The Best Place on Earth - uh, if you know someone

Patrick Kinsella, friend and colleague of the Premier who would like to be your Premier again, is mighty miffed that anyone is suggesting that he had any undue influence in the government's decision to sell BC Rail.

So miffed, in fact, that he has somehow managed to get access to transcripts in the Basi-Virk affair - transcripts that are supposed to be privileged and not available to anyone who does not have standing in the court case.

How is that possible?

Is "privileged" the operative word here?

Could this business smell any higher?

Is there no way the crusty old amateurs who are running the NDP campaign cannot carry this ball over the finish line? What more do they need?

THE PHONE BOOK

Imagine the telephone book getting something right that has so far eluded every intellectual, government official and doctor in Canada.

This morning I was looking in those first few pages of phone book for a Telus service.

I came across a list of social service, and what do you think it said under "Addiction Services?"

Not Insite or Harm Seduction or any of the other blathering bad public policy mistakes of the last 20 years.

No.

It said in plain English and bold type ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS and NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS.

These two organizations, with no money and no publicity and no fame and no kvetching, of course, help more human beings to live clean and sober than all of the other thousands of fakers who suck the Great Tit.

Congrats to the folks at The Yellow Pages.

Leiren-Young Honored

Congratulations to local writer Mark Leiren-Young who has won the 2009 Leacock Medal for Humour.

Wow!

That is so great, Mark! Mazel Tov!

Well, That Explains Everything!

Mountain Equipment Update

For Immediate Release

Canada-Israel Committee expresses satisfaction with decision of Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) members to reject Israel boycott

Vancouver, April 30, 2009. In a widely publicized Annual Meeting held this evening in Vancouver, MEC members voted to reject a motion that would have asked the MEC Board to boycott goods manufactured in Israel.

“We’re delighted with this decision, which should be taken as a ringing endorsement of MEC’s outstanding policy on ethical sourcing”, said CIC’s Pacific region chairman Dr. Michael Elterman. Observing that the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation group PAGE was a key supporter of the defeated pro-boycott resolution, Elterman observed that MEC’s current policy has allowed the company to use its purchasing power to encourage progressive principles like workers’ rights and environmental sustainability in such countries as China, where these are novel concepts.

“MEC members across the country were outraged by this attempt by a few hard-line ideologues to hijack the agenda of one of Canada’s most socially responsible organizations”, Elterman concluded. “We’re hopeful that this matter is now definitively closed.”

Ted Reynolds

Ted Reynolds was a great broadcaster.

Like a handful of others, Reynolds happened to be talking about sports.

And like that same handful, it was clear that he could cover any subject if he really so wished.

A rare bird, indeed, he will be missed.

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2009/04/29/sp-ted-reynolds.html

JAM