SHE'S BAAAAAACK...

I really think America has gone mad,

Folks walk into Starbucks with loaded firearms and not only think that's ok, but insist that it is their God-given right.

Maybe they'll shoot you if you disagree.

Maybe you'd enjoy a cup of coffee without Silverado playing out before your eyes.

Folks who don't approve of the President's Health Care reforms REALLY, REALLY, REALLY DON'T APPROVE.

They call this Obamacare and other epithets and they threaten violence against...well, against anyone who disagrees with them, including fools who have had the nerve to run for public office and get elected and vote on what they believe is necessary and good.

And now, Sarah Palin is back.

When she publishes a map targeting districts that need some good Republican votes, she puts the Democratic seat-holders in a rifle cross hairs. She thinks that's cute.

Palin is a scourge and a distraction.

She wouldn't know a cogent thought if she swallowed one.

She has "written" a "book" which 1,000,000 of her fellow Americans have bought and apparently read.

She draws huge adoring crowds wherever she goes.

She is an idiot and housewives and accountants love her.

I used to worship America.

For its movies and its music above all.

And then for its brash open unapologetic style.

I was always flattered when people mistook me for an American.

No longer.

I am afraid to fly from here to anywhere that might involve American air space, let alone touch down somewhere and brave the OK Corral of a coffee shop.

TWIST AND SHOUT

The University of Regina (an oxymoron?) has created Project Hero.

The University will pay tuition and $1000 for the children of fallen service men and women.

OK, so far?

No, no, no.

Not OK.

Sixteen enlightened professors have signed an open letter condemning this horrible act.

You see...by giving children who have lost a parent a little help in their education, the University is unwittingly approving the War in Afghanistan.

Huh?

The only people I know on earth who can twist their kishkas in such knots are academics.

I have been against our participation in Afghanistan from the beginning.

But that has nothing to do with the efforts and sacrifices of soldiers.

Or with the devastating emotional and economic losses to their families.

Some folks at Universities really must find something to do with themselves all day, other than kvetching that they have another course to teach this term. Oy!

Laundry Bin?

24/7

365, I guess.

That would be the working hours of the new hotel-casino complex that will soon be built downtown near B.C. Place.

Is there some other known form of "entertainment" with that kind of licensing, or that kind of business model?

I mean other than hooking?

Listen to the Premier babbling on in all directions at once:

"We do have a better quality of casino which actually provides, I think, for entertainment opportunities, cultural opportunities..."

Cultural opportunities?

He's always opening some new giant gaggle or other, while quietly - oh so quietly - closing down dental care for poor children.

And have you seen the model for this playground?

Ugly, unimaginative, architecture from the '50s.

Come on...how about a giant bagel or dollar bill.

Where's the water slide?

Victor on American Health Care

Dennis Hopper is dying of prostate cancer. He weighs 100 pounds. He
made his first movie in 1955 and worked for the next 50 years.

According to reports, his lawyer says he makes $58,000 a year from
residuals and his treatments are taking all of it. He is a pauper
living in a Hollywood mansion.


His story underlines some of what was wrong with the US health care
system and why legislation was needed. But not in the way it is being
sold through the media by the Democrats.

Much of the media coverage depicts the new legislation as aiding the
economically oppressed, those on welfare. Not so. The poor, without
incomes were fine. Medicaid covered them. That's why if you visit LA
or Chicago for a weekend you are not stepping over the decomposing
bodies of human trash who shoot eachother every Saturday night. None
have an insurance plan. None have a job. All are treated.

Same goes for the aged. All are covered by free health care and the
American public pension plan is far,far richer than Canada's.

The real problem was with people like Mr. Hopper. Although he worked
as an actor for 50 years, it was never really a job. So he had no
health care plan. And he probably never thought of it until cancer
struck, at which time he was over 60 and no insurance company would
touch him. And since he had an income, albeit a trifle of his big
earnings days, he didn't qualify as poor. So, as Charles Dickens might
have said, if he made $58,000 a year but his care cost more than that,
he was still considered solvent. Insane.

Similarly, a 62 year old American, working at a factory, who had a
good health plan, and lost his job also lost his health care. And
because he was 62, no insurance company would touch him and he didn't
qualify as poor until his severance ran out and he spent all his
savings.

So this had nothing to do with the non-working poor. They were already
covered. It is not going to address the black-white-hispanic divide.
It will hopefully address the situation of people who, through no
fault of their own, lose their benefits after a life of earning a
living.

It will also force the gormless young to buy health insurance if they
get a job. And that's overdue. I once sat in a bagel shop in San
Jose , in 2004, where there was a sign in the window offering
employment for a server at $7 an hour plus medical benefits. I asked
the owner how he could provide health care for a $7 an hour worker. He
replied, " Well, I'll be hiring a healthy 20 year-old and they cost
bugger all for health care. I can cover them for peanuts and they
won't buy it themselves".

About 25 per cent of those uncovered by health care in the USA fall
into that category.

There is a little bit Dennis Hopper in all of us. We go through life
ignoring two immutable facts. (1) We will get old. (2) We will lose
many options as a result of (1).

I am not an Obama fan and loathe his oratorical excesses. But
something had to be done. No matter how imperfect. It is said that the
state can't be expected to protect us from our stupidity. Well, since
stupidity is the most widely shared human trait, maybe that is the
state's job. When great civilizations built walled cities in ancient
times, they would compel the blissfully ignorant peasants who were
farming outside the walls, to come inside the walls in times of crisis.

Stupidity was not a death sentence then. It shouldn't be today.

Blue, Blue Herons

A kind commenter has found the Stanley Park Blue Herons.

You can find them as well at this website:

http://www.greatervancouverparks.com/StanleyHeronColony01.html

or...head over to the Park.

TWEETY TWEE

Apology and Greeting

My main computer is in the shop getting a shampoo and set today.

Which means that I have generated today's blog on my trusty little mini-machinka.

Which means that I don't have my email lists available.

So if you have found your way here, thanks for making the effort, and...

How the hell are you?

THE BLACK HOLE

The B.C. government says subsidies for housing in the city's poorest neighbourhood have been diverted to cover the administrative costs of an outspoken advocacy group, the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, and to help pay rent for ineligible tenants in subsidized housing in the community.

The list of allegations is long and it is damning.

I encourage you to read the entire article and take a hard look at what is being charged., because if even half is true, it is sickening.

It is also important to remember that $1 Million a day in taxpayers' money is poured into that sinkhole known as the DTES.

No one that I know of has ever asked to see what the "outcomes" are for this outrageous misuse of public funds.

And this set of charges against one of the cherished "babies" of the DYTES must represent only the tip of the iceberg.

You cannot tell me that with that much free money going into this living urban nightmare - run often by shrieking advocacy groups - that corruption, graft, personal dealings, skimming and rimming aren't the norm.

Where is the Board of Directors of DERA?

Where are the checks and balances on so much money going into such a small and dismal space?

The Tracks of My Tears

No train...

38 k of unused track...

$10 Million in executive pay in the last six years...

And that's since the whole thing was sold.

Now...wait for it...

$600,000 in severance for two guys who are leaving this tough job.

This is your Gordon Campbell government.

This is your B.C. Rail.

Does the word "corruption" ring a bell?

The appropriately named Shirley Bond is the Minjister of Transportation.

She says this ia all good.

Is her word her Bond?

Is she Bond, Shirley Bond?

Can she leap The Truth in a single bound?

Wait.

I was wrong.

There is a train.

It's...

THE GRAVY TRAIN.

Wooo wooooo....

Curiouser and Curiouser

Where's Joseph Heller when you really need him?

In a move straight out of "Catch 22," the federal government has come up with some new GST rules.

Now, if you want help on your taxes...you will be taxed!

Hahahaha...

Does no one in RevCan have a sense of humour?

Read the story and then close your company and go back to being an individual taxpayer.

This is how the people in the know encourage business in Canada.

Not Mary Richards

"Ordinary People" is one of the best movies ever made in America.

Robert Redford directed this family drama in 1980 and the movie won 4 Oscars, including Best Picture.

Whenever it show up on television, I find myself unable to not watch it.

And no matter how many times I see the movie, the last line and the last moment always reduce me to a sobbing mess.

What is particularly astounding is the performance of Mary Tyler Moore as the mother.

Moore was nominated for Best Actress, but was up against the marvelous work of Sissy Spacek that year in "Coal Miner's Daughter.' Spacek, channeling Loretta Lynn, won.

Spacek was deserving of her award, but it was a shame that these two towering performances had to compete with one another.

Mary Tyler Moore should have been given a shelf full of awards for this work.

What is really scary is that I know this woman.

I mean the utterly enclosed and frozen and self-involved mother that Moore played in the movie.

I had a friend for a great many years that, in time, I could no longer count among my friends or even see for a cup of coffee and she was this character in the flesh.

Jolly, friendly, jokey and completely false in every way.

Ultimately cold and distancing and destructive.

"Ordinary People" is one of the most simple and direct and honest movies I've ever seen.

If you don't know it, head over to your neighbourhood video store before it runs out of business.

You're in for a treat.

Face Values

"Here in Quebec we receive and we give services with our face uncovered"

And with that simple declaration, the Province has tabled a bill requiring Muslim women to show their faces in all government locations, including schools, hospitals and daycares.

This basically bans the niqab from much of public life.

The hijab - a partial veil - and other religious symbols like crosses and the Star of David are not a part of this initiative.

Why has Quebec stepped over the fences of political correctness to do this?

"...because they disrupt personal interactions, and makes it hard to identify and communicate with people."

The Premier, Jean Charest, says that this is an issue of secularism and gender equality.

I salute him.

Robert Culp

He was so peculiarly himself, that you either liked him or you didn't.

I thought he was a terrific actor and I always enjoyed watching him.

Although he achieved his most popular fame and exposure on the "I Spy" TV series, it was his 1972 movie "Hickey and Boggs" that I thought was among his best work.

Culp directed the film and co-starred again with Bill Cosby.

The movie was uneven, but it was gritty and daring and beautifully acted by the two principals and a very young James Woods.

Culp was the kind of signature actor that if you knew he was in something, you made a point of getting out the house to go and see it.

The End is Nigh

If you want to read a great piece on how marvelously the Campbell government is doing preparing for its own demise, you must check out Bill Tieleman's latest blog entry:

Gordon Campbell leads BC Liberals into political Hurt Locker - prepare for casualties

As usual, Tieleman nails it.

100 % Wrong

The B.C. government's cuts to a dental program for low-income children will mean funding only half the preventative care.

Hahahahaha...

This is so outrageous, so egregious a move by such a heartless, shoot-itself-in-the-ass government that all you can do is laugh.

Cut dental care for poor children?

What is this - Dickens' London?

Then, to add insult to injury, when told that MLA's and civil servants get full dental coverage, Rich Coleman, Minister of Housing and Social Development, dismissed the comparison between Healthy Kids and the program for elected officials because MLAs contribute to their plan.

“That's co-pay, to start,” he said, while the government pays 100 per cent of the Healthy Kids plan.

In fact, B.C. MLAs don't pay for their dental plan, B.C.'s legislative comptroller Dan Arbic confirmed yesterday. “The dental plan for MLAs is the same as for public servants. It's 100-per-cent employer funded.”

Too bad, the good Minister doesn't know his own rules.

The government plan does fully cover twice-yearly dental checkups for the children of MLAs.

So the solution is simple.

For those children who have poor parents and rotting teeth, here's your plan.

Get your parents elected to government and then you can all have nice teeth!

See, everything is simple in Beautiful British Columbia!

Speak Up

Francois Houle has got to go.

He is the "vice-president academic and provost" for the University of Ottawa.

Quite a mouthful.

Failing utterly to understand, among other things, his role in a democratic Western society, Houle took it upon himself to send a friendly warning letter to someone who was about to be a guest speaker at his institution.

The speaker was a right-wing American shrieker cum clown cum entertainer cum 'journalist' whose name is Ann Coulter.

That's of the Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh Coulters.

So what?

We don't have to like or agree with or approve of every dog and pony show that comes our way.

But in a community that claims to pride ourselves on the protections of free speech, we honor that fading idea in action.

Coulter wants to speak, let her.

You want to disagree, carry on.

That's what we call democracy.

What we don't do - what people in places of power in swarms that call themselves "institutions of higher learning" - is send warning letters to such speakers about what they may or may not say.

It was my great displeasure to watch an infamous holocaust denier spew his lethal garbage all over the daily TV program of which I was the host (Oddly enough, also in Ottawa).

I then looked at the camera and voiced my disgust and dismay and sadness that this man must be heard.

Management was not happy with me, but that's their problem, isn't it?

Ann Coulter had to cancel her speech because the authorities feared violence.

Houle has disgraced his position, his University and our country.

Time to open that hot dog stand on the Kona Coast.

The Health Care List from "Underemployed Guy"

Here are a few ideas that don't easily fit into your questionnaire:

a) create more employment (and more taxes!);
b) reduce waste;
c) improve self-care and preventative programs (return sports funding);
d) license more foreign-trained specialists;
e) heavy fines for corporations that have large numbers of health-care claims;
f) cap doctors' billings and set minimum service levels;
g) a wage freeze for top-tier union employees (as part of a pay equity program);
h) bring back reference-based drug pricing;
i) place new doctors (& nurses & technicians?) in rural or northern communities for their first five years of service;
j) higher taxes on cigarettes, booze & gambling;
k) re-introduce the precautionary principle in genetic/pharmaceutical research (this causes greater problems than most people realize);
l) 100% user pay for purely cosmetic surgeries;
m) legalize and tax marijuana;
n) more peer-support for mental health patients;
o) develop humane euthanasia policies (that's a toughie!);
p) freeze tuition fees for "the healing professions";
q) allow people to pay (lots!) to jump waiting lists (including foreigners, who pay double lots);
r) huge crippling fines for any industrial toxic waste in the environment;
s) stricter enforcement of existing environmental laws;
t) free dental care for children;
u) government dental insurance for adults;
v) stop over-prescribing drugs;
w) make the Canadian Food Inspection agency answerable to the public, not industry;
x) promote volunteerism;
y) promote civil discourse;
z) and do something nice every day.

More Malcolm

The gentleman in question later sent me several "in house" technical videos of light rail operations. As well when I faxed him for information (which he always courteously replied to me) was to a the head office of a large transit concern.

The only city that has copied Vancouver's SkyTrain "light-metro" philosophy was Seattle and their new hybrid light rail/metro system is a costly fiasco.

Who else copies Vancouver - no one, I wonder why?

Most transit experts I talk to (and I have talked to a lot), who live outside of the lower mainland, have all echoed the same phrase: "the problem you have in Vancouver is SkyTrain!"

With a metro system where 80% of its customers first take a bus before using it, is an indication of massive problems.

The problem with SkyTrain is that the region is funding a hugely expensive metro system, that is operating on routes that do not have the ridership to support it. The result:

A $230 million+ annual subsidy (not including the Canada Line), which means every higher fares and taxes to pay for it.

You can continue to build with SkyTrain, but be prepared for larger property tax increases and higher fares to pay for it! There comes a point of taxpayer exhaustion, then what?

And Our Own House?

On the day that President Obama will sign into law the new Health Care document in Washington, it might serve us well to look at our own problems.

Health-care spending in Canada now typically consumes more than 40 per cent of provincial budgets, and will account for half of all spending within a few years. Left unchecked, health care will eat up three-quarters of every dollar spent by a province 25 years from now.
Sixty-two per cent of seniors in six provinces are taking five or more prescription drugs each day.

Guilty as charged.

Cést moi.

So what are we to do?

We have a system that is bloated, costly and often unequally delivered from district to region.

In most ways, it is magnificent and it works.

But it is clearly bursting at the seams.

Take a look at the SURVEY in the right hand column and give me your cogent thoughts, please.