Thankyou, Lawd, that another tinpot dictator has resigned

It's almost too much to hope for: two tinpot dictators out within two weeks of each other. The air in B.C. just got that much clearer, if only for the few days of drift and confusion that will occur before the owners and authority and corporate figures bring their plans together. Sadly, two more Tweedledums and Tweedledees will be rolled out for the electorate. Each will receive massive TV coverage. It won't seriously matter which one wins. Nothing will change. But for now, we have a few days of blissful unknowing.

"Cancelled" sail-past a winner

So a dozen lighted ships circled off the village of Cowichan Bay for the delight of shoppers visiting the waterfront strip from five PM yesterday (pic above from 2009).

The only issue was that according to the local Black rag, the News Leader, it was not happening. The Wooden Boat Society, which claimed to run the event, announced that the society would not be running it this year, and so according to them it was not happening.

Of course, the sailpast happened anyway: try holding determined skippers back! Bay Pub publican Chris Killam led the way with his grandfather's 70-ft Greybeard look-alike adorned with a magnificent swizzle stick about three storeys high.

Skipper Rowland followed in Calypso, which appeared and disappeared regularly as all its lights flashed on and off.

Other gaily lit vessels crowded with laughing and babbling passengers made for a great show.

Later, all aboard Calypso headed for the Emily Morgan studio, where the vernissage proceeded apace, and later a select group made their way up to the Morgan residence overlooking the bay. All raved until late.

These home-made events make politics irrelevant.

Horgan: clinging to James's skirt

John Horgan MLA, one of the brightest MLA's, unfortunately has spent most of his career working as a political assistant, one of the "back-room boys" who grease the wheels of politicians. Horgan has been an MLA for six years, and his record has not been notable: for example, his personal campaign to reduce the price of gasoline. What was the point of that? Did ne not realise that the oil cartel and its 40,000 North American gas stations would never take any notice? The price would go down exactly when they wanted it to, and not before. Anyway, why should gasoline prices be reduced? Why should people be encouraged to drive? They are already slaves inside a massive gasoline machine that makes driving almost unavoidable. Horgan should have been pounding the table about public transport, urban planning, transition and smallness. He seems to have no knowledge about green policies. Now he is sticking to Carole James when she is doomed. Oh, John, what a shame!

Leaders dictate because TV news dictates

According to B.C. blogger Peter Ewart, the two large provincial parties have dictators for leaders because the parties are coming apart. His claim that James and Campbell are getting tyrannical because of the impossibility of their party's mingled support, has only a grain of truth.

It is commercial television news that has created the demand for one-line solutions that sound strong and conclusive and decisive.

Whereas, any reasonably well-informed person can only observe that the stronger,
the more conlusive and decisive any politician sounds, the further they are from understanding the crisis facing everyone.

Canada is avoiding the fossil-fuel crisis. Victorians are keen to spend $70m (official) to $140m (unofficial) on a car-bridge downtown. Canada is dreaming of wealth from the tar sands, without realising that the USA will gobble the oil up long before Canada or China does. All we'll have left is lakes of pollution, and a wrecked environment and climate.

As in all oil-rich countries, the masses of Canada are heading for impoverishment. It's so-o-o sad. Can nobody deliver us an ecologist in Victoria?

Yellow scarf dictatorship

The use of the yellow loyalty wrap at Carole James's acclamation in Victoria yesterday was pathetic. After the triumph, one union boss said (according to the T-Col): it's Carole or the ocean. So those who disagree with loser Carole's diktats should simply walk out and join another party. Well, there aren't any other parties, because of our unendorsed FPTP electoral system. Even the Green Party can't get a single seat.

We're stuck with a two-party system, both currently led by paranoid fuhrer types who will only tolerate flat-on-your-face kowtowing from their fellow MLAs and party organisers. I have no idea who represented the Cowichan constituency on my behalf in Victoria: nobody chose to tell me. It's a farce.

Our new MLA in our new riding, Mr Bill Routley, has sworn his undying loyalty to his new leader. She seated him in the first place, and now he is paying her back. His enormous salary, the biggest he has ever incurred in his life, his staffers, large constituency office, and the luxurious pension he is in line for all no doubt played their part too. If he can get a Cabinet post, he will be in clover. Where am I, an elector, in all this? Except for living in a so-called safe seat.

Yet again, at the next general election (its date stupidly fixed US-style), the electorate will be presented with Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

It's not surprising that the NDP barely exists any more except for its Union base.

Campbell's carrot thrown on the dump

"The British Columbia government says it will suspend a planned further 15-per-cent reduction in personal income tax rates for the first $72,000 of personal income."

Apparently the decision was made "by Cabinet". I don't think I remember the last time a decision was reversed "by Cabinet" that had already been announced by the Premier.

Gordo seems to be out of it, while still occupying the Premier's office.

It's no wonder the public is bewildered. The HST demon is still in office, while his compensatory carrot has been kicked out of the window.

Furthermore, few people understand Gordo's last-minute redesign of the Government so that it can approve corporate resource extraction more quickly. Nobody except Mr. Campbell and the corporate friends for which he acts as errand-boy wants such a reorganisation or facilitation.

Clearly, Gordo was running the Government out of his back pocket. That's why he has to go: immediately.

Revenge of the electors

The announcement that Ida Chong MLA will be the first MLA to be voted out of office using recall legislation is encouraging. Besides taking thousands a year in lunch money, Chong has spent the last decade running errands for Campbell, the corporations' errand-boy. She has commanded several Ministries, acting on orders from Campbell all the way. She even acted as Minister for Community Affairs in a province where few "communities" exist, and in which communities the elected officials are obliged to parrot the provincial government's policies.

Ida Chong was a key conspirator in introducing the HST directly after the 2009 election in which an HST was never mentioned. She stole her legislative seat on false grounds, and should lose it as soon as possible.

For those interested in the wider world, the Tonga-like constitution of Great Britain has actually introduced the Right to Recall, believe it or not, and Britain's students are going to bring recall measures first against the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, one of the world's biggest political swindlers, who morphed from opposing student fees before the general election to participating in the Cameron government which is tripling them. Clegg should be the first British MP to lose his seat by popular revulsion.

LINK: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/846108-turncoat-nick-clegg-will-be-haunted-say-angry-students

Carole James is a socialist but that's not good enough

The left complains that Ms Carole James, NDP BC leader, is not a socialist. (http://www.marxist.ca/content/view/615/1/) But a socialist is no longer enough: we need a new kind of person and a new kind of politician. Someone to usher in a new electoral system and usher out fossil fuels.

Carole James is a socialist. She lines up with the big three union bosses in this province, and tells everyone else to shut up or leave caucus. That is socialism of the Stalinist type that ruined the potentially magnificent Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union, remember, abolished money. It guaranteed everyone a job, an apartment, cheap drink and cheap books. It kept the entire cultural apparatus (ballet, choirs, theatre) of each member state going (bar the Church) and published in dozens of languages. It was a genuine alternative to capitalism, and paid the price when Hitler launched all Europe against it.

Compared to the Rt Hon Mr. Campbell, Ms James certainly is a socialist. A friend of unions, an advocate of better pay and services for the poor, she would have been thrown into a concentration camp in Hitler's national-socialist paradise.

The problem is that socialism is no longer enough. It's an idea that was already developed when the French Revolution occurred 221 years ago. At that time, the three "estates" were the aristocracy, the clerics, and the rest. The first two constituted only seven per cent of the population. Ninety-three per cent of the population were the rest. Do those figures remind you of any figures published today?

Socialist, maybe, but today the very fabric of our environment is being torn apart. Human greed is in the driver-seat, and ecologists are hiding penniless in cabins. The Green party finds it almost impossible to penetrate our outmoded democracy and exercise real influence. Fact is, that both socialists like Ms. James and capitalists like Mr. Campbell hate ecologists.

We urgently need a new democracy. A changed voting system that reflected our modern reality would definitely be a step in the right direction, but how long do we have to wait for that?

Vancouver Island rail service: boss should resign

In July, the provincial government announced that after spending a fortune on research they will not be spending a penny more on the Vancouver Island rail corridor.

Its sad little one-carriage train will continue to potter up island when everyone wants to come down, and vice versa. The current service is a farce aimed at getting the rail service cancelled.

The Government made the announcement in the holiday season, for obvious reasons: no one knows about it and few will.

Some eight weeks later, the rail corridor boss, a well-known Cowichan Liberal, Mr Graham Bruce, made no mention of his government's failure to offer one solitary penny when he appeared on C-FAX radio. (http://www.cfax1070.com/newsstory.php?newsId=15802)

Nor did Mr Bruce mention his financial failure as head of the rail organisation, which owns the corridor land and aims to raise money for trains on it.

Instead, he announced that the $100 million that the Government rejected investing will in reality only be $15 million in partnership with the federal government. And for some reason, he hopes to get that from the goons who banned spending one more dollar on it,

Mr Bruce intends to relocate the rail HQ to Nanaimo and start a service south in the morning. This is an admirable plan, but first Mr Bruce would do well to follow the example of his Great Leader and summarily resign.

Malahat Drive southwards: where are the viewpoints ?

One of the famous North American scenic routes, the Malahat Drive, is no longer the engineering triumph that it once was, with unsurpassed views of Mount Baker and the US Gulf Islands (the latter formerly ours, but handed over by a UK high court judge in 1905). They are viewable at a couple of viewpoint stops on the way north, but drivers going south don't get the opportunity to enjoy a single view. They are also deprived of any facilities at all on the drive south, including washrooms, cafeterias, interpretative material, and telescopes. That's nearly 30 kilometres of driving without the opportunity to stop, let alone relieve oneself or survey the unsurpassed scenery. How did the idiots in the B.C. Tourism department manage to organise such a torture trip?

The wide views going south, suggested in this archive photo, have been destroyed and no viewpoints, car parks or other facilities have ever been installed. The Malahat Drive south is a disgrace to the Province. The state of Washington should sign a contract to run it.

The trip south on the Malahat Drive should be formally announced by an official sign saying that there will be no stops for views or conveniences for nearly 30 kilometres. The fabulous views that the route once commanded have been thoroughly overgrown, and the drive south is now a featureless ordeal. If you manage to catch a fleeting glimpse of Mount Baker on the way, you will be risking your life because there is nowhere to stop.

They just spent a lot of money modifying access to the stopping point nearest the north end of the Malahat, but not one penny has been spent on improving the southward route, which cannot access any of the northerly car parks against the oncoming traffic. Isn't it about time that the B.C. government built a significant viewpoint going south so that the claims about the Malahat still have some validity and are not just a distant memory recalled by a photograph taken in 1914?

Obama expenses could be true --- if only for his companions

The Indian government source who said that Obama's current trip to India would be costing some $200 million and would be supported by thousands of Americans, plus dozens of US navy ship and warplanes, might not be far from the truth. Obama is playing a very dangerous game by sending robot bombers far into Pakistan, and there was a hubbub when he failed to mention Pakistan in his opening speech. Obama is a warmonger, but so is mainly Hindu India: in a stand-off with Islamic Pakistan over the Kashmir.

A Pakistani paper, the Daily Times, said today that "a civil war in Afghanistan post-US withdrawal...will spill over into both Pakistan and India, leading to a widening of the war."

Imagine that: the staged 9/11 events of nearly a decade ago could yet cause an enormous conflict in the Indian sub-continent. The stakes are clearly very high for the US administration. A big investment in this business trip would be in order, perhaps.

Anyway, 200 top US CEOs are presumed to be with Obama, and they, if not the US President, would require massive security.

Four year-old flies round world nearly three times

Suri Cruise: massive disruption of Earth's ozone layer

Why should anyone think about the hazards of jet flight when someone like Tom Cruise, adored by billions, viewed in every cinema on the planet, has his four-year old daughter clock up 65,000 air miles in a year and a half , not far short of three times around the planet?

LINK: http://www.madeformums.com/celebs/suri-cruise-clocks-up-65000-air-miles-and-thats-just-within-the-last-18-months/10706.html

None of the jet-set and their wannabes seem to be taking a bit of notice of jetting hazards, not to judge by Air Miles, which says it sells its products everywhere in Canada. Even the Royal Bank of Canada had a major air miles promotion this year.

The general public seems to be quite happy to pay for developing air travel, too. Victoria B.C. International airport says "to accommodate increased demand in the mid to long term, it is anticipated parking spaces will have to increase from 800 to 1,400 spaces."

Furthermore, tens of millions in public money has been devoted to creating a new traffic interchange outside the airport, as if the industry has a booming future!

When I was writing the book "9/11 Revealed" it was astonishing to find out about the US corporate jet-set and just how much they fly. One guy on Flight 175 supposedly was headed to the West Coast from Boston just after flying the other way. Another was crossing America for the day, after he had just returned the day before from a junket to Italy. These people used scheduled flights as casually as taxis.

The number of passenger kilometres flown on UK airlines increased by nearly 50 per cent over the past decade, from 213 billion kilometres in 1997 to 314 billion in 2007. International travel accounted for around 97 per cent of it. The figures are similar world-wide.

You can't help wondering why NASA writes on its own website: "there is insurmountable evidence that human activities are disrupting the balance" of life-preserving ozone in the upper atmosphere.

LINK: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/fs10grc.html

Pot minority banned again

How can a majority ever vote for a minority? How can the majority vote against what they're told on the televisions they watch for three or four hours a day? How can any minority expect fair treatment from such a brainwashed majority-voting public?

The California public voted this week against decriminalisation of pot possession. Only by 56 per cent to 44 per cent, but that's the name of the game when it comes to majorities crushing minorities, e.g. white Californians cheating First Nations out of their land, or locking up their Japanese compatriots and selling off their property in World War Two.

It's not a pretty sight, seeing Californians obeying Obama and voting against pot. By doing so, they voted in favour of gangsters staying rich, keeping $14 billion flowing underground annually, continuing the gang mayhem in Mexico, banning innocent Calfiornians from having 25 square feet of pot plants in their own gardens and in favour of thousands of harmless pot-puffers going to jail for possession. That's the kind of genius that comes out of televisions. The entire TV/Cable industry should be suppressed.

The marijuana minority had better give up on the idea of social acceptance for their drug habit. Californians would have to accept that booze is more dangerous, that tax revenues could be raised from legal sales, and that prison numbers could actually reduce instead of increase. All these are impossible while they watch poisonous television.

No, Californians will have to ask their doctor for a prescription for marijuana until the cows come home, I'm afraid.

Media concentration continues

Keith Olbermann is on the street, removed from his influential commentary position on MSNBC. Olbermann's virtual desk is being sold to Comcast, the US cable media giant, and Mr Olbermann's scathing views of the Bush administration and the failings of the Obama administration will not accompany it.

The trend of US mass media towards consolidation and monopoly continues with this ponderous take-over, and independent
views like Mr Olbermann's will be relegated to the internet. Television, the holy-of-holies for the US Pentagon and its industrial machine, will continue to sell conformity and war to mortgage-bound suburbanbites. Its "news" broadcasts will continue to have more to do with the plans of General Electric corporation than with reality.

The most alarming aspect of this mega-absorption is that its gigantic scale throws the US Government even further into the media complex, as its FCC quango controls deals worth billions of dollars and billions of viewers world-wide.

Olbermann has been booted out by bigness, but I think he will be happier expounding his views to millions on the internet. Welcome, Keith!

Car alarm magnate will boss Congress

Above is a kit to install one of those noise-horror car alarms. Note the enormous siren that is its main feature, Such sirens star in the feature film Noise, starring a coolly hysterical Tim Robbins smashing and dismantling them. Latest paranoid news flash: the man who made hundreds of millions out of car alarms will now boss Congress around as part of the new majority.

It seems impossible, but a man who made a fortune out of the biggest noise-pest in North America, will now be a big noise himself in Congress. US Rep. Darrell Issa even recorded the "stand back" horror-voice that came with his Viper car alarm. http://jalopnik.com/5675587/remember-when-us-rep-darrell-issa-was-the-voice-of-viper