Hope it’s a nice weekend weatherwise :)

I see a new political party calling themselves the “None of the Above” Party has started up in Ontario. They are running some candidates in their June 12 Provincial Election.

The following is the link to this new party’s website:

http://nota.ca

A recent news article about the party:

‘None-of-the-above’ movement growing

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/05/28/none-of-the-above-movement-growing

It may be a bit backwards, but apparently this is how things are done in Prince George. Installed on Wednesday afternoon of this week, there is a temporary video camera at the intersection of Dominion and Fourth Ave, it’s there to do a traffic count of the intersection activity before the road work is done (this is the switching from 3 lane one way on Fourth to single lane two way traffic. Now as strange as that may be, one would think that before making this proposed brilliant change in traffic flow. Coming up with the great artistic rendering of what it will look like and all the public fluff statements from city hall, someone might have thought about doing the research before coming up with this grand plan.

Just a point of observation, Monday through Friday in just the block between Quebec and Dominion on Fourth Ave alone there is a substantial amount of traffic flow on all three lanes of roadway heading east bound alone. Clearly this last minute traffic assessment is being done possibly to cover someone’s butt. Changing this street to two way traffic will create some serious traffic flow issues. It’s bad enough that someone from out of town who doesn’t know the street (this has been observed several times this month alone) will go the wrong way up Fourth Ave (partially to do with the fact the city has no posted “wrong way signs” anywhere on this street.

Why the roadway change in the first place? Well ultimately it all has to do with “Castle Grey Skull”, (the lavish new RCMP building). They have a driveway and gate off of Fourth Ave., which would only be accessible from Fourth Ave east, bound. Once the street is converted to two way traffic this access point will become more useful allowing the members to enter and exit from east or west of Fourth Ave. So make the RCMP happy, convert the street to two way traffic, dress up the intersections a bit and sell it to the public as civic improvements. Just thought I would put that out there for some healthy debate.

3rd avenue has nothing feeding it and its main draws all have off street parking… other than that the east end is completely dead so they can get away with going two-way.

4th however is the main feeder route into the downtown core. Traffic will always be heavy heading east on 4th and most of this traffic makes left hand turns between Victoria and George. Clearly this is going to cause back up issues if its only one lane east and its plugged up with people waiting for west traffic so they can make a left handed turn… and vice versa the other way.

I think the only way it can work is if there is two east bound lanes, one as essentially a long left turn lane, and the other as a through lane to keep traffic moving. If they have that figured out than this is just a big waste of money is all, but if they don’t have that figured out than good luck getting anywhere on 4th. It will be like Queensway with all the stupid lights, but with actual traffic too.

Time Will Tell

And I wish Telus would stop calling me every single day at all hours about their promotions. Why do they not have to follow do not call rules? And how did they get my number in the first place….

The Telus number they call from is interesting. A 604 number, so from Vancouver, but sounds off shore. If one calls it back as 604, then there is a message to add the 1 before the 604. Fair enough, so one dials with the 1-604 and one gets a message that this number does not require a 1 before the 604. So they have created a perpetual feed back loop here not available to any other telemarketers… therefore its great for them because they don’t have to take call backs or answer to their own attempt to invite themselves into ones home.

I wonder do they do this to their own customers too, or is this reserved only for their competition? It seems like an abuse of their access to infrastructure to me.

Anyone notice a Senior American Navel officer disclosed this week that the pings the Australians were using for their search turned out the be a fake.

This is the biggest news yet on MAL flight 370. The frequency of the pings detected on three occasions were off the frequency that should have been received… therefore this Navel officer leaked that they were fakes of the real thing. Who would do that….

Then we have the Australian navy coming out and saying with certainty they have cleared the entire search area of the pings, and found no debris.

So we are left with, based on these limited known facts, a scenario whereby someone planted the pings with the possible criminal intent of directing the search efforts on a fruitless chase. Who would do such a thing unless they really didn’t want that plane found, and needed all efforts focused on the wrong area?

Not a surprise at all to me. Soon, maybe as long as two years from now we will have either found the plane, or be able to rule out the Southern Ocean. At which point we will find out what happened, or we will know it is the absolute worst case scenario with state actors involved and still have a mystery to be solved.

A sub, of which many navy’s have, or a plane, could easily deliver a false pinger to the ‘crash site’… to keep everyone looking there. Its a huge red flag, because if the plane search was interfered with, than good chance the plane itself was intercepted for nefarious reasons. Maybe a submarine intercept on open waters… maybe its in Diago Garcia, but I doubt it. I don’t think the Americans are involved.

Time Will Tell

And the police station IMO should never have been located where it is, for a number of good reasons include that which is raised in the above opinion by Professional of the 4th avenue changes.

I just think above all it was a waste of one of the best most prime future commercial properties int he downtown core to attract private investments to PG with.

I think further down Victoria near Ron Brent would have been a better location.

Hey that article is interesting Charles. I have never heard of a declined ballot (one that is not marked) being counted. I wonder if BC has that law, and I’ll have to look into it.

The declined ballot would sure do away with the protest vote and deny one a reason not to vote. I could see it winning the election in these parts. With 28% turnout maybe it would show where the true intentions of the voter really are, and deny a clean mandate by those that haven’t earned it.

That said the ‘None-of-the-above-party’ is a gimic joke and it would be really funny if ‘None-of-the-above-party’ got beaten in the polls by the actual declined ballot count. That would show some real electoral smarts IMO.

———————–

Technically, you can shun them all, and send a message to boot.

The law allows you to march into that polling station, get your ballot, then hand it back unmarked. They have to record your rejection as “none of the above.”

But no one knows that. Political parties sure don’t tell you.

Of course, you can spoil your ballot, doodle on it, pee on it, or burn it. You’ll feel better — then go to jail for public indecency or arson.

There’s a more civilized option.
————

Charles: “Nevada voters have a “None of these candidates” option on ballots.”

Great idea for our upcoming municipal election in November!

BTW, every poll should have that option, rather than ask for instance: Do you favour a 10%, 20% or 30& cut of your pay?

The parking at the hospital is still atrocious. What happened to the angle parking idea suggested by NHA?

The City takes no responsibility for their actions.

Remember it was them that made 4th avenue a one way street in the first place, and had all the information they needed to support this idea. Now they do the reverse and have all the information to support the reverse decision.

Same thing with the garbage transfer on 18th Avenue and Quinn. This facility cost us huge dollars, however it was promoted and built by the City at that location. Later they state that they can save some money by closing the station, and the sani dump, and having us take our garbage to foot hills. In the meantime the facility sits empty. So again two different decisions on the same project and as far as the City is concerned both are the right decisions. Problem is both cost us hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.

Anyone who thinks that closing down the transfer station was to save money is living in a dream world. It was more about getting more property in that area for the City and their new office building etc;, We can expect more to come in this area in the not too distant future.

4th Avenue changes are all about the Police Station not anything else, however the cost will not be attached to the cost of building this monolith.

Anyone had no name calls from 000-000-0000?? Who is this? Comments..

So will a Canadian team ever win the Stanley again?

Git r dun, wouldn’t know who that is, but if you answer it, you will likely see a charge on your phone bill.

Seamutt, Yes a Canadian team will win the Stanley Cup…. Toronto Maple Leafs.

giterdun asked Anyone had no name calls from 000-000-0000
—————
Yes we did two days ago. I think its Telus.

Canadian Teams always win the Stanley Cup. They just happen to be based in a US city.

Keep Right Except To Pass.

Speaking of 4th Avenue, a bunch of us got stuck behind some doofus this morning who decided he needed to take up two lanes. Not only that, he decided to take them both while doing 40.

@Eagleone

Shaw continuously calls my house to tell me how crappy my service from Telus is. I simply say I like my crappy service. Telus calls sometimes for a customer satisfaction survey. I always tell them to stop giving away free crap to new customers and that way you could charge less to all their customers.

I really like a service that they have called “Do Not Disturb”. You program your phone service to shutdown and turn on at certain times of day. You can program the numbers you want to come through of give your friends/family members a code that they can enter when prompted. It works great! Maybe your service provider has something similar.

Got my property tax notice in the mail yesterday. Yikes!

No water and sewer where I live. Garbage collection is the only thing on my street that is consistent. Snow removal 2 times a winter and no street cleaning and no pavement in most of the area.

Great, just great. Maybe I could join the Haldi group and get into Regional District….

Haha axman…Any chance there is paint lines on the road? I am teaching my daughter to drive and I never really noticed how many multi lane roads have no bloody road lines. Sure makes me nervous driving with her and there is no guidance to keep in your lane.

do you still have to pay for parking at the hospital with veteran plates?

During a time when Colin K was running for mayor there was a protest vote against him and by law all the ballots not marked had to be counted. They were counted but only after the protest voters demanded to know the count, the numbers was mentioned only once. By the way there was more non marked ballots than marked.

Posted by: only2c on May 30 2014 9:31 AM
Haha axman…Any chance there is paint lines on the road? I am teaching my daughter to drive and I never really noticed how many multi lane roads have no bloody road lines. Sure makes me nervous driving with her and there is no guidance to keep in your lane.

———

Paint? On Prince George streets? Haha… Maybe they’ll paint them in August.

But if you’re driving 1.5 ~ 2 meters away from the parked cars you need to ask yourself why.

@graymare

You must be an old wife,cause that sure sounds like an old wife’s tale.

Here are the civic election results from 1999-2011 and I sure don’t see anything even close to what you have suggested.

http://princegeorge.ca/cityhall/elections/Pages/Results.aspx

4th avenue is busy during the day. Don’t change it to a 2 lane road. Here is a suggestion, repave it and put some lines on it. It hasn’t had lines on it for 2 years!

4th avenue is busy during the day. Don’t change it to a 2 lane road. Here is a suggestion, repave it and put some lines on it. It hasn’t had lines on it for 2 years!

Looking beyond our city limits I have this idea based on what the media tells me and that it is not a good time to be a women in India. And to a minute lesser degree a lot of other s—hole countries that don’t value women as equals. I’m sure that women and girls in India really now go out of their way to avoid eye contact with men and boys and will never look at any tree the same again. Then in our country we have Justin agreeing to sex selective abortions. IMO I think his father Mick would be very disappointed with his kid. What am I going to do about all this? Looking forward to a Cougars comeback and hey, isn’t that new Google driverless car great?

For all those that are concerned about my posts concerning PG on this blog be informed that we lived in PG for over 30 years and finally decided that we had enough and move to Abbotsford. We look back on PG now and wonder why we put up with all the crap from your great City Hall that has taken place under the current Mayor.

And if DR Clifford is such a great person why doesn’t he try and get our medical system out of the crap that its in and it doesn’t matter what ever our provincial Government does it for political reason. They are shameless.
Cheers

curious retired 2, why doesn’t abbotsford haul their recycle to the richmond harvestpower facility?

http://www.harvestpower.com/bc/

ewitt, it was done, and counted but then forgotten. It was never posted. That is what made people mad, they had contacted City Hall, were told that blank ballots would count and then found out that they would not post the blank ballots.

Was at Wendy’s Drive Thru today.
Was asked to donate a $1.00 for something.
I gladly did BUT I was NOT HAPPY that after I got home I see I got Charged TAX on this Donation–because of that–I will NEVER donate again.
The Government already gets enough of my hard earned money–I don’t need to get Taxed on my Donation!

@graymare

Have to call bs on that fable. If there were that many spoiled ballots the numbers would be reflected in the number of ballots given out when you sign in vs ballots counted for the mayoral candidates and the headline in the paper would have been Record Voter Turnout!

The city has no way to hide ballots as everything has to be registered with the province. If you know the year this supposedly happened post it and I will track the numbers down from the online provincial archives.

@oneofakind
I would think that it was a problem with whoever programmed the code to track the donations forgot to include that it was tax exempt.. Give them a call and I bet it will get straightened out

@ retired 02

Abbotsford is a great place to stop and get enough cheap gas to get to somewhere better. Last time we were there took the time to pose for some photos at the Home of the Bacon Brothers sign and statue. Nice touch the arsenal of fake weapons that you can use in the photos so you can pretend to be a Fraser Valley gangster, I picked the AK47 and there was not a red scorpion left alive when I was done.

Turning back to the big topic of the week, the teachers strike i noticed that one person who seems to have vanished into the witness protection program is the guy who had to take over as leader of the ndp cause no one else wanted the job.

You would think that one reporter would track him down and stick a microphone under his nose and ask what he would do given present circumstances. As a guy who wants to lead the province i think it would be a fair question to ask him and one deserving a full and detailed response.

@oneofakind

This whole donation at the store is one big scam. Here’s how it works, you get no benefit for the donation other than feeling good for a few moments. The business that’s collecting the cash gets a big tax write off for the donation they actually never paid into, because it was the customers who paid into the donation not the business collecting it. Dirty scam.

I would go back to Wendy’s and ask for your tax back or the tax and the donation back, they can’t legally charge tax on donations.

@Professional

I do not think that is the case, don’t have time to look for exact chapter and verse but on quick glance it looks like they can only claim if they are matching donations taken at the till and then only for the actual portion they chip in.

They do get free good publicity when the big check is presented with their company logo front and center but I’m sure that the groups receiving the check are fine with that.

@Hart Guy

tunataka wote bora translation ” We wish you all the best “in Swahili But i’m sure you already knew that.

Hart Guy, your account has apparently been hacked. Better change your password.

Hart Guy, there are enough of a human interest story elements in your great post that it might pay to have it evaluated for a potential Hollywood movie script.

:-)

It’s like April Fools all over again.

Yesterday (Wednesday)) I popped into the seniors centre on 10th Ave. for lunch. I ate and decided not to waste time waiting around for the guest speaker, being the “Seniors Advocate”. Being me, if I was there, I would have asked her two questions. The first question being, “How much money do you earn being a “seniors advocate?” After probably being told it was none of my business, (taxpayer dough) my next question would have been “Do you have the power to change things?” Upon a negative reply, as expected, I would then consider the lady just a monkey on a leash extending to Victoria where the organ grinder is grinding away. After reading about the event in the Citizen (which I do not subscribe to) I felt bad about the sincerity wasted by several seniors laying out their personal plights of neglect and hurt in their lives courtesy of the government of the day to this appointed lady. Who can do nothing. Nothing about seniors will change. So why bother with “advocates” for anything? It is to laff if it wasn’t so sad.

OMG, I’ve been HACKED!!!!

Either that, or someone has registered using my “handle”!!

It’s true, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!!

@Hart Guy: How can someone register under an already existing handle?

Looks like our favorite poster has created another moniker.

Lots of nastiness on this blog lately. I wish we who post on this blog could just stick to talking about and debating the issues instead of taking cheap shots at one another.

In the words of Rodney King “Can we all (just) get along”

Hart Guy the redux did get one thing wrong HB and BH are well know to each other,two peas in a pod, flip sides of the same coin. Here is a recent picture taken not far from the bridge and I think you’ll have to agree peeps has never looked more radiant! Got a bun in the oven peeps?

http://danrileyentertainmentgroup.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/6237-troll-couple.jpg

JB and HumanBeing,

It’s me, the real Hart Guy, the right wing nut who has no use for Unions and Lefties!!

Not sure how someone can register under an already existing handle, but I can assure you that I am not moving to Africa!

I never got my feelings hurt a few months back. My skin is much too thick for that!

Can’t believed that I get accused of becoming bitter, resentful and spiteful, especially considering that in another recent thread, I made the comment that I did state that I do believe that the majority of teachers are hard working people, just like the majority of us.

I’m no saint but I’m not so bad either, haha!

Guess I just ruffled some Peoples feathers!

Last year I got hacked here too. Somebody had a lot of fun manipulating my 250 email activity. I don’t know how they do it but it was a Trojan Downloader. Comes with the Internet. I just heard Facebook wants to do the same as Google, monitoring user activity at home via the microphone and the camera in the PC or laptop. 1984! George Orwell predicted it in his famous novel!

Ok, password changed! I’m back and as grumpy and miserable as ever, haha!

Avoiding facebook is a good thing if you are at all worried about privacy and they keep burying the settings to regain control in harder to find places.

Another excellent way to stay safe is to avoid Microsoft products all together, poorly coded bloatware, look at XP even after all those years they were still finding security holes you could drive a truck through.

I would highly recommend trying one of the Linux distros, latest Ubuntu one has a great GUI and you can run it off a live CD to test it out without installing anything, might have to change boot order setting in BIOS so cd drive is above hard drive….Better yet is is free! http://www.ubuntu.com/
I run dual boot with window so I can run some cad programs I got years ago.

If you have more money Apple IOS is another way to go.

To limit tracking DuckDuckGo rather that Google for search engine as they guarantee they do not track. A browser addon like NoScript also helps limit how much you are being tracked

The only way we can be sure that is really you Hart Guy is as a heading for each post you make type:

I heart Christy Clark!

You owe it to yourselves and your families to watch on YouTube Fed Up trailer . And watch the documentary . Big sugar is killing millions .

I really miss Gus.

I really miss Gus as well, and lonesome sparrow, just in case you are wondering, yes, I heart Christy Clark!

1) How come all the streets haven’t been swept yet??? They didn’t get enough of a raise???

2) Why are a lot of Events happening in town not posted anywhere but become NEWS after the event happening??

3) When are we gonna get 1300 name petition so all the potholes can be repaired

Anyways I was just thinking it sure would be nice to get some updates on the Commonwealth and NDI trust lawsuit. Is the money going to be paid back and will this court case involve any of the candidates in the up coming municipal election?

Harbinger I take offense to you insulting Mick the way you did.