Tacoma Glass

Get Out

"This government has lost the capacity to govern because a shadow government has taken over. The narco-mafia state is now completely consolidated."

ASHRAF GHANI, a former Afghan finance minister, on corruption there.

This quote from the NY Times begs the question once again and once again, "Why are Canadian soldiers dying in this sinkhole?"

If I hear one more fake politician blather on about "the honorable" thing, I will puke.

Politicians have been throwing out that line of crap since the first caveman heaved the first rock at the first "other" caveman.

You think you've seen winter?

Alex Tsakumis, writing in this morning's 24 Hours newspaper has captured nicely the trashy little lowlights from Monday's NPA stabbing in the forum.

Read it here.

A friend, who lives in Dunbar, spoke eloquently the other day about how the party had managed in recent months to alienate their own best supporters by not listening to a word.

Which leaves us here in Vancouver with a Vision-dominated City Council, not a recipe for good government.

The council should be a healthy mix of different views and approaches. It is now a doctrinaire love fest.

May some party or other rise from the vacuum and the ashes in the coming months to present some variety for the voters 3 long years from now.

And some quality wouldn't hurt either.

What About Everything? Carbon Leaf

Plots have I laid, Inductions Insidious...

Some further thoughts about Monday night's NPA meeting.

Many have asked what was the motive of the Curtain Plotters? What did they want? What was their goal?

After considerable deliberation, I have found the answer.

It comes, as do many answers in life, from Shakespeare.

"A horse! A Horse! My kingdom for a horse," shouts the mad and desperate Richard III.

What he is saying is that The Game is All. Keep me in the Game. He spends five acts plotting and executing his crazy plans. He tells us this in his first speech. "Plots have I laid..."

And what, in the end, does it come down to? Becoming King doesn't really satisfy him. He needs more action! Think Al Pacino's Tony Montana in "Scarface."

He is like the perennial romantic, who appears to be seeking the perfect partner, but is in fact hooked entirely on the Dance of Seduction. He is on a wheel that never stops.

As so we ask again, "What did these two cheese-heads really want at that meeting?"

And the answer is simply to keep playing these games, to be part of the action, that is their fatal addiction.

The man they maneuvered and manipulated out of position is also the man who taught them the ways of politics.

HOWEVER...

This man is a true citizen. This man has been in the political arena most of his life because there are issues and ideas he wants to further. This man is on the board of a dozen charitable organizations and works tirelessly to make his community more democratic, more inclusive, and more engaging.

The two silly little men that he has taught over the years - and who have never once said Thank You - have no real goals, no commitments, no dedications.

They just like the action.

And there will always be ears that feel privileged when someone whispers into them. There will always be naive rubes who believe that they are being drawn into the circles of power.

Always, the key in such matters is intention.

What are these people really about?

In this sorry case, the answer is nothing more than mischief, hang the expense.

Finally, what was Sam Sullivan doing there?

Doesn't anybody have a life?

Doesn't anybody in public office who is defeated know how to move on anymore?

No, Sam, always petulant and petty, was there for revenge. Thin gruel, Baby. May you find a quantum of solace in the coming year.

A Christian Perspective on Israel

ICEJ Statement and Appeal regarding the Gaza conflict

In the time since Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in August 2005, the Islamist terror militia Hamas seized control of the area and increased its relentless rocket and mortar attacks against the southern towns of Israel. These daily barrages literally kept thousands of Israeli civilians in siege-like conditions, while the world stood by and said almost nothing about the thousands of children traumatized or the needless loss of life and property. Sderot, one of the towns closest to Gaza, took the brunt of these attacks.

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem has firmly stood by the Israeli communities in the western Negev during these tense times, providing social assistance through local charities and aid workers and delivering a number of portable bomb-shelters to the region. This ministry has also undertaken numerous fact-finding visits to the area and has thus witnessed first-hand the brutality and indiscriminate nature of these attacks from Gaza.

A brief ‘lull’ brokered by Egypt brought temporary relief to these war-weary residents of the Gaza periphery, but the rocket strikes returned in early November and began striking the city of Ashkelon. The Israeli government was reluctant to endanger the Palestinian civilians among whom Hamas hides, using them as involuntary human shields. But in the end Israel had little choice but to finally take action to protect its citizens, which is its rightful duty. One would expect the same of any state that cares about its citizens.

Now, Hamas has responded with longer range rockets that have hit the cities of Ashdod and Beersheva, placing over 700,000 Israeli civilians within range.

Loss of life is always regrettable and must be contained, and Israel more than any other country has demonstrated this principle. However, the Hamas regime in Gaza has no respect for life, denies the very existence of Israel, and works relentlessly for its total destruction. This is the stated position of the movement in its own words and clearly reflected in its charter. Israel was left with no choice other than to remove this threat from its southern region. Better to do so now than to wait until Hamas has the backing of a nuclear Iran.

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem therefore finds it disturbing that many Western leaders have again opted to condemn Israel under the guise of what they call “disproportionate response.” The “doctrine of equivalence” sees no evil, hears no evil and does no evil. It stands on the fence trying to lay blame equally on both combatants. This is an outrage and our world is giving in to radical Islamic terror because of it. Hamas is a terrorist organization supported by rogue regimes in Syria and Iran, and the international community knows this well but many leaders do not have the courage to say it. Appeasement is the only game in town! So, Israel must be equally condemned.

We stand behind Israel in its actions of self-defense on behalf of its citizens and call on the world community to lay the blame where it is due. In this regard, we recall the words of US President-elect Barack Obama when he stood in Sderot this past summer and stated that Israelis should never have to live under the threat of daily rocket attacks.

Further, we appeal to Christians to offer prayers for Israel in these difficult times as we enter the New Year. We also are offering the chance to be of practical assistance to the embattled residents of the Western Negev. The ICEJ has committed to temporarily relocating dozens of poor families with small children to safer areas elsewhere in Israel. We need immediate funds to cover their transport, accommodations and meals. Schools and daycares are closed in their region and normal life has become impossible, but these families cannot afford to relocate themselves out of harm’s way.

Please respond by visiting our secured on-line server and making a donation today. Thank you for caring!

Malcolm Hedding
ICEJ Executive Director International Christian Embassy Jerusalem
ICEJ USA | PO Box 332974 | Murfreesboro TN | 37133 | www.icejusa.org

Maybe this will Melt the Snow

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Be careful what you wish for...

Dare I wish for the intractable, hateful, murderous conflict between Israel and everybody else to end and find a peace for all?

I am a Jew living in Canada and I am daily made sick to the stomach of the continuing news of death and the relentless hatred towards Israel.

Will some small ray of light appear on that stage in 2009? We can dream...

I wish our Canadian soldiers back from Afghanistan.

I wish for a friendlier, more relaxed, more open Canadian citizen, one who can actually smile and say, "Good morning," as you pass each other in the street.

I wish for more insulation and double-glazed windows for my lovely, but terribly energy-inefficient house.

I wish for some political leadership somewhere in Canada at any level.

I wish everyone gets home safely tonight from the revels.

I wish I could get past the Miser Within that keeps me from taking advantage of the Boxing Week sales to buy that fancy new camera I really covet.

I wish you all a year of good health, some coins in your jeans, and the warmth and companionship of friends, families and lovers in whatever shapes, sizes and colours they may appear.

Come on, Dance, You Cheapskates

Ballet BC details its debts to local businesses

168 creditors owed nearly $400,000, court papers show

There are the headlines that explain the entire story.

This is lunch money for Gordon Campbell. And for Gregor Robertson.

What are they waiting for?

Be a man. Be a mensch.

Step up to the plate, boys.

Totally corrupt bankers and totally inept auto makers can be rescued in the Billions of dollars, but we can't throw a $400,000 bone to the hardest working artists on show business.

Have you ever tried to dance?

It's more gruelling and, occasionally, much prettier than NFL football.

This is a cruel joke.

Pay off these small debts and let these people do their work.

You politicians speak constantly about "community" and "pride" and the "best place," blah, blah, blah...

Get real and get reel...

Still Hunting J.D.

It's good to know the old verities persist.

Tomorrow, J.D. Salinger will turn 90.

And that means that magazine and newspaper editors around the world will still be sending out cub reporters to the village in New Hampshire where the author of "Catcher in the Rye" has been hiding for about five decades now.

Gee, never on Oprah or D. Letterman?

What's the matter with this guy?

Hahahaha...

I salute you, J.D.

How Do I get in the Bail Out Line?

Former Merrill Lynch Exec takes bailout money to buy palatial digs

This is the headline from Crooks & Liars by way of Video Cafe.

Watch the video and read the text and study the floor plans, all here.

After you finish throwing up, contemplate the beauty of these "save-the-nation" bailouts.

The NPA Dumped

Last night, the NPA tried to reorganize and salvage some sense of the ruling party they had been for many years here in Vancouver.

If the detestable behaviour of the small cabal of cronies who conspired to control who would and would not be elected to the new board is any indication of where this group is headed, hide the silverware, kids.

It used to be said of fights in academia that they were so bitter and mean-spirited precisely because the stakes were so low.

That old gag applies here.

Shame on those petty nitwits who seem to only gather pleasure in whispering behind the curtains.

Freddie Hubbard, R.I.P.

The Bright Lights are Always on High

DO you think perhaps the wrong people are being bailed out? Do you think?

In the midst of the multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded rescue packages for Detroit, the Ford Motor company has unveiled its new "self-parking" car.

The CEO of Ford makes the personal admission that he found parallel parking the most stressful part of his driver's test.

The new technology will be available on some Lincoln's and new seven-passenger Lincoln MKT luxury crossover vehicle.

Is it called a crossover vehicle because it can cross over to the other side of town? Because it is trans(mission)-gendered? Or because it's really more a battleship or Panzer tank than car?

The Chronicles of Criminal Injustice - Basi/Virk

Nobody has followed the Basi-Virk affair over its past five years with greater diligence than local journalist, Bill Tieleman.

In yesterday's thetyee.ca, Tieleman published a most comprehensive study of the as-yet-entirely-unresolved legislature scandal. The piece is called "Railgate, A to Z."

I urge you as an informed BC citizen to read it and save it for future reference. The trial is supposed to begin - finally - sometime in the spring - if we ever have a spring.

It is also highly likely that this mess possibly involving the highest reaches of local government may, in fact, never reach a court room.

It is particularly likely that it won't reach a courtroom before the May election.

Tieleman deserves our thanks, a fistful of journalism awards and some merit citation for citizenship.

More Snow Job Stories

In response to yesterday's post, "Can You Dig It?" a commentor filed a wonderful story of his own. Please read it. It's terrific.

Can You DIg It?

On Saturday afternoon, my willfulness and stubborness reached its choking point, and I decided that I would dig my car out of the snow.

It was parked about two blocks away from my house.

"Enoough," I grumbled in my best Type A voice, as I set out with two shovels and steely determination.

O.K.

It only took half an hour and some nifty raised-on-the-prairies-nothing's-gonna-stop-me driving, but I did it.

Of course. Always knew I would, so there. Ha!

Swung onto the ruts of the street, promptly turned right up the next street so that I could then turn back down to the main road and go about my terribly important business. (I had to return three videos to a store many K. away.)

In less than a third of the way up the second street, I stalled and stuck.

My '93 Mazda, trusty as it is, has a low undercarriage and I was basically riding the snow tracks.

More shovelling, help from a stranger who lived on the street and half an hour later, nothing.

O.K.

So I walked back towards my house, knowing that I had now effectively blocked a residential street entirely and that if I phoned BCAA and if I ever got through, the wait would be about five hours.

BUT...

What do I find in the alleyway just a moment later?

But an entire family digging our their van.

O.K.

So I'll help you dig if you'll help me push.

Done and done.

But just as we start to push my car back, another five or six people come along and join in the fun.

Missions accomplished.

After I returned the videos and got some groceries, I headed back to the hood.

My car is now parked on a busy thoroughfare. I am hoping that it isn't snowplowed in this morning.

It was lovely to see people helping each other in these maddening conditions.

A World Gone Mad

In Victoria, the geniuses who oversee drug addiction problems have struck real gold.

For absurdity and sickness, that is.

Seems they had to close down their site for free needle exchanges for heroin addicts.

So for some time now they've been operating a mobile service.

i.e., Don't worry, Doper. We bring the needles to you.

Small problem.

That leaves thousands of dirty needles unaccounted for.

Which means that the very people who are charged with helping the situation are, in fact, making it worse.

But consider this more fundamental issue.

A man or woman who sincerely believes in his or her own little utterly misguided heart that he/she is doing some good in the world spends his/her day dashing about the city streets on foot or on bicycle trying to find an addict to whom he/she can give a clean needle.

Imagine instead that this same poor fool was scooping addicts off the street to take them to a clean and sober rehab environment.

Oh, what ever is the matter with me?

I forgot.

We don't want to do that.

We want to help people stay stupid and hopeless.

We have a name for this that make it an honorable approach. Harm reduction.

How sick is the delusional person who has this "job?"

The Wise Investor

“Prognostications 2009"

For Immediate Release

Vancouver, BC (December 29, 2009):

It’s time to dust off the crystal ball prognostications for 2009. None are for sure, but here are a few to contemplate:

• The global recession will continue in all corners of the world. Even China can slide into a rough patch. Commodity prices, like oil, will gravitate to lower lows. Hefty corporate losses will continue.

• President elect, Barak Obama will inherit a mess. The expectations of him and his team are beyond reach. His approach will be different. Look for the “Obama bounce” in the markets. Reality will set in when investors realize he can only deliver partially.

• Lower prices and interest rates won’t be sufficient temptation for cashless consumers to loosen their purse strings and incur more debt. Big ticket items, like autos, will struggle heavily. Keep a keen eye on the viability of commercial real estate.

• Governments will spend more taxpayer money they don’t have on additional wasteful workouts, bailouts and other projects. Government deficits will balloon trying to shore up disappearing jobs.

• Get used to shrunken automakers. Before they do, they will ask for more assistance. Nobody should be surprised that the loans they’re getting won’t come back to taxpayer coffers.

• Corporate earnings will soften. The spectre of more layoffs, mortgage defaults, foreclosures and bankruptcies will fuel added turmoil. Weak US financials will continue on the ropes. Finding new capital to replenish their balance sheets will be job one.

• Conventional wisdom has the second half of 2009 getting better, but it may take longer. While stocks seem like screaming buys, cheap doesn’t always equal value. Watch for market rallies that don’t stick. Not everything is a golden opportunity.

• There is always an optimistic side to economics. For instance, housing affordability will continue to improve. At least, that will help first time buyers. Another is more responsible lending practises.

Bottom Line. The economic landscape will keep shrinking. Consumers will hang on to their wallets. Follow what’s best for the personal situation. Don’t jump willy nilly onto hot bandwagons du jour.

Stay simple. Cash will be king. Allocate it slowly and methodically within your well-designed game plan. Make decisions based on fact and reason. Never on emotion.

No investing strategy I know has you making all your moves in one year. So, keep your priorities straight. Remember that your investing is a marathon, not a sprint. Slow and steady gets you there.

Be on the lookout for market sentiment to change one day. I can’t tell when, but until then, tread carefully. Very carefully.

Your comments are welcome.

Adrian Mastracci
Portfolio Manager, R.F.P.
KCM Wealth Management Inc.
"Fee-Only" Portfolio Managers & Financial Advisors
Suite 1500, Box 1078, 885 West Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6C 3E8
Tel: (604) 739-4500 Fax: (604) 739-0234
E-mail: kcm@kcmwealth.com Website: www.kcmwealth.com

Voices From the American Front Lines

The following is taken from "Crooks & Liars," a website which I peruse every morning. The text itself originated on a blog...follow the trail here...

I do not live or work in the USA.

I have had a ringside seat to the economic downturn this year. It is not an abstraction to me. The folks at the bottom are always the first to feel the pinch, when it comes. Clients of the agency I work at come through our doors every day requesting assistance with basic necessities like food, clothing, shelter and medications. As the year has progressed and New York State has chosen to repeatedly victimize its most vulnerable citizens, it has become more difficult to help people meet these needs. I have visited food banks with empty shelves, been told clients were ineligible for help when I knew they were and had to challenge these decisions. I have sat with clients while their applications for public assistance were reviewed by fraud investigators at social services. Our local social services department actually hired fraud investigators at the same time that it was laying off child protective workers demonstrating conclusively where our values lie and how genuinely mean spirited we are as a people. At the federal level Social Security routinely denies people eligible for benefits in the hopes that they will not reapply. Many people who receive benefits must hire a lawyer before social security will concede that they are indeed eligible. As the resources have become more limited, the level of scrutiny and inhumanity has risen accordingly.

I have, of course read about the rising unemployment numbers and the ensuing uptick in applicants for public assistance and food stamps nationwide like everyone else. It seems the chickens of Bill Clinton's (Best moderate Republican president ever)welfare reform are finally coming home to roost. We always knew that the flaw of his plan was an economy without jobs and here we are. The reform has no provision for an unemployment rate like we are experiencing now. Once again, our policy in practice serves to punish most harshly children and the elderly. Perhaps, it is time to repeal the child labor laws and begin allowing them to work 12 hour days again.

For nearly 30 years we have done our best to dismantle the safety net for the poor and struggling among us. I keep praying that we have reached the end of this folly. At 42, these policies are what I have known my entire work life. I dream about social service programs and rules that would treat people like human beings, rather than as an undesirable applicant to be culled out. I want so badly for us as a nation to stop punishing people for being poor, or elderly or a child of poor people. This holiday season was hellish as I watched scores of our clients navigate the realities of a holiday with nothing but further grinding poverty. Some days I am just weary from the strain of witnessing the suffering that goes on around me. It takes a toll that is more than physical, it eats away at the soul to see people ask for so little and receive far less.

As I contemplate how to pry a few dollars from these systems designed to humiliate and degrade my clients, already struggling with being social outcasts, chronic illness, drug addiction and mental illness I sigh audibly. I read of billion dollar bailouts and disappearing pallettes of cash as I ponder how to help a family with $400.00 so they will not be homeless in three days. I am so very tired.