HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

On Saturday, I was sitting in the dining room having a snack with friends. The doorbell rings.

Oh, look, it's not Revenue Canada. Well, that's a start.

But it is a guy with an official looking document. What is this, the annual Are You Allergic to Peanuts Survey?

Close.

He's campaigning for Gordon Campbell and the Liberals. Will I be voting for him, them?

Not likely, son.

But if you vote for Carole James the world will fall in to mortal peril from now unto perdition.

Right. Got it. Have a nice day.

And therein exactly lies the problem.

Today, the Premier and his Finance Minister, Colin Hansen, announced that it's Deficit Financing. The days of Balanced Budgets are now the stuff of porch swings and Doris Day-Gordon MacRae musicals.

O.K.

No reasonable person can fault this province for being a part of the real world beset by massive economic downturns. No great shame in biting this distasteful bullet and getting on with the job at hand.

But therein lies the problem,

What, exactly, is the job at hand? And who best to do it?

My problem is this.

Neither Gordon Campbell nor Carole James, neither the Liberals nor the NDP can find the right balance.

Campbell has shown, day after day, a mean-spirited elitist pro-business, anti-small guy attitude in almost every choice made. He is after the Big Projects and the Truly Big Monuments. He seems finally a man with little heart or human kindness. Certainly, he has paid scant attention to those among us who have less and need a little more.

I cannot vote for him, and I will not.

So.

Take Carole James...please.

Is there anyone in the provincial NDP caucus, James included, who has the faintest idea of how to read a spread sheet? Have they ever sold shoes at The Bay or run their dad's coffee shop, let alone managed a large corporation or hired and fired large numbers of people?

I have lived in this sovereign state for over 40 years now and I have seen only two parties - The Right, who build roads and bridges; and The Left, who tax and spend.

Will we ever have a New Politician in these parts? Will he or she arrive before May 12th so that British Columbians might have someone and something to choose?

Not likely.

So how shall we vote?

THE MATCH - ANOTHER TAKE

David
I have along with many others admired Feeders' tennis skills
But there is something rotten in the state of Federer
We saw two lessor players battle through a marathon that left us all
tired and worn
but when the last shot was called they walked to the net shook hands
and went to their chairs
neither fell down, neither cried, neither jumped up and down shouting
whoopee.............

I have at times suspected Federer of giving games to an opponent before
closing the set or match
He never seems to break a sweat, and does not want to .............

Underneath the skilled tidy blue and white perfection I think there may
lurk a monster.

We don't see this but I think he likes the "control" of himself, the
game, and the opponent.

He found that he could not control Nadal. The ultimate retriever!
Awesome ! Truly awesome.
then he could not control the game ........
and finally he could not control himself.
I think his tears were tears of shame. He did not play his best because
trying hard is not cool
and he was surrounded by champions.
Players who gave their all and did not cry when they were defeated
...........

All Nadal had to do was give Federer a breakpoint
Federer would stop playing. He doesn't want to appear to be working at
the game.
It is "cool" to let Nadal miss a shot

The fatal flaw in Federers' character

If I knew him better I might not like him

On the other hand maybe I am all wrong ............

.............Maurice

REPLY:

I think your analysis is spot on, Maurice.

His stubborn refusal to adjust to Nadal's shoulder-high spinning forehand to his backhand corner is now the stuff of legends.

As is his reluctance to go for his great inside out forehands until he is down 3 games or 2 sets.

He will either get it into his thick head that Nadal is an entirely different kettle of fish or he will perish behind his rigidity.

As for Rafa - what an admirable stalwart young man!

SO SWEET

MOZART

I rarely go live concerts any more.

Or the movies.

In spite of the fact that I usually get in for free.

The reason is simple.

I have become a crotchety old pain in the butt who simply cannot listen to people in the audience babbling inanities during the music or movie or play.

Always, during these moments, I ask myself, "What is it exactly that YOU could say right now or ever that is more glorious or important than what Mozart or Francis Ford Coppola or G.B. Shaw has to offer?"

Great, brilliant cellists and piano players are bringing back to life before your very eyes and ears the works of genius and some ditz head must say something crucial to his or her companion.

Thus, I now find myself poised over the MUTE button during the Australian Open tennis finals.

That blathering idiot, Dick Enberg, described by Wikipedia as "one of the most prominent and respected play-by-play announcers," simply never shuts up.

Through every point of an almost 5 hour epic match he tells us everything we needn't know, everything we already know.

Even during the point!

One of the several beauties of tennis -either as a player or a spectator - is the silence.

The orgasmic pornographic grunts of players - begun some years ago with Monica Seles and continued now by men and women alike - was more than enough.

But add to that Enberg's relentless pursuit of the obvious.

"If he wins this point, the match will be even."

"If he wins the next point, he takes the set."

Really?

Patrick McEnroe and some of his colleagues are players and they know when to shut up and let the play tell the story. The BBC knows this.

But Enberg must fill every potential void. And he must make terribly clever analogies to baseball in particular and other sports in general.

At several moments during yesterday's final, I hit the MUTE button repeatedly, only to find that Dick had talked solidly for five minutes or more.

This is, of course, why God gave us the MUTE and the FAST FORWARD buttons in the first place. Ah, the glories of recorded sports events. No commercials. No looks at faces in the crowd. No side bars with the announcer in the stands commenting on the wind, the sun or the snacks people are eating.

Now, the match itself.

Never, ever, have I seen something so dreadful.

Federer and Nadal fight mightily for four sets. Federer could easily and should easily have won the first three and taken the championship. But a) he didn't; and b) Rafael wouldn't let him.

In spite of his 5 hour and 14 minute exquisite fight with Fernando Verdasco about 24 hours earlier and in spite of leg and muscle problems throughout the final, Nadal did what he always does.

Heart, sinew and soul, he invested in every point in every moment and showed us again and again he is easily the greatest "warrior" to ever step on a court. There is no quit in this guy.

Repeatedly, Federer made beautiful hits that no other player on this earth could or would return... and there was Rafa returning the ball for an outright winner.

So.

Two sets all. Fifth set.

Federer, whom we all now routinely and with considerable justification, call "the greatest player ever," has just won the fourth set convincingly 6-3 against a wounded and ailing Nadal.

Should easily now put away the fifth for the championship.

Instead, we witness to our embarrassment and astonishment and yes, disgust, the greatest collapse by a great player in history.

He couldn't hit a first serve or a forehand or a backhand.

This was the textbook CHOKE.

This was the living proof of what many of us have been saying for almost five years now - Nadal has gotten himself completely inside Federer's head.

He owns Federer.

Federer didn't simply lose to a marvelous champion. He blew it. He threw it.

And then he gets up at the presentations and starts crying uncontrollably. Sobbing.

Because he lost? Is he such a tender child that he truly believes he is never supposed to lose?

Because he lost so badly?

Rafa was, as always, warm and gracious.

They are, after all, not only great rivals but good friends. Rafa was visibly disturbed by all this carry-on. As were we.

Federer is reported to be a stubborn man who will not accept that he must fine-tune his already magnificent game to overcome the Force known as Rafael Nadal. But fine-tune he must.

Doing what he already does best has placed him within shouting distance of owning more trophies than any other man in the history of the game. And he can do that week in and week out against all the other players in the world.

But Nadal is different.

If this experience does not teach Federer this lesson, nothing will.

And that would be a terrible shame. For Federer and for those of us who love the game.

Wally's Hero and Role Model

ANOTHER FINE IDEA, WALLY

Yesterday, lawyer and former prosecutor, Peter Ritchie made headlines across the nation accusing the BC Government of making the courts accessible only to the rich.

He pointed out that his two young clients attempting to sue BC Ferries could hardly afford the $60,000 in costs to stand up in court.

Today, Mr Blather-Dither Himself, Attorney-General, Wally Opaque, says he's been mulling ideas for four years that would reduce those costs.

His "ideas," like the fine fellow his own true self are pure smoke as usual.

The Trail Lawyers Association responded immediately saying that Oppal's ïdeas"would cause more harm then good.

We ask again:

What is this PR flack doing in public office?

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Negotiations are priveleged and confidential."

That's a federal government lawyer speaking in a now convoluted case in which a reporter has been banned from hisright to report the news...specifically the news of the Liberal sponsorship scandal known as Adscam.

Read the whole Globe story here.

Then help me with this question.

"Negotiations are priveleged and confidential..."

Even when they are part of a criminal conspiracy?

ALMOST JUSTICE

Two idiots gave James Rozko a rifle and drove him back to his farm, where shortly thereafter Rozko murdered four RCMP officers and then took his own miserable nutty life.

Yesterday in Edmonton, those two nitwits were given substantial prison sentences.

Not substantial enough.

John Allemang's Poetic Justice

A CBC hockey commentator hasdecried the "pansification" of the sportby anti-fighting campaigners. - news report

Us hockey fans just can't abide
The way the game's been pansified:
The whole excuse for Hockey Night
Lies in the hope we'll see a fight
Where heterosexual heavyweights
Prove real men can brawl on skates.
The thrill for us red-blooded males
Is when some goon who's tough as nails
Reveals the thing he really loves
Is daring guys to drop their gloves,
Which shows that masculinity
Still has a place on CBC.
But now some pansies, fags and gays
Want hockey's men to change their ways,
And turn the coiled enforcer's fist
Into a limp, unmanly wrist,
As if true fans would waste their breath
On games without the risk of death.
So fight back, jocks who fit the norm,
Against the pantywaisted swarm
Who'll strip away our simple joys
And make us all their nancy boys.
Assert your homophobic rights
With hockey's proud, hormonal fights.

CANADA IS NEXT

Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State,
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR

16 May 2008

Dear Secretary of State,
My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a
cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing
pigs. I would now like to join the "not rearing pigs" business.

In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on,
and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure
I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies,
as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.
I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type
you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are
there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks
or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not
rearing these?

As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an
accurate record of how many pigs I haven't reared. Are there any
Government or Local Authority courses on this?

My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing
pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was
£1,422 in 1968. That is - until this year, when he received a
cheque for not rearing any.

If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not
rearing 100?

I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to
about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the
first year. As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to
be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not
reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4
million from your department. Incidentally, I wonder if I would be
eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not
producing harmful and polluting methane gases?

Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat
2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for
not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing
cereals to not feed the pigs I don't rear?

I am also considering the "not milking cows" business, so please
send any information you have on that too. Please could you also
include the current Defra advice on set aside fields? Can this be
done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to
have several thousand hectares)?

In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally
unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits.

I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general
election.

Yours faithfully,

A letter to Gazan neighbours.....

Dear neighbour,

My name is David and I live in Israel , thirty minutes (or one minute rocket time) from you. I hope someday to have you over for a cup of tea. We have a lovely view from the balcony. On a clear day we can see our jets bombing your neighbourhood.

I think it's time we had a heart to heart. It's time you knew the truth. After all, what are neighbours for? You might have wondered why both you and your parents were born in a refugee camp. Why is it that even though we live only 30 minutes apart, I live in prosperity and you live in poverty and filth? Why you live in despair and hatred while we live in hope and love.

Here is the truth, neighbour:

There really was a Holocaust. I realize you've been taught otherwise. I know that ever since you were a small child you've been told that the Holocaust is something the Jews fabricated to justify taking your land. Well, dear citizen of Gaza, it really happened. Not very long ago. It happened. And guess what? It's NEVER going to happen again. The time in history when Jews were led to slaughter, persecuted, raped and pillaged is over and will never recur.

Never. Now we have our own country. Now we have the bombs. We will never forget what was done to our people and you better not either.

We don't hate you. We don't hate anyone. Jews are a peaceful people. We do not want your land. We don't want oil. We don't want to rape your women or murder your children. We never tried to force our religion on anyone. Our eternal capital, Jerusalem, is open to all faiths to love and to worship. We treat your Arab brothers who live among us as equals. Our hand has been extended to peace with our neighbours since day one. We have proven this time and time again through numerous negotiations and extensive compromise.

We ask only for one thing. Leave us in peace. That's right. We have no other demands. Just leave us in peace. It's as simple as that. If you don't, we will fight back ferociously and mercilessly. We will destroy your homes and your cities. We will make your miserable lives even more miserable. If you don't want this to happen any more, leave us in peace.

Our soldiers are not motivated by hate but by determination. We embrace life and will do anything to preserve it. However, we will kill and die to protect our land and our way of life. That's what they should be teaching in your schools instead of useless lies.

A terrorist is a terrorist. Sorry to be the one to break the news, but it's about time somebody told you that a terrorist is nothing more than a coward. Not a hero. Not a Shahid. There is nothing heroic in blowing yourself up amongst a crowd of woman and children. Anybody can do it. Anybody can hide inside a school or a mosque and blindly fire rockets
into cities, hoping to kill as many babies as possible. There is nothing courageous or admirable in these acts of cruelty. To take pride in an act of terror is pitiful and pathetic. I know you've been raised to believe the contrary, but it is a lie. I have seen how your children are taught to commit suicide. How your suicide bombers are glorified. This is tragically sad. A real hero faces his enemy and doesn't hide in schools and hospitals. A real hero protects his people and will die for them but not among them.

Israel exists and it belongs to the Jewish people. I've seen your school books. I know that Israel has been omitted from your maps. Contrary to what you've been told, the State of Israel really does exist. Look outside your window. We are here and we are not going anywhere. Dear Palestinian neighbour, it's time to deal with the facts. We love our beautiful little country. We will protect it with our lives. You are not getting it. This was explained to you in 1948. You got your country and we got ours. Your arrogant and stupid leaders promised you that you will get the whole thing. Thousands of lives have been lost for nothing. It's NEVER going to happen! While you have been foolishly drooling over our land instead of nurturing your own, we have built one of the most beautiful and successful countries on Earth. We have done it not to spite our greedy neighbours, but rather in spite of them. We've planted forests and quenched the desert. We've drained wetlands and cultivated fields. We built universities, opera houses, superhighways, hospitals, skyscrapers and stadiums. We have millions of refugees, but no refugee camps.

You could do the same. Focus on what you have and not on what you will never have. It takes love, hard work and determination. We can help. We have experts and scientists helping developing nations across the globe. Accept the facts, lay down your weapons and join us in making this great region of the planet even greater.

Remember, we're neighbours.

David Rosenblatt, Sarigim, Israel - Jan. 9th, 2009

---

No virus found in this incoming message.

Leonard Cohen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d-8hxLMOcg

Let's hear a cheer for the relentless Leonard.

COOPERATION?

PIGS.

That's the acronym for Portugal, Italy and Greece because of the fortunes they have each drained from the European Union in recent years.

Spain alone has been given in excess of $245 Billion in the past decade.

Ireland was in the same predicament for many years and the EU monies did an amazing job rebuilding aging and often non-existent infrastructure.

Then, Dublin discovered IT and the island became "overnight" a fabulously productive Have Country.

Spain and its dos amigos, on the other hand, show no signs of similar miracles. Their economies are heavily based on construction projects and tourism. Which Canadian has not enjoyed the sights and tastes and delights of these three beautiful countries in recent years?

Thus, Spain, for example, facing an expected 20% unemployment rate by 2011, is urging local consumers to buy local goods.

All of which - by way of saying this problem is not unique to North America - is to introduce the thorny problem of the distinctly "Buy America" flavour in Obama's bail-out plans.

We exported $11 Billion in steel products to the USA in 2007.

Trade Minister Stockwell Day is raising the alarms about protectionist measures and their dire consequences.

He is hardly alone.

Economist after editorialist echoes these concerns.

Trade wars, closed borders and protectionism lead almost inevitably to plunging economies everywhere.

Obama has a serious problem. He may be a reformer, but he is first a politician and it is the votes of those steel workers that got him into office.

His visit to Canada in just a few weeks will be much more serious than a rock show and window dressing.

Is NAFTA to be scrapped? Is the USA's Homeland Security Office going to make the movement of people and goods across our borders even more onerous?

Will protectionist measures set off a massive confrontation with China?

Hunkering down under wintry weather is understandable. But closing the doors is ill-advised.

Let us watch carefully to see what the most interesting American President in many, many years will be prepared to do in the face of this enormous challenge.

SING ME ANOTHER ONE

A little dust-up at a New Brunswick public school has taken on absurd and national proportions.

Parents complained that their children shouldn't have to take part in the daily singing of the national anthem, which, for the record, is called "O Canada."

The principal of the school, who had any number of responses available, including telling these busy-bodies to go piss up a rope, acquiesced and cancelled the ritual.

Now "the debate" rages.

But I don't even understand the very beginning of this tale.

Why would you complain about your kid singing "O Canada" every morning?

Wassa problem?

We all sang this song every morning at the beginning of class for umpteen silly years and here's the result as far as I can tell.

None of us that I know of has become either a rabid nationalist hiding sin upon sin behind patriotism or a lackadaisical lout without love of and pride in our country.

So your brat will stand on his little feet and sing the song. So effing what?

The parents in Springfield, N.B. were having a melodrama-void day? No extra-marital affairs to begin or conclude? No trips to Aruba to book? No reconfigured curling teams to launch?

THE TRUTH IS IN THE CASH REGISTER

We are at war.

Who knew?

What will be the largest peacetime security operation in Canadian history?

Not the visit of President Obama to Ottawa next month.

No.

It will be the Olympics, of course.

Now the tab for all those 12,000 police, private security folk and members of the armed forces who happen to not be dying in Afghanistan during those 17 days was originally underestimated at $175 Million.

Anyone who knew anything about these matters, like the FBI, fell down laughing at these first numbers.

Clearly this was a typical G. Campbell snow job.

So.

What is the real cost?

Security costs rise five-fold to $1-billion

Imagine how pleasant it might have been if someone had mentioned this six years ago when we were so lucky to be awarded this bonanza.

Total Bah Humbug!

PPP, Your self

Is there a pattern here?

First the Olympic Village and now the Port Mann Bridge.

Turns out the private company that is supposed to be in partnership with Kevin Falcon and the Provincial government to twin the mighty bridge, turns out they may just be running short of bucks.

So, guess what?

I know, you fingered it out, didn't you?

We - that is you and me who pay taxes on everything - we will provide the Macquarie Group a loan for one third the costs of this little project.

Heck, that's only hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now that budgets and deficits and bailouts are routinely quoted in billions and trillions of mind-numbing dollars, what's a paltry $700 Million tween friends and buds?

Gordon Campbell, more than any other public figure I can think of, has trumpeted for years now the glories of P3's or Public-Private Partnerships or, as I like to call them, PPPs or Pee,Pee, Pees.

Nice idea in a bread box somewhere in a kitchen long ago and far away maybe.

But here in the real world what keeps happening to these mighty alliances over and over again with frightening regularity is that the Private guys run mysteriously out of juice and we the taxpayers rush in to save the day. How nice of us.

Minister Falcon assures us - and don't we feel assured by his assurance? - that alles is gut because the tolls will pay for the bridge.

Uh-huh.

The Curious Case of BENJAMIN BUFFOON

THE RONETTES - BE MY BABY

THE THREADLESS BUDGET

Perhaps the BBC blunder was an auger of things to come.

The normally Perfect Broadcasting Corporation offered an hysterically funny miscue the other day.

An interviewer was quizzing someone on the upcoming Canadian budget and what we might expect.

Amazing enough that we colonials would make the Big Time Show.

But what added to the hilarity is that a title was emblazoned across the screen and stayed there for many minutes throughout the chatter.

Here's what it said:

CANDIAN BUDGET

Eh?

When are Candians know to drop an "A?"

Well, now we have our Candian budget, and I am not smart enough to comment in any deep and useful way about all the minutia of this document.

But I do think this.

This is a patchwork, a quilt of unrelated, unthemed, non-ideas.

It is a bit of this and a bit of that with no discernible guiding principles.

It is short-term stuff with no strengthening long-term vision or goals.

It is not horrible; it is just not much of an anything. What we would have called in another era "a dog's breakfast."

I thought the Globe's editorial was sound and much worth a read.

Should Ignatieff and Layton bring down the government on the basis of this document?

Absolutely not.

We have enough on our plates to deal with without the costly and pointless absurdity of yet another election and another government.

Should they harass Harper into fine tuning this budget?

Sure, by all means.

Then, go back to your corners and get on with the business of Parliament.

Such as it is.

THE SAMANDGORD ULTIMATUM

As yet another debt rating agency puts Vancouver into the dark negative column following the Olympic Village mess, I find myself wondering why two or three of the greatest culprits have been mysteriously shmeer-free.

Sam Sullivan.

Gordon Campbell.

Larry Campbell.

I didn't ask for the Olympics. I didn't go to Prague to wave the flag. I didn't blithely sign documents that would indebt the city for years to come on shaky land deals.

Did these three, for example, get some mystical-political get-out-of-jail-free card on this colossal blunder?

Of course, the current Mayor Robertson must work hand in glove with the Province and he not likely to slander or attack the Premier.

He is also a reasonably gracious man and, while he didn't shy away from scrapping with Ladner during the election, he is also unlikely to take unnecessary potshots at Sammy or Larry.

Leave that to me.

I'm just a citizen and a payer of taxes at every turn, who would ask that those responsible for truly bad decisions stand up and be counted.