L E T   'E R   R I P ! ! !

Do Americans visiting our fair country need a passport or one of those fancy ID cards or Driver licences with the chips?

or are those in Ottawa still allowing the USA to dictate what we can and can't do?

I for one won't buy american goods, unless I have absolutely no choice, and haven't for about 10 years. Takes a little planning but once you get started it really isn't that hard.

Remember how vigorously the idea of putting an expensive pedestrian tunnel under highway 16 (20th Avenue) was debated on this site with the majority calling for an overpass instead?

Is it true that this tunnel is unusable now because it is completely flooded and that buses are being used to transport school children around it?

Diplomat, the underpass you are refering to about being flooded is the one that goes under hwy 16 at bunce road out in parkridge it is flooded and kids cant use it to get to school

Last year the city bought a new truck and equipment for painting the lines on the city streets. It was a bit of a disaster as the lines were not quite up to standard. Now the city has contracted the line painting out to YRB and are trying to return the new truck and line painting equipment back to the supplier in Ontario. It would have been much better to train the city people properly on the new equipment to paint the lines rather than use a contractor. Another example of city waste and part of the reason our taxes go up each and every year.

Resident, where on earth did you get this information from. I have never heard such a bunch of milarky in my life!! All line painting is contracted out, as far as i know. But there again, maybe your meds are different than mine!!!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Taxi

Hi taxinapothole. I was re-reading your post this morning from Aug 22 2008 re drugs. It is so good that I have kept it!

Ben and Elaine. It puzzles me why comments about the B.C. election are not allowed on opinion250.com, because if you go to the B.C. Votes section of the CBC News web site, (please see the link at the end of my post) they allow wide open comments on all of their B.C. election stories.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/bcvotes2009/

The city bought a new line painting truck? Why? Have'nt they always contracted that out? They must feel like bloody idiots if they are trying to return the machinery now. What would the reason be? "oh, uh, nobody can figure out how to put down a straight line with this thing, it must be faulty"
While we are slagging the city, has anyone seen the pothole patrol? I think they took a wrong turn one day and just kept going. Can we track them by their credit card purchases? In all seriousness, I have not seen the pothole patchers in a couple of weeks, what gives?
metalman.

There is already enough B.C election crap in the paper,on the radio,TV and littering the all green space in town.Who needs to see endless diatribe on who's candidate/party is the best and all the point-counterpoint comments??
If you need to make comments on the political issues then GO to CBC.

P.S.-read rule 4 above

Thanks for the info, ICEMAN!

I agree with Ispy's comment. It is far too much already. Most (if not all) people who comment are just promoting what they are already totally committed to and nothing that anyone posts will make the slightest impact on them or change their minds.

BTW, I made a pothole report on the city's website and the crew showed up the very next day to patch up (again) the usual bad spots.

re. tunnel under highway 16 (20th Avenue) was unusable all winter because the snow was never cleared. The same goes for the pathways in town, not cleared of snow. What is the point of building more when they are unusable a good part of the year.

Almost got me a greenie on his bicycle last night. I was getting ready to make a left off Ospika going to the pool when this idiot goes zipping by on my left also heading for the pool. He was also against the lights and traffic.

I live in the Hart Highlands, and last year witnessed first-hand the City's attempt to paint lines on Foothills Blvd with their new equipment. It was an absolute disaster, as anyone who went up the first hill on Foothills, by North Nechako Rd, could attest to.

"I for one won't buy american goods"

Huh???? you can actually find American goods somewhere?

Go Cannucks!!!

So I can still have a reasonable fire in my yard (weiner roast) so long as its not an air quality day? Did I read that article right?

Charles:
I am certain the CBC has no problem allowing wide open comments on elections or anything else, they likely have two three or six staff who do nothing but monitor comments. We do not have that luxury.
We are a local operation and we simply do not have an employee base that would allow us to dedicate people to "comment watching". If you would like to contact me so I can arrange for you to volunteer to do the comment watching 24/7 for the next couple of weeks, I can be reached at elaine@opinion250.com I would appreciate the help.

Elaine Macdonald
Publisher
Opinion250.com

Elaine, I am not questioning your decisions, but I still have a question.

How can the CBC avoid being held liable for slander and libel if it regularly allows comments to be posted which are plainly vicious and malicious attacks on persons, calling them criminals, liars, stuffing their back pockets, rife with accusations of theft from the public and so forth?

Read the waiver on CBC posting site.It basically says they do moderate the comments according to submission guidelines and have the usual "lawyer speak" about comments are not those of CBC,affiliates and therefore can not be held accountable or liable for what some viewer spouts.
Comments can be reported if you take exception to what is there and are removed if your argument is valid.
People can always get a lawyer (bring a large cheque) if they want to try and take on an anonymous poster because CBC allowed them to slander and /or liable them.Good LUck with that! Its called Freedom of Speech.If your feelings are easily hurt don't post or read them.

Taxi, with all the driving you do around the city you should have noticed that the city does have a line painting truck, the city logo and unit number is on the truck. I checked because I really wanted to see who was painting wiggly lines all over the city last summer. Change your meds.

Well, I do believe that the line painting is contracted out. I think it is a out of town contractor.

Your answer makes sense Elaine. I forgot the CBC has deep pockets.

Good explanation! My feelings are not easily hurt and the feelings of those who are the target of libel and slander (politicians mostly) are probably bullet proof.

I suppose if the *mob* is allowed to rant, slander and libel without any consequences they believe they have freedom and that may keep them from rioting in the streets.

And that is a bonus.

http://www.fixroad.com/media/video/POTHOLETVSPOT_HIGH.swf

I can see that Opinion 250 is trying its best not to have any influence on the outcome of the election by being as a-politcal as possible, thus trying to monitor the input of the bloggers, and not use this as a location to support one party or the other.

Thus a couple of weeks ago, knocked a few people off.


So, If Opinion 250 wants to have such high principles, and trying to keep the image of being A-political. Then why is it they accepted to advertise for the BC Liberal candidates Pat Bell and Shirley Bond on this blog site. Did you sell your principles out for a few advertising dollars?

Its called doing business and being profitable. I am guessing that the liberals anted up and the rest did not. It is nice to see the provincial leaders actually know and recognized a local media and chose to support it by buying the service.
The other candidates have the same opportunity but have not deigned to advertise here.

On a side note on the political commentary:
We all know Ben is an avid political observer and commentator. The way I see it is him trying not produce a conflict of interest so that he can still do what interests him, putting politicos in the hot seat and asking the hard questions.
You go Ben!

I agree with Loki's comment.

Anyone else notice a 11% + increase to their HYDRo bill...
They pound out there all the ways to save power and money...
so you follow their lead and save all this power, they then cry that they are loosing money and get a large rate increase...so no all the power I saved them can go to some other sap who has to pay a huge cost....

Is there something wrong with this setup???? or is it just, old, me?

Anyone else notice a 11% + increase to their HYDRo bill...
They pound out there all the ways to save power and money...
so you follow their lead and save all this power, they then cry that they are loosing money and get a large rate increase...so no all the power I saved them can go to some other sap who has to pay a huge cost....

Is there something wrong with this setup???? or is it just, old, me?

The NDP campaign will launch on Opinion250 and the Meisner show very soon. I don’t want to upstage them on when they plan to start their campaign. Yes we accept advertising dollars, can you come up with a plausible explanation as to why all of us at Opinion250, should not be able to accept advertising dollars given that we are not CBC and do not have the ability to ask the taxpayers for 1 billion a year to pay for our work? Or would you prefer that we do this work out of the goodness of our heart?
It is safe to say, I treat everyone the same, they all get the same ride, the only reason we pulled the ability of people to comment on election stories was because of the sheer abuse. I happen to like how it played out, instead of getting a bunch of nonsense, we have had very good comments of late and the posters can be congratulated for their efforts.

Ben

Well... not just Hydro but also BC Gas (or whatever they choose to hide themselves as today)... both corporations seem to be accomplished manipulators when it comes to kissing their customers behind the ear. ( I hope that is not too subtle a mental picture for you.) :-)

The public in BC have been led to believe that they (WE) should pay a global price for our own, homemade product... sort of like the farmer charging his wife the world rate for his farm-grown wheat to make bread and then her charging him the retail bakery price for each slice of toast. What's the point ?

Just a little bit frustrating.

:-)

V.

BC Hydro is a government entity so gets its marching orders from the government of the day. The Hydro infrastructure is aging and needs to be replaced to the tune of billions of dollars. Each government of the day never looked to the future so no money put aside for this. Government corporations are just a way to hide debt and another form of taxation. Right now Hydro has the third lowest power rates in North America because of hydro generation.

This is about to change because of the infrastructure upgrading. Also those run of the river plants are very expensive power. Windfarms are even more expensive especially for the small amount of power they will generate. Now you add all this up and well hang onto your wallets for you haven't seen anything yet for rate increases.

I am just thinking how great my country is and how people like the Taliban don't have it so good. I went to Save-On Foods in College Heights, and without a word of a lie, I can have my bread sliced either in metric OR the understandable scale. How wonderful is that? And last week too I saw a picture in The Free Press about our local basketball team. Their heights next to their names were in the "understandable" scale. To see the outcome of all our dollars spent on converting to metric, just ask any teenager how tall they are. I love this country.

Carol James campaign isn't catching fire. She is making a mistake by doing the standard discuss issues on the media in the morning, then meet the people at night. Dave Barrett did that in 1972. Morning appearances would yield crowds of about 50 to 100 in the afternoon. Those aren't bad numbers for impromptu meet and greats. And one can build for major events every few days. Without buildup, James is attracting small crowds at large centres. It isn't too late to change tactics.

The other day, James took a media group on a 2 hour float plane trip north of Vancouver just so she could point out a development that she thought hurt the environment. How could that be worth it? I pay $135 each way between Vancouver and Victoria on those planes. She looked like a waster.

However, at this point, I am tending towards the Greens because they have a good candidate in my area.

"I can have my bread sliced either in metric OR the understandable scale"

So metric slices are 20 per loaf and imperial is 24 per loaf????? Neat!!!

Just think, eggs are not metric yet either. Small, medium, large, and extra large and the numbers are still in multiples of 6 - 12 - 18 - 24 ... not the metric 5 - 10 - 15 - 20

Even the colours are not metric. The are sitll the imperial brown and white.

Truth, you forgot rule 4!
As for the election, who wins wins, who loses loses, and we have to put up with the garbage of a government that we have!
I think that all this campainging signs should be considered littering! that would be a nice fundraiser for the cops....

"To see the outcome of all our dollars spent on converting to metric, just ask any teenager how tall they are. I love this country."

Look at the scale pasted to the mullion of exit doors in stores so they can describe the height of a robber. 4 - 5 - 6.

And too all a goodnight.

And to all a good Saturday morning. Extended hours today.

Good night ......

I don't have anything to say, but I got in the last word !

Happy Sunday night.