BestPlaceOnEarthForGood-TimesVille

Last week Sean Holman spilled the beans on the 'Progressive Group's non-lobby lobbying south of the 49th parallel.

It was an interesting and very important story given the extremely close ties between two of Progressive's principals, Mr. Patrick Kinsella and Mr. Mark Jiles, with the current 'built for good-times' government of British Columbia that is being run by Mr. Gordon Campbell.

At the time we noted three things about Progressive's long history of facilitating the fancies of their good friends:

One - Mr. Kinsella has a long history of working with Casinos which have had very, very good times indeed during the reign of Mr. Campbell, so much so that they rarely even bother to report suspicious activity anymore.

Two - Mr. Jiles has had a very up close and personal relationship with Mr. Campbell. After all, Mr. Jiles was the Premier's constituency manager in his home riding of Pt. Grey during the 2005 election cycle. Of course, such local campaigns should be snoozefests for a sitting Premier who is also sitting on a huge pile of good-times green from rising resource revenues. Interestingly, however, Mr. Campbell actually came reasonably close to losing (12,498 total votes), and indeed might of if a cardboard cut-out known as Gordon v2.0 hadn't sucked away the margin of victory vote from the NDP's Mel Lehan (10,248 total) and handed it to greenie Damian Kettlewell (4,111 total).

Three - The Progressive Group also 'helped' really, really, really good-times accounting conglomerate, Arthur Anderson/Accenture take over B.C. Hydro's accounts for a cool $1,450,000,000.00*.


And yes, you read that last number correctly.

That was 1.45 billion with a 'B' given to an American conglomerate to run our utility company, a conglomerate that looked the other way when Enron made up so much stuff that it ruined the lives of thousands of little people beause it made up all sorts of 'good-times' numbers for the fortunate few and their good friends.

Oh, ya, and just so you know, it is also Arthur Anderson/Accenture is also a conglomerate that must conform to the vagararies of US Patriot Act.

****

Anyway, it turns out that that one of the good-times guys from the Progressive Group, Mr. Jiles, also had a hand in helping the 'New Car Dealers Association Of British Columbia' educate the government of his former boss about the importance of putting money into the new 'Scrap-It' fund, proving once again that spending/consuming/buying more cars really is good for the environment (especially, when all those hunks of glass, metal and plastic sit idling their engines on the newly-twinned Port Mann bridge).

How do we know this for sure - about this 'environmental educating' business I mean?

Well, we were originally pointed in the right direction by the Anon-O-Maestro himself, 'Express Collision Shop', over at Mary's place.

Which sent us scurrying to the Provincial Lobbyist's Registry**.

And here is what we found (click on image for a bigger version)......


Which means, of course, that at least this time (ie. as compared to last time), Mr. Jiles registered to help the local good-times boys that sell cars make a whole pile of money***.

OK?

_____
*This is an aspect of the story that Vancouver Province columnist Mr. Michael Smyth picked up on after the fact (and did a very nice job on), not that we are in any way suggesting that Mr. Smyth is stealing our stuff. After all, that would put him in the company of a very different type of columnist, one of whom was recently fired by the Province for doing just that.
**You know, the registry that another good-times insider, Mr. Kenneth Dobell, originally ignored after he helped set it up until he was convicted of doing so when he shouldn't have because he too was, well, lobbying his former boss, who also just happens to be Mr. Gordon Campbell.
***Which, of course, is ironic in the extreme given that Mr. Campbell's good-times coalition is really nothing more than a cleverly re-packaged version of the old Socred car salesmen's coalition gone wild.


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RailGate Relapsing - The 'Cancer Of Privilege' Resurfaces

AllThePrivilegeThatFits
Ledge(notyet)TrialVille


This time it's not cabinet, solicitor, client, or banker privilege.

Insteat it's 'informer' privilege that being invoked to help keep everything ultra-super secret in the starchamber machinery.

Mary and the Anon-O-Mice have the story.

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What's The Real Reason Sammy Lost?

Don'tCryForHe
SammytinaVille


Maybe because nobody watched the stuff on his slickly craptacular YouTube Channel.

It has ten videos - all with production values that likely cost the War Chest a pretty penny.

And yet nine of those ten haven't even been watched two hundred times.

And you can bet that half of those views were by Sammyworkers and/or the people that made the eerily empty ciphers that, in the end, weren't worth the pixels they were printed on.

As for subscribers?

A lousy six.

Yes that's right - 6!

Which is just slightly fewer than, say, the kid who likes to periodically film his dirty socks.

Just goes to show that once the bought-and-paid-for hype was stripped away Sammy had, well, pretty much.....

Nothing.

OK?

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Blame It All On Obama

Don'tCryForHe
SammytinaVille


Why did Smilin' Sammy Sullivan lose his Lotuslandian Mayor's chair to challenger Peter Ladner yesterday?

Well.

According to FABula it's all because of Barack Obama's code monkeys:

Ladner's team stayed focused and worked on getting voters out in any way possible throughout the day, They had 14 drivers and phoned people repeatedly throughout the day, with their campaign using political software that has also been used by U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign.


OK, maybe it wasn't all the code monkeys' fault.

But, as for those hordes flying anti-NAFTA monkeys?

Well, they are a different matter entirely.

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Great Advice At Twice The Price

MyWeekendWithKids
CampCounsellorVille


Yup.

Made it.

A weekend of camping, in the rain, at Golden Ears Provincial Park smack up against the base of the first mountain range that forces the heavy, moisture-laden flows that roll in off the Pacific skyward.

Gold Creek, campsite TD#42 to be more precise.

With five nine-year-old girls.

Of course, we got soaked despite the fact that we had a tarp up that was larger than the entire roof of BC Place.

And we ate a whole ton o' junk food (and yes the kid, not my own, that needed to win most won 'Fat Belly Hour').

And I learned the lyrics and, much more importantly, the dance moves to a whole lotta Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus songs.

I also acquired a tremendous amount of vital 'must know info' including the fact that 'High School Musical-3' will come out in October with or without Vanessa Hudgens.

And littler e. got very little sleep, mostly for all the right reasons given that she was in a tent with all of her friends going bonkers.

So......

Tonight, after I put her to bed I passed by her chalk board on my way back down to the Subterranean Blues Room (where the box with screen resides) with plans to construct an extremely detailed analysis of the end Smilin' Sammy's reign of error and all it means for Vancouver.

And then I read the littler one's words on the board, which were they were these.

"Don't go to(o) bed to late, it gets you to(o) grumpy."

She's right of course.

Which is why the detailed description of Lotuland's new day dawning will have to wait.

OK?

(and goodnight)


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Down Goes Sammy!

Don'tCryForHe
SammytinaVille


There were no green buses circling the Marriott Pinnacle hotel in Downtown Vancouver Sunday night.

Which was unfortunate in the extreme for the current, and soon to be former, Mayor of Lotusland, Sam 'NoWards' Sullivan.

Because the man who attempted to patent the term 'EcoDensity' is done.

And Lotuslandians won't have him to kick around anymore, all for want of 80 lousy membership votes which, apparently, couldn't be bought for all the love or money (ie. $500K?) in his massive campaign war chest.

Heckfire!

That coulda been a whole lotta green* for a few lucky contenders if they'd played their cards and/or Yaletown pied-a-terrista condos right.

As for Sammy himself - what did he get?

Not sure, exactly.

But there is one thing we do know for sure.....

....This time around Sammy didn't get much of that vaunted 'homeless vote' (watch the clip/skip to the end)**.

Oh boy.

____
*Rumour has it that the 'green' required for the original bus was a pittance in comparison.
**Not that there is that much of it to get in far flung CremeVille or at their hotel of choice. Ha!
Mr. Sullivan says he will now back Mr. Ladner all the way.... Sure thing....Regardless, any and all council meetings between now and the election are sure going to be interesting and any fireworks are even more sure to make Quinn's Quiz on the (only?) high point of theCluffMaster Flash's Thursday morning show).


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Is The NPA Building A Fire In The Marriott....

.....So They Can Send Up Puffs Of White For The Annointing?

Or, is there a whole lotta behind-the-scenes membership challenging going on in the 'Smilin' Sammy vs Peter Ladner' Battle Royale?

Because.....

It's now 6pm, and the longer it goes on the more FABula thinks it's the latter.

We'll see.

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How Much Does The Cheney Administration Hate The U.N.?

WhoseBlackHelicoptersAreThoseAnyway?
MultilateralismGoneWildVille


Tons.

And today it became Megatons.

Alison has the story.

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'Tis The Time Of The Season....

.....For Camping!

AllDoneGone
DaddyDay(AndNight)CareVille

Yes.

That's right.

You won't have me to kick around this weekend because I'm going camping* with littler e. and four of her closest friends.

Will it be fun?

Or.

Will it be sharp sticks driven into the optic nerves?

Hmmmmm......

Maybe a bit of both.

More on that later

_____
OK, we're not exactly roughin' it because we are taking the VW (notso)Microbus, however.....
Weather very cold comfort crappy here in Lotusland so we'll probably all get pneumonia; this is being done sans C. and Bigger E.......what the heckfire was I thinking?????!!!!!

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Gosh, Maybe Tommy Franks Had A Point....

DumberThanCopulation
QuislingVille


....Not to mention George Tenet and Jay Garner too (as told by Dana Milbank):

Doug Feith, the No. 3 man at the Pentagon before, during and after the invasion of Iraq, has come in for his share of blame for the failures there -- in large part because he led the Pentagon policy shop that badly misstated the case for war and bungled the planning for the aftermath. Gen. Tommy Franks called him "the dumbest [bad word] guy on the planet." George Tenet of the CIA called his work on Iraq "total crap." And Jay Garner, once the American administrator in Iraq, deduced that Feith is "incredibly dangerous" and, "He's a smart guy whose electrons aren't connected."


Why have I come to think that all those folks just might be right?

Well, yesterday, Mr. Feith was interviewed by Anna Maria Tremonti on CBC Radio One so that he could flog his 'book' which, by all accounts, Mr. Milbank's included, is nothing more than a total crock filled to bursting with craptacular lies.

One of which, reiterated repeatedly yesterday is that, even if he didn't have 'em, Saddam Hussein could have reconstituted his Weapons Of Mass Destruction within three to five weeks.

I was incensed as Ms. Tremonte let this and many other egregious craptacularisms pass so that she could focus on the issue of Bush Adminsitration-sanctioned torture, a subject which Mr. Feith repeatedly described as 'controversial'.

Luckily, Larry Wilkerson, a guy who worked for Colin Powell and who has done quite a bit of mea culpanizing of the more honest variety himself, came on after Feith and set the record straight.

And he didn't even use the F-word.

But he should have.

All of which leaves me wondering - why are people like Mr. Feith, people who have been proven wrong over and over and over and over (and over) again, taken seriously by anyone even remotely serious about anything?

Including the CBC.

Instead, it is my opinion that they should be submitted to endless ridicule.*

At the very (very) least.

OK?

______
The RA File of the interview can be found here (see part 2) - but be forewarned, it's worse than 5 million screaming fingernails on an endless blackboard from hell and/or the wails of all the dead unjustly killed because of the actions of people like Mr. Feith.
*And it looks like MoDo agrees.


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Mr Emerson's Softwood Appeasement.....

......In Which Our Own Money Is Being Used Against Us

KillingUsSoftlyWithHisDeal
VancanforcouverKingswayVille

At the time, we were screaming mad about the $1,000,000,000.00 of our own money that was given away so that Mr. Emerson could bring his so-called 'peace in our time' to the Canadian Forest Industry.

Well, that industry, particularly in coastal British Columbia is pretty much dead and buried these days.

And the excuses that are most often given are the high Canadian dollar and slumping U.S. home starts.

What is rarely mentioned is the fact that the big nail in the coffin lid is that extra 15% tariff that has been slapped on wood going south since prices started dropping.

And what's worse, it now turns out that a big chunk of that $1,000,000,000.00 that we gave away to screw ourselves (at a time, don't forget, when we were winning just about everything in the courts and at the tribunals) is now being used against us.

Andrew McLeod has the story in a very fine piece in The Tyee:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister David Emerson and B.C. Forest Minister Rich Coleman were among those who took credit in 2006 for ending the softwood lumber dispute with the United States.

But now it turns out much of the $1 billion the Canadian negotiators relinquished to the United States has been used to reward the American lumber industry and other friends of President George Bush's administration. Concerns the money would be used for a slush fund may well have been fulfilled.....

{snippety doo-dah}

Where the money went:

• $200 million to the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, an organization created to receive the funds and dominated by timber industry executives
• $150 million to the American Forest Foundation, which "promotes the interests of small forest landowners"
• $100 million to Habitat for Humanity
• $500 million to the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, the American lobby group that sparked the latest round in the softwood lumber dispute in the first place
• $50 million to the Bi-national Council, a pro-logging lobby group active in both the U.S. and Canada......

{snippety doodle-dandy}

"It was very sophisticated money laundering," (Peter) Goldman (of the Washington Forest Law Centre, or WFLC) said. "Canada was willing to participate with money laundering. Part of the deal was Canada would help the United States launder this money."

Or as the WFLC's spokeperson Kenan Block put it, "We believe Canada was either a willing or an unwitting partner in creating what's become a pro-timber industry slush fund in the United States."

All of which has us wondering if Mr. Emerson's middle name really is "Neville".

OK?


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