Latenight With Busking...Frozen Fingers Edition

AllTheGumptionThatFits
BarelyCarryingATuneVille


C. and littler e. went off with our friend K. to watch one of the Oscar movies tonight.

So it was just Rosie the Whackadoodle and me.

Which meant that we decided to take a big walk around Q & E park just as the sun was going down.

After that we hung around up top by the fountain and made a little music under the coloured lights.

****

Now.

Unlike Bigger E., I still sometimes have a tough time playing on my own.

And tonight was no exception.

Until two kids started dancing to my rendition of 'Send me on my way'.

Now that was something.

So, after that my dog and I just walked off into the night as I started to strum...

...This.

(and if you watched it right to the end...Ya, that was a young Lisa Hannigan making like Olivia Newton John during the denoument)



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Bonus track For E...Another Donal Scannell find.


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Corporations Really Are People, My Friend...And Voters Too.

VultureizeThisWillard
RawMoneyVille


At least, potentially, in the great state of Montana.

Ian Milhouser of Think Progress has the bizarre, but true, story:

A bill introduced by Montana state Rep. Steve Lavin would give corporations the right to vote in municipal elections:

Provision for vote by corporate property owner. (1) Subject to subsection (2), if a firm, partnership, company, or corporation owns real property within the municipality, the president, vice president, secretary, or other designee of the entity is eligible to vote in a municipal election...

Kind of scary to think of what would happen if some Wizard of Snooklandia were to do this for IPP Corp. Owners on, say, the Sunshine Coast.

Quite a few swing votes there, no?


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The Great Coast Guard Base Swindle (ctd)...The Plot Thickens More.

Last night the Feds told CKNW's Shane Woodford that the province owns the land the Kits Coast Guard Base sits on....

And this afternoon Mr. Woodford tweeted this...

2/2 Today the city of #Vancouver is saying the city registry states the Kits base property is in fact owned by Fisheries & Oceans #cdnpoli
— shane woodford (@WoodfordCKNW980) February 23, 2013

Hmmmm...

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The Great Coast Guard Base Swindle (ctd)...The Plot Thickens.

TheCostOfEverything
TheValueOfNothingVille


First...

Looks like the Email/Memo thing that Johal and Meiszner from Global originally reported on yesterday afternoon came from the BC Fed.


Second...

In some solid follow-up, Shane Woodford of CKNW got the following out of DFO:

...In an email to CKNW the Department of Fisheries and Oceans says the Kits base property is owned by province and leased to the federal government.

The DFO claims the idea of Kits base being included in an land deal is "factually inaccurate"

But then they say the Canadian Coast Guard is working with 'Real Property' in Fisheries and Cceans Canada to try and figure out what to do with the building and property...


Hmmmm....

Sounds like somebody needs to ask Ms. Clark if the subject of waterfront real estate ever came up during, say, this little get together.


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This Day In Harperland...The Great Coast Guard Base Swindle (ctd)...

TheCostOfEverything
TheValueOfNothingVille


In which an un-bylined Province 'Staff Reporter' rewrites Jas Johal's copy.

And I thought the HuffPo was bad.

Now....

If this selling of all the land thing is for real there is likely, as Chris Montgomery speculated (see comments here), a 'bundling' component to it.

Which means that the First Nations may be part of the play. In fact, there is actually a whiff of that in the original Johal/Meiszner story as well as the Province's (allegedly) purloined piece.

Which might sound crazy given the rumours that the Harperlandians keep a copy of the Flanagan Rules on their bedside tables at all times.

But the thing is, making First Nations an offer they can't refuse to facilitate a billion dollar condo-jacking has happened in Lotusland before.

In fact it is happening right now.

OK?


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I'll have more on the cutting out of Pacific Spirit Park's heart up soon....Why?....Because it looks to me like they are getting ready to unleash the bulldozers (or at the very least, the surveyors)...Gosh...Wonder what the big hurry is.

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This Day In Harperland...The Great Coast Guard Base Swindle?

AllTheCondoJackingThatFits
KitsPointVille


The other day Chris Montgomery (see comments), e.a.f. (a reader), and I hazarded a guess about what we thought might really be behind the closing of the Kits Coast Guard station.

Essentially, we speculated that the land and surrounding environs might be sold off for a condo-jacking.

I am sad to find out that we may have been at least partially right.

Jaz Johal and Peter Meizner of Global have the story. Here's there lede (but I suggest you read it all for the fullest context - because it looks like more land might go):

Global News has obtained an internal federal government email surrounding the sale of three properties in Metro Vancouver.

Some believe one of these properties could be the Kits Coast Guard base.

The e-mail mentions “the First Nations equity proposal for the Jericho Beach, DFO, and RCMP site.”...


I'll have more to say about this later.

And here I thought I was going to have an 'Angry Old Guy-Free' (TM) weekend.

Sheesh.


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Thanks to Laila for the heads-up.


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Rickey's Baseball Bookends...Spring Training And Play-Off Shares.

AllTheHeadfirstSlidesThatFit
LeadOffVille


Spring training started for real earlier this week, and the games will start for pseudo-real this coming weekend.

Which means that, if this was twenty years ago, the greatest lead-off man of all time, Rickey Henderson, would show up in a couple of weeks or so.

Because that's just the way it was for the guy who once said, amongst many, many other things, when teammate Billy Beane*, who shared a locker next to him, came back up to the big-leagues after six weeks in the minors:

'Hey, man. Where have you been? Haven't seen you for awhile.'

****

I have not hollered many things from the bleachers of any stadium anywhere that I have ever really regretted, but in the summer of 1994, after the Oakland A's moved their other aging Henderson (Dave), Rickey lost a ball in the Alameda County Coliseum fog-sun in the late innings of a mean-nothing Saturday afternoon game in barely-still August.

So, sitting in the cheapseats just above the wall in left field, I hollered down...

"Hey, Rickey!....They traded the wrong Henderson!"

Of course, I was full of hotdogs and beer-induced huff-puffery when I hollered it.

And it turns out I was wrong.

Very, very very wrong.

Because after that, Rickey, who was already 35,  just kept on going and going and going.

And he kept popping up in various teams' playoff runs.

Like with the Mets in 1999.

And now, in reference to that 1999 season, Henderson has popped-up again, this time in pages of Mike Piazza's just-released book wherein the former Mets slugger has something very, very cool to say about Rickey's performance at the team's 'play-off share' meeting the following spring.

Now, before, I get to Piazza's quote, just in case there are a few among you out there who don't give a hoot-in-heckfire about this kind of stuff, let me explain this play-off 'share' thing...

These 'shares', which can be cut-up and doled-out, piecemeal, to part-time players and various assorted other sundry hangers on, are given to teams that make the play-offs based on ticket sales. Back in the old days, like when the White Sox threw the 1919 Series, a single full-share for the winning team was about $5,000, which sounds like peanuts, but back then it was not, for all kinds of reasons that had more to do with the reserve clause than inflation.

Anyway, when the Mets lost in the National League finals in the fall of 1999, a full share was worth about $100,000, which was a lot, but not that much to the free agents stars, including Rickey, who was rumoured to have once framed (i.e. not cashed) a million dollar bonus cheque for posterity.

You got all that...

OK.

Now....

Here's the quote from Piazza's book based on what went on at the next year's spring training meeting when the team got together to divvy-up the previous fall's shares....

"Rickey was the most generous guy I ever played with, and whenever the discussion came around to what we should give one of the fringe people - whether it was a minor leaguer who came up for a few days or the parking lot attendant - Rickey would shout out, 'Full share!' We'd argue for awhile and he'd say, 'F*ck that! You can change somebody's life!"

Man.

I've changed my mind.

The A's should have kept BOTH Hendersons.

Forever.


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*Mr. Beane later morphed into Brad Pitt in Moneyball....Unlike Rickey, the former utility man just may stay with the A's forever...


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This Day In Snookland (ctd)...The Wizards Can't Even Buy A Smear Like This

AllTheCopulatingRodentsThatFit
IntoASupposedlySegrettiFreeZoneVille


Mike Smyth had a most interesting piece in The Province yesterday in which he called a Adrian Dix a 'weasel' because, as leader of the Opposition, he hasn't released his own budget yet.

Seriously (or laughably, depending on how you look at these things):

Adrian Dix, the man who would be premier, took a sledgehammer Wednesday to the Liberal government's newly balanced budget.

The NDP leader slammed the modest 2.6-per-cent increase in health-care spending, saying it won't meet public demand for services, so it's effectively a cut.

He attacked the $800-million "fire sale" of government assets, criticized the four-per-cent hike in MSP premiums and accused the government of tabling a "bogus budget" that's not really balanced at all.

So how would Dix do it differently if he wins the May election?

Let's run them down one at a time, shall we? But I'll warn you now: the guy is slipperier than a greased weasel...
Now.

This kind of codswallop would mean nothing.

Except, as a reader pointed out in the thread to the last post, it is already being wurlitzered all over the place, especially on the (notso)Giant 98.

Which means the releasing of the GhostTwitMonkeys and the cranking-up of a new set of smear-ads can't be far behind.

Think I'm being overly sensitive about all of this?

Well, maybe you're right.

Then again, unless I missed it, I'm pretty sure the folks over at Corus haven't had the VSun's Craig McInnes on to counter Mr. Smyth's baseless smear with this:

Liberal MLAs demandingDix platform should decide if campaign now on. If so, they should shut down Leg andstop government ads. #bcpoli
— Craig McInnes (@CraigMcInnes) February 21, 2013

OK?


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And one can only wonder about the howls of outrage from other Lotuslandian proMedia 'club' members that would very likely erupt if one of their own were to call the current (not)Premier, or had called the Premier before her,  'slipperier than a greased weasel'....Seriously (and I, for one, am not laughing)...
Oh, and speaking of the Twittmachine.... backed with.....This.

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This Day In Snookland....Why, Exactly, Did The Wizards Propose To Raise Taxes?

AllTheFocusGroupingThatFits
FuzzyVisionVille


I must confess, like a number of folks, I was surprised when the BC Liberal budget of (soon-to-be?) interim supply phantom fantabulousness proposed to raise both personal and corporate income taxes.

Now....

You can argue that the actual increases are relatively inconsequential.

But.

Still....

A 'free enterprise' government that proposes to raise taxes?

Didn't that mean that they were actually doing the Dippers' heavy lifting for them?

Hmmmm....

Maybe.

But then I thought - what if the Wizards are seeing something in their numbers that is telling them that raising taxes is actually, in real politik terms, a good thing (ie. something that people want)?

And if that was, indeed, the case, could this gambit not have been seen as a way to take away a point of  (non-conventional) strength from Adrian Dix et al., especially with centrish-type  'small l' liberals.

And then, yesterday, the Ipsos-Reid numbers came out.

And, well.....

Bingo!

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Of course, on the flip-side, this strategy tells us that Wizards really do know that they they can't get any more points from folks that drifted over to the Curmudgeon and his ConFlock awhile back...Thing is...How many that came home when they destroyed the BCCP from within (and by smear) will now drift back because, well, you know....Taxes!
And as for principles...and free-enterprise...and all that?.....Well, you know....Cronies! 

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This Just In...New Candidate Rumoured To Be Running In False Creek!

AllTheIndependentsThatFit
KarmaChameleonVille


It is important to note, however, that candidate ShamWow! Sullivan plans to use the original french spelling of his name (i.e. ChamoisWow!) to ensure that he comes just before 'SULLIVAN, Sam' on the ballot.

And while the Sham-Sam does not have a big bus, green or otherwise, apparently he (or is it a she?) does have a huge trailer filled with absorbent towel-thingies that he/she plans to drag around the riding to clean up the other Sam's various and assorted sundry messes.


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Don't know if you heard it, but right before the 6 o'clock bell last night, Stephen Quinn let the real citizen Sam into his studio for about six minutes....When Sullivan babbled on about how he owed his nomination victory over Little Lord Lorne to all the 'kids' who worked for free on his campaign and got him  'all over the social media - facebook, twitter, you name it', Quinn replied that, unlike, say, Suzanne Anton, he hadn't received any Spam from Sam at all....In case you've forgotten, back when he used to work the civic beat it was Mr. Quinn who dubbed the Sullivan regime 'Spam-A-Lot'.
Would be remiss if I didn't mention that Ryan Clayton had the Shammin' Sammy idea up first on the Twittmachine yesterday.


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Latenight With The Anti-Angry Old Guy...When The Levee (Finally?) Breaks.

HowManyMoreTimes
IndeedVille



As I mentioned in a footnote to an A-AOG post the other day, the summer I finished high school I skipped out on a Zeppelin show at the Kingdome in Seattle because 12 bucks was just too much to shell out to watch 4 guys on a stage a 150 yards away.

Anyway...

All this reunion tour stuff is starting to wurlitzer out of control.

And now music biz geek guy Alan Cross has done a little back-of-blog-post-napkin calculating to come up with a figure he reckons a full-blown nostalgia trip could, possibly, generate.

I have no idea if the number is anywhere near accurate.

But it is massive:

...A full-blown Led Zeppelin reunion tour really is the Holy Grail of concert promotion. Consider that more than 20 million people applied to buy the 16,000 available tickets for the 2007 reunion show in London. At an average face value of £125 (call it $200 CAD before inflation), that was a potential pool of $4 billion.

FOUR. BILLION. DOLLARS.

Okay, so it would take hundreds of concerts for Led Zep to play for 20 million people, so that number is unrealistic. Or is it?

Total gross would depend on ticket prices, the number of shows and the attendance at each show. Would Zep want to play arenas where they'd max out at 18,000 or so per gig? What about stadia? You could get 70,000 or more into sufficiently large places...


No matter how they choose to chop up the filthy lucre, though, I figure Aleister Crowley's ghost will be itching for its cut of Jimmy's share.


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The Calendar According To Wai Young.

Gregorian
SchemgorianVille


January is Halloween in Halifax... So, we're blockading your Harbour!

February is Springtime in Vancouver... So, we're closing your Coast Guard Base!

March is Moose Month in Moncton... So, we're relocating everyone to Swift Current!

April is Autumn in Ottawa... So, we've drained the Canal to Paint It Blue!

May is Anglogiddeon Times in Montreal... So, Rene Levesque Blvd is now Ernest Manning Ave!

June is Wintersleep in Winnipeg... Release (even more of) the Mosquitoes!

July is the Month The Raelians Land In Regina... Beam Them Up Jason!

August is Endless Night Time In Edmonton... Frisk All The Pink Flamingoes Flocking To The Fringe!

September is The Month The Commies Come To Calgary... Release The Hounds!

October is River Month In Revelstoke... Bust Down The Dam!

November is Cork-Popping Month In Kelowna... Sluice Down The Streets With Calona Red-On-Bleu!

December is Duffy Month In Victoria... Give Mike Craigdarroch Castle!


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In case you missed it, only February is for real....So far.
Meanwhile......this.

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The Real Reason That Ms. Clark Must Go.

TheMostDisadvantagedAmongUs
MustBeTakenCareOfVille


When Christy Clark's government started throwing the adult disabled out in the street, it was the last straw for me. 

And I say that absolutely snark-free.

And now the guy who originally broke that story, Lindsay Kines of VT-C, is letting us know that, if Ms. Clark gets her way,  it will soon get much worse:

The B.C. government plans to drastically reduce the average amount of money it spends on adults with developmental disabilities over the next three years, budget documents show.

Adults with fetal alcohol disorder and autism who receive service under the personal supports initiative will see the biggest decline. Documents show the average cost per client in that program dropping from $24,000 to $16,000 this year alone — a 33 per cent decline.

In two years time, the average cost per client in the program will be less than half what it is today, the documents show...


And yet, they still defend their spending of more than $50 million on absolutely useless ads because said ads drive up Facebook hits or something.

Now.

That latter bit might sound like a bit of snark is sneaking into this post.

But it is not.

Why?

Because this actually was Ms. Clark's  own justification for wasting millions and millions of the public's money on self-serving propaganda.

And for this, on top of all the incompetence and skullduggery, she, and hers (and Gord's too) really must go now.

OK?

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The PavCo FOI Paradox...Who Is Responsible For The Other 11%?

YouKeepUsingThatWord,Transparency
VizziniCountryVille


In question period on Tuesday the matter of all those Freedom of Information requests about PavCo that Bob Mackin has been filing to try and get to the bottom of that Crown Corp's billion dollar boondoggles.

Here is how things went down:

D. Routley (NDP): The Premier has made claims to open government being one of her top three priorities, even telling the media that information belongs to the public. Yet on Friday we learned that investigative journalist Bob Mackin received a letter from PavCo telling him they have applied under the Freedom of Information Act to bar him from "frivolous and vexatious" claims to information. Does the Premier agree with this outrageous act by PavCo to silence one of its chief critics?

Hon. R. Coleman (BCL; Minister Responsible for Everything): The individual that the member refers to has been making and has received some information with regards to information and privacy from PavCo. But the members opposite and the members of this House should know that he is 89 percent of all the requests of information and privacy at PavCo. It's a large volume of work, so they were finally to the point where some of it became ridiculously frivolous in their minds. They asked and they have gone forward to ask the commissioner for an opinion.


You catch that?

The mighty, all knowing, all Darth Vaderish Mr.  Rich Coleman, who is afraid to say Mr. Mackin's name out loud, admitted that yes, the Snooklandians are attempting shut down he who must not be named's ability to file such requests.

As for the other 11%?

Well, I figure at least 10.7% of them have probably come from....

This guy.


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And how is Snoodklandia's own version of Voldemort striking back?...Well....He's started up #RoofLeaks which, if it is even half as successful as #LiquorLeaks was in thwarting Darth's attempts to privatize all things booze, will very likely serve all British Columbians pretty darned well.

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Anti-Old Guy Ranting Post, Part Deux...

PuttingTheBileAwayOneMoreTime
NoBladderofGalwayVille


OK....

I was interrupted by the egregiousness of all the egregiousity that was Wai Young's comment about what constitutes springtime in Vancouver (and all the while trying to stop myself from thinking of Mel Brooks)...

So lets try this again.

****

Now, I know I've been going off on these kids for awhile now.

And I know the hipsters who feel they 'discovered' them, say a year-and-a-half ago, probably hate it that old guys like me are now digging them as much (or more).

But so what?

And in addition to what these kids are up to musically, what I really, really like about the little set below is that it demonstrates that one DJ who really likes a band can still make a difference in the life and, yes, success of said band.

Which is even more likeable when the DJ is KEXP's incomparable John Richards and said band is The Lumineers....

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