Equity

Jim Sinclair, the President of the B.C. Federation of Labour is a good friend.

Once again, Sinclair has called for a $10 minimum wage.

Quebec just raised its minimum to $9.50.

Ours has been frozen at $8 since 2001.

As you all know, not much has changed in the world economy since then.

Right.

Oh.

Except for Premier Gordon Campbell's take home.

It's only gone up more than 100%.

New Bird in the Sky

Carbon laminates.

Carbon sandwich.

Titanium.

Not only that but it carries 270 people, has larger tinted windows and costs one-third less to operate (read burn fuel) than previous conventional aluminum bodied jetliners.

Which is why the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner is being hailed as "a game changer."

While the Punch 'n Judy Show is holding every one's attention in Copenhagen, scientists and engineers have been doing at least one right thing about reducing some one's "footprint."

I admit it.

I am an airplane nut.

And I am excited to see this baby being released for public viewing.

Although two years late in being brought forth, it is expected to be in full production and on your flight schedules within the year.

I can't wait.

Get Serious

I don't care who built that thing beside the Burrard Street Bridge.

It is ugly and visually offensive.

If it was built by Chassidic Rabbis, Scottish railroad barons, Chinese labourers or land owners, retired show business executives or my Aunt Tilly, it sucks big time.

I drove over the Bridge twice yesterday and twice I was almost shocked by the billboard's aesthetic incongruity.

This perfectly Vancouver scene of rain and grey skies and English Bay and some bare trees and the occasional apartment block suddenly banged into the background by REDS AND BLUES IN ELECTRONIC TECHNOWARP.

Baaaaaaaaad move, folks.

By the way, no file photo that I can find to date does this desecration justice.

I may have to go take my own pic and show it to those of you who have opinions based on theory and not on seeing the full enormity of this garbage.

Traitor

I have a Rabbi friend who really likes Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman.

He feels that Lieberman is an orthodox Jew who is committed to his faith.

That may or may not be so.

But in my books the good senator, an Independent who sits with the Democrats and who seems to change his values as often as Jerry Lewis changes his socks, is a poseur and an unprincipled camera-hogging turncoat.

His latest stunt of almost killing the President's health care reform bill has been disgusting to witness.

Of all things, he has been resisting the "public option" clause.

Yes, god forbid that the 45 million uninsured Americans could have a medical plan like we have in Canada or others have in Sweden, Denmark, France and the U.K.

Once again, to get his whiny kvetchy voice on the air, Lieberman has played cheap political games with people's lives at stake.

Pick a party, Joe.

Pick an idea.

Try sticking with it for longer than lunch.