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

In Canada we are coping with the inevitable transition from First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) elections to the more representative proportional electoral system. Because no political party will ever actually introduce the latter, we have to go through various contortions to make the FPTP system work like proportional representation. The Coalition is the contortion and it has to happen.

The old FPTP system was never presented to the Canadian electorate. Electors never approved it. The system was simply handed down as a tradition --- in what area of society do we accept handed down traditions any more? Society is becoming more complex, particularly with the newly recognised ecological component, and proportional representation of some kind is the future.

The political parties have negotiated a coalition that will see off the billionaires and their so-called Conservative party. It is high time. Consider Saanich-Gulf Islands constituency: we had the election rigged by con-men who performed a fake "robophone" campaign the day before the ballot, causing thousands of NDP votes for a non-existent candidate and thereby causing the Conservative incumbent to win. Those criminals should be investigated and thrown in jail. The people who employed them are in power in Ottawa and they must be removed immediately. The new Coalition is the way. It will be imperfect, and it will make mistakes. It will probably throw money at the incompetent automobile industry, and at the clearcutting logging corporations. However, that is preferable to having cirminals in power, and is a cost I am willing to pay. Which is why I am placing this 62 per cent logo in my drawing slot.