The Player That Will Not Be Named...

...In The Biogenesis-Driven Suspension Fest, Monday

It's Teddy Ballgame.

Playing for the Padres.

The PCL Padres of his hometown San Diego, that is.

Before he bit the bullet and went east.



_____
Not all did (go east) because back then many of them could make as much, or even more, staying on the Westcoast... '90 Feet of Perfection' had a bunch of their stories yesterday.
Another #PlayerThatWillNotBeNamedMonday...SouthsideSammySosa...
Another #PlayerThatWillNotBeNamedMonday...BAndersonBeforeFifty...
Another #PlayerThatWillNotBeNamedMonday...He who truly came clean...Ken Caminiti...

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What Would It Take For Rob Ford's Approval Numbers To Actually Go Down?

It'sNotJustTheSunThatLurksBehind
TheScarboroughHorizonVille


I mean, just look at those lines.

Pretty much flat as a pancake, right through the entire video deal (and all the fallout that came after it).

And, according to Graphic Matt Elliot of MetroNews (Center of the Universe Division), aggregating from Forum's numbers, the overall approval is still bang on 46%.

Crazy, but true.

Then again, it's not like he fit anybody for cement shoes and/or started eating kittens, live, on the six o'clock news or anything.


______
Of course, the real take home message here is that actual Toronto (see red line running along bottom of graph) is being held hostage by those surrounding environs...Message received, loud and clear, here in Lotusland I hope.

.

A Woman's Right To Choose...Does Anyone Really Think They Will Stop At 20 Weeks?

MattersThatReallyMatter
HSTFridaysVille


I like to think that, if I were a young woman, and I had to make the decision for myself, that I would use the 'quickening' as my own personal guidepost.

Which would be around 16 weeks, give or take.

But I am neither young nor a woman so, really, my personal feelings on the matter are moot (which is the real point, right?).

****

Now.

Setting aside that which really matters, just for a moment...

At first glance my own personal thoughts on the matter should make it possible for me to be comfortable with the latest gambit of the anti-choice crowd, which is that 20 weeks should be the maximum because this may (or, more likely, may not) be the time that the fetus perceives pain.

But, truth be told, even I am not comfortable with this so called 'incremental' change, down from the 24 weeks that is the time of 'viability' as defined by Roe v. Wade.

Why?

Because I agree with Nora Caplan-Bricker in The New Republic, that these people will not stop until, once again, we are back to a place where a woman's choices about her own body do not factor into the decision-making process whatsoever.

Right from from the get-go, including the first trimester.

In other words, back to a time when stuff like the following happened routinely, for no good reason at all:

"And so much for all that. I have to go upstairs and call the hospital. Sandy is in there again with another miscarriage - a real nightmare version, this time, since it puts me head on with the abortion laws. She's only two months pregnant, but the pain is so bad she can't stand up....and the pigs say they can't do a therapeutic abortion. All they do is keep her drugged up on codeine and wait for God to work 'His Will'. The D&C operation is as simple as pulling a tooth, but they won't do it.....and this is Colorado, which recently passed a "liberalized" abortion law. Man, I'm coming to really hate that word 'liberal'"

Hunter S. Thompson,Letter to Oscar Z. Acosta (his 'Samoan' Attorney), March 1970

Reprinted in: The Gonzo Letters Vol II, Simon and Schuster, 2000, pp 286-7

Which is precisely why 'liberals'  have to make a stand.

Right here.

And right now.

OK?


______
Got onto this today because of solid page A1 piece by Erik Eckholm in the NYTimes...
Together with Cathy, I've written about this zealotry 'creep' by stealth before in a slightly different (but not really) context before...


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My Morning Ride.

There'sNoCloudLike
LowCloudVille


For the first time in weeks there was an easterly blowing down the back alley this morning.

And it was cool.

And it was just beginning mist.

So I actually went back inside to get my jacket.

The house was quiet, as it has been pretty much all week long. Bigger E. has been felled by some kind of stomach flu...Smaller (but getting taller every day) e. is away in Chicago, tapping (yes, tapping!)...And C. has been away in Victoria, but is now back and has taken the Whackadoodle off for an all-day playdate with another dog of similar size and disposition (much jumping and tumbling will occur I'm pretty sure).

I really should have taken the day off, but I've got a bunch of new lectures to deliver in a few weeks and there is a paper I've got to push out the door before the hordes arrive again...

Anyway.

The silver lining?

Don't know about you but I can see a wee bit of brightness peaking out of the lowest end of that far western sky off in the distance...

****

In case you missed it...Posted up a quick take on the Privacy Commissioner's DybthnicGate report yesterday, but there are now two solid follow-ups from available...The first is from the watchdogs over at Integrity BC who make a bit of a fuss about who the Commissioner did NOT interview...The next is Bob Mackin's very thorough dissection of the report that makes it very clear how narrow the scope of it was and that, despite the sound-bite anchors that the Watercarriers have been dropping, it was not a total exonneration...

****

If you want a killer round-up of recent goings on in Lotuslandian provincial politics...Head on over to Tom 'TopHarbourcat' Hawthorn's place for a whole bunch of gems like this:

...Premier Christy Clark made a surprise cameo this week when sworn in as MLA for Westside-Kelowna. The august ceremony took place overlooking the waters of Vancouver harbour and not of Okanagan Lake in her home-away-from-home riding.

To the everlasting embarrassment of British Columbia’s media, such newspapers as the Vancouver Sun and the Victoria Times Colonist published handout photographs of the event released by the B.C. Liberal’s government caucus.

The swearing in appears to have taken place within shouting distance of the Vancouver Sun and Province newsrooms. No photographers left on staff? Or no invitation?

I can see why the government would like to control its image in the media. I cannot see why the commercial media should play along. Shameful...

Gosh.

With all this kind of most excellent 'alternative reading' available these days (Mr. Hawthorn's piece was also published in The Tyee) it kinda makes you wonder why anybody even bothers to read The Dean pulling his punches (again) anymore, eh?

****

How do we know that certain fine folks in certain finest-of-the-fine circles have taken note of the investigative digging of Norm Farrell?...Well, it would appear that they have sent the flying bot-monkeys after him...In response, Norm just turns straight upfield and makes like Bo Jackson to obliterate them.

Speaking of sports...Kinghell piece by Dave Zirin in The Nation this week about what Johnny Manziel and Trayvon Martin did, and did NOT, have in common....Really dig the fact that Zirin's inspiration came from a Tweet with the ring of truth by an old ballplayer named Charlton Jimerson:

“Johnny Manziel ate Skittles, drank beer, won the Heisman. Trayvon Martin ate Skittles, drank ice tea, got murdered."

And, just to be clear, Mr. Jimerson who, based on the fact that he grew up in Hayward California, likely went through Fruitvale Station thousands of times as a kid, knows of what he speaks because he's been everywhere on that spectrum between the kid on a corner in a hoodie and a big man on campus.

****

And, speaking of more sports (but not really this time), Mr. Beer 'N Hockey gives us his take on why the Dippers really lost the last election...The only thing I know for sure after reading it?....The two Bills will not like Beer's missive.

And, finally, the last word on even more sports, pride, and a guy named Putin...From the irrepressible Dan Murphy.

OK?

The Greatest (Science Geek) Stories Ever Told.

TheGreeningOfEverything
FluorescentlyVille


Well...

Actually.

To be more precise, drawn...

With crayons.

Megan Gambino explains, over at the Smithsonian Institute's blog thingy:

...The idea came to Volker Steger while he was riding his bike from Munich to Milan. For an upcoming assignment with an Italian magazine, the German photographer was instructed to take portraits of a dozen Nobel Prize winners in science. His subjects would sit on his kitchen chair, and, to bubble up their personalities, he would ask them Proust-style questions. But, what if after the commercial shoot, while he still had the Nobel laureates in his presence, he ran his own artistic experiment?

Steger gave it a whirl. He handed the scientists large pieces of white paper and some crayons and asked them, on the spot, to draw their award-winning discoveries. Once they finished, he photographed them with their sketches in poses of their choosing....

****

The image at the top of the post was drawn by a guy named Martin Chalfie.

It elegantly and simply explains his champagne experiment from the early '90's that sent him down the road to Nobel prize immortality, in the Chemistry category, with a couple of other guys, in 2008.

Essentially, what Chalfie's group did was to take a gene already characterized by somebody else (one of the other 2008 Nobel winners) from a jelly fish. The interesting thing about this particular gene is that it codes for a protein that glows green when you shine UV light on it in a test tube.

So Chalfie et al. banged the gene into little tiny round-worms and, voila, when he shined a little UV on the creepy crawlers a subset of their cells glowed green.

The upshot of it all is that we can now attach these little fluorescent proteins, and a rainbow of multicoloured variants (subsequently generated by the other guy who won that 2008 prize) to just about any molecule we want in just about any kind of cell so that we can watch where the molecules go and see what they do.

In real time.

I cannot overstate how this has completely revolutionized cell biology - so much so that even punters like me and mine can use these fluoresenct protein tags to decorate things like wee-little Christmas tree ornaments made up of teeny-tiny balls of cells in a tissue culture dish...

Ha!


_______
And what do these tissue engineered clusters of cells squirt into the hollow central part of the ball?...Well, that would pretty much give away the game if I told you...But feel free to guess...
Not to get all pedagogical on the first cloudy evening in weeks or anything, but...One of the things I always say to the sharp young kids that work with me is..."If you can't explain things in simple language so that your Mom can grasp the gist of it  you probably don't really understand what the heck you're doing yourself."...
You can have a look at all of Mr. Steger's photos of the drawings from the Nobelizers....Here
Way, way off-topic, but....Hey, media mavens!...Anybody have any idea where the (soon-to-be-no-longer) VSun's JFowlie is going?


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Privacy Commissioner Decides Everything Is Fine...Snooklandians Just Need More 'Training'.

WhoNeedsCourtOrders
WhenYou'veHadFourInterviewsVille


The money quote,  as actually quoted in the press release from the office of provincial Information and Privacy Commisioner Elizabeth Denham:

“Our investigation did not find evidence that information was shared between government and the B.C. Liberal Party. However, it did reveal the exchange of government information using personal email accounts, particularly among individuals in government departments who have roles closely tied to the governing party.”...

And what is this based on?

Well, it would appear to be based on interviews with four individuals, under oath.

From the actual report's executive summary:

...Given the seriousness of the allegations, this office conducted interviews of four individuals under oath...


Interesting that very narrow, well-defined aspect of the 'investigation',  no?

And, it would appear that these interviews resulted in the following, apparently gleaned by someone from CKNW at the presser with the Commissioner this morning:

1/2 Privacy Commish says #quickwins figure Brian Bonney testified he sent gov info to his personal email, but not to share w/ @bcliberals...
— CKNW (@CKNW) August 1, 2013

2/2 ...and b/c no contradictory evidence, she did not seek court order to search his personal email accounts. #bcpoli
— CKNW (@CKNW) August 1, 2013

Sure thing.

No need to check the actual data whatsoever, right?

Meanwhile...

The Snooklandians have agreed to abide by all five recommendations of the commissioner, none of which will lead to any actual consequences of any sort, immediately.

Here they are (from page 25 of the report):

No 1: Government should provide training for its employees regarding the use of personal email accounts for government business in order to ensure that reasonable security measures are in place to protect personal information, and that personal information is not stored or disclosed outside of Canada.

No 2: Government should ensure that copies of all records created by its employees that relate to government business are located in government controlled information management systems.

No 3: Government should provide its employees with sufficient technological resources to ensure that they do not have a reason to use personal email accounts in the performance of their government duties.

No 4: Government should ensure that employees with roles that are closely tied to the governing party participate in mandatory privacy training sessions regarding the need to keep personal information obtained in their government role separate from personal information obtained in any role they might have with the political party.

No 5: The BC Liberal Party should ensure that employees and volunteers who also have roles within government participate in mandatory privacy training sessions regarding the need to keep personal information obtained in their BC Liberal Party role separate from personal information obtained in their government role.

____

And, as we first noted last fall when we found out about the smear-site shennanigans going down deep inside the Ledge,  Woodward and Bernstein most definitely did NOT stop their digging when their story took them deep inside another set of executive offices...Given that, cast your mind back...How much Lotuslandian proMedia follow-up digging can you recall on this matter post-Dyble?
Meanwhile, via the Twittmachine, The Dean says: "Info commish Denham also warned gov't over use of personal e-mail for public business in investigation of Boessenkool departure." .....OK, Fair enough, but.....What are he and his going to do about it?
Update, Lunchtime Thursday.....Let the competition of the Watercarriers....Begin!

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The Other (Heartbreaking) Side Of The Guest Worker Equation.

ThereIsNothingMoreEvilThan
PreyingOnTheDesperateVille


Paul Willcocks, who is still in Honduras, has the story. It is a terrible, and terribly sad, one:

...The best way to change your future in Honduras is to find a way to work in North America for a few years. You can send money home and save enough to buy some land or start a little business. (The second fastest way to change your future, I suppose, is the drug transport business.)

But when the would-be migrant workers showed up to board the buses that were to take them to the Tegucigalpa airport, they found out they had been ripped off. There were no buses, no waiting jobs picking apples and grapes. The office was empty...

{snip}

...Some 800 people paid about $500 each to get access to Canada. That’s a huge amount. Not only are their dreams shattered, but their lives in Honduras have been dealt a huge blow...

{snip}

...Jose Antonio Ramirez and his brother Hugo René both lost all their savings...


Please go and read the whole thing.

****

I'm telling you, if Jody and Paul were to start another kickstarter to help these folks I, for one, would be in.

Like Flynn.

Not to mention yesterday.

OK?


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This Day In Snookland (ctd)...A Kinder, Gentler Dismantling.

GovernmentBy
AppointmentVille


The newly-minted Education Minister, formerly known as Mr. PavCo (you know, the guy who favours giving out massive subsidies to Vegas Casino interests) has spoken...

And the BC Public School Employer's Association (BCPSEA), the fine folks elected by elected school trustees and appointed by the provincial government, will no longer be bargaining with teachers about their contract.

Instead, that will now be the mandate, apparently temporarily, of a single Snooklandian flunk....errrrr...Appointee.

Oh.

And one other thing.

Teachers are no longer essential....

Or some such thing.

****

Make no mistake folks.

There is an agenda at work here.

Gosh....

Wonder what the private Emails say on this one?


________
BTW, Privacy Commissioner is set to rule on all that private Email stuff that arose out of DybthnicGate tomorrow...


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This Day In Snookland...My Core Review Is Different From Gordon's, Honest.

ReallyFatCatsNeedNot
WorryVille


The PAB-Bots, backed by the utterances of he who once flung pooh on the Twittmachine, have been hard at work selling Christy Clark's 'Core Review Two'.

Here's their capsule of the 'objectives':

- Ensuring ministry programs and activities are focused on achieving government's vision of a strong economy and secure tomorrow.

- Confirming government's core responsibilities and eliminating programs that could provide better service at less cost through alternative service delivery models.

- Ensuring public-sector management wage levels are appropriate.


Now.

Just to be clear, the PAB-Bots are saying that Christy's CReview-2 is NOT the same thing as Gordon's CReview-1.

Case in point, check out that last point about going after public sector managers wages in CReview-2.

Turns out that, apparently, it was a different breed of cat that CReview-1 went after.

Again, back to the PAB-Bot-generated pabulum:

...The focus of the 2013-14 Core Review is different than the 2001-02 Core Review, given the cost-saving and efficiency work completed by the government over the past 12 years. This work has involved ongoing reviews of regulations, executive compensation, public-sector bargaining mandates and Crown corporations to help government achieve its budget targets...


Hmmmm....

So.

They've already successfully saved costs and increased efficiencies with respect to 'executive compensation'?

Gosh.

How, exactly, did they do that?

Oh, ya, I remember now.

It's the Hahnification/Pseudo-Privatization Protection Plan of all those executives that really 'matter' (i.e. must be really, really well compensated at all costs).

Including, as Norman Farrell made crystal clear yesterday on CFAX-1070, the very fine folks who are currently running the BC Investment Management Corporation:

________
An important recent post from Norm Farrell on BCiMC, more generally, is....Here.
And, just to bring things into full relief here....Who do you think the very, very fine folks from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation are going after these days - public sector wage earners or pseudo-private sector executives?....Well....You know...
As for point #2 from the PAB-Bots noted above...We will return to that when we further dissect the matter of the hundreds of millions being spent on junk proprietary software for the school system.

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The Stupid...It Sells.

PaddyChayefskyShrugs
AgainVille


In case you missed it, FOX-News recently went after religious scholar Reza Aslam for writing a book about Jesus.

Why?

Because he's a muslim.

Predictably, the TeeVee Network of the New-Dumb has done its best to circle the wagons and blame the backlash on a LeftistLiberalKenyanMarxistFascistUsurperJumpshooter plot.

Or some such thing.

But here's the bizarre twist that even Howard Beale would never have predicted...

Turns out this crap sells.

Not the FOX-News crap itself.

But, instead, it is selling Mr. Aslam's books by the bushel full. Matilda Battersby, writing for The Independent, has the story:

...But all publicity is good publicity, as they say, and this embarrassing episode for Fox News has had an extremely positive outcome for Mr Aslan whose controversial biography of Jesus, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, has now reached number 1 in the Amazon books charts.

Publishers Random House had to rush to meet a surge in demand for the book, ordering an additional 50,000 copies to be printed on Monday, bringing the total copies in print to 150,000.

The biography, published on 16 July, had already been selling well prior to Mr Aslan’s appearance on Fox News, having reached number 8 in the Amazon book charts on Friday, but Mr Aslan is “thrilled” at the increased exposure on the back of the viral interview.

“I’ll be perfectly honest — I’m thrilled at the response that people have had to the interview,” Mr Aslan told the New York Times. “You can’t buy this kind of publicity.”...


Jeebuz!

It really is a strange, mixed-up world we live in.


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For The Turnstiles...

HatsHatsEverywhere
BoxedCompassVille


The most egregious of the latest round of Translink fare increases?

In my opinion, it's this one...

"FareSaver tickets will begin transitioning out as early as January 1, 2014. A discount on regular fares will be provided within the new stored value option for Compass Cards."

Sure do dig that that euphemism....'Transitioning out'.

And as for the matter of....'Stored value option in Compass Cards'?

Well.

It sure does sounds like a forced purchase plan to me.

As Andrea Reimer said on the Twittmachine...

It's almost as if they don't even want us to take transit anymore.

Hang-on a second.

Maybe I should re-phrase that into....

It's almost as if they don't want the people who need it most to take transit anymore.

OK?


_____
Background on the computer vs. manned 'turnstiles' needed?....It's here.... And as you hear about how great all this stuff is, stuff that is going to cost us somewhere around $200 million to start, always ask yourself the following...'Who really benefits?'


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Norm!

WhereEverybodyKnowsHisName
Bloggodome(AndMore)Ville


Norm Farrell was on CFAX radio with Ian Jessop this afternoon, talking about the craziness (my descriptor, not Norm's) that is going down the BC Investment Management Corporation, particularly as it pertains to large investments in unethical companies and runaway executive compensation.

Norm's in the first half-hour of today's podcast from Mr. Jessop....Here.

(it's really worth the listen)


______
And the best part?...Norm will now be a regular monthly feature on Mr. Jessop's program...
And, because it came up during the conversation....This...If Mr. Bateman wants to go down the investment performance tie-in/apologia road, I'm pretty sure that Norm has the Washington State comparables ready for him...Meanwhile, by all means,  go after the salaries of Translink cops.



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This Day In Snookland...Has The Media Become Her Message?

CrankingUpThe
StarMakerMachineryVille


Well, well well...

It would appear that Ms. Clark will no longer submit her visage to the vagaries of those who voted (or did not vote) for her:

Don't know 'bout you, but I sure do wanna get me some of them guv'mint photos...

ASAP.



______
Antidote?.....How about some Joni?
Update, Lunchtime Tuesday...Look!....It's better than Guv'mint Cheezies....Private Photos of friends 'n stuff, from Sparkle Pony Pammy!


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A New Market For A New White Powder.

DoesShanghaiNeedItsOwnPrivate
UptonVille


And this one has absolutely nothing to do with prohibition or controlled substances.

Quite the opposite, actually.

Because it turns out that people of means are smuggling baby formula into China.

From all kinds of places.

Like Europe, where herds of mules are paid a solid cut for swarming pharmacies that have been forced to invoke a two can per customer maximum to keep a little Similac on the shelves for the Mom's pushing prams who live down the street.

And the problem is so bad in Hong Kong that it is now a serious crime if you are caught hiding a third can in your luggage when you leave.

So...

What's it all about?

Well...

The complete absence of regulation and consumer protection, of course, which made it possible to mass produce melamine-laced formula on a mammoth scale in the not too distant past.

The result - six dead babies and hundreds of thousands of very, very sick ones.

Now...

This is not just an emerging market problem.

Because, here in North America we are actually going the other way.

Recall, if you will, say, listeriosis.

Or, I dunno, how about...

Exploding trains?

****

Joe Nocera, writing on the OpEd page of the NYTimes put it this way on Saturday:

...In the United States, of course, it has become religion among conservatives to denounce regulation, saying it stifles business and hinders economic growth. But consider: At the turn of the last century, America was as riddled with scam artists as China is today. Snake oil salesmen — literally — abounded. Food safety was a huge issue. In 1906, however, Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle,” his exposé-novel about the meatpacking industry. That book, pointed out Stanley Lubman, a longtime expert in Chinese law, in a recent blog post in The Wall Street Journal, is what propelled Theodore Roosevelt to propose the Food and Drug Administration. Which, in turn, reformed meat-processing — among many other things — and gave consumers confidence in the food they ate and the products they bought...


Hmmm...

I don't know about you, but my confidence is waning.


______
Props to Edward Wong of the Times for doing investigative digging on this story and the editors for giving him the time and the space to do it, which was A1 in the dead-tree edition on Friday...Interestingly, when I went looking for it this morning digitally there were toxic knock-offs lurking in the Google-Cache already...


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If Not Van, Why Not Bruce?

BecauseTheNight
WasMadeForBrothersVille


For quite a while now, even before the passing, Glen Hansard has been taking the Big Man's nephew, Jake Clemons, out on the road with the various incarnations of The Frames, The Swell Season, and pretty much all the rest of the Dublin Diaspora.

And together they've often covered the Boss' Drive All Night wicked, wicked good.

Anyway.

Earlier tonight Springsteen played Kilkenny, Ireland.

And Bruce brought Hansard up on stage during the encore (Jake was already there as he has been all Wrecking Ball Tour long).

And this is what happened...

_______
Once, not too long ago, my brothers and I got to reminiscing....And the youngest amongst us, who is the real musician in the family by the way, said the following (with a big smile on his face)...."When I was a kid I always wanted to go in a bar with Dad and order a 'Kilkenny'!"...Ya, our Dad's name is Ken...And he meant it affectionately because he wanted to wallop Ken, hard, on the shoulder (something every single rugby player in Southwestern British Columbia between 1955 and 2005 knew they could never, ever do if they wanted to keep their nasal septa intact)...
Van reference?...Well, there once was a thing called the 'Kenny Van', which was a 1970 VW (still barely then) MicroBus that I learned to drive on, circa 1976 (and that we all drove and drove and drove, sometimes all night, until the bottom fell out of the thing sometime in the early '90's if I remember correctly)....But actually, that's not really it....Instead...This.


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