Here's To The State Of The Golden Era....Verse 2

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Here's to the stealth of the Era's Henchmen...

Privatized our Railway....Raped rivers Everywhere..

Rawlogs and Sea-Lice Salmon...In the name of Market Share...

The Cronies with their hands out....Never considered what was Fair...

"During the bid period (for the BC Rail deal), Mr. (Patrick) Kinsella was seen entering the Premier's wing of the legislature with CN chairman David McLean on more than one occasion. The relationship between Mr. Kinsella and CN was raised in the legislature in May, 2003, by then-NDP MLA Joy MacPhail, who identified Mr. Kinsella as a paid lobbyist for the national rail line.

In an exchange long since forgotten (from 2003), Ms. MacPhail asked Mr. Campbell if he had ever met Mr. Kinsella and Mr. McLean during the bid phase.

The Premier said at the time he didn't have an answer, and that if Ms. MacPhail wanted to know she could make a freedom-of-information request.

The trail went dry after that.....

....But now the matter is quite different. There is the appearance that Mr. Kinsella might have been on the payroll of BC Rail and CN Rail during the $1-billion sale of the rail line. And that there were meetings and phone calls going on between Mr. Kinsella and Mr. Campbell and/or members of his office..."

Gary Mason, The Globe and Mail

March, 2009

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Here's To The State Of The Golden Era....Verse 2

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Here's to the stealth of the Era's Henchmen...

Privatized our railway....Raped rivers everywhere..

Rawlogs and Sea-Lice Salmon...In the name of Market Share...

It's a record: in the first six months of this year, more than 40 per cent of trees logged on the B.C. coast were exported as raw logs, says the union representing thousands of B.C. wood-industry workers.

"Simply saying to [forestry companies], 'You can export whatever you want' is absolutely wrong-headed," says Bob Matters, chair of the United Steelworkers' wood council. "You're just shipping away jobs.".....

The Province

September, 2011

****

A month ago people started telling me about an unusual sea lice epidemic off Nootka Island. People are saying the lice are drug-resistant which is one of the things ex-Attorney General of Norway is trying to warn Canada about last week. (see below) People from the Discovery Islands, Jody Eriksson, Farlyn and Tavish Campbell, began investigating and this video by Twyla Roscovich is what we have learned so far. The statements by the provincial government of British Columbia do not correctly describe what we are seeing. The looming question in my mind is whether the provincial government is covering for Grieg and by so doing risking our wild salmon, including the Fraser River sockeye?

If this concerns you, contact your MP and demand that DFO enforcement officers or the RCMP be tasked to pick up this investigation into how the Province is handling this. If these lice are resistant - they should not have been allowed to spread into the Discovery Islands....

Alexandra Morton

February, 2010

Alex Follows a Trail of Lice from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo.

Here's To The State Of The Golden Era....Verse 2

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Here's to the stealth of the Era's Henchmen...

Privatized our Railway......

Basi: ... you can take it and look at it, show it to them. They can ... y'know change some of the words around ... some buzz words they wanna see in there, right?

Clark: Yeah.

Basi: And these, these companies know how to ... get the fluff out of this shit and how to tailor it towards themselves, right?

Clark: Of course.

Basi: ... then we can make the changes, we'll show you the changes and then if those are okay, then we'll get it going.

Clark: Sounds great ... I'll get you a secure fax number and we can do it that way.

Raped rivers everywhere...

Five to ten years ago, Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and run-of-river projects were all the rage throughout the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District. The situation was comparable to a mini gold rush, with potential independent power producers rushing to stake claims on every creek.

It all sounded so clean, so green, so positive. It was almost too good to be true. According to the recent review panel’s report on BC Hydro’s operations, it was too good to be true.

In the Gordon Campbell government’s pursuit of energy self-sufficiency, BC Hydro was forced to sign long-term contracts for high-cost, low-value power generated by IPPs. Those deals guaranteed IPPs revenue streams for decades to come. Also according to the review panel, in the 2010 fiscal year, IPPs produced 16 per cent of total domestic electricity requirements, while IPP electricity costs represented 49 per cent of Hydro’s overall domestic energy cost. The panel acknowledged that the self-sufficiency requirement is a “burden on ratepayers” and a “significant planning constraint” on BC Hydro.

Someone is benefiting from these agreements, but it’s certainly not Hydro’s customers or BC taxpayers.

Now we learn that because IPP run-of-river projects involve damming, disruption and diversion of rivers, they may not meet California’s standards for green, renewable energy under recent legislation passed by the California State Senate. So much for Campbell’s vision that the Clean Energy Act would “unleash British Columbia’s full potential in clean energy,” with BC becoming a massive exporter of clean electricity to be sold at a premium to power-hungry Californians...

Lillooet News Op-Ed

Aug, 2011

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Here's To The State Of The Golden Era...

Foisted by a leader whose heart and soul was in the bag...

Who ruled over a party with iron fist in think tag rags...

And when the veil was lifted...He'd sold of all we had...

Here's to the land he tore out the heart of...

Era's leader find yourself...Another Province to be part of...

Here's To The State Of The Golden Era...

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Foisted by a leader whose heart and soul was in the bag...

Who ruled over a party with iron fist in think tag rags...

And when the veil was lifted...He'd sold of all we had...

Auditor-General John Doyle's latest verdict on the B.C. Liberal government's bookkeeping can be reduced to a single word: "Unacceptable."....Doyle also elevated a growing concern about long-term contractual obligations, undertaken as part of public-private partnerships and other contracts. They currently total $80 billion, an almost three-fold increase in five years, largely because of long-term power purchases by BC Hydro...

Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun

Sept 30, 201

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Here's To The State Of The Golden Era...

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Foisted by a leader whose heart and soul was in the bag...

Who ruled over a party with iron fist....

Elayne Brenzinger, a former Liberal MLA who is now running for the Democratic Reform B.C. Party, said she quickly learned that "in caucus you couldn't stand up and challenge him, it just wasn't done."

But Ms. Brenzinger wasn't one to sit meekly by, and when she got a chance to send a zinger at Mr. Campbell, in a caucus meeting, she did. What happened next shocked her.

"It was late on a Tuesday night. We were all tired. One member was talking about a fundraiser and the Premier made some comment to the effect that he didn't remember it or if he wasn't there it didn't happen.

"I just said, and it was meant to be funny, 'You know Gordon, it isn't all about you.' It got a big laugh.

"He got up and walked along, like he does when he's on stage, and then he said it. 'Fuck you too, Elayne.' People laughed a bit but I think most were shocked. I tried to be tough and not show how I felt. But when I went out to the car I was crying."

Wrapped in think-tank rags....

VANCOUVER, BC (The Fraser Institute: Sept 13, 2011) —The governments of Canada’s two largest provinces, Ontario and Quebec, led by premiers Dalton McGuinty and Jean Charest, are among the worst managers of provincial finances according to a new analysis of the fiscal records of 10 Canadian premiers, released today by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank....Former BC premier Gordon Campbell had the best record overall, scoring 83.1 out of a possible 100....

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Here's To The State Of The Golden Era....

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Foisted by a leader whose heart and soul was in the bag....

VICTORIA (Canadian Press, Oct 4/11) - Former premier Gordon Campbell was a no-show at his Order-of-B.C. induction ceremony Tuesday, prompting the lieutenant governor to say his old friend deserves the award even though the nomination sparked controversy.

Premier Christy Clark, who said she was humbled to be in the presence of more than a dozen high-achieving British Columbians, did not mention the former premier during the ceremony.

Campbell was among 14 people who received the Order of B.C., which recognizes the excellence and achievements of individual British Columbians.

"I'm particularly sorry my friend Gordon Campbell could not be here," said Lt.-Gov. Steven Point as he addressed the 13 inductees at Government House. "It's my belief he is entirely deserving of this recognition."

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What Do The Wall Street Protestors Really Want?

AllTheExplanationsThatFit

TippingPointVille

Personally, regardless the various points of view, I think it comes down to two words.

Which are....

Fair.

And...

Play.

And, as Simon and Cathie point out, it is getting harder and harder not to think that all the fairness has gone out of the thing when you see stuff like...

This.

OK?

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Burying The Campbell-Clark Government's Longterm Legacy Of Fiscal (mis)Management ...

AnIronFistWrapped

InThinkTagRags

...How Media Manipulation 'Innoculation' Strategies Really Work

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Monday Morning Update: As an Anonomized one points out at the top of the comments, it would appear that this one might come down to a Battle Royale between two of the Generals (eg. Auditor v. Comptroller) in a winner-take-all cage-match to either turn the lights on, for real, or keep them off permanently such that the Bunker of Secrets remains cloaked in in darkness forever....Guess which General is in favour of a clean, well-lighted Octagon....

_________

Step One....Spray a syringe full of think-tank manufactured botulinum toxin-laced poison into the body politic's immune system:

VANCOUVER, BC—The governments of Canada’s two largest provinces, Ontario and Quebec, led by premiers Dalton McGuinty and Jean Charest, are among the worst managers of provincial finances according to a new analysis of the fiscal records of 10 Canadian premiers, released today by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank....

{snippety doo-dah}

....Former BC premier Gordon Campbell had the best record overall, scoring 83.1 out of a possible 100. Former Newfoundland & Labrador premier Danny Williams ranked second with a score of 72.9, while Nova Scotia’s Darrell Dexter ranked third at 60.4. Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall (53.8) ranked fourth and Alberta’s Ed Stelmach (52.7) ranked fifth....

Fraser Institute Press Release

Sept 13, 2011

Step Two.... When the real thing, a thing that should raise massive immune responses of allergy, anaphylaxis and revulsion amongst the public, arrives a few weeks later.....

Auditor-General John Doyle's latest verdict on the B.C. Liberal government's bookkeeping can be reduced to a single word: "Unacceptable."

The longer version of the independent financial watchdog's "observations" on provincial financial accounting was spread over a 54-page report, released Thursday in Victoria.

Doyle cited the Liberals for a range of accounting errors, some major, some minor, some debatable, others falling under the heading of just plain wrong.

One of the latter concerns prompted him to brand the B.C. public accounts with the most damning label in the auditing lexicon - a "qualification," meaning that in one key respect, "the information is not auditable or is misleading.....

{snippety doodle-dandy}

...Doyle also elevated a growing concern about long-term contractual obligations, undertaken as part of public-private partnerships and other contracts. They currently total $80 billion, an almost three-fold increase in five years, largely because of long-term power purchases by BC Hydro...

Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun

Sept 30, 2011

You can rest assured that, essentially, nothing will happen.

And a simple comparison of the Google-Cache, News Story Division, for the Auditor General's story and Potemkin Prop-Pieces for the $600 million Devil-Horned Roof atop BC Place Stadium is proof that this kind of innoculatory media manipulation strategy based on obfuscation really does work....

Here's the scorecard so far, as of Sat morning Oct 01, 2011:

Auditor General - 25

Devil-Horned Roof - 417

OK?

_____

It is important to be very clear here....This mismanagement does amount more than just a hill of beans in this crazy, mixed-up world where nobody could have 'predicted the recession of 2008' or what is sure to follow in the 2nd dip....Much more.....In fact, I would suggest this is a Mount Everest of Mismanagement, piled high with malice aforethought...Just go back and read the last sentence of Mr. Palmer's finest-of-the-fine, after-the-fact reportage.....Did you get that....$80 freaking BILLION...That is at least 30X more than the bogus HST unwinding costs that Kevin Falcon, who of course is one of Potemkin's finest financial (mis)managers, has been running around telling anyone who will listen will require us to kill all kinds of spending programs willy-nilly....

Why do I say 'after-the-fact' with respect to the Dean's reportage from yesterday?....Well....While I applaud the Auditor-General for telling it like it is, those big numbers, give or take 10 or 20 billion either way, have been there for all to see for a long time now if they have been paying attention....And we know Mr. Palmer has been paying attention.....So...Given all that....Why didn't he, Mr. Palmer, who has the power to do it single-handedly, just knock the syringe right out of the think-tank's hand two weeks ago before it could wreak its havoc?...Important question to ponder, don't you think?...

Wondering about the wordsmithing in the sub-header?.....All will soon be revealed...Raw logs will be part of the story....

Lastly....I have no idea what the new Corp Name is for the Devil Horns that we paid for...I have refused to read, listen or watch..

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The Sunday Setlist: E., And Friends

AllTheButtonsThatPop

ProudAsPunchVille

My oldest kid first sang with me in front of an audience of about 500 when she was four years old.

Now.

There are a couple of things I should make clear before I begin.

First, it was a captive audience given that E. came into sing to one of the big classes I teach on the last day of the year.

Second, pretty much from the from the beginning it was actually me that was singing with E.

Not the other way around.

****

In the ensuing years E. became involved with all manner of big singing projects, including a whole lot of musical theatre and a longterm stint belting things out with the Bach Choir.

But one thing never changed.....

Which is that E., and later littler e. too, always came to my last day of class for a sing-a-long.

This became such an event that students from the past and students from other classes as well as members of our departmental staff, including some that had retired over the years, would stop by for the show.

And it is a show that has had a good long run.

Fourteen years long.

But next time out there will have to have a cast change.

Because earlier this fall E. went off to a college of her own.

A college that is not mine.

****

Almost two years ago now, I decided I wanted to sing with my kids more often.

Well, actually, there was a little bit more to it than that.

And some of that 'that' had a whole lot to do with my long pent-up desire teach myself to able to do stuff like this, even if only badly.

But a bigger part of it had a whole lot to do with the fact that I wanted to give E. the feeling that she could get up anywhere and unleash her magnificent instrument in any way she, herself, so chooses.

In other words, I wanted her to know, for absolute certain, that there really is no need for big productions or big producers or big directors or, yes, even teachers, to validate anything that you do.

Which, of course, is a DIY ethic that is, essentially, the very essence of busking.

So that is what we did, pretty often for an entire year.

Busk, I mean.

And the video at the top of the post, I think, will go down as, perhaps the best example of what it was we actually did.

Later, after the family project was done, E. headed off on her own down to Granville Island where she played for the vendors and the crowds for most of the next year or so.

Which brings us to yesterday.

Which was the day E. disappeared into the bowels Montreal Metro for the first time.

Three hours later she emerged with $80 in her pocket that she didn't have when she went down the stairs.

And a whole bunch of songs swirling in her head.

And, I know for certain, she left a whole bunch of smiles on the faces of the folks that heard her sing.

Can I possibly be prouder?

****

E. is also hanging out with her friends, some new, some old, in their dorm rooms.

Here, too, there is music (and revolution?) in the air.

A wee bit of that music has been captured, by her new friend H, below.

___________

If you would like to see and hear the evolution of our Busking Year, it starts here....And ends here.

And, just in case you were wondering, littler e., who fronts the very first busking video, is actually the dancer in the family....Now, how the heckfire am I going to keep up with that?

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Saturday Night Hansard Blogging

AllTheMedliesThatMatter

StartWithVanTheManVille

Going is never gone when you can keep on keeping on...

Like, say....

This!

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And here I thought, after getting hooked on a bunch of previous Hansardian versions, that I'd gotten to the nut of the thing by fronting the man from Belfast's Seven Day Plane with Martha Wainwright's Dirty Motherf*ckin' AHole (both in A)....But that, above, is just unbelievable to me...Guess this means I'm gonna have to get working on my own ragged melange of Hansard's 'Red Chord' and The Clancy Brother's version of 'The Parting Glass' wherein I mix in Darnielle's 'Love, Love, Love' (all in E)... Which also means that I just might have to get another bloody harpoon...Geez, sometimes I really do wish I could quit my day job...But only sometimes.

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Insite: Now That The Supremes Have Spoken...

TheRealReasonMajorities

MatterVille

...Can The Howls Of "Activist Judges!" Be Far Behind?

Regardless, it looks like the Framers of the Cons figure they can make hay (or at least change the channel away from the Trostkyiest Abortion Zombies for a newscycle or three) with this one.

How else to explain why Mr. Harper instead of some flunkie, as in days past, was out front with the usual law and order babble after Friday's decision by the Supreme Court that Insite can stay:

...(Prime Minister)Harper expressed disappointment with the latest decision.

“The preference of this government in dealing with drug crime is obviously to prosecute those who sell drugs and create drug addiction in our population and in our youth,” he said in Quebec City.

“When it comes to treating drug addiction, [the government’s preference is] to try and do so though programs of prevention and treatment rather than through the issues that were in front of this court in terms of so-called harm reduction.”...

And on the 'all treatment, no harm reduction' point.....

How long will it be before the Framers, and their US DOJ backers, wheel out the good Dr. Mangham to start cranking the Wurlitzer with his own not-so purist peer-reviewed research that is all, how shall we put it.....

Meta?

_____

And Philip Owen is getting lots of well deserved props these days for helping make the Four Pillars happen in Lotusland....However, it would be a real shame if we didn't remember that somebody had to show the then Mayor, Mr. Owen that the junkies and the sick are people too....Me, I figure one of the most important somebodies in that regard was filmmaker Nettie Wild.

Oh, hang on....I'd missed the fact that the good Dr. Mangham and friends, now with new and, we can only assume, 'improved' sponsors like 'Real Women Canada' has already been out on the hustings priming the wurlitzer's pump with his usual 'analysis' that is not based on any primary data generated by either himself or his close colleagues.

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Generic Drugs: A Million Saved Is A Million Earned.

WithPotentialSavingsLikeThisLeftUnplucked

NoWonderWeNeedMoreRevenueVille

It's the Friday afternoon before tonight's big football game in downtown Lotusland and I'm pretty sure a whole lotta folks are starting to breathe a little easier now that they can look at this....

Why are they breathing easier?

Well, because, as we pointed out earlier in the week, it is not entirely certain that the new magic carpet atop BC Place (you know, the bolt of cloth that allegedly cost only a few hundred million dollars or so) will actually keep the rain out.

But that, and the Devil's Horned skyline that goes with it, is not what I want to speak about today.

Instead, I want to discuss the fact that we in this province are paying way, way to much for 'generic' drugs.

****

Now, what are 'generic' drugs?

Well, the first thing to understand is that they are NOT cheap-knock-offs.

And they are NOT crummy 'no-frills' versions of the real thing.

Instead, they are the real real thing.

However.....

Because they are no longer on patent, generic drugs can be bought and sold for close to what they actually cost to make, with a reasonable profit as part of the deal, rather than some made-up number that is often thousands of times larger than Orson Wells' waist-size during those not-so-salad days when he started swigging down all the generic wine that Ernest and Julio Gallo could pump out of the massive cauldrons hidden underneath either the basement of a fertilizer factory in Modesto or Randy Hearst's castle in San Simeon.

Or some such thing.

****

So.

What's my real point here?

Well, as Don Cayo pointed out very adroitly in the VSun yesterday, a 75% off sale on something that is ridiculously over-priced to start with (by literally hundreds of multiples in this case) is still a ridiculous price to pay.

And the fact that the members of the Gordon Campbell Legacy government (ie. the same members that will, allegedly, be celebrating the hundreds of millions we spent to build their friends the magic carpet atop BC Place, at no cost to said friends, this evening) have locked us into just such a ridiculous 'bargain' that is literally costing us millions upon millions of dollars every year for no good reason at all.

Mr. Cayo demonstrates this point very well with the following example, based on the experience of the Land where Conchords apparently sometimes fly away from:

....(I)n the words of Michael Law of the Centre of Health Services and Policy Research at UBC, "Even at 25 per cent, our generic drug prices are way too high by international standards."

Law offers one particularly dramatic example - the widely used cholesterol-lowering statins such as Lipitor and its many imitators.

When Lipitor's patent expired last year and generic companies were able to produce copies of the drug, I estimated that the B.C. government alone could save $24 million a year by buying cheaper substitutes - even at the high price we pay in this province. At Ontario's price, obviously, we'd save much more.

But Law has looked at a drug called Simvastatin, in the same class as Lipitor, in Ontario and New Zealand. In the former, a pill costs about 62 cents; in the latter, three cents....

So.

Why is it, once again that the Gordon Campbell Legacists are threatening us with doom because we refuse to allow them (ie. the Legacists who will be smiling for the cameras under the magic carpet this evening) to raise more money by stripping the skin off of the backs of the folks in this province that can least afford to give them more of it?

_____

I use the skin metaphor here with purpose because 'having skin in the game' is a term that a certain Lotuslandian media personality, whom I am almost certain will be under the magic carpet tonight with all other 'Friends Of The Legacists' just loves to use it whenever possible when he goes off on 'But how are we going to pay for schools' if we don't raise revenues rant.

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Those Who Can't Teach...Teach Gym.

WhatIfWileE.CoyoteWentFasterMilesAnHour

WithTheRadioOnVille

Now.

Don't get me wrong.

Because I think Richard Linklater, especially at his best, is a genius.

After all, anybody who can start a whole new genre of anything, out of almost, but not quite, nothing is pretty much the top-of-the-pops in my books.

But given all that, I really do have a small quibble with one particular aspect of Mr. Linklater's most successful bit of multilevel movie stratification fit for the whole family.

Specifically, he really should have had Dewey Finn go back past JRichman's 'Roadrunner' to JCale's & LReed's 'Sister Ray'.

Because, if you don't do that, how the heckfire can you possibly have a class in Rock History that comes even remotely close to explaining where the inspiration for the following came from...

Which, of course, changed absolutely everything.

And, in the very end, absolutely nothing.

Which, if you ask me, is the true magic of the thing.

OK?

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Orioles Win The (not) Pennant!

HolyBoog'sBBQBilly!

RipkenVille

Unbelievable that a team so bad could still get so much pleasure out of one small moment at the very end of its 162nd game of the year.

Which is the reason I love baseball so much.

(Well, that and the fact that you can be a huge success if you are able to do your job right just 3 times out of 10; Don't think that works when you pass through either the Sawmill's gate or the Lab room door....Although, come to think of it, if you mess up in the lab, you may have to run a bunch of extra PCR reactions but you don't usually lose a finger or three)

____

Why Billy in the SubHeader above and not his more famous brother?..... Well....For all kinds of reasons, including this one.....

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