SIGNS ALONG THE ROAD

STOLEN RIVERS

Subject: Real eye opener about B.C Rivers

This is a must-see video....there is a shortened version just below the video picture. Send it to
as many people as you can as so very much has been kept a secret by the government! ...

This is the future for all the generations to come. Look at the power
bills that people pay in most provinces.....and ours, probably, will be set to what Californians are
paying.

http://ashlu.info:80/video/bcrivers.html

REALITY CHECK

Subject: Gun manufacturing in Pakistan Boondocks

This is a real eye opener.................

See the largest gun market in the world!

Just what you need to sleep better tonight..... It takes about 5 min. to watch this, but it is worth the time. http://www.vbs.tv/full_screen.php?s=DGFE2305DC&sc=1363196

BUILD A NEW BRIDGE PLEASE

What sorry backbenchers have represented the derelict and under served communities that have been so badly serviced lo these many years by the Patullo Bridge?

With all the wing-nut highway building projects that have come and gone in this corrupt province, with all the cry for all the years to replace this dangerous relic, why has it never been done?

Now that the old thing has been crippled once again, this time by a fire no less, commuters are being told to be patient.

Kevin, Big Bridge Builder, Falcon stands by with a sorrowful look. Oscar material, for sure.

Shame on these people - provincial governments of the past 20 years - and shame on those of you who still harbor the cranky illusion that the current gang has your best interests at heart.

HE WOULD BE 80 TODAY- HERE IS THE SPEECH IN ITS ENTIRETY

HOW CANADIAN MEN HELP THE ECONOMY

A friend asked the other day about Canada's population.

I explained that we depend on immigration to build our numbers here.

"Why?" he asked.

Because we are reproducing at a rate insufficient to help, Andorra, Lichtenstein or Monaco.

"Why is that?"

Because Canadian men are watching hockey on television.

There is an "up" side to this, however.

Canadian women, suffering beyond endurance, run to the love shops to invest heavily in sex toys.

Now, while it is true that most of these aids are built (batteries not included) in China, they are sold right here in Canada.

And that helps the economy.

Class is over, boys & girls, thank you for your attention.

Uh...except for Bert back there. I see you're listening to your MP3 or iPod or whatever. So, what's the score?

FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT?

Richard Pryor, the undisputed genius of comedy, many, many years ago "became" the President of the United States.

In this sketch he stretches the complexities and the possibilities.

Very funny, very timely.

Watch it build from decorum to....?

http://www.obamapride.net/richardpryorthepresident.htm

RAY - AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL

THE DEFINITION OF SPIN

"We have to do everything we can to secure jobs for people,"

From this moment on (he sang), whenever you want to find the meaning of "politcal spin," you will find this as the prime example.

"This" is Premier Gordon Campbell explaining the late night weekend "emergency" vote that will allow the City of Vancouver to move to Debtor's Prison.

"secure jobs for people.."

The man's cynicism about the intelligence of the citizenry is breathtaking.

This is about the Olympics, it's about covering ass, it's about good and bad deals, and mostly it's about using this moment in tiny-minded local history to change the rules permanently to allow god-knows-what financial collusions in the future.

As for the current project, now running at $1.1 Billion and counting, the Village was first touted as foolproof. To be foolproof you'd have to start without fools. Ooops...

The risk to city taxpayers? None. Or so they were promised three years ago, when City of Vancouver staff announced details of the Olympic Village plan.

Excllent work, folks.

As for the Weekend Prom at the Legislature, all that was missing was bears and a ferris wheel.

Memorial

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages and accepting donations. The Library will include: 1. The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction. 2. The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything. 3. The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up. 4. The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in. 5. The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out. 6. The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find. 7. The National Debt Room, which is huge and has no ceiling. 8. The Tax Cut Room, with entry only to the wealthy. 9. The Economy Room, which is in the toilet. 10. The Iraq War Room. (After you complete your first visit, they make you go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth visit.) 11. The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shooting gallery. 12. The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty. 13. The Supreme Gift Shop, where you can buy an election. 14. The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators. 15. The Decider Room, complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws. The library will also include many famous quotes by George W.Bush: 1. 'The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.' 2. 'If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.' 3. 'Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.' 4. 'No senior citizen should ever have to choose between prescription drugs and medicine.' 5. 'I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change.' 6. 'One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.' 7. 'Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.' 8. 'I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.' 9. 'The future will be better tomorrow.' 10. 'We're going to have the best educated American people in the world..' 11. 'One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.' (during an education photo-op) 12. 'Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.' 13. 'We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.' 14. 'It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.' 15. 'I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.'...

VILLAGE IDIOTS - A Tale Told by Lies, Augmented by Obfuscation and Capped with Dissembling

"It's not a blank cheque."

Hahahaha...

Remember those words.

They come from Premier Gordon Campbell and they refer, of course, to the ramrod job he intends this weekend to change the Vancouver Charter to allow the City to borrow scads and scads of money to clean up the Olympic Village fiasco.

You should remember these words because in the coming years, as Vancouver sinks into the same habit as you and I have with our Visa cards, the City will become the King, Queen and Joker of Deficit Financing.

First of all, a change of this kind, a negative undertaking of this kind, is by current law, supposed to be put to public referendum.

But that's what governments do. When they don't like the rules, they change them.

As if you no longer appreciate your spouse and change the rules so a little arsenic in the corn flakes would no longer be considered homicide.

Opposition House Leader, Adrian Dix, has added that a no discussion vote in the Legislature today is a no go. He has declared this unacceptable and intends to push for a full argument.

Good luck with all of that, Adrian.

Note also that the wording of the suggested change to the City Charter calls for "unlimited borrowing powers."

Yes, be alarmed.

If you are not, you are as big a rube and sucker than the city council that signed us all in for this deal in the first place.

Financial writer, David Baines, writing in the Sun today echoes what I said here yesterday. He just says it better and in more detail.

Olympic village on shaky ground from start

City politicians and staff failed to ensure the project had sound financing from the outset

Dazzled by bigger numbers from the less solid Millenium, Council ignored good offers from two more accomplished players.

Meanwhile back at the optometrist, in the rose-colored glasses aisle, former Mayor Philip Owen is begging everyone to stop being so negative and realize what a joy this really is.

Thanks, Phil.

What can we do when the tab shows up on our property tax assessments? Or the new One Way Street Tax or Parking on a Residential Street for More than 12 Minutes Tax or whatever scam will be used to recover from this sinkhole?

Can we say, "Sorry. You voted for this in secret and we weren't consulted?"

Can we get Phil to pay for us?

Can we get a blank cheque from Gord?

The punch line is this.

You and I will pay for the Jamaican bobsled team to share marble counters for 10 days and for off-shore clients to pay the highest square-foot costs in history for condos they will occupy 3 days a year.

Nice.

Ignored Tragedies

This morning as I was reading the paper and finding between the Inauguration and the Miracle on the Hudson article after article about Gaza, Gaza and more Gaza, I found myself muttering about Zimbabwe.

Not that Gaza is nothing or unimportant or not horrible.

But why do we often not see focus on the 102 other hells on earth?

Therefore, I was surprised and pleased to see Bob Herbert, who usually writes on domestic issues, tackling this very subject in this morning's NY Times.

The piece is called "Zimbabwe Is Dying," and I encourage you to read it.

Then, we might ask ourselves how the UN and other ineffective busybodies have stood by and allowed Mugabe to rape and destroy his own country for the past - what, 37? - years.

Would that this truism were not so, but it is: Everything is political.

HUDSON LANDING - WOW!

In the good old days before 9-11 made such things impossible, I had the great good fortune to spend many, many hours in the cockpits of jetliners on long overseas flights.

I was consistently impressed with the pilots and engineers. To a man, they were very, very smart, funny, interested in practically everything, outspoken, straight ahead in their expression and steely calm and clear about what they were doing.

It is apparently a standing mantra amongst such people that long-haul jet flights can best be described as "20 seconds of sheer, white knuckle terror, followed by 10 hours of excruciating boredom, followed by 20 seconds of sheer, white knuckle terror."

If that wasn't clear, what they are saying is that modern jet travel consists of the major scares of take-off and landing, interrupted by the numbing many hours of auto-pilot and checking that you are successfully flying from designated and assigned point A to B to C and pretty much through the alphabet.

What US Airways Captain Sully Sullenberger managed to do landing that bird in the Hudson without a single fatality is exactly what one would expect of a guy like him -flying since he was 17 and a consultant on risk management and safety - yet, we can join the chorus around the world in safely calling him a hero.

Just plain WOW!

Important Addition to the 60% Solution

It is not only the 'permission to borrow' aspect that troubles me. It is the Robertson-proposed, Campbell-only-too-happy-to-oblige, skirting of the referendum process that is the most dangerous.

The former Local Government Act required a municipality to hold a referendum of the people, if it intended to commit its taxpayers to a financial liability which exceeded a certain dollar amount (which varied according to a formula set out in the Act), or which went beyond a period of five years. That requirement was repeated in the Vancouver Charter.

When Campbell and Co. ascended to the throne in 2001, one of the first things they did was bring in the Lidstone lawyers to amend the Act into what is now the Community Charter.

One of the most significant changes in the wording of the Act, morphed the referendum requirement into the almost impossible to achieve, counter-petition process. A C-P is tantamount to negative billing, and requires a petitioner to gather the names of people who were entitled to vote in the previous election. Who can do that in a hot real estate market? Although referenda can still be held, what local council will use it, if people are likely to vote down a council initiative?

In summary then -- while borrowing $450-875 million will be tough on voters in the City of Vancouver, an anti-democratic precedent will be set for every citizen in BC.

Campbell and Co. are sure selective about the precedents they set, are they not?

Elizabeth James

THE 60% SOLUTION, CITY HALL STYLE

While yet another high profile City Hall manager tied closely to the Olympic Village bites the dust, two crucial questions remain unanswered.

Hell, they remain, except for these pages, unasked.

1. Play the Blame Game all you want. Six of the 10 current City Councillors were there at all the in-camera meetings that created this mess. Anton, Cadman, Chow, Louie, Deal and Stevenson have yet to tell us very much about how it all began and how they voted.

Today, the Vancouver Sun delves into this issue in a nice piece by Jeff Lee, in which we see Raymond Louie playing a little fast and loose with the history books - not to mention the accounting books.

2. When the extraordinary meeting of the Provincial Legislature convenes this weekend to draft a Ready-Mix Law allowing the Vancouver Charter to borrow at will, does this signal the beginning of the new era of regular deficit financing?

They all claim this is a "one-time" affair, but that's what governments throughout history have always claimed about new taxes and levies.

This little "crisis" will go down as an elaborate excuse to change city hall financing and permanently diminish the city's credit rating.

Finally, Wall Financial is delaying or perhaps suspending its own construction plans for a four tower project across the street from the Village.

Wasn't Wall the other bidder for the Village in the first place, and a bidder with a much more solid and accomplished track record than the stumbling Millenium?

Didn't City Hall choose Millenium because it offered $20 Million more than Wall?

If Bruno Wall is saying this may not be the most prudent time to build, we, the taxpayers, should be good and truly scared.

ZAP! You're a Victim of the New Policy

It is good news that the RCMP watchdog will begin investigations into 10 deaths involving Mounties and tasers.

I suppose.

But try this.

A friend advises me that the other day on Beach Avenue he observed a little drama in amazement.

Several police cars converged quickly to apprehend a young man walking down the street.

The telling detail was this.

They had their tasers drawn and ready.

Question:

Is now standard police practice?

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad president said the fighting showed Israel's continued existence in the region is "not feasible."

SHOOT THE MESSENGER, or, How Lo Can They Go?

In Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People," one man with an unhappy message is isolated by the community.

In Steven Spielberg's "Jaws," the same message is played out in cartoon fashion with nobody at a resort wanting to hear about a dangerous shark. Bad for business, don't you know?

In Vancouver, at 12th & Cambie, when the Chief Financial Officer raises a number of questions about a large and costly development project, she is told, "Resign or be fired."

Not much new in the world.

Gary Mason continuing his first-rate coverage of the Olympic Village fiasco got his hands on the damning memo that reveals just how political City Hall really can be.

"The financial viability of the developer of the Olympic athletes village, the future of the city's credit rating, the increased risk to taxpayers and soaring construction costs were among the many concerns the city's former chief financial officer had months ago about the project, The Globe and Mail has learned.

In an extraordinary memo Estelle Lo sent to then-city-manager Judy Rogers in October, 2008, the since-departed CFO outlined a string of worries she had about the project - many of which have since been validated.

A couple of weeks after sending the memo, Ms. Lo was approached by Ms. Rogers and given an ultimatum: resign or be fired. Ms. Lo would resign with a one-year severance package, and Ms. Rogers would be removed on Dec. 12, 2008, by newly elected Mayor Gregor Robertson."

Globe writers Ian Bailey & Justine Hunter further report that Mr. Campbell will convene the provincial legislature a bit early to have a vote on amending the City's charter so that it can borrow money to cover this sinkhole.

"Government lawyers are drafting amendments to the Vancouver Charter to allow the city to borrow the money."

Is my cynicism showing when I ask the following?

Amend the City Charter to borrow money?

Is this an elaborate pea-and-shell game to amend the Charter to borrow money for many things many times because we are broke or going broke or afraid of going broke?

Is this the not-so-cleverly disguised license to institutionalize deficit financing to Vancouver?

Lack of Governance Kills

CELLPHONE TECHNOLOGY

Lost man called 911 four times before dying in sub-zero conditions

This story in this morning's Globe & Mail is a tragedy, but it is also about malfeasance.

Not that anyone in office cares much, but the role of governments is governance.

The CRTC blithely hands out licences to print money by granting cellular phone companies the right to sell their devilish little toys, but what do they ask of these hucksters in the way of social responsibility?

Nothing, apparently.

Now we are being told, the cell corps have until 2011 to ramp up their 911 capabilities.

Nice.

Today's story is hardly unique. This has been a growing file of deaths over recent weeks due to police and emergency teams being unable to track callers.

This should have been written into the original green lights, and now that the government has been woken from their slumber by the press - the Globe, in particular - the remedies should be fast-tracked.

The remedies are not the deepest rocket science and 3 months to comply would be more appropriate.

Excellent Comment on BCTF, Testing, Fraser Institute et al

David,

You probably have more background on the role that the Fraser Institute has played in this ongoing dispute, but my quick look at their website today was informative. I'd be interested to know what their relationship is with the BC government and how it is that the FI gets the results of the provincial testing and is able to publish those results with the cooperation of the local press? Surefire way to get those educators riled up. Made me wonder if the FI has ever met with the BCTF to discuss their concerns about educational standards?

Of course there's nothing wrong with evaluating learning in all its forms and it happens in schools all the time. My wife and I happen to be raising a granddaughter who is in elementary school. My observation is that kids are learning more now than our generation ever did. And they are being evaluated frequently enough that we are aware of her strengths and weaknesses. And by taking the opportunity to chat with her teachers as we have, we are able to work cooperatively on improvements in her performance. I doubt that our experience is that unusual. Unless mutual respect is as dead as the proverbial dodo bird.

I'm a retired educator but my unsolicited advice to the teaching profession is to avoid even the appearance of a bunker mentality around evaluation and learning outcomes. This will not satisfy your "customers". My apologies if framing it that way is distasteful to any educators, but that orientation would be one that many parents would understand and appreciate.

Most working parents are subjected to increasing stresses in the workplace and it's a parental duty and obligation to help prepare children for an increasingly stressful world. Do educators need to develop more effective ways of explaining, and if need be improving, their instructional and evaluative methods? If the teachers are right that the current approach isn't "broke", then does it at least need "fixing"? Insisting on maintaining the status quo may have serious consequences.

In my opinion, the Fraser Institute's interest in publicizing test results may be the tip of an iceberg called promoting charter schools, a conclusion that's hard not to arrive at after reading the summary of their "independent" research reports on their website. The FI is quite forthright in acknowledging their "market economics" orientation. I would have thought that recent economic events would have made us a tad more cautious about jumping on that bandwagon again, particularly when educational reforms may be the agenda. Private or charter schools may fulfill a need for some families, but if they were to be expanded at the expense of the public school system, be careful what you wish for as most Grannies used to say.

Finally, if publishing educational test results is so benign, let's go the whole nine yards and evaluate the medical profession next. Got to do something about spiralling health costs, don't we? Let's get our friendly government to authorize patient evaluations of family doctors and publish the results in the Sun. Where's the possible harm in that?

DC