Judy! Judy! Judy!......

Aspens?
InCanadaVille

.....Blatchford?

And, as Alison and the good Reverand both note.....

Why, exactly, was Ms. Blatchford leaked info. considered to be too 'top secret' for the Parliamentary Committee looking into the matter of detainee transfers in Afghanistan?


__
Update: More on who gets what, when, and sometimes why(?) from Kady O here and here.
Who is this 'Judy' you may be asking? Well, we are referring, of course, to the most esteemed journalistic receiver of leaks to the south of us, Ms. Judith Miller.....Which begs the question.....Does Ms. Blatchford, too, have an ultimate cut-out?

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Five Ringed Circus Rising: Free Press v. Police State

DemocracyNow

Gone?Ville

The very fine independent American journalist Amy Goodman came north last week to speak in Vancouver and Victoria.

When she crossed the border she was, as Alison notes, detained:

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now was stopped at the Canada-US border on Wednesday and questioned for 90 minutes by Canadian Border Services Agency. She was on her way to the Vancouver Public Library to launch her new book Breaking The Sound Barrier as a benefit for community radio stations.....

So.

What was the problem?

Well, apparently our uber-interested border guards wanted to know what Ms. Goodman was going to talk about.

So she mentioned that she planned to mention Tommy Douglas, the US Healthcare debate and the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Conference, the Wars in the Middle East and the Global Economy.

Which is quite a list.

But nothing on it, apparently, was of any great interest the interrogators who followed all that up with the following line of questioning while Ms. Goodman's car and laptop were being thoroughly searched:

Interrogator: "Are you speaking about the Olympics?"

Goodman: "What about the Olympics? Oh, you mean when President Obama went to

Copenhagen to push for the Olympics in Chicago?"

Interrogator: "No. I am talking about the Olympics here in 2010."

Goodman: No answer (according to a talk Ms. Goodman later gave at the Vancouver Library, not being a sports fan and not wanting to hurt Canadian National pride she elected not to admit she wasn't even aware Vancouver is hosting the 2010 Olympics).

Interrogator: "You're saying you're not talking about the Olympics?"

Goodman: No answer.

Now.

Here's the really creepy anti-free speech/anti-free press thing.

Before they let her go, the Interrogators asked Ms. Goodman for a copy of her speech.

Of course, there was nothing in there about the Five-Ringed Circus.

But.

As anybody who knows Ms. Goodman knows, she will always respond to attempts of press intimidation by reporting on those attempts directly.

As a result, if you listen to her VPL speech you will not be surprised that she did, indeed, speak of the Circus after all.

______

This story is interesting, because it has been wurlitzered almost entirely in the Bloggodome. And now that bridgeman Harvey O. has stated his outrage it will be interesting to see if it makes its way into the proMedia domain.

The following is a tangential comment I left at Alison's about another border crossing incident I heard about last week:..... Went to see the Swell Season this week. The principals are Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the movie 'Once'.....And during the onstage banter they talked at some length about the difficulties Ms. Irglova, who is Czech, had at the border coming North in their tour bus from Seattle.....Apparently, they were told later, it is because of all those terrible, no good, musical gypsies trying to sneak into our (still?) fair country.....To their credit, a number of folks in the crowd shouted that we need more gypsies. .....To which I concur, especially gypsies that can make music like this.

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His Majesty's Secret PAB Service

Ministers?
WeDon'tNeedNoStinkinMinisters!Ville

We have noted many times in the past how Gordon Campbell's personal 'Public Affairs Bureau' is, by far, the single largest media (and media-sniffing) apparatus in the entire province of British Columbia.

And while we always knew that these fine folks (folks who visit this site early and often every time His Majesty's name is mentioned amongst the pixels) were massaging the messages for public consumption, we never, even our wildest conspiratorial fever-dreams, figured the PAB was massaging the message for Cabinet Ministers.

Until now.

Paul Willcocks, based on some very fine digging by Rob Shaw and Lindsay Kines of the Victoria Times-Colonist has the story:

So, when Citizens' Services Minister Ben Stewart learned — seven months late — that a government employee already being investigated for fraud had been caught with confidential information on 1,400 British Columbians from ministry files, who tells him?

Not his deputy, or officials responsible for privacy or from the ministry involved.

A Public Affairs Bureau staffer brought the minister up to date. How long did the branch responsible for the government's messaging know?

That's still a secret.

Rob Shaw and Lindsay Kines from the Times Colonist have been reporting on the issue.
The newspaper argues in an editorial today that Stewart should resign.


So.

Two questions:

1) Why does the PAB even have this information, information of critical important to the private lives of a signifiant number of British Columbians?

2) What else does the PAB know that Cabinet Ministers of this Province don't?


Here's hoping Messr's Shaw and Kines are able to get answers these questions and the other three 'W's' as well.


_____
The VT-C editorial linked to above is a good one and a very fine example of the public service that an unfettered, hard-charging proMedia organ can provide. However, we think the real issue here is not Mr. Stewart but rather the concentration of power in the Premier's office that is exemplified by the secret tentacles of the PAB that slither out from under it's tightly controlled and closed (except, of course, to the chosen few who pay to open them) doors.

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Vancouver Smackdown: Parks v. Police State

StrangenessAmongstTheBedfellows
CivicVille


Look.

I understand that a lot of mess that the City of Vancouver is in regarding its budget can be laid at the feet of Smilin' Sammy and The Spamaloteers.

And I also understand that holding the line on taxes is probably a huge issue for the Pols whispering in his Gregorousness' ear.

But.

This business of closing the Bird Conservatory and the Stanley Park Petting Zoo can not stand, for all kinds of reasons, including many of those that Mr. Berner has been shouting about for some time now.

****

So.

Let's forget all the nuts-and-bolts 'retail vs. wholesale' politics crap for a moment and just consider what the heckfire is really going on here.

First, we currently have a $2.8 million dollar annual Parks budget shortfall.

Second, the Five-Ringed Circus' three week security budget is now $1 billion and counting.

Or, put another way (using the addition, subtraction and long division skills that I've been honing recently helping littler e. with her math homework).....

....Dismantling even half of that ridiculous, wasteful circus police state apparatus would leave us with $500 million extra dollars which would be enough to ensure that the kids, the grandkids, the great grandkids, the great-great grandkids and the great-great-great grandkids of Vancouver's current taxpayers would be able to visit the birds and pet the lambs for approximately 178.57142 years.

OK?

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Never Mind The InterWebz.....

AllTheMusicThatFits
TranscendingNationsVille

_____
(Post-Show Update: Really, really great, and greatest of all for Bigger E ,I think....With the moviesongs, the swellstuff, and even some fantasmagoric frameology swirled into the mix with a dash of audience parts as well...no Mr. Christopher, but a fine tribute to the Clancy Brothers, 'Ireland's first rock-stars' to close.....Real review to follow, maybe.... Unless, of course, I get to tabbing and, dare I suggest it at the age of 50...just go out there and just start busking...)
______

...Here comes The Swell Season!

And any & everybody they want to bring up on the stage straight out of the crowd.....

Inspiring really.

The two E's and me* are on our way to see 'em tonight.

Here's hoping they play a Mic Christopher tune or two.

(or maybe even three?)

_____
Here's the set up of how Moji came to come up on stage with Hansard and Irglova et al. in Houston last week.
And here's a nice review of the Seattle show from a few days ago.
*And Mrs. Griffiths, just in case you're out there somewhere, the bad grammar was entirely intentional....Ha!

_____
Update: OK, so here's something just a wee bit ghost-in-the-machinery-istic or, at the very least, 'Broken Hearted Hoover-Fixer-Sucker-Guy-esque'.....Early this morning I get a blogsearch hit on the Swell Season from Ireland....Then about an hour later an E-mail alert leads to a remote hit on the specific link to this post from Snoqualmie Washington....So what, you ask?....Well, here's the thing, the group played Portland last night, and as was made clear during the Jason Segal/Freaks and Geeks incident in Los Angeles recently, they are travelling by bus....So....wonder where, exactly, the gang stopped for breakfast this morning on the way up from Oregon's Garden City?....





(or perhaps even, oh hell, how about a fourth even if it's not really Mic's?)



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RailGate Gallery Goin' Down....Who's Wearing The Pajamas Now?

BloggersBearWitness
CourtroomVille

There was a bunch more pre-trial legal wrangling before the judge yesterday.

You can get the bare bones of the thing, which apparently centered around the admissability of the testimony from the highly immunized Star Witness, in the public prints.

If you want it.

But if you want to read what really went down you'll have to rely on the Bloggodome.

More specifically, you'll have to rely on the the eyewitness reports of Robin Mathews, EM and North Van Grumps over at Mary's place.

Oh, and just so you know, North Van Grumps counted heads.

And the bloggers out-numbered the working press in the gallery (scroll down):

"....Of the 7 in the gallery: Neal Hall and Keith Fraser were there to represent the "Press", Robin Matthews, EM (and a friend) and myself (NVG) were there representing BC Mary. The seventh participant reminded me of Stuart Chase who was paid by the A G office to look in on the proceedings on behalf of the government, but in this case the official was none other than a fully armed, bullet proof vested RCMP which led me to the front desk on the way out of the BC Supreme Court building to ask the equally bullet proofed recectionist ....WHY. Why have an office on duty inside the public gallery area. The reply was "To give testimony." "Really"......"


Go figure.

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Science Sunday: 'Tricks' Of The Trade

AllTheGenesThatFit
VectorVille


So.

We've sequenced the human genome and we've identified a bunch of small chunks (ie. genes) that are messed-up and/or mutated in a bunch of different diseases.

So (again).

What's the problem?

I mean, why haven't we fixed all these diseases by putting in good genes that aren't messed-up in the cells that need them.

Well, it turns out that the real problem is that we've been unable to figure out how to get those fixed genes into the cells that need them in an efficient and non-toxic manner.

We've tried all kinds of ways to do it, including using otherwise crippled viruses as a 'vector' to deliver them.

But there have always been all kinds of problems and concerns, some of them really, really bad that have put the kibosh on full steam-ahead 'Gene Therapy' for quite some time.

Until, maybe...... now.

Here's the somewhat breathy NPR report on the very recent breakthrough:

"Researchers in France have successfully treated two young boys with a rare but fatal genetic disease. This marks a high point for the field of gene therapy after several well-publicized setbacks.

Patrick Aubourg leads the French research team. Since 1993, he's been working on a disease called X-linked adrenoleukoDYSTROPHY — or ALD. ALD is a devastating neurological disease, incapacitating and ultimately killing people who have it. Many people became familiar with ALD from the 1992 movie Lorenzo's Oil, which featured a young boy affected with this disease.

Since ALD is caused by a single gene, it's an ideal candidate for gene therapy. Put the repaired gene back into patient's cells, and that should fix the problem.

Simple in theory, but in practice, it's been extremely difficult. The biggest hurdle has been finding an efficient way to get the repaired gene into the cells of patients. One of the tricks involves attaching the gene to a virus. The virus acts as a vector, inserting the repaired gene into cells......"

Now, if any climate change deniers and/or Email 'hack and release' experts are reading this, please note the use of the term 'trick' above.

And when you do, please do not make the mistake in inferring that something nefarious is going on, because when cell and molecular biologists figure out an elegant way to do something we often do call those things tricks.

And in fact, in this case, the fine french folks under consideration used three very neat tricks to pull this off.

Here is the less breathy description of what they did, straight from their abstract in the top-of-the-ladder journal 'Science':

....Autologous CD34+ cells were removed from the patients, genetically corrected ex vivo with a lentiviral vector encoding wild-type ABCD1, and then re-infused into the patients after they had received myeloablative treatment.....


So (again, squared).

What does this mean in regular language?

Well, they first isolated Stem cells that are marked by a 'CD34' tag from the bone marrow of the patients themselves (that's the 'autologous' part). Second, they stuck the normal gene into the isolated stem cells while they were in a test tube using a fancyvirus that will get into non-dividing isolated cells (that's the 'lentiviral vector' part). Then, third, they stuck the modified stem cells back into the patients' bodies so that they could get busy and develop normally and do their normal rather than messed-up thing.

And what happened?

Well, so far the following, taken, again, directly from the Science paper's abstract:

"....Beginning 14 to 16 months after infusion of the genetically corrected cells, progressive cerebral demyelination in the two patients stopped...."


Neat tricks, eh?

Oh.

And just so you know, 'cerebral demyelination' is the process that wrecks nerves in the brain that causes the debilitating 'dystrophy' part of the disease.

OK?


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If You Can't Beat 'Em In The Alley.....

WeAreAllEnforcers
SometimesVille


There is a whole lotta spinning, crowing, and gnashing of teeth going down about a batch of Emails, some of them 13 years old, between a passel of climate scientists this weekend.

So much so that the whole 'flap', which is based on a 'hack-and-release' from academic servers at the University of East Anglia*, was fronted by the NY Times today:

"Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years......"

Now.

I am not a climate scientist.

But I am a scientist.

And here's something everyone should know.......

Scientists fight about everything.

In fact, we fight about every single detail - from data we view as either good or bad, to hypotheses we see as either untestable or sublimely elegant, to conclusions we view as either craptacular and/or spectacular, to peer-reviewers who drive us crazy because they either miss the point entirely or because they are hard-assed in the extreme (who, if they are fair, are the really good ones that matter).

And all of this, which has absolutely nothing to do with conspiracies or cover-ups, is small potatoes compared to the massive line brawls that are routinely triggered by a dogma-callout in the midst of a rousing end-to-end, wide-open idea fest (ie. the finest kind of scientific meeting/conference).

Why?

Because niceness means less than zero when you are really trying to figure out what is going on.

OK?


_____
*And, no, this is NOT the plotline from an old Monty Python sketch (although in some screamer quarters it probably could be)......

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This Duplicity Cannot Stand, Man.

SellingCanadiansDownTheirOwnPrivate
CrazyRiverVille


From the Big Willbowski:

The story starts in 2008. Liberal MP Gerry Byrne prepared a motion calling on the government to introduce an airline passenger’s bill of rights. Travellers would be guaranteed remedies for lost bags, unreasonable delays or overbooked flights. The model was similar to protection in Europe...

{snippety-doo-dah}

...MPs from all parties professed to support the idea, including then transport minister Lawrence Cannon.

But behind the scenes, his office was pleading with the airlines to launch a lobby campaign to defeat the motion, according to documents obtained by Canwest News Service.

While Cannon was promising to bring in a travellers’ bill of rights, a key political staffer in his office was telling the airlines the Conservatives really wanted it killed.

Lobby the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois, Paul Fitzgerald e-mailed the airlines. “I don’t want us to be forced into regulating passenger protection issues.”

It’s creepily dishonest. The minister is pretending to stand up for passengers while his staff is rallying the industry to kill protection.....

Creepily dishonest?

You bet.

But worse is the name that was scrawled in lipstick on the pig that became the bill that was apparently in large part written by the airline industry itself:

'Flight Rights Canada'

So.

When they set up their 20 thousand league columns of five billion watt blast furnaces in the Beaufort Sea in a concerted effort to finally open up that pesky Northwest Passage year round, will John Baird announce that it is to be called the "Sea-Ice Restoration Project"?


_____
The Willbowski can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the story was broken by Sarah Schmidt of CanWest who did some FOI digging and came up with an amazingly unredacted document that really got the bowling ball rolling.

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Isn't It Time For Mr. Mason Go All John Obvious On Us Again?

BombasticBombshells'RHim
SportswriterVille


Now.

I realize that The Maceman has been real busy recently covering torch relays and such way up in the (still?) frozen North and all....

But still.

Hasn't it been kind of a tough week for one of his most secret of secret sauce sources?


_____
And no, we're not talking about a fine former public servant with an accounting background whose first initial is the same as that of my kids.......Honest.


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RailGate's Newest Cult Member

There'sNoKool-Aid
InOurBarCarVille


Ya.

That's right.

We have a new member.

And his name is BJ Chute.

Mr. Chute is the B.C. Paramedics spokesperson and this is what he told Crawford Kilian of The Tyee about Mr. Chris Trumpy, the very fine fellow who has been appointed by Mr. Gordon Campbell to lead the industrial inquiry that will look into the 'dispute' between the B.C. Ambulance Service and the paramedics:

"Trumpy is a longtime friend of this government," Chute told The Tyee. He said Trumpy had been "hip deep" in the government's pre-election prediction of a $495 million deficit that became $4 billion after the election.

"He was also the chief government negotiator in the sale of BC Rail."

While we would dispute that last sentence just a wee-bit based on that org. chart that just keeps on giving, it is worth recalling that the good Mr. Trumpy was also a member of the RailGate Rewind's Top-20 due to, presumably, old gold like this.

Ha!

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RailGate Ruling On 'Informer Privilege'....The Crucial Passage?

NavigatingThroughStarryWaters
TheSupremesVille


Here, as quoted by Kirk Makin in the Globe, would appear to be a critical passage from from the Supreme's decision to keep the RailGate defense away from the so-called 'secret witness':

....“Where informer privilege has been claimed by the Crown, an accused's constitutional right to make full answer and defence does not alone trigger an exception to the privilege. It is only where innocence is at stake that the privilege yields and information tending to reveal the identity of the informant can be disclosed......”


Why critical?

Well, it seems that everything could change if the (I presume) latest RailGate trial judge rules that what the informer/secret witness has to say behind closed doors actually does get to the heart of the matter which is 'innocence at stake'.



_____
And, truth be told, I only went looking for this reference to 'innocence at stake' after Bill Tieleman brought it up cryptically with Jon McComb on the (nolongerso)Giant'98 this morning....(and if only the geniuses at CORUS would make that a permanent line-up change)....

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Cranking-Up The Star Chamber Machinery....

AllTheSecretsThatFit
WitlessVille

Star Chamber:

1) A royal English court or tribunal abolished in 1641, notorious for its secret sessions without jury.....



Not that I'd want to be found contempible of something or anything like that.

Or even link to anyone who would then be found to be so by association.

****

But hey.

Here's a thought.

Maybe we should just redact....

....Everything.

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Profiting Off The Killing Of The Therapeutics Initiative

WeAreAllPharma
NowVille


In my opinion, and the opinion of many others much more knowledgable than myself, the 'Therapeutics Initiative' was a good thing for all British Columbians.

A report from a group headed by a Gordon Campbell-appointed bureaucrat, a bureaucrat whose compensation was paid by all British Columbians, is being used as ammunition to gun the 'Therapeutics Initiative' down in the street.

****

Meanwhile....

.....The bureaucrat who chaired the group that handed Gordon Campbell that ammunition has now been hired by a multinational pharmaceutical corporation that will profit from the death of the initiative.

Seriously.

This is madness.

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StealthCon Round-Up....What Was The Real Reason Dilworth Was Muzzled?

ItsAThinLineBetweenStupid
AndCleverVille


Late last week, thanks in large part to the work of Monte Paulsen in The Tyee, it became clear that the latest conservative candidate in New Westminister-Coquitlam, a riding that the Cons lost by only three percentage points in the last general, was ducking the press and/or her 'potential' constituents in the run-up to Monday's by-election.

A by-election where that StealthCon candidate was destroyed by a Dipper named Donnelly by almost 15 points.

So.

What's the real story here?

I ask because, normally, the Big Boys from party headquarters will reign in a candidate when they are either in the lead, or the race is very tight, to ensure that they don't say something stoopid (and/or true) that will derail them if they lose just a point or two if the puffed-up punditry takes them to task over it.

But surely the Conservative braintrust must have had internal rolling poll numbers that told them that their latest horse, Ms. Diana Dilworth, was way behind as the Bye-Bye in NewWest-Coq came around the clubhouse-turn and entered the final stretch.

So, given that, why didn't they unleash her so that she could throw a few haymakers against the Dipper in an effort to make up lost ground?

Hmmmmm.....

Could it be that the man with the white moustache who rode into Lotusland on a big white horse that just happened to have Hunter S. Thompson's initials branded on its left flank last week put the Big Cons biggest brains in a corner that they couldn't possibly have gotten out of without suffering a thrashing on the larger regional stage if they had gone after the local Dipper?

And could that H.S.T., even if it is only hated even a third as much in Ontario as it is out here in British Columbia right now, cause some real problems for both the Big Cons and their enablers (see: Iggy and The Puffins) when we go back to the polls for real next time out?

What do you all think?

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