First post – happy Friday everyone

A posting I made on the “Premier Skips Annual PG Event” Thursday morning was removed. My comment was something along the lines that the intelligence level of the event was now raised. There was no harm intended, it was more of a joke. I realize that 250 is going through a transition period, but that should not include the loss of free speech.

Hey folks. With spring in full bloom please keep an eye out for motorcyclists when you’re driving.

Have a great weekend.

IBear.. It isn’t free speech on someone’s website..they have their rules that we have to follow when we post.

Smokers.. Had a lovely surprise the other day.. Leaving my doctors office I got in the elevator once the young lady got off and all the way down I had the pleasure of it stinking of cigarettes. Was disgusting .. I know it’s an addiction..but please air yourself out so us who choose not to smoke don’t have to inhale it. I would have gotten off the elevator but it was the only one in service and stairs are not an option to me at this time.

Speaking of smokers, why are you throwing them out your car windows? Hopefully it’s your home and property that burns up from the resulting wildfire. Use your bloody grey matter! I use a dashcam during my daily driving adventures. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I have recorded. If you have a Canada Cartage, Can Am West Carriers or Waste Management truck in your rear view mirror you best be pulling over to guard your lives. Passing on double solids on hills and corners, running you out of road at the end of passing lanes is common with this gang.

I had a KVS concrete 1 ton pass me going down Mud river hill the other day at the same location a Canada Cartage truck lost control and almost took out the Mud river bridge this past winter while passing a YRB sand truck travelling down the hill. He had the hwy closed for 4 hours.

Forgot to mention the Bandstra truck # 231 that passed me going around the corner right in front of Bednesti as well. Bandstra refused to talk to me regarding the issue. I guess they approve of how their drivers roll!

I realize that 250 is going through a transition period, but that should not include the loss of free speech.

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You’re misunderstanding what “free speech” means. In Canada it’s referred to as “freedom of expression” and doesn’t allow for one to make libelous statements on a public forum.

Smokers.. Had a lovely surprise the other day.. Leaving my doctors office I got in the elevator once the young lady got off and all the way down I had the pleasure of it stinking of cigarettes. Was disgusting .. I know it’s an addiction..but please air yourself out so us who choose not to smoke don’t have to inhale it. I would have gotten off the elevator but it was the only one in service and stairs are not an option to me at this time.

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What’s with those smokers who smoke while standing in front of public doorways? They’ll give you a dirty look almost defying you to challenge them.

Have to take my 13 year old German shepherd for his final vet visit. He has been blind since the age of 2, but lived a fun and active life. I ran everywhere in town with him. Tough day. Peace-out.

So sad Jimmy Hughes. Always hard to lose our best friend.

Sorry as well Jimmy. Recently had to put down a cat I had for 17 years…lousy day for sure :(

Thanks for the clarification on posts on websites people. Sorry to you as well Jimmy, it’s tough to lose a member of your pack.

Jimmy, I hope your weekend is filled with fond memories of your four legged friend.

Is anyone else dumbfounded as to why the city needs to build a park at the WIDC when there is great greenspace roughly 100m away at the city hall lawns?

The possibilities are endless for other uses of that land that could bring revenues into the city.

Sorry for your loss, Jimmy. We are getting closer to that day with our beloved dog too.

verballabel. maybe someone is looking for a place to hang a plaque with their name on it.

Jimmy, cherish all the memories of the good times you and your good friend had together! Tough day for sure, it happened to us and it still brings tears to our eyes so many years later!

Namaste.

The Burkes Mountain land sale in the Coquilteam region is sure a good deal for the financial donators to the Liberal party. They got the land for approximately $50,000,000. Less than the market appraisal value. These were Crown Assets that were previously paid for and owned by taxpayers of BC. The current BC Liberals are extremely disingenuous. You cannot in good conscience vote for these particular people in future. They are ruining the province for 99% who live here.

Sorry to hear that Jimmy. Think of the good memories.

Sometimes doing the hard thing, is doing the pet a favor.

The moderators here can do as they wish, but to clarify the law, a comment about the premier’s absence from an event raising the intelligence level is unlikely to be actionable as defamation. The reason is that it would probably be construed by a court as opinion (e.g. saying that the premier is a dork) rather than fact (e.g. saying that the premier committed a crime).

Jimmy,

Sorry to hear about your dog. People without pets often underestimate how important those family members are. I got a couple myself, I complain about how much work they are and how the rain is so cold when it’s time to walk them, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Go for a run this weekend and remember the wonderful adventures you had with your special buddy.

VJ

This is a personal observation. I teach for a living and I have noted a trend in the past 20 years where students are always looking for the right answer. They invariably answer a question with the right answer or no answer; they refuse the right to be wrong and learn from their mistakes.

At first glance this doesn’t seem to be a bad thing, but the scientific method is NOT built on being right, it is built on finding evidence to back up your reasoning, and then having it challenged ad nauseam until it fails, then reassessing the data.

Too often I read papers and talk to students who are unable to say, “this is a best guess, but I believe _____ because of ______.”

You learn far more from corrected failures then unchallenged successes.

(and no, I haven’t been a teacher for 20 years, but I have always been interested in teaching and mentoring.)

The true test of education is the ability to adapt using old tools to reassess new problems; that old saw about critical thinking is, just that, critical.

If you have gotten this far, I apologize for my horrible writing, this just a stream of consciousness rant, and I very rarely enjoyed English classes (unfortunately).

VJ

Interesting point vodoo. When I taught at college the obsession was with what is going to be on the exam – not, I really need to learn this material for my future work life. The focus was just on passing and moving on to the next course. Not mastering the material and gaining knowledge.

My father made an interesting observation – if a doctor only needs 60% to pass, what if your problem is in the 40% he apparently didn’t know :)

Personally, I’m going to start learning Mandarin so that I may be of use to those running the world in the future.

You are wasting your time Maxima . The electorate is an idiot .

Re: transport trucks to watch out for.

Here’s another one: Lomak #278. Likes to run the red light, well after it’s turned red, at 5th and Central.

The truck driver mentioned above ran the light so late that he could have seriously injured someone driving through on the green turn light. Scary.

Oh yeah, it was on Wednesday morning around 9:20ish.

We were just talking the other day about the google. Anything you want to know can be googled. Two seconds and you know whatever you need to know. Five minutes later, you have no idea again. You don’t learn about it, you read it. Kind of like if you don’t know basic math, you don’t know when the battery in your calculator need to be changed. No wonder kids seem to not be able to think, they are not being taught how any more.

Yesterday Bill Bennett announced that the Site C project will remain open shop without a labour agreement. Labour agreements ensure union and non union workers are treated the same regardless of whether they are working for union or non union companies. I voted for both Mike Morris and Bob Zimmer in the last elections. I would like their opinions in regards to labour unrest that may result.

I am a union worker with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115. I’m not looking forward to deciding if I will work non union if there is no union work available. A labour agreement would level the playing field.The union have fought hard for the labour standards that exist today.
If union workers refuse to work non union will it open the door for Temporary Foreign Workers while we sit idle?

Will EI benefits be denied for union workers refusing to work work non union?
I see this as union busting. Union Labour built this province. I would appreciate the opinions of Mr Zimmer and Mr Morris.

Ataloss, please enlighten us as to what makes you think that you are more intelligent than everybody else!

Posted on Friday, April 17, 2015 @ 10:20 AM by Ataloss

You are wasting your time Maxima . The electorate is an idiot .

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lol….

I believe Lomak Transports safety phone # is (250)561-8000. I could be wrong.

@hartguy I don’t think I’m more intelegent than everyone else . Just brighter than the sheeple that swallow the neocon coolaid . You know the stuff . It’s poison for everyone that is not in the 1% . And I can easily spot the useful idiots . You must know who they are by now . Right wingers with no skin in the game other than ideology that will produce no benefit for themselves .

Vote Bob for cheap guns . What a laugh ! Still haven’t seen any benefit you got for voting Bob . Has he brought any thing to his riding ? A gazebo perhaps ? I mean other than what we are paying him to warm the back bench . Some body must have seen something , right ?

Hey Jimmy sorry to hear about your pooch, sucks having to say good bye. Time for a good stiff drink and a flip through the photo album.

What’s with mike Morris at wiki ? Hasn’t been up dated in two years .looks like he’s been dormant for two years . I dont think I’d vote for that .

Bob hasn’t updated in nine months . Mike hasn’t updated in two years . I guess they’re not proud of their extensive accomplishments (lol) . Not even proud of standing up to the United Nations with bobs private members bill . You’d think those that voted for them would at least point to something that caused them to vote for mike and Bob . Like some thing with meat on it .

For Jimmy

You Did Me a Kindness

When my legs grew too weak to carry me,
And my tired eyes could no longer see,
When it pained me to struggle for each new breath,
When my heart beat weaker, and I drew closer to death,
You did me the kindness of letting me go.
You didn’t make me hang on when I was suffering so.
I promise I don’t think that you loved me any less,
And I love you all the more for your selflessness.
You freed my spirit from its body so wracked with pain,
And let me run the fields of Heaven, where I’m sure we’ll meet again.

So hart guy , spelling is more important than the message . Gotcha . I think content and intent are way more important . That’s why I don’t care about yours or others auto spell check or auto fills or people that could not care less about how they get their message across , like me . So you can’t even point to anything your vaunted elected officials have accomplished either . What’s with you righties are you not proud of your choice ? If all you got is a spelling error in defence of your choice . Then you got nothing , nada , zip, sweet FA . If you want to live with a language that hasn’t changed in thousands of year , chose Latin . It’s written in stone .

Damit Fuzzy…….now I gotta go cut some onions or something……

Thanks for all the kind words, everyone. The poem was therapeutic and helped to keep things in the proper perspective. Have a great weekend everybody.

Oops , William Lyon Mackenzie King just pop into my head . Never mind .

On a more respectful note, Jimmy Hughes, sorry to hear about your pup!

Even full grown and 12 years old, in some ways, they will always be a pup!

Your point was that you think, that I think , that I am more inteligaint than everyone else . I said ,that I don’t think that at all . Git it .

If it is underlined in red it is spelled wrong. Pretty simple

Burkes Mountain was sold by First Nations.
Cheers

Does Bill Bennet have the final say if a shop will be union or none union . I thought it was the general contractor that decided if they would have a union or none union shop. But I guess its honour among friends. Lets hope the construction unions will be able to enlighten Bill on this matter.
cheers

The Liberal government sold valuable Crown land in Metro Vancouver to a party donor at a greatly reduced price and used the money to help balance the budget, the Opposition New Democrats said Tuesday

First off it’s Burke Mountain, not Burkes.

Second, the 500+ acres was not sold by First Nations. They never actually owned it. The Chief, Ron Giesbrecht, of the Kwikwetlem Band unilaterally signed away their land claim rights of the property to the BC Gov’t for $8 million (keeping $800K for himself).

Ataloss, What you failed to mention though is that the property was listed for sale, and that the eventual buyer was the best bid out of 6 that were competing to buy the property!
I guess the argument could be made that they should have or could have held out for more, but then again, how many developers are there in Western Canada that would have both the appetite, and the resources to take on a development of that size?
How much economic activity, and by extension how many tax dollars were generated through this development?
A lot of questions that don’t get answered simply by looking at the ultimate sale price as compared to an appraisal.

Retired 02. There are advantages and disadvantages to working union or non union. Without a Project Labour Agreement I believe there will be labour unrest. If one company is paying a dollar an hour more than another ,will workers be able to switch at the drop of a hat? If one company offers a few perks will they be able to poach workers from another company. There is one company owner in PG that will fire and rehire employees 3 or 4 times in a day depending on his mental state at the time.
Project Labour Agreements lay out all the ground rules before hand. 9 billion dollars is a huge amount of money to be playing with without a PLA, whether the work goes union or not.

NyteHawwk posted the following @ 4:11 PM (and I agree with his/her’s comment)

“And once again this place descends into name calling and personal attacks rather than civil discourse…Ah yes…I think I gave it the right name last week!
Curmudgeons Corner!”

I can’t figure out why the comment which I just made got deleted:

“The nastiness in the comments section of this blog is definitely getting worse”

Legendary hedge fund manager Stan Druckenmiller was out this week sharing some of his wisdom. He argued (on Bloomberg Television) that current ultra-loose monetary policy provides a “Horrible Risk Versus Reward.” Obviously he’s spot on. Two major U.S. bursting episodes in the past 15 years provided overwhelming proof of the profound financial, economic, social and geopolitical costs associated with Bubbles. If that’s not sufficient, the last two decades witnessed scores of devastating Boom and Bust Cycles around the globe.

http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.ca/2015/04/my-weekly-commentary-horrible-risk.html

Curmudgeons Corner – how cute. Is one of their names “Grumpy?” The Friday Free for All is a harmless place to let off steam, that’s why Ben tells us to “LET ‘ER RIP!”

Okay Charles . Maybe I should not ask the righties what their riding reps have brought back to thier ridings . The gazebo thing was kind of harsh . And the reference to WLM King was way out of line . I wasn’t saying that some one else would talk to thier dead dog . Please tell me the labs name wasn’t Bob ! I don’t think my sides could take that . And, I guess , turning off spell check in order to bait a fellow reader is beyond cruel , but hey , it was funny , no ? Okay , okay , okay Charles , I’ll try to not ask questions .

I have to agree about the comments on Site C not having a labor agreement becoming a huge issue.

The province is risking a lot on Site C considering the province will be forgoing the $600 million a year it collects in royalties from BC Hydro in order to finance the construction down payment. Renewable electrical production is now at about 150% the cost of natural gas production at today’s near record low natural gas prices… if LNG ever did go ahead and we paid current Asia Pacific prices we would be paying about three times renewable costs for energy… which is why LNG may never happen for BC.

So we invest $9 billion for excess capacity to supply an LNG industry that may not be economically viable with the declining cost of renewable energy… use every penny the province can source from this sector to pay for it… then gamble the results away with no labor agreement for the project? Thats just crazy.

Having a labor agreement not only levels the playing field for all involved with a set standard that avoids abuse and poaching ect ect… but it also guarantees the labor is available to complete the project on time and on budget with Canadian workers.

The unions all have the ability to source labor locally, provincially, and nationally if needed… trained and skilled labor… and a set standard for apprentices getting training for the next generation of skilled labor.

By going non-union this guarantees a large portion of this project will be done with temporary foreign workers and sets a horrible precedence for other mega projects in BC like LNG, which will see it as a green light to also use TFW rather than Canadians.

The non-union outfits have trouble retaining workers, and when they need to ramp up they don’t have a union call list to call on, so the go to for non union contractors is the TFW to access skilled labor on an as needed basis.

With the Kemano project they (the international capitalist conglomerate) went union because it was the most cost effective way to run a mega project that requires thousands of skilled tradesmen working together on tight time lines. Rio Tinto wouldn’t even consider bids from any company that wasn’t IBEW for the electrical component… because the IBEW union hall was able to source a steady supply of 500+ trained electricians with a deep pool across North America to draw on… they would never risk their project on non union companies scarifying government to bend the temporary foreign worker rules and get some unknown quantities as the back bone of their project.

Companies in the trades that go non-union do so on the basis of labor arbitrage… they rely on temporary workers and TFW programs to plug the holes if they do get a large job, often less skilled workers not fully certified… and the cost for them is they are not eligible for large projects that require labor certainty… this is how it is in the private sector anyways.

The reporters need to get on this one and chase these politicians down with all the hypothetical scenarios that make them uncomfortable in answering.