Monday, January 29, 2007

Gordon Campbell is innocent ...

Gordon Campbell, British Columbia Premier, has told us he is innocent of any corruption regarding his owning shares in Alcan Corporation and giving them a sweetheart deal to produce and sell power to BC Hydro at a huge premium price. Even though their original contract only allowed them to produce enough power to make aluminum. Even though the BC Utilities Commission said Alcan producing hydro power was NOT a good deal for British Columbians. Even though some municipalities tried to block the privatization of our rivers and Campbell brought in Bill 30 to stop ALL protests about private power in BC. He said he didn't KNOW that he owned Alcan stock in his portfolio. We believe him, right? Right?

Michael Campbell, Premier Gordon Campbell's brother, is British Columbia's most respected business and economic analyst. He is well known as the host of Canada's top rated radio business show - Money Talks - heard across the country. Michael also writes the lead business column for the Vancouver Sun three times a week, and is the Senior Business Analyst for Global BCTV News. He has written the National bestseller titled: Cooking the Books With Mike.

We still believe that Gordon knew nothing of Alcan stocks he owned though, right?
Right?
...
Sure.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Bill Good radio talk show

Bill: Welcome back after those 47 commercials. Today we're discussing the poisoning of our water supply. Line two, go ahead ...
Caller 2: Bill, there are all these wild bearded characters up there at Cleveland Dam right now, they've got barrels in their black van and they're pouring something into the water!
Bill: Sorry, but we don't know if those characters are wild just because they have beards. Line five after a break ...
(37 more commercials)
Bill: Line five? Line five? Line four?
Caller 4: We need to educate people about poisons in our water supply, Bill, maybe have a government study into it.
Bill: But do we have any evidence that this poison will harm us? Line six ...
Caller 6: Maybe there's an antidote for poisoned water, Bill. Has anyone done investigations into the long term effects of poisoned water? Maybe we could filter it farther downstream?
Bill: Be right back with more discussion about terrorists and our water.
(63 more commercials)
Bill: You're on, line three ...
Caller 3: My dog just drank some of that water, Bill, and died. We need to do something about this now! Another truck arrived at the dam and they've got masks on and guns!
Bill: That's all the time we have for this segment. We'll be right back to discuss exchanging your Christmas toys.
(129 more commercials)

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Stockwell Day secures Canada's border

Canada has unveiled a major border security and prosperity initiative, saying it would spend more than $432 million over the next five years to protect its borders from terrorist, economic and environmental threats. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day made the announcement on Friday at the Canada-US border crossing between Windsor and Detroit, Michigan, where one-third of the US$1.6 billion in daily trade between the North American neighbors crosses over the Ambassador Bridge or in tunnels beneath the Detroit River.
Wow, they're finally going to stop Americans from coming here and demanding larger portions for breakfast, taking over our companies and closing Canadian companies down, and stopping the pollution spewing from US coal plants from blowing across. (150 more coal fired plants coming on line soon in America, folks, to help the Earth heat up) One assumes a wall or something will prevent Americans from peeking into Canada and finding out that WE are the greatest country in the world.
The whole plan is geared up to implement the eManifest program, which allows for computer-automated risk assessments of cargo shipments before they reach Canada. For instance, someone would be able to send computer data about a coming shipment and label it as 'Fluffy Cute Lil Teddy Bears' for instance, and save all that container checking they're doing now. So when the biker-looking-guy driver of the semi with the tires almost flat from the weight of his cargo arrives at the border, we'll know it's just more Teddy Bears and not guns and wave him through. The trouble with computers is that they can't be programmed to have 'suspicion'.
As far as dangerous terrorists are concerned, they're not actually sneaking into Canada like Mexicans into the American South, our terrorists just fly in and walk away while showing their 'Country of Convenience' Canadian passports.
Besides, one often thinks that the people who are most dangerous to Canada are all in Parliament anyway.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2ng007/01/14/2003344774

Saturday, January 06, 2007

BC Place Stadium

BC Place Stadium is about to come under attack, no, not from the wind storms but from the insidious developers. They are drooling at the possibility of quick riches from condos on the site and could care less about BC Place, the BC Lions or any other event that our stadium hosts. They could care less about Vancouver. Watch for their buzzwords to start ... losing money, leaking roof, high costs of repair, valuable site, bad stadium anyway, not intended for long term, and the worst yet to come; dangerous.
Filled with dreams of money filled sugar plums, these 'developers' will use the latest storm damage to full advantage to convince the powers that be to, "tear the damn thing down and let us build our condos there. You'll find another place for a stadium."

Don't let it happen. BC Place is the envy of other cities that have allowed this talk to take hold and have lost a downtown stadium or arena site. BC Place doesn't have a bad seat in the house, it is an excellent venue for any event we care to have there. Olympic Games, concerts, shows. It is world class. If it needs a new roof, go ahead and put one on! It'll last until 2032! And like it was said when first built, a bargain at that price.

Why am I worried? BC Place Stadium is a division of Pavco (BC Pavilion Corporation), a Crown Corporation of the Province of British Columbia, and we all know now how our provincial government under Gordon Campbell feels about British Columbia's assets: sell 'em off.

It's ours, don't let the whispering money hungry sleazy 'developers', snatch it away, tell THEM to go elsewhere and build their little boxes made of ticky-tacky.
Keep BC Place for Vancouver.