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Push North for Fish Farms Blocked
Gitxsan Nation thwarts planned 'critical mass' of farms. A Tyee Special Report.
Strouts Point used to be just another rocky thumb of land along the Skeena River estuary's southern reach. Today, the once innocuous point is the snag in the salmon farming industry's contentious plan to expand to BC's North Coast.
At issue, is a provincial operating license required by fish farming multinational Pan Fish before it can begin open net pen salmon farming at Strouts Point, at the top of Petrel Channel, about 50 kilometers south of Prince Rupert. The Norwegian company expected to receive the license last year, but a wrangle over aboriginal fishing rights now threatens to deal a double blow to both Pan Fish's northern expansion plans and the province's beleaguered salmon farming industry.
Pan Fish, which operates 25 BC salmon farms, has already received federal environmental assessment approval for a Strouts Point fish farm, as well as a provincial site tenure. Two other new Pan Fish farms, about 30 to 35 kilometers south of Strouts Point, have been granted provincial operating licenses and all other approvals. Yet, the two sites remain empty because the company needs a "critical mass" of North Coast farms to make expansion viable, says Pan Fish spokesperson Mark Ayranto. "Once the third one [Strouts Point] is approved, we can look at including that region in our production planning."
Enter the Gitxsan First Nation, the potential hole in the net of Pan Fish's plans to be the first company to farm salmon on the North Coast. Several years ago, Pan Fish negotiated a deal with the Kitkatla First Nation, the "people of the salt", to establish at least ten salmon farms on traditional Kitkatla territory, southwest of Prince Rupert, including at Strouts Point. The Gitxsan, however, hold aboriginal fishing rights to wild salmon that swim through waters around Strouts Point.
100 million smolts
The Gitxsan, "people of the river of mist", have demanded consultation before the Strouts Point operating license is approved, but talks with the provincial government are at an impasse. A February 10 meeting in Vancouver failed to resolve any major issues, says Christine Scotnicki, legal counsel for the Gitxsan Watershed Authorities, which manages the Gitxsan food and commercial fisheries in the Upper Skeena watershed. The Gitxsan say potential disease outbreaks on fish farms could threaten wild salmon and impinge on aboriginal rights to fish in the Skeena River, home to Canada's second largest salmon runs.
Early each June, 100 million sockeye smolts head down the Skeena, milling about in the sheltered inlets of Petrel Channel and elsewhere in the Skeena estuary for approximately six weeks before heading out to sea.
"We've done DNA sampling at the Strouts Point site that confirmed the supposition that it is food fish that the Gitxsan rely on that swim by that site," says Scotnicki. "The Gitxsan rely on those fish for up to 86 percent of their food fish needs…The risk of transferable disease may be small, but if something does go wrong, the potential [for damage] could be magnified."
Alaska echoes fears
The Gitxsan's concerns are echoed by the Alaskan government, which has asked BC to stop salmon farms so close to the BC-Alaskan border. (Alaska has banned fish farming in state waters.)
David Bedford, deputy commissioner for Alaska's Department of Fish and Game, points out that sea lice outbreaks at salmon farms in BC's Broughton Archipelago were linked to a precipitous drop in wild pink salmon stocks in 2002. "As we look around the world, we're trying to spot some place where there is both a vibrant and healthy natural population of salmon and a major salmon farming industry and the correlation between those two seems to be negative….We do have very healthy wild salmon runs here [in Alaska] and we have those by virtue of being very cautious stewards of that magnificent resource."
Along with sea lice, a deadly viral disease called infectious hematopoietic necrosis (IHN), widely reported at BC salmon farms, can also easily be transferred to wild salmon that swim by fish farms en route to Alaska, says Bedford. Outbreaks of IHN at BC salmon farms in 2002 led to the culling of millions of fish and caused significant financial losses for the industry. At the time, Pan Fish referred to IHN as the "major biological risk for the salmon farming industry in British Columbia."
Since then, an IHN vaccine has been developed and a provincial sea lice monitoring program implemented. Ayranto says disease "is something we take seriously every minute of every day."
Indeed, BC's salmon farming companies are spending increasing sums of money on medications to treat fish diseases, according to Statistics Canada. In 2004, the companies spent $7 million on therapeutants in BC, including antibiotics and the controversial sea lice medication SLICE. That compares with $5.3 million spent in 2003 and $4.5 million spent in 2002, according to Statistics Canada.
Opposition years in the making
Alaska's other worry, says Bedford, is that escaped, farmed Atlantic salmon could eventually colonize, displacing Pacific salmon and jeopardizing Alaskan salmon runs.
"We have found substantial numbers of those [farmed Atlantic] fish in our waters and we have found some of those fish in our freshwater streams."
The number of salmon that escape from BC farms varies widely from year to year. In 2005, only 48 salmon escaped, compared with 44,000 in 2004, says Andy Thompson, sustainable aquaculture director, Pacific region, for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Thompson oversees the Atlantic Salmon Watch Program, a federal/provincial initiative which tracks escaped salmon and captures them.
Ayranto, along with others in the salmon farming industry and the provincial government, says the number of escaped Atlantic salmon is too low to pose a threat to Pacific stock, but Bedford points out that "there are few invasive species that colonize the first time they're introduced. It usually takes several introductions before they finally stick."
Opposition to north coast salmon farming has been brewing for years, yet the provincial government only put the Strouts Point operating license on hold after the Gitxsan requested consultations. In 2004, the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District Board voted to ask the federal and provincial governments to halt new salmon farms in their sprawling district bordering Alaska's Inside Passage. During the recent federal election campaign, Skeena-Bulkley Valley riding candidates from every political party, including the Conservative Party, publicly announced their opposition to salmon farming in Northern BC.
North Coast MLA Gary Coons, Skeena MLA Robin Austin and Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen are also all opposed to fish farm expansion north. Joining the call for a moratorium on northern salmon farming is the one-year-old group Friends of Wild Salmon, a coalition of environmental groups, businesses, First Nations and individuals.
Sparrow case changes dynamic
The reason for the provincial government's attentive response to the Gitxsan can be summed up in one word: Sparrow. In 1990, in a case called Sparrow, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that governments do not have the power to interfere unilaterally with existing aboriginal rights-including activities such as hunting and fishing.
The Sparrow case established a framework for addressing what could be justifiable infringement of aboriginal rights and established that government must undertake certain processes to ensure that aboriginal rights are upheld.
Imagine this Kafkaesque scenario for the provincial government. If the Strouts Point operating license were to be granted without consultation with the Gitxsan, and the band launched a court challenge, a favourable ruling for the Gitxsan could set a precedent for the provincial government to consult with all First Nations with aboriginal rights to fish swimming through salmon farm waters. That might effectively halt salmon farm expansion in the province.
Some BC First Nations have partnered with salmon farming multinationals to support farming on their traditional territories, but most nations remain opposed to salmon farming. Of the seven bands that comprise that Tsimshian Tribal Council, for instance, just two-the Kitkatla and Kitasoo bands-support salmon farms. The other five bands in the council, including the Metlakatla and Kitsumkalum bands, are outspoken opponents. The Skeena Native Development Society, representing economic development initiatives by First Nations throughout the Skeena watershed, is also against open-net pen salmon farming.
Provincial licenses expire
In another twist, the Strouts Point operating license has been held up for so long that provincial operating licenses for Pan Fish's other two North Coast sites have expired. The license for Anger Anchorage expired last December, while the Petrel Point license expired February 16.
Ayranto says he expects renewals to be only a formality. To complicate matters further, however, other upstream First Nations, including the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, have recently indicated they also want to be consulted about approvals for any North Coast salmon farms, says Scotnicki.
The Strouts Point impasse comes at a difficult moment for BC's salmon farming industry. In 2004, BC farmed salmon production and value fell for the second year in a row, according to Statistics Canada. Lower prices for farmed salmon, as a result of increased international competition and a stronger Canadian dollar, were cited as contributing factors.
Challenging conditions have sparked further consolidation in an industry already dominated by only a handful of players. Two years ago, five multinationals operated 80 percent of BC's 129 marine salmon farm sites. Today, just three multinational companies, including Pan Fish, operate most of BC's marine salmon farm sites. Total salaries and wages in BC's farmed salmon industry, too, have fallen -- from $48 million in 2002 to $41 million in 2004, according to Statistics Canada.
Studies underway
The BC government, in response to growing public concern about open-net pen salmon farming, has established a Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture. Chaired by Skeena New Democratic MLA Robin Austin, the commission is due to report back in mid-2007.
In the meantime, the Pacific Salmon Commission, a body formed by the Canadian and US governments to implement the Pacific Salmon Treaty, is also taking a keen interest in the issue of North Coast salmon farming. In 2004 and 2005, the commission spent a total of almost $200,000 for baseline habitat studies of near shore areas in Northern BC, according to Angus Mackay, the commission's fund coordinator for finance and administration.
Bedford says the studies will be used to measure the impact of salmon farming on wild stock if Pan Fish gets the provincial nod for its northern expansion. The purpose, he says, is to avoid "the paucity of information that have in the Broughton Archipelago. The problem there is that you can't tell what changed because you didn't know what was there in the first place."
Jeremy Berry, spokesperson for the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, says consultations with the Gitxsan will continue.
Sarah K. Cox is a Victoria-based journalist and consultant for government and non-profit organizations. Her Raincoast Conservation Society report about the salmon farming industry, Diminishing Returns, can be found at www.raincoast.org. Her last story for The Tyee was "Wal-Mart's 'Good Works'". ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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grub
6 years ago
Comments on "Push North for Fish Farms Blocked"
Does anyone know who/where the big markets for these salmon are?
kispiox
6 years ago
Safeway is the biggest market for farmed salmon. Ask your local store to stop carrying it. Urge your friends to do the same
Fiat lux
6 years ago
All forms of factory farming, be they on land or sea, are highly dangerous and permanently damaging to the ecology and the human race, we and our descendants are paying and will be paying for forever.
For one thing, the only way food animals can be raised in jammed up conditions, like the feedlots for cattle and pigs, and the fishfarms, is through the introduction of huge amounts of dangerous chemicals into their bodies, to prevent mass infections. These chemicals are then absorbed by the humans who eat that junk food and transferred to the environment, poisoning wildlife and the atmosphere.
The present avian flu hysteria, and hoax, can now be traced back to factory bird farms in Asia, carried around the world by wild birds, infected by the residues of those factory farms.
Here in North America the products of the feedlots and fish farms are highly responsible for many human illnesses, like cancers and especially the growing, dangerous obesity rates of children and the spread of bacteria immune to antibiotics.
Yet, these criminal practices are recommended by economists and slavishly permitted by governments in the interests of "economic efficiency" and "growth".
Ed Deak, Big Lake.
godsChild
6 years ago
I love salmon! Can't get enough and have the money to buy it; wherever it comes from. I could care less if it's farmed or fished or whatever. If the market says it wants salmon, then the market will be served. Problem as I see it is, for example, the cod fishery failed to price its resource accordingly and thats why it collapsed. It was simply too cheap and as a result, too many poor people continued to demand something that plainly should have been priced beyond their reach!
The biggest downside to the market is the effort to increase market share; which typically involves pricing goods lower and lower and lower. This creates a demand from the impoverished and unentitled, which in turn depletes the resource at a faster and faster rate. In these cases, the price mechanism fails to kick in until it's too late.
Price resources properly (ie: out of the range of welfare recipients and East Vancouverites say) and this argument goes away.
After all, nobody's complaining on the Tyee about the rising price of yachts are they? (Trust me, that rare Indonesian hardwood's getting pretty pricey!)
Yammer
6 years ago
Ed, would you prefer that Indian bands get no percentage of the fish farming industry (which is what the Gitxsan efforts are, quite transparently, all about), ever?
Or simply that the industry be made illegal in BC, and therefore exclusively practiced in countries which give no thought whatsover to the environment?
jesterjogger
6 years ago
That's right, welcome to "open for business" bc where under gordo and former, laughingly named, minister of sustainable resource management, george "bag man" abbott " new Environmental Assessment application proponents (as of 2002) draft their OWN TERMS OF REFERENCE thus removing the Environmental Assessment Office as a BOTTLENECK and putting the proponent in the drivers seat..."
p.s.-I hear ralph klein is a last minute add-on to our illustrious european health-care entourage!! Godspeed ralph, godspeed!
grub
6 years ago
godschild:
OK, that was good for a laugh...
But you do contradict yourself: if the "market says it wants" to increase marketshare or to offer commodities at lower prices then, by your reasoning, that's what the market ought to get, right?
NEWSFLASH! to godschild, there's another mechanism available as well. Check out how quotas work in the halibut fishery. Price may be a function of the marketplace, but quantity of fish harvestd is, essentially, independent of market demand (at least that's how the fisher on the docks at Pender Harbour explained it to me -- I assumed he knew what he was talking about).
Fiat lux
6 years ago
I will oppose and fight against criminal actions no matter what, who does them, where and for what reason.
If we allow one kind of crime, why not allow all?
When a so called economic practice causes cancer epidemics and piglike obesity in children loaded up with chemicals, hormones, steroids and antibiotics in their food, are we supposed to permit it, or excuse it because some people make profits from it ?
There were no children with cancers when I was a kid, because we ate good food and the environment wasn't poisoned with profitable chemicals. No breast cancers until I was in my forties, in Vancouver in the '70s
I have been involved in "green revolution" type corporate, chemical farming practices, going back to 1948, watching the terrible damage to our bodies and the environment.
As a still practicing organic rancher, I know from personal experience that such practices are not neceessary to feed people, but are pure and simple criminal actions to steal profits from people's pockets, while making them sick and killing them. And I don't have the slightest problem in calling people criminals when they use them. Why don't they just go and rob banks and hurt less ?
Ed Deak.
grub
6 years ago
Yammer asks of Ed whether:
Perhaps the answer lies not in making industry of all sorts illegal, but rather in applying stiff monetary charges for the externalities imposed on the environment.
Look, compared to most places in the world, we do a damned-fine job of having dog owners pick up their pets' poop. We've fortunately done this primarily through education and societal norms. I have no doubt, however, that extreme fines for pets soiling the commons would have a similarly positive effect. If it works for dog owners, I'm fairly sure it will work with factory owners.
So, there's no need to outlaw salmon farms. Let's just charge them the full price of the environmental damage they do. Then let's see if the salmon is such a bargain at Safeway.
Grumpy
6 years ago
Where's Rafe on this issue.
Anyone like farmed fish? Well better read up on the history of BSE, because it coming to a fish farm near you!
ubiquitous
6 years ago
Exactly grub. According to conventional economic thinking (as Ed would attest to I'm sure), the great "invisible hand" of the market should dictate a price for farmed salmon that reflects the negative externalities resulting from the industry - but alas, it does not. Another failure of the capitalist system!
clubofrome
6 years ago
Stop the impoverised and unentitled from wiping out Salmon as they have the Cod!
What are these people doing eating Salmon?!? We invented KD for them.
Proof that eating farmed Salmon causes brain damage, read "godsChild above.
jesterjogger
6 years ago
Ignored externalities are massive subsidies paid by the environment and our planet's future ecological viability. i.e. to allow short term profit for greedy, myopic people and corporations.
The bill will come due eventually as last years unprecendented slough of hurricanes, numerous intrusive species i.e. pine beetle, health problems and countless other, still unforseen longterm costs present themselves.
Oh yes the bills will come due! (Mr. Burns voice)
godsChild
6 years ago
I cant vouch for brain damage, but I own a half dozen properties in Greater Vancouver, several in select U.S. states and own homes Stateside, in Vancouver and overseas. I'm very well off and all but retired. I worked for all of it and I love spending money on things most people cant afford. If farmed or wild "anything" costs more and I want it, I'll pay for it. No problem here!
If you want to factor in "externalities" for the manufacture of Kraft Dinner, whats the bleaching of the paper going to be? How much petroleum based ink is "just right" on a package? What's the correct level of aluminum those cheesy packet containers should contain to prevent it being mined? Whining and complaining about "externalities" you know nothing about is pointless.Easiest thing to do is stand around and bitch. Doing something and solving problems is how I made my money.
Get the hint?
... and IF you need to know - I've eaten Kraft Dinner on a dare by my son. He's in Princeton - working to earn his MBA - and you're not.
grub
6 years ago
jesterjogger:
Correct.
There may be little wrong with capitalism but very much wrong with accounting systems as currently practised. True accounting systems need to count, measure, and demand a balance for all inputs and outputs.
As jesterjogger correctly points out, the bill will come due. Unfortunately, those who rang up the tab will be long gone (with their profits tucked neatly into offshore bank accounts). In 2006, where do we find MacMillan-Bloedel? How can we get Crown-Zee to pay for the devastation of untold tracts of forest lands?
We've been down this road before. Have we learned.
Notwithstanding other issues tied up with the softwood lumber tariffs, the American are actually right to some extent. They claim our stumpage rates constitute a subsidy. Does anyone really believe that the Americans are wrong on that count?
grub
6 years ago
godschild (what an idiot) on his son:
Why would I? I've got one -- an MBA, that is. And more....
So what's your point?
jesterjogger
6 years ago
Hey godschild do you have a trophy daughter?
(even if she's ugly thats still ok as long as I don't have to sign a prenup. I just wanna get my hands on your ill-gotten gains!!excluding properties in red states ofcourse)
Grub given the disgracful way gordo et al have devised stumpage rates for their multinational corporate forestry ceo buddies (check out list of main campaign contributors to bc liberal party)I'm afraid the americans have a very substantial case.
The fibs and their corporate overlords are raping our virtually unprotected wildnerness and non-renewable resources for their own selfish profiteering. If thats not bad enough they wont even share with the quickly disapearing blue-collar worker. Why pay a decent, living-wage to joe sixpack when you can export raw resources to be processes by slaves in a country with no environmental standards at all? Now thats profiteering!
grub
6 years ago
godschild asks:
The "just right" amount of ink on the package will be determined by your marketplace; after the costs of manufacturing the ink, the mining of the minerals, etc have been truly accounted for.
Can this be done? Of course. I'm sure your son at Princeton will probably be able to find courses on Environmental Accounting. If not at Princeton, I could direct him to such programs at Columbia University.
Accounting for externalities is not all that difficult, it just requires political will to insist that it actually happen.
grub
6 years ago
jesterjogger:
Another example is ALCAN planning to layoff the blue collar workers who work in the smelter in Kitimat because they can earn a bit more diverting power from the smelting of aluminum in order to just sell it.
How soon they forget that we, the people of BC gave them the Nechako watershed to dam up in exchange for jobs. OK, we didn't account for externalities there, but at least we got jobs out of that bargain. Now the corporation wants to reneg on that. Typical!
G West
6 years ago
Gee, wonder what persona godsChild has decided to adopt?
I get such a kick when insecure millionaires decide to drop in and share a bit of the wisdom that got them all those things they love to buy.
A touch insecure perhaps?
DPL
6 years ago
"Real fish don't eat salmon". Neat bumper sticker that has been around for a number of years. A number of first nations in the area the article started off talking about are opposed to fish farming.
Many countries ban the practice so they dropped in over here as soon as Gordo dropped the moritoriam , put in place by those awful NDP folks so it's open season on the wild, young salmon,that have to swim past the open , and of course less costly containment pens. Hey you want a lease to take over some of the public waters, sign here says Gordo and gang. The bundle of rights under Treaty with first nations are not yet well defined but does the New Era gang care? Of course not.
If anyone is desperate for a job, all other concerns sort of fade away, sadly.
I find it hard to believe that someone who claims to own so much property actually does,and reads The Tyee. One hopes the Income Tax people, provincially and federally,take a look now and again as well, just to make sure, if he is so rich he is paying his way. Rafe, maybe he's out of town this week. His interest and knowledge about fish farming is certainly worth reading about.
One fellow has buld a farmed salmon outfit on land and seems to be able to sell the total output to one store here in Victoria. I doubt his company is doing it on land just because he's a nice guy.
And sure we eat wild salmon and buy it from a store that sells nothing but fresh from the ocean fish of a number of species. Others buy off the docks as well. We buy the wild stuff because we know nobody has to put a chemical in it to make it the right colour. Nature does that quite well.
Sure it costs money but when factoring in the benefits it's worth it. Have we quit driving our cars because the price of gas went throught the roof? Of course not. We bitch about it but keep on driving.
allan
6 years ago
Yammer, just what percentage of fish farming problems would you prefer First Nations to accept?
Would it be a 50 percent loss of local wild salmon, 75 per cent or the whole shooting match?
Better than asking Ed Deak that question, why not ask it of the First Nations given that it's them that get to live with those percentages.
If fish farms foul local waters, threaten native species, introduce toxins into pristine environments and hide behind subsidies that ought to frighten the hell out of anyone who can read a real balance sheet, why should First Nations want anything to do with them other than to keep them as far away as possible?
Or do you see one good reason why isolated peoples who know how to sustainably use natures' available resources would want to give that all up for a few temporary jobs that'll likely end when the sites are too polluted to continue.
I may be wrong, but I'd bet that'll be about the same time the locals will begin to see the impact of toxins on their own families.
Yarrow, why is it people like you will only look at the basic economics of fish farming?
Remember Love Canal, that pretty little piece of upstate New York property that happened to turn into a living and dying hell for local residents.
I could use your view on economics to suggest that Love Canal made great economic sense, especially of you were a corporate shareholder in one of the polluting industries.
Forget about the cancer and other weird deaths, I might say. After all, they have absolutely nothing to do with the initial investment and plans to make millions.
In your economic model, long term problems are merely issues to be dealt with by those who didn't have the money or foresight to move away fast enough.
Simple economics, simple answers. And I'm sure the dogsChild would agree with you.
Fiat lux
6 years ago
Costs can not be cut, only transferred on other sectors, the environment and the future. (The first and second laws of thermodynamics)
The pollution in our lives, global warming, BSE, avian flu, cancer epidemics, sinking middleclasses, immune bacteria, forced urbanization etc. are the transferred real costs of "cheap foods".
There are no cheap foods, or cheap anything. The purpose of economic theories, since day one, has been the transfer of the real costs on others and diverting the benefits to special interest, ruling sectors.
We have to make up our minds whether we have democracy, which means equal rights, or market economics, which is the fraudulent definition of dictatorial fascism.
Ed Deak.
grub
6 years ago
Fiat Lux: too right!
We need to keep reminding ourselves that Strouts Point belongs to us. The Nechako watershed and the power that comes from it is ours. The rivers of the province are ours. The air belongs to us. The broadcast spectrum is ours.
And if anybody wants a piece of the action, we need to remember to extract a price that (1) covers externalities and (2) provides us with an income stream.
We can only make our claim on what is rightfully ours through the political process.
G West
6 years ago
My understanding is that farmed fish are fed a processed composite palletized fish meal that consists primarily of offal and discards from the fish processing industry. It sounds a lot like the rendering of similar materials from the beef processing industry into cattle feeds until this was shown to have a connection to BSE and CJD.
Is there any research being done to explore possible connections between farmed salmon consumption and health risks of any kind? I know there are connections with dioxins, furans and some elevated levels of heavy metals in farmed salmon flesh - but are there any other contra, specifically disease-related, indications in either fish or humans?
godsChild
6 years ago
People get what they deserve. If you choose to live near pollution, you'll reap the rewards of poor choices.
Besides, most here overlook the value of nearly everything.
Look at the economic benefits of cancer, for example. With more cancers, we need a more highly educated workforce. Doctors, Pharmacists, Engineers (to create the precision machinery to keep people alive), Nurses, etc. These are good wages and the economic spin offs of disease can be quite remarkable. I have a friend on the CCS (Canadian Cancer Society) for example and were it not for the rising cancers and the attendant research into them, they certainly wouldn't be pulling down a 6 figure salary! In any case, medicine certainly has economic benefits.
All it takes is the proper perspective.
Consider: Every environmental catastrophe requires capital and labour to clean up. So grubs friend can probably make an extra dollar or so cleaning up a polluted mess on top of what they're pulling down at the gas station. No small potatoes!
I say, if you dont like "pollution" don't live near it!
(Note to DPL: my son actually sent me a link to this site and I'm quite enjoying educating the naysayers and negative nellies here!)
(Note to grub: If you *do* have an MBA, I see you're putting it to good use posting (multiple times no less!)to obscure websites in the middle of the day in the middle of the working week.)
(Note to jester: I have two lovely daughters. Simply sign up at Hollyburn and I've no doubt you'll run across them!)
G West
6 years ago
godsChild
I guess Henry Ford would be a good model.
allan
6 years ago
Note to Dogschild: Educating anyone implies you have some wisdom to impart.
If or when you acquire some, I'm sure there are several readers here on the Tyee, including your son, who could benefit.
In the meantime why are you wasting your time here when opportunities to exploit, say kids the same age as your two daughters, are just waiting for your insightfulness.
Is your name real David Emerson by any chance?
bob the cat
6 years ago
wow...this dude is sumpthin` else
A real cancer pusher...
stinkysalmon
6 years ago
Godschild. With a name like that I suppose you have god on your side. If thats the case were in for some more inteligent replies from you and your god.
Maybe you and your friend could learn a thing or two about the real costs for health care. And as far as people getting what they deserve your day will come say maybe when your choking on your farm salmon that I grew. It is truly amazing what farm salmon will eat.
G West
6 years ago
Maybe someone's been eating way too much of that farmed fish - earlier on I recall the comment that godschild was especially fond of salmon:
I guess there's a context for everything!
clubofrome
6 years ago
A quick Google...
As noted previously Dogschild has been suffering from over consumption of farmed fish and unless he can curb his addiction, he will likely be declared a toxic hazzard. Hey buddy! Isn't there a by-law against walking around in West Van with higher than average PCB levels?
ubiquitous
6 years ago
At first I wasn't going to reply figuring that Dogschild was simply playing the fool (emphasis on simply) but I think that he has crossed the line suggesting that cancer is a positive for society. I certainly enjoy opposing views here on the tyee, but this guy is just offensive - whether he is just trying to get a rouse or not is irrelevant. I request that the editor of The Tyee remove this jackass post haste lest he'd like to accompany me the next time I visit my father; then perhaps he'll see how cancer affects individuals and their families.
bob the cat
6 years ago
Remember Bob Carter...anyone remember Bob Carter?
The selfmade B.C. millionaire.
They had a bit on T.V. quite a few years back ..a feature on ole Bob...we travelled around (cruised slowly) with Bob in his Rolls Royce Corniche or whatever..the T.V. guy asked Bob why he was driving slowly through the poorer neighbourhoods..
He said he wanted to show them what it was all about..he wanted them to take notice... Shortly after Bob was busted for procuring underage street kids for some pretty kinky stuff...Bob seems to have slipped off the radar ever since
I think its called the promotion of envy.. its part of the package...thats what Composer Randy Newman called it when speaking about what he mostly disliked about his U.S.A.
Really what its about is hate. Pure hate.
Why dignify this Hollyburn guy with response?
Ever been to Hollyburn Country Club? Thats Michael Walkers(Fraser Institute) old gig..director of Hollyburn Country Club. Really a boring place with a lot of boring vacuous people..but then its expensive...so dropping its name of course sends the right signals.
Fiat lux
6 years ago
Actually, godschild has a very sound economic advice according to the presently ruling ideological theory: We should set fire to our homes so we can give work to our fire figthters and then pay to rebuild them, which would give a great kick to the GDP.
I'm not joking. Ask any neoclassical economics professor. The more accidents and sickness we have the higher the GDP, growth and productivity stats.
Ed Deak.
BC Dude
6 years ago
as far as I can see godschild is more than likley suffering from "poor me i have no REAL friends" syndrome
Yammer
6 years ago
Hi Allan,
All agriculture is unnatural. As problems are identified (e.g. sea lice) then they should be corrected, not tolerated. Sometimes a whole industry SHOULD be banned. I'm thinking of a report I read which indicated that the flooding of rice paddy for tiger shrimp has been an ecological disaster for Thailand.
Not knowing that much about fish farms, I don't know whether the industry is that intrinsically unsustainable/harmful. Perhaps it is.
I'm also agreeing with the Gitxsan that they should be at the table if this use possibly infringes their aboriginal rights. Forgive my cynical assumption that the resolution will include a percentage for the band.
G West
6 years ago
ubiquitous
I'd leave godschild alone. Offensive though the posts are and I agree the cancer reference was noxious and unfeeling but I think dumping is pointless. It just plays into the foolishness.
bob the cat
I do remember Carter. And I remember the film you're talking about too. And his flame out. Haven't heard or read a word about him since. You're right though, godschild could be a clone.
G West
6 years ago
Further, Appears godschild first posted here on Feb 27 to the Olympic story - if the Tyee's search engine is reliable - could very well be someone else posting under a new name. No doubt he or she is phoney, in my opinion.
grub
6 years ago
godschild:
Howdy neighbor!
What makes you think you're the only semi-retired, successful, resident of West Vancouver who can post to Tyee multiple times per day? As to the MBA; are you feeling inadequate among the fellows at Hollyburn Club? Trust me, it's not about the MBA itself, it's about what you do with it.
hunter
6 years ago
come on people! This troll is just another erwin- so let's just save the disk space and CIGC like the CIRE.
The brain
6 years ago
G West:
People do change names here. I have a second myself. Surprized? Anyways... two wrongs don't make a right. Guy comes up with something you think is looney tunes. He thinks the same of you. One of you gets ignorant about it. One of you doesn't. Who's the loser?
Some important questions have been asked:
Is there any research being done to explore possible connections between farmed salmon consumption and health risks of any kind? I know there are connections with dioxins, furans and some elevated levels of heavy metals in farmed salmon flesh - but are there any other contra, specifically disease-related, indications in either fish or humans?
-G West
The feed for fish farms is mainly soybean and corn meal in terms of percentages, but soybeans are the mainstay. There are several problems with using this as a meal. Firstly, the farm fish is what it eats. It doesn't taste like a wild fish in comparison, chemicals, and antibiotics and all. And we haven't mentioned the healthy benefits of exercise. Wild fish migrate. Farm fish don't. If godschild did a blindfold taste test, he would agree.
And for as dangerous as it is to eat meats that have been fed antibiotics with any kind of food source be it milk, meats from beef, pork, poultry and dairy, farmed fish are no exception. We should all know the risks to this. Resistance to antibiotics, as well as a lack of resistance to bacteria.
But antibiotics are the long term dangers with farmed meats manifesting themselves over 20 to 40 years. The short term risks with farmed meats is what they are fed compared to what they naturally feed themselves.
With fish, salmon in particular, we all know that they are high in Omega 3's, mainly from the seaweed, algae and lifeforms up the food chain that feed from green sources. These green sources in their simplicity have the Omega 3's that build up in Salmon.
Remember that Omega 3 is an essential fatty acid? We can't make it in our bodies? Its the same with Salmon. It comes from their ocean food source and fish rely on Omega 3's heavily, knowing it or not, to survive cold weather. Feed them soybean meal, and its another story. High amounts of omega 6 instead of 3.
Our bodies should have in between a 2.5:1 to 4:1 ratio of Omega 3's to 6's. With our present diets, its 15 to 20:1 6's to 3's. Knowing that our brains are more than 2/3'rds fat (thats right, we are fat heads), and knowing that we need a balanced ratio of fats (and avoidance of others altogether in our diet), and knowing that fat cells are the storage dump site for toxins, and knowing that we are ignorant, naive or just plain stupid when it comes to all of this yet, it is unsurprizing that we have high Alzcheimers rates in this country and the first world as a whole.
bob the cat
6 years ago
I think godsChild was a kind of Erwin caricature
(intentionally)...he/she was satirizing the neo-liberal, libertarian mindset...however he did cross the line for some on cancer...I think he/she realized this too late...and inadvertantly hurt some people.
she/he won`t be back
The brain
6 years ago
For anyone who is health conscious and wishes to look at further science beyond what this article and I have stated in relation to fats and diet, google Royal R. Rife, Dr. Denham Harman, Rene Debous, with emphasis on Harman's work and try a read from James F. Balch, M.D. called "The Super Anti-Oxidants". Fats, sugars, proteins, fibres, toxins and detox, environments, its all integrated.
In respects to an earlier post on who owns those properties, most of us think its the governments, or our nations, or ours personally, but the first nations themselves, argue that it belongs to God. (Godschild, are you reading this?) Which human version of God is moot. It's God's will that should be asked, that should take precidence and if some of us are too Atheist for this, then we can all at least grasp the God ideal without to much difficulty. "What's best for the whole."
Cutting off natural breeding lanes and risking GM fish to mix with ocean salmon is, well, quite stupid for the whole to begin with. My own channels have told me specifically to let us all know to lay off of GM foods other than the kind that have roots. To this day, the only advantage I see with GM "rooted" foods is for energy and certain environmental factors that aren't on our radars, but, that's another story. It should be emphasized that GM fish aren't the same as wild fish, and I'm hoping another commentator can outline specifically what these differences are with web site links (got my head into a good book... and income tax).
Bottom line is that this world is 3/4's water (I think thats right), with salmon requiring access to fresh water runs to breed. Are we going to risk this ecological balance so a few fish farms can call some coastline theirs to make some dough and the government can learn all over again how stupid it is to watch 'em screw up again and do nothing?
What, Canadians can't leave a good example for the rest of this labelled insane world to follow because we have some kind of herd mentality that says its ok to be crazy? Its not the song Alaska is singin', and its not the song the first nations are singin' and its not the song nutritionalists are singin', or those who listen to their tast buds, or those who give a shit about their health, or those who respect the might and greed of the U.S. empire (of which Alaska happens to be a state) and that but not least, those who follow the will of God or God ideals...
Rebuttals, anyone?
Colin
6 years ago
Before you can all farm fish, remember that Salmon farming is only a very recent version of a agricultural practice going on for thousands of years. Chinese farmer still raise carps in rice paddies, Native people here used to use weirs to contain and select migrating salmon and the stocking of lakes has been practiced for at least a couple of hundred years if not more. There is also shellfish farming, which little is heard about.
Regarding the First Nations, the various FN’s are divided on the idea of fish farming and it nearly came to gun fights at one locale up the coast during a dispute.
allan
6 years ago
Brain, if you go into the Tyee archives you will find dozens of stories on fish farms. Nothing in this post is new except for the effort to expand north.
Rafe Mair has been posting on fish farms since before the great flood.
The only thing that keeps these outrfits operating along our coasts is the Liberal government, which has cancelled fines imposed on most of the companies and ignored virtually every regulation it could if no one complained.
The only other link is the heavy number of Liberals or friends and family of Liberal politicians who happen to have invested in these portable cesspools.
It's all really quite stinky in very many different ways.
The brain
6 years ago
Colin:
Interesting... while eating some dethawed wild salmon at the moment (like mine with a couple of garlic cloves and olive oil at a lower heat, yummie!), what you are saying is quite correct, but there are some major differences. GM (genetically modified) is the the big one, as well as feeding them processed feeds.
As well, older models were of the fresh water design where potential for introducing species in waters that had no fish previously has less risk, but your point is noted. The concept of fish "farming" is nothing new. We've tried for eons to guarantee food sources for ourselves and this "goal" outside of "profits" is a noteworthy one.
The thing that is so risky with farmed salmon, however, is the intermixing of genes and the spreads of disease that could very much so threaten the existing stocks we now have in the oceans. If this happens and it can be proven (through genes) that Canadians had something to do with it, Alaska could have their way in court making the peanuts a few politicians have had stuffed in their pockets for re-election or otherwise, pale in comparison. There are no numbers that could even remotely summarize the potential costs of such disasters. Billions comes to mind over long timeframes, as some reprecussions could be irreversible.
Residents around lake Okanagan aren't whopping it up with the extinction of its koho from its waters through the introduction of shrimp. I'm betting that if we went digging, we would find stories that were filled with the same kinds of results "counter" to our expectations with a look at the long term historical perspective, even with the examples suggested. It has always been a question of harmony and sustainability, where as these days, the question is about profits and taxable incomes.
G West
6 years ago
Brain
There's a plant in Oregon that reprocesses fish waste and offal from a variety of fish processing facilities - they truck it in from miles away - into a pelletized dry food, it has additives certainly but there's no doubt it also concentrates any elements that exist in the original organic material prior to processing. I don't know how much of this material ends up feeding salmon in Canada but I'll wager there's some of it in the mix. And I think that's the reason farmed salmon have so much more of the elements noted in the Environmental Working Group report noted above by clubofrome.
As for people adopting more than one identity here, or anywhere else, I think it's a waste of time and effort. Why would you play that game - it makes one look as foolish as the drelb behind godschild?
The brain
6 years ago
G West:
Yah, I had trouble logging on a couple of times and so, out of necessity and curiosity, I tried setting up a second name, and sure enough, it worked. It's "pinky", I doubt if I'll use it unless I feel like having a skitzo point with something bizarre down the road, and its not needed. The old one is back, so...
With regards to the feed, its commonsensical to me. Ed Deaks economics applied to cheaper feed for profits regardless of the consequences, godchilds public representation of wild fish, farmed fish, where does it come from, "whats the difference"?, when most everyone knows the health and environmental food connection...
Allan: Took a look at Rafe's archives and found three for the newbies like myself to look at. Suspected some Liberal involvment. (man, these guys are a dirty, lazy lot, everywhere I look, I find more, more, more) Thanks for the leads. Hoping to find some names in there.
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/10/02/WildSalmonWipedOut/
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/07/31/SeaLice/
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/05/09/SeaLiceSalmon/
G West
6 years ago
The Brain:
Yep! (I almost put that in caps).
Colin
6 years ago
Brain
I remember the "shrimp fiasco" well intentioned idea gone bad.
tommymoore
6 years ago
Brain, I think you mean kokanee. And as most here who read your posts have come to realize, your lengthy, inane and misinformed wastes of bandwidth are false. Habitat development (the kokanee are a stream and shore spawner) has as much to do with the decline of the species' population as does the 1966 introduction of mysis shrimp.
The fact that you have a sockpuppet here on the Tyee is astounding - aren't your voluminous maundering meanderings more than enough on their own?
North of Hope
6 years ago
The cod off the East coast served that population very well even though it wasn't up to your greedy standards. The reason that fishery has declined is that instead of fishers going out and catching the cod with longlines, greedy corperate fishboat owners started to drag the bottom of the sea where the fish lived, catching all the fish and destroying their habitat. THe cod will not return until their habitat is restored. You and your ilk, with your greed are destroying the habitat for humans. That kind of narrow mindedness has destroyed cultures in the past and it will destroy ours since our energy sources are very limited and our western culture will not survive without them.
North of Hope
6 years ago
The main critera for getting into an MBA program are very thick knee caps or artifical knee pads. Since you claim to be a person of money, it could be either. Perhaps your thick skull has migrated south to your son's knees.
kootowl
6 years ago
It's hard to believe that someone would cite the Broughton Archipelago as a place where "you didn't know what was there in the first place." Seems rather obvious that there were plenty of healthy salmon. There were no infernal fish farms, and sea lice were not attached to every fish you hauled out of the chuck.
Atlantic salmon have no place in the Pacific Ocean, penned or otherwise.
I am curious: what does Safeway do with all that farmed salmon that has to be turfed because nobody will buy it? Does it end up, er... "recycled?"
godsChild: what do you figure your grandchildren and great grandchildren stand to inherit, in terms of an environment? keep fiddling whilst Rome burns.
godsChild
6 years ago
Goodness, there's enough bile here to float a rope!
I offer no apologies for the simply stated fact that diseases and illness account for a growing percentage of our economy. There is money in illness and death. That's why we have funeral homes children!
Life is exceptionally cheap and often unconsidered, as can readily be demonstrated by the fact that every poster here encourages Chinese human rights abuse!
How?
Since every person posting at the Tyee uses a computer, they actively exert a demand for a specific device on which to communicate. Their demand for technological devices apparently regardless of their origin (and if you're using a computer, at least one of the components is manufactured in China) - is tacit economic support for human rights abuses in China.
There's no convincing argument otherwise.
None.
No one "forced" anyone here to use a computer to communicate here, and yet because of your "want" (not need) you create a demand. Where there is demand, there will come a market. I'm sorry you don't like it. I'm sorry you take issue with it by employing the very mechanism which gives it life - but that is always your choice!
In a market (and you ALL live in one) you vote with dollars. If you have no dollars, you have no vote! I'm not making this up and I'm not responsible for this being the "way things are". You can cry and wail and tell everybody how it should be - by all means. We can see the amazing results of your browbeating daily!
Zilch!
I say take responsibility for your life!
I am successful, wealthy and aware! It is neither good nor bad - it's just the way it is!
For my money (and I've seen this played out) desperation (hunger, etc) will kick the living s*** out of (typically) well fed "principles" any day of the week.
Personally, I've always liked to see hunger in action. It's quite specific and unrelenting.
I say grow up and whatever will be, will be!
So sadly no.. I'm not going anywhere... I love educating you folks on how things are!
G West
6 years ago
godsChild(sic) is an expert on bile, of that there is little doubt. Unfortunately, to do any educating it is first necessary to actually know something.
'The misfortunes of poverty carry with them nothing harder to bear than that it makes men ridiculous.' or, perhaps:
'When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food the call me a communist.'
Perhaps someone else is in need of a little maturity.
The brain
6 years ago
Tommymore:
Thanks for the correction, but no thanks to how it was delivered. It is kokanee salmon. Coho, Kokanee, I guess I should be more careful for anal people like yourself who won't let me forget it lightly.
Mistakes like this aren't intentional, a far cry from your own intentions to put people down. Not sure why you continue to demonstrate a need for anger management and manners your parents never taught you over a slight mistake, but, to each their own. It is kokanee salmon, but a brain fart on my behalf in getting the name wrong with an issue most people have heard of, isn't going to bring em' back to the Okanagan. I should know. I lived in Kelowna for nine years all through the controversy until 2003.
Development as you imply in terms of urban growth, is only half of it. But it is half of it.
http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/thomp-ok/kokanee-salmon/articles/990927a.htm
Cattle and logging around the watersheds contributed to deteriorating banks and watershed conditions needed for Kokanee.
Bulldozed gravel beds for urban development, rerouted streams for flood control, these have all had their share in reduced kokanee numbers, but the big tell is this:
Most Kokanee live about four years, but some can live as long as eight years. Once they spawn, they die. These fish spawn from August to November, and they prefer to spawn in streams, but in some cases will spawn along the shores of lakes. The female digs redds or nests with her tail, and deposits hundreds of eggs. She may build several nests, and guard them until she dies. The eggs hatch in spring.
So the question is, if kokanee can spawn along shorelines then what is dwindling their populations down to a mere 100,000 or less by 2001 estimates?
We've always looked at the usual culprits. Overfishing, logging activities, stream modification, water use and lakeshore development would have been a detriment to Kokanee to begin with, but there is evidence that global warming could be a major factor. Fish stocks are declining everywhere in BC overall, not just in the Okanagan, and logging doesn't help with stream temps.
Kokanee need cold waters for eggs to hatch to frys. It just hasn't been cold most falls these last 15 to 20 years. Even so, With the knowledge that Kokanee can breed along shorelines to offset deteriorating watershed streams, its something else.
Its the shrimp that are doing them in. Mysis Shrimp compete with Fry's compete for zoo plankton and their populations have exploded since being introduced in lake Okanogan in the 60's. Its pretty much accepted now, that we've done them in in just about every way we can try. But Mysis shrimp is their nail in the coffin.
In 89 there were an estimated 19 million kokanee in the Okanagan. Twelve years later, this pop. was estimated at 50 - 100,000. Even up to 94, mysis shrimp weren't on anyone's radar. It was thought at the time, that the shrimp were eating lake plankton, competing for the kokanee fry's food supply, but people such as yourself thought that it was development.
We pretty much know now that it's us in every way we could possibly imagine. A variety of human conditions affecting their spawning streams combined with global warming are big factors, but the major one is human introduced Mysis shrimp being introduced with ever growing shrimp populations being the final straw.
The brain
6 years ago
godschild:
Might be nitpicking, but... some computers are still built with not one semiconductor, chip or board processed in China. Japan, Taiwan, yes, but not China. (something to do with them not liking each other, I suspect) Taiwan and Japan are major semiconductor capitals, its just how it is, but China has made major inroads with semi's regarding monitors and home entertainment.
Do you? With fish, farmed or wild, there are dietary differences. With Cancer alone, I highly doubt that you are truly "aware" of what to avoid at the grocery store. You might want to take a good look at that human "paradigm" of yours once more. It is so often the opposite of the way we think it is.
Your riches don't bother me like they do others. I feign wealth, or imply it, and sure enough, the knives come out like I'm the one responsible for everyone's problem as I'm sure you are aware. but if I die with millions not invested in decent causes, I was likely the problem to the solution, not the solution to the problem.
Its not just some "easier to pass through the eye of the needle", can't take it with you thing. What are you truly aware of? It's the old, what did you need so much for to begin with? What was your goal? What do you call wealth and success? Prestige? Status? Bragging rights? Fleeting power? The only legitimate arguement you can give me at this point is "I did it for my kids". The arguement you just gave was:
Good luck tring to sell that one to African kids who never chose it, or had the chance. There is such a thing as "victims" and "dependents" here. It might be wise to remind yourself of how you began life and are likely to leave it, you know, "dependent". (The disconnect is always the same)
This world has room for philanthropists. You should try this sometime if you haven't, unless you have something against the Paul Newmans of the world. Peace, human rights and environmental groups are a good place to get your feet wet and if you are profit orientated, by all means, start that Green powered IPO we're all looking for. I'm a big fan of geothermal around the pac rim, myself. Someones got to do it. Until then...
allan
6 years ago
"I am successful, wealthy and aware", offers dogsChild.
Likely aware that he was born with the means to be the ass he is without even having to work at it.
Why is it I suspect his three offspring too will carry that handicap where ever they go?
But I do sense a dread within dogsChild, that the riff-raff might someday be knocking at his door and all his staff will have abandoned him as would be their best interest according to his dog-eat-dog view of life.
So ladies and gentlemen, take in the angst this poor specimen of a human being must suffer through and the bravado he displays in his effort to convince the world of his entitlements.
If only he could be more convincing.
Actually he does sound quite a lot like our old friend Working Man.
Tell me it ain't so Working Man, that this is just some imposter who hasn't the pizzazz to strut about with the arrogance you have so proudly displayed.
bob the cat
6 years ago
godsChild:
Don`t know that people here need educating on Social Darwinism..I think they know what its all about...they know you.. You hate us...We hate you
simple...
Fiat lux
6 years ago
We're not wealthy by any means, but very comfortably off. I could have made a fortune as a portrait painter, but having met many of the VIPs and captains of industry,- not "bosses" of course, that name is reserved to "labour bosses",- professionally and personally, I came to dislike the people who could afford my portrait work, so I went back to painting what I felt like, still do it and mostly give away my work to people who appreciate it.
Reading the offerings of godschild reminds me of the 3 years I spent in Austria after WW2, where nobody every complained about Hitler, only talked about the wonderful work he has done for working people.
There's no point in arguing with the faithful.
People who have "made it" always believe that their luck was no luck, but some kind of Act of God through predestination, or prayers, or the result of their "hard work". Scheeming to screw others, like some of the "big names", while thumping their Bibles.
Those who don't "make it" are lazy bums who rely on the nanny state for handouts.
Now, I have a good example on how some people "make it".
When we sold our business in Vancouver and came up to our ranch, ready to build and get full time into artwork, the buyer still owed us considerable amount. He set up a dummy company on paper, bought the products of our business at half price and resold them through his dummy company at full price and we ended up with .20 cents on the dollar, paid in bits and pieces when he felt like it.
The arbitrators were Coopers & Lybrand. When they went after him, the "conservative business
business leader" told them that if I push him too far, he'll put my old business into bankruptcy and I won't get anything. He wanted to keep the well established name and reputation, but we had to spend 8 1/2 years in the bush, without electricity, phone, running water, refrigeration etc. living the 3 of us in 3 small cabins, totalling 300 Sq. ft.
We're well experienced in hard work and self sufficiency and didn't go to the "nanny state" for handouts, but worked our way out and up with the most primitive methods, made it and prospered. He smoked himself to death and few shed a tear.
I could tell similar stories on how some of the big names in business have made their fortunes, even boasting about it how they stole from people, while preaching the beautiful benefits of so called "free enterprise". Another form of communist collectivization by a self appointed ruling class.
Dogschild, you couldn't teach a 1 year old boy how to take a leak standing up. When anybody needs your kind of warped mind teachings and advice, all they have to do is read the garbage coming out of the Fraser and CD Howe advertising agencies, or the NCC, on "wealth creation".
Ed Deak.
ubiquitous
6 years ago
I’m not entirely sure what godschild is teaching us anyway. People make money off cancer! No shite sherlock! What other tidbits of wisdom do you care to impart on us? Spewing arrogant clichés ("take responsibility for your life") hardly constitutes an education. Telling us to just accept the way things are and stop whining (another overused cliché), is not an education. To come on this site and deliberately stir the pot is simply cowardly. Anyway, I’ve got a job to do, so off I go…
bob the cat
6 years ago
godsChild: you got no class...
Ed: You a painter? Me too! Portraits as well!
People keep tellin` me to get my stuff "out there"
but I can`t get my head around "selling" my work..like you..if someone likes it I give it away. Maybe we could do a trade one day.
jesterjogger
6 years ago
thanks rothchild, for cluein' me in to the error of my socialist ways!
thanks to you larnin' me the truth about "how things are" already I've cancelled my monthly donations to thw WWF, suzuki foundation, Nature Conservency and Canadian Red Cross. WHAT WAS I THINKING!!!
If them animals, plants, ecosystems and unfortunate people can't look after themselves they got no right bein' here!
Hey plants and animals MONEY TALKS AND
BULLSH!T WALKS!
Clearly I've been deluding myself all these years that I actually had a CHOICE about who I am and the nature of the world I live in.
Well @#$% that man!! It's time to jump on the consumer bandwagon and start competin' with then joneses over there. Watch out fragile planet her I come!!!!!
Fiat lux
6 years ago
I'm off to town now till tonight, but would like to add that we could scrape ourselves up from a potential disaster, because we were living out in the boondocks and free to act on our own behalf.
One of the main trusts of the neocon ideology is forced urbanization and the depopulation of the country. 80% of Canadians are now living in cities, completely at the mercy of big business for every bite and every movement they make.
Which has been and is the purpose of globalized wealth creation to begin with.
Goodamm thieves and crooks controlling the lives of billions, then they urge them to "help themselves", free of the "nanny state".
At least I'll know, as I'm driving to town that two logging trucks racing each other side by side, won't be allowed and encouraged to force us off the road, or smash us to smithereens in the name of "efficiency"
Ed Deak.
grub
6 years ago
godschild:
Let's be clear, markets are not some natural phenomena. That is, free markets, are not, to use your terms, "the way things are".
Markets consist of humans engaging in transactions. At even the most primitive level, humans are subject to cultural values and societal mores. At a sophisticated level, humans submit to laws, made by other humans.
Markets are no more "free" than the traffic through downtown Vancouver is "free". You may well choose your destination -- or not -- but you are constrained by the actions of others, responding to generally agreed upon norms and by the laws of the road.
What makes you think markets are "the way things are"? Markets are the creations of humans, not nature. There is no natural law of free markets. Markets are only as "free" as humans allow them to be.
And, if you're nearly as successful as you claim to be, you'll know, as JK Galbraith has stated, that everyone wants the competition of a free market for others, and protectionism for themselves. Now that's more likely "the way things are". Further, I'll venture that if you are as wealthy as you claim, then you've been the beneficiary of the protectionism Galbraith writes about.
grub
6 years ago
Fiat Lux:
Great! You beat me to the punch.
What dogschild and his ilk forget is that, while "efficiency" is one part of successful systems, "effectiveness" is the other. Efficiency and effectiveness are part of two continua: means versus ends.
The neocons love to preach the efficency ideology. And there's nothing wrong with efficiency, when that efficiency is in the service of a goal. Efficiency simply for the sake of efficiency is simply mindless observance of input-output ratios.
Which, of course, brings us to effectiveness. Effectiveness -- ends -- has to do with the intelligent choice of "what in hell is all this efficiency in aid of?" Effectiveness is not about mindlessness. Effectiveness is, to borrow from Ed Deak, making decisions about what global wealth creation is all about.
Definitions of effectiveness are also over which we collide politically. dogshit and his fellow travellers would have a world in which the lucky hoard the bulk of global wealth.
Some of us, prefer to build notions of equity and social responsibility into our preferred goals for global wealth creation.
grub
6 years ago
godschild, given the topic of this article, are you in favor of a provincial operating license being granted Pan Fish, to install open net pen salmon farming at Strouts Point?
Why? Why not?
godsChild
6 years ago
I am in favour of any enterprise that fulfills the demand for a product. It is not up to me to decide what the collection of demanding people known as a market wants, but it can be up to me to fulfill those desires and profit from them.
If people stopped wanting salmon - but they dont seem to; I'd guess based on wanting a healthier alternative to cholesterolly beef....
Hey... that's the way it is...
Eddy Haskel
6 years ago
Godschild makes a valid point. The sooner we pave over the wilderness the sooner we can start terraforming the planet to be more sustainable for humans. Don't deny it. It really is what we all want. How else could anyone explain gated retirement communities in Costa Rica?
G West
6 years ago
godsChild (sic) appears to want to have an argument with herself. Perhaps everyone should let her!
kootowl
6 years ago
Supply and demand? let's see...crystal meth, porn...it sounds like godsChild would be most content to take the role of Snowman in an Oryx and Crake world: "any enterprise that fulfills the demand for a product." Yeesh.
I'm hoping s/he's just stringing us along.
grub
6 years ago
godschild:
Of course, now we know you're full of bullshite.
You would not be in favor of an enterprise fulfilling market demand for a product if it meant despoiling your beautiful West Van neighborhood, and spewing toxins and excrement onto your yard.
True enough. But it is up to us -- you and me -- to decide if the market gets what it wants. In the case of Strouts Point, it belongs to us. We are in a position to grant or deny permission to utilize this common resource.
So, to use your words: "Hey... that's the way it is..."
Eddy Haskel
6 years ago
Actually Kootowl, it is the environmentalists who are stringing you along. We live in an incredibally contaminated planet with no signals that the situation will be abated anytime soon. We can blame industry if we like to bury our heads in the sand. But the last time I looked... is was everybody everywhere buying super cleaners, hairsprays, gasoline, paper products and everything else. A gated community in Costa Rica is the epitome of our failure to live within our own bullshit for the environment. You are sold on Costa Rica because it's a tropical paradise with many natual wonders and freindly peoples. Yet when you move there you live in a gated community that's a Canadian enclave and your golf course and swimming pool and shopping centre are right there, next door, so you never need to meet the locals or explore your environment. Concern for the environment? How archaic.
Kory
6 years ago
Rebuttals, anyone?
-The Brain
Out of sight, out of mind?
Sure, the world's surface is closer to 2/3 water (by area), rather than the 3/4 The Brain stated. More important is the biodiversity. Roughly 99% of all living species are aquatic. Moreover, 99% of all organisms are aquatic.
We keep dumping shit (literally and figuratively) in the oceans. Everything from Nuclear waste to human waste, from acid mine drainage to storm sewer drainage... it all dumps into the ocean.
The obvious solution is to add high-densities of a species that dies off at high densities. Then add some antibiotics to try to keep them alive. Oh, and the sea lice like the density? Well, just feed the fish some anti-lice drugs. Mmmmm... drugs.
Would YOU wrap your lips around a hospital sewage line?
Kory
6 years ago
Oh, and the issue of the atlantic salmon being GM has come up. Just as worrisome is the very limited gene pool used to begin with. These things are inbred since they came from the East Coast, not just GM.
demotto
6 years ago
Seems to me it is only safe to eat 2 servings of farmed fish per month. Fish food includes a lot of poultry renderings meal and feathers. So I guess when you eat farmed fish you are eating concentrations of the hormones and antibiotics that were fed to the chickens plus the same that is added by the fish food manufacturers. A double whammy me thinks.
G West
6 years ago
On improving the quality of fish food:
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2004/feb/tech/kb_fishfood.html
The brain
6 years ago
QUOTE]Bottom line is that this world is 3/4's water (I think thats right), with salmon requiring access to fresh water runs to breed. -brain
I recall saying "I think", not "know", implying a guess, but anyways, the answer is 29% land, 71% water, meaning that we are both wrong, technically. Now if we split our differences...
In answer to your question of wrapping my mouth around sewage lines... I've been questioning whether or not eating wild salmon is a wise thing to do anymore for the very reasons you state. We are what we eat and, if its a logical question... why are we feeding farm salmon stuff that we wouldn't eat ourselves?
More to the point, why are we negatively contributing to the environments we have to live in? Why are we polluting the very food sources we need to survive?
I tried my hand in raising pigs for a while (in a literal sense). The best diet I could come up with is the one I could consume on a regular basis for myself. They did extremely well, stayed healthy and grew quickly, but economics was against me. I wasn't farrow to finish and transport costs were too high. Nevertheless, its a no-brainer that if you wouldn't touch what you feed animals with similar biochemistry to your own...
Its always coming down to bad environmental and ecological planning for the sake of a buck made to benefit a few at the cost to many, and I'm not sure how else to describe fish farms at the moment. It all points back to Gordon Campbell and friends.
Demotto:
Knowing what I know about nutrition and diet, I wouldn't eat farmed fish at all.
Fiat lux
6 years ago
Going back to the question of "efficiency"
Economic efficiency, or even any economic action, can not be defined in monetary terms, because they are not, and do not represent realities, but only often violence induced, infintely variable, temporary perceptions.
Further, since bank deregulation, the special interest sector in charge of money creation has been engaged in the gross inflation of monetary capital to take control of the world's resources, while transferring the responsibility for the convertibility of that worthless money on society at large, causing terrible damage to the environment and humanity.
Economic efficiency must be defined in the same terms as engineering, or physical efficiency:
"The most work done, or the needs of the greatest number of people supplied, with the least resource/energy inputs."
In other words, the present, economics textbok definition of economic efficiency of : "The biggest monetary profits with the least monetary inputs", is a fraud and legalized crime, causing daily growing destitution, environmental destruction and death around the world.
The fish farms and feedlots are among the prime examples of the falsehood of fraudulent "monetary efficency".
Ed Deak.
Fiat lux
6 years ago
Note to bob the cat,
Sorry I didn't get back to you on the subject of paintings earlier, but a day in town wipes us out and had to have a rest first.
I can't trade any pictures, because I have too many already, but would be interested to see your work. So, if you can find my address on the Net, drop me a line with some photos, 1 or 2 at a time, on account of our rural phone line, and we'll go from there.
Cheers, Ed.
Colin
6 years ago
Ed why don't you get him to send them General Delivery?
kootowl
6 years ago
There seems to be a general consensus out there that farming salmon in open pens is a big money maker with ecologically disastrous consequences and plenty of health risks for consumers as well.
Does anyone know anything about "organic farmed salmon?' Where are these farms, and what do these fish eat? Are they Atlantic salmon farmed in open pens?
Sadly, it seems like this kind of aquaculture was probably envisioned as a "sustainable solution" to the problem of overfishing wild stocks, back in the 80's. If the folks at Safeway and High Liner seafoods don't get their salmon from fish farms, and the demand is there, what alternatives can be offered without depleting the wild stocks to the point of endangerment or worse?
stinkysalmon
6 years ago
Actually Highliner ownes or owned fish farms I think?
Bruce Swift in the fraser Valley runs an "organic farm"
thomas49
6 years ago
kootowl , get in touch with Rafe Mair if you are really serious about organic salmon.if i remember correctly he had a list of Organic Fish Farmers that were Land Locked Farmed Salmon.it has been some time , so i am not 100% sure.that info was from years ago , so , take it for what it's worth.
but he is the best source i know and the most Reliable.
i personally look for Ocean caught/personally caught and then carefully check for natural features compared to Genetic misfeatures , that way i know they are as good as i can get, not escaped farm salmon .
good for the body and mind ,especially if you are feeding your children , they need the best.
bob the cat
6 years ago
Note to Ed:
Thanks Ed..i sent 3...they`re fairly small..around 100 kb each ..
Eric (got one published on Seven Oaks awhile back...a portrait of Gordo)
thomas49
6 years ago
off topic .Bob The Cat , anything that has to do with gordo is interesting , can it be put on a mug ,poster ,how about t-shirts.
would be interesting to see , and Copyright is in your hands. but to be safe be careful when previewing.
if possible would like to see ,don't stress yourself ,if you don'y want to show.Thanx for your time.
The brain
6 years ago
Even if farmed salmon were fed the "creme de la creme" in terms of healthy fish meal, there is one major drawback between penned fish and natural fish. FITNESS. Wild salmon are far more physically fit, using migrating patterns that travel far distances, while penned fish just "sit there". Nope, I'll take wild over penned any day unless wild fish like to hang out around the sewer pipes of Victoria and China.
The whole premise that we "need" fish farms to begin with, are built on the premise that we have to because we overfish, destroy salmon runs from logging, mining, global warming and development, and pollution. What perfect reasons for the continued errosion of our natural food source, by GM mixing of species and contaminated fish meals, you know, because we had no other choice.
Fiat lux
6 years ago
Basically the same applies to all forms of food production. I have worked on Green Revolution chemicalized, monocropping corporate farms and with organic production.
The best and most efficient food production systems, on land, are the diversified, organic family owned farms and on the water the small, family, or individually owned fishing boats, because they can work within the ecological systems and the inevitable damage they do can be absorbed and balanced by the system.
Both the Soviet kolkhozes and the capitalist agribiz corporations have done and are doing incredible damage to the environment, the workers, and humanity at large, and there's no logical, or economic reason for their expansion, or even continuation.
There's no "cheap food", only who pays for the real costs and when.
Ed Deak.
bob the cat
6 years ago
note to thomas49:
be glad to send you some samples..not worried about copyright..getting sued maybe..
send me your e-mail and i`ll pass `em along.
grub
6 years ago
Fiat lux:
Ed's comments, and this whole discussion takes me back to, Garrett Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons):
"An implicit and almost universal assumption... is that the problem under discussion has a technical solution. A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality."
But, of course, changes in human values are required. And through sad experience, of which the disappearance of Atlantic cod is just one example, when human values will not change, then human behavior must be either given powerful incentives to change or be regulated to change. Quite clearly, the commons -- all of us -- can not be put at risk for the pleasure or benefit of a few.
Stump
6 years ago
From reading Fiat Lux I've learned a ton about economics. Even if I disagreed with 90% of what he said, his thoughts have the underpinnings of evidence and logic on his side.
Dogsbreath on the other hand has simply confirmed my impression that you don't have to be rich to be a selfish braggart, but it helps. And most of his blather about free markets is a joke because, as near as I can tell, he hasn't indicated where we could observe these so-called free markets he points to as an example.
Big Ed for the win by my score-keeping.
Fiat lux
6 years ago
Thanks stump, now watch out for them big ugly dogs with ulterior motives in their minds.
Cheers, Ed.
willy
6 years ago
Well here we go again, more misinformed information on fish farming. Pink returns are up, organic fish farming is catching on in Scotland, maybe that might be the answer for the critics. Hey any type of farming is not perfect but hey there are more people sliding into the dinner table everyday. What to do? Ed seems to imply everyone should get into sustainable farming, I think it would get very crowded in your area if 2 million latti drinkers from the lower mainland moved into his area. The Alaskins are only into there own self interest, they don't seem to have qualms about taking our fish as they swim by. They have over fished thier crab and now are starting to raise them. They critize our fish farming! Here are some sites to check,http://www.salmonfarmers.org http://www.fishfarmer-magazine.com
The brain
6 years ago
willy:
Pink volumes are up? Walrus populations are way down. Think pollution. The top of the chain gets it first.
As far as the economy goes, I'll go with Ed on that one. The ocean was doing quite fine at farming fish without us, until we decided otherwise. Fact is, "sustainability" IS the question we should be asking. Fish farms just don't cut it. We need an ocean for the world's appetite, and even then, "sustainability" isn't the question being asked by the overfishers and polluters of the world.
In fact, "blind" and "lacking vision" are words that strongly come to mind in considering our wonderful "solutions" of the day. "Atlantic salmon grow more quickly than pacifics... lets introduce them here!" People thought it was a good idea to introduce Mysis shrimp to Lake Okanagan too. Christ, its not cattle were cross breeding, here.
The rich guy's mentality is strongly noted here on this thread. "You're hungry? Just make money!" A farmers mentality is strongly noted. "You're hungry? Plant seeds. Work to see them grow. Think sustainability. Keep some seeds leftover for next year." The corporations mentality is also now noted. "GM the seeds and fish so that we have control over the farmers and the entire market from here on in."
Have you read your own links? Throughout most of them are two underlying themes. "We really don't know what will happen if they get out of their pens. We really don't know what the environmental effects are to organic fish farming or otherwise. But there's money in it! There's a market! And papers are selling."
Once the governments privatize the shorelines, you know, to feed themselves, and for corps to control, what's next? "Hey, you can buy by rights to the atmosphere in Northern BC where the air is still fresh!" 10 million for 1,000 square kms up to a 1/2 mile high, going cheap! You can farm geese there!"
Sorry, Willy, but when it comes to the economy, I'll go with the old farmer on this one.
G West
6 years ago
And the health stories and links are one-off, anecdotal, out-of-date and, in most cases irrelevant.
KWD
6 years ago
How many times must we suffer the plaintive “free market†whine of the meritocracy? It’s like they forgot to shift the ‘next’ lever on the gramophone and we’re stuck listening to the same old worn out tunes, “I got rich because I work long hard hours. I’m smarter than you and therefore I deserve it.†And if that isn’t bad enough they drop the “invisible hand of the market†LP in an effort to convince us that necessity will introduce the wealth-producing technology that will solve all of our problems.
Leaving markets aside (the myth about the economic miracle of the free market has been flogged to death by Ed), the truth is ‘hard work’ has nothing to do with the accumulation of wealth. Numerous studies and empirical research in the past have shown that the becoming rich in adult life has more to do with: having had access to the best education money can buy; training opportunities; personality type (sociopathic personalities are common), physical attractiveness; height; athletic ability; inheritance; nepotism; prejudice (including against race or gender), social and business connections; knowing someone who is successful; and a whole lot of luck.
Obviously if you are a child in a wealthy family the above list also applies but there are a many other factors such as: the number of siblings; parental and grandparental involvement and expectations; religion; family language; and the list goes on. But nowhere in these studies will you find a list that includes ‘hard work’.
It’s not uncommon for some rich folk to advertise that there child(ren) is(are) attending Yale or Havard or Princeton or any of the other “the poor need not apply†Ivy League schools. Yet if success and hard work are directly related then you would expect that wealthy parents would be happy putting their kids through the same public school system everyone else uses, because they know that their kids are going to be successful because they are going to work harder than the rest. Isn’t that what they’re telling us??
In fact most of the wealthy acknowledge that hard work is way down on the list of reasons for their success. However, there are a few, mainly the sociopathic fundamentalist types who refuse to admit that their success is simply the result of plain old ‘dumb luck’ coupled with a superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, manipulation, a lack of remorse or guilt, a lack of empathy and a parasitic lifestyle.
grub
6 years ago
KWD:
Your post was bang on, and reminded me of something I read (and I'm reaching back in my memory for this): that Bill Gates earns as much as the bottom 11 million Americans.
Thus the question: is he either smarter or harder working than every one of those 11 million? If not (and that's quite likely), then why isn't one of them making his kind of money? Or you? Or me?
Could be that "luck", in it's many incarnations, plays a huge role.
godsChild
6 years ago
Well this has been delightful!
I've been witness to so much in the way of information, name calling and what could only be construed as outright envy.
One supposes that some people would prefer a world in which caloric intake is carefully measured, the crippled and the elderly rode bicycles instead of driving a car and spitting out gum was a capital offense.
What pleasures many of you take in knowing the precise, environmentally sound temperature to set your electrically heated dwellings at! What effortless pity you display for the other 5.5 billion humans who might also want exactly what you have - a home, a job, food on the table, a fancy little computer to spit out your wealth of knowledge. Yes.... lets share what each of has with the other 5.5 billion people shall we? Let's all live at the capacity every single one of you does.
And see how long this lasts....
I hear whining, envy and guilt, but not a speck of an alternative... how proud you must feel to know so much more than freezing Georgian homeless, mutilated Darfurians, starving Brazilians... my wealth was no more stolen than your comforts, your wants and your petty desires were earned.. while I have *you* to thank for where I am, those poor "never stood a chance" peoples do too.
How quick you are to forget that it's your compulsion to "get by" that puts the world where it is...
Incidentally I had a lovely night out. We ate Mexican. It was marvelous.
Ta ta.
ursus
6 years ago
hey godschild I hope the new Prime Minister does give us back our guns so when we have no forests left to rape due to bugs and gordo, no houses to build as realestate has tanked in T.O. Ottawa Montreal and the states, no fish left to fish, fuel costs over a buck and a half a litre we can at least shoot up a few millionaires for some cash and food, LOL! Or not?
allan
6 years ago
So even dogschild is staying away from the farmed fish these days.
Mexican eh. El cheapo sounds more like it.
Fiat lux
6 years ago
Godschild.........how about the constant whining and insatiable demands of the stockmarkets for more and more profits ? Is that acceptable, or healthy?
Ed Deak.
themonsheshe
6 years ago
As a B.C. and Alaskan fisherman I must disagree with Willy's comments earlier. The State of Alaska Has managed its fisheries better than We have in B.C. They invested more in their wild runs and even created new ones based on information the DFO decided to ignore. Their science is more accurate and they are pro- fishing. Salmon as well as many other fisheries are a cycle so to say the pink returns are up, when are they up from? Last summer pinks were .10 a lb and while i would never eat one its one of the most undervalued resources. hovering slightly above this low quality salmon is the Farmed Atlantic. I have worked on a fish farm many years ago before we were alowed to raise Atlantics, and I still wondered how they got away with transplanting them.I remember disgrunteled employees releasing thousands into the wild, (some will come back for the food but not all) Farmed fish has tanked the market ,and has the ability to supply it when its demanded,and now they want to do it to the blackcod.
The brain
6 years ago
Godschild:
Just a couple of contentions with that mock rant of yours.
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/world.html
Its 6.5 billion people now. (your intel is a bit dated)
I sure do. Looking at all of the fatties who have been programed to eat the crap big business pushes our way, doesn't please me. A third of us are obese, another third are overweight, and some of us are even malnutritioned in our wonderful western world, never mind the eastern ones. The list of diseases from excess calories alone are long...
Largest industry in the U.S.? Food manufacturing. Sorry if mass media's brainwash and mass education's elitist BS standards and mass productions total disregards for the environments, and mass religions total bent for controlling the masses doesn't cut it with us guys who've grown up without those comfey thermostats in our homes.
And whats wrong with homes and jobs and food and a 10 pound box that connects us with the rest of the world? Whats wrong with the world living by these standards? What's wrong with the elimination of poverty and the sharing of resources, the main one being intelligence? Are you trying to tell us that while people are starving in Africa and we can't flog 2 dollar wheat because there's too much food in the world, that we'll all suddenly go without if 50 million start to eat adequately? That this current economical thermostat sits well with you, because you have one and they don't, or that there's no profit in raising standards of living and human rights? You're a bit slow and brainwashed if you think that poverty and disconnection is "profitable". In fact, you truly are corrupt if you don't believe in equal opportunity simply because you're a have and others are have nots.
KWD says it best. Although he should be reminded as you should, Godschild, that there are several kinds of "riches". One of them is health and longevity. Most people don't get "rich" without it. And as for "hard work", its often a play of words. "Drive", "ambition", "strong will", "determination" are all interchangable, and we don't succeed without them, or a goal that is beyond "self-serving" or a plan that leaves anyone behind.
As for stealing... to borrow from the system without any notion of paying it back other than taxes, dude. This is the impression your leaving us. Its like saying you came up with the alphabet, and numerical languages, built the roads and schools you went to, raised yourself from infancy, were never a dependent in any way, you know, did it all on your own. Whatever the motives you have to justify inequality, we have far more equal commonalities than you think... and it shows. Might wanna rethink that human paradigm of yours one more time, it being as you say, perception and all.
bob the cat
6 years ago
great piece brain..you writing is really inspired when you`re a little pissed.
allan seems the opposite...his posts are damned good until he gets pissed at something.
godsChild
6 years ago
"My" figures are related to the fact that approximately 1 billion persons live not dissimilarily to the "typical" western standard. Quick question - What's 6.5 billion minus 1 billion?
You may *feel* my intel is dated, rather it's you that is blind to the math.
I cant help but note you've singularily demolished the observance that were the world to live as most of *YOU*, the slippery slope upon which we're apparently living would tip precipitously.
Never the less, please continue expelling gas instead of light. Your "answer" to the problem really isn't an answer at all. It may sooth your fragile ego, it may score points, it may make you feel good (and really, isn't that the most important thing?), but what are you solving? Socialists and the left are generally losing the war of ideologies for the exact reasons I've pointed out.
You can whine and snivel about what shouldn't be done, but you've nothing else to offer. You're trying to hide a bankruptcy of solutions behind a wealth of indignation and guess what?
Nobodies buying it.
I've got a marvelous dinner party to attend tonight and a close friend is throwing a soiree for their kids tonight (C.M. : I think it's a car!) and we'll be sure to have a laugh at the paucity of pragmatism you and the lot here have shown.
Toodle Do.
bob the cat
6 years ago
Toodle do?
Well nyah nyah na nyah nyah..I`m sticking my tonque out at you at this very minute and theres nothing you can do about it.. so there!
The brain
6 years ago
Godschild:
I see your numb nutted numbers now. 5.5 billion of us don't even count in your world. We, they, us, them, I get it now.
Fiat lux
6 years ago
Come on guys, it is always a good thing to get a whiff and sound of the Stone Ages, where everybody goes around with a cudgel, creating wealth. It keeps us on out toes.
Luckily, they're to dense to know history and that the average lifespan of any economic theory is about 30-40 years and the neoclassical now had 30. Soviet communism survived to 70, thanks to Hitler, which Stalin turned into the "Great Patriotic War" and coasted on the intertia it created. Otherwise they would have collapsed much sooner.
How long the neoclassical market economy will last is hard to say, but its fall could start later this month. We'll see. I'll shed no tears, only for the suffering innocent who are always the victims of the up and down journeys of criminal ideologies.
The one thing I hope for is to see Bush & Co ending their days in jail, with Harper carrying their slop buckets, as he does now.
Ed Deak.
allan
6 years ago
How catty of you bob the cat.
bob the cat
6 years ago
allan..I`m a cat...its what I do
G West
6 years ago
I was just thinking, apropos of what Fait Lux said in response to godsChild's(sic) posting above, about Horace's first Satire,(Qui fit, Maecenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem) written, I think in about 20 BCE. I'll quote it in English, from the Bovie translation:
"Mankind for the most part, fooled by its own false desires,
Says, "There's no such thing as enough. You are worth
Only as much as you have." And what can you do
With a person like this? Oh, well! Wish him hell and farewell,
Since he's headed that way by choice."
Some things, as Ed notes, never change.
bob the cat
6 years ago
G
yunno I was going to say the exact same thing.. but you beat me to it ;)
hopefully this wonderful summation gives closure to the godsChild ravings.
G...you really send me scrambling for my dictionary...keep it up
godsChild
6 years ago
Bankrupt.
All of you.
Empty, hollow phrases improving nothing for no one, spewed purely for the comfort of vacuous ideologies.
Asked to provide insight and practical solutions amenable to the majority of humanity; with some hope, some opportunity of betterment, some small parcelling of improvement - and all you come up with is the ideological equivalent of dog poo.
Throwing mud.
You deserve to live in obscurity.
You deserve to live lives of quiet desperation.
Except of course, you've not the dignity to remain quiet and suffer the impoverishment earned from living in the rancid filth of your ideas. Which are really not ideas at all. They're just sayings. They're the socio economic flip flop of Who Stole My Cheese or In Search of Excellence. Vapid, empty headed BS.
All sizzle, no steak.
You could get off your asses and *DO* something, but no, you "know" better.
Better to get on your computer (which millions and millions would die to own, let alone have some place where they could put one!) and reveal the ignorance and the unfettered hypocrisy by which you live.
My friedns and I know the quickest way around the stupidity is throwing a little piece of the action towards a chosen few and you and your ilk will be running (and smashing each other in the face for the chance) at the nearest deep fryer, ready to ask "Do you want fries with that?"
You're tooooooo easy!
You - on this site - are empty, do nothing, impotent people.
Funny and stupid, like a childs fluffy toy - and about as dangerous.
P.S: J - That was a LOVELY wedding yesterday!
Ta Ta
bob the cat
6 years ago
pheww..G. I think your use of an ancient language has drawn out a demon of some sorts..this is like those horror shows where the creature keeps coming back.. gurgling and spewing...grabbing your leg or something..
Our satanic majesty should get himself to a priest
quickly..does the Tyee supply holy water for these instances?
After reading his posts I feel I should whip myself with willow branches or something.
G West
6 years ago
godsChild(sic)
"Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind, is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well as she can."
Obviously, I won't insult you by telling who wrote this.
godsChild
6 years ago
Please.
I am laughing so hard it is nearly impossible to type.
I guess its easier to play parrot than work things out on your own.
It does appear that you are "West", a nearly perfect incarnation of a "worker". You simply repeat what you've heard (or had read to you) and add nothing.
That's GOT to be worth more than a training wage.
Please humour us some more...
G West
6 years ago
godsChild(sic) 8:30pm
My dear girl, it is not a surprise that you're having difficulty typing. It's a skill that requires precise fine motor control and a certain amount of mental discrimination. And, I'd definitely seek help for the uncontrollable laughing; it is, I understand, a mental affliction frequently associated with the excessive consumption of rich foods and fine wine. It is also a frequent precursor to the painful ravages of gout.
Further, I had hoped you'd be able to read since you said you came here for an education but apparently that's not the case either – perhaps you could get the servant who does that for you to do the typing as well. You might want to have him or her look up the definition of a word like 'incarnation' - using it as you have makes you look silly. Someone like you ought to know that us evil socialists don't acknowledge any sort of incarnation.
One is, however, consoled and gladdened by the comforting knowledge that, represented by specimens like you, our efforts to epater les bourgeois become easier and less onerous with each passing year. Moreover, it’s a great honour to have you acknowledge that one is a worker. Knowing about the actual business of doing something meaningful and productive is a great mitzvah; it is something with which you are advised to become acquainted before you reach the age of majority.
In conclusion, as much as I’ve enjoyed this little distraction from reality, this will have to be our last communication. You need to find a better way to convince yourself that your lifestyle has intrinsic worth so I’ll leave the care and feeding of the children to others.
godsChild
6 years ago
You've imparted nothing, because you've nothing to impart - except 'stuff' from somewhere else. As I said before, your wealth of pithy sayings (no doubt you're thanking heaven above for the proximity of an Internet connection) doesn't hide the yawning (and I mean YAWNING) bankruptcy of your solutions. If you had any to offer, it will be noted, you couldn't muster them here. You were given an opportunity and a soapbox to show practical, workable solutions and, to use a friends colloquialism ... "you took a piss". We all watched.
Not a word on Share Ownership, not a peep on anything else... no, you spleened out.
And you wonder (though I doubt you have an ounce of wonder left) why people don't do what you think is best?
People will do as they like and frankly, to hell with what you "think" they should be doing.
The only illness one could incur arises from the richness of your hypocrisy and the mighty fine whining you've subjected us all to.
Alas, you've been gored by your own stupidity (and copped quotations).
How painful for you.
You truly are poor in every sense.
Finally, please remember to wash your hands and wear a hair net before you start your shift - we cant have any more diseased sandwiches out there can we?
PS: J- call and share a laugh?
Alcibiades
6 years ago
Interesting how 'proud' conservatives always like to get the last word. Not enough progressives to abuse in your usual cess pool these days?
ENjoy your laffs with JJ
grub
6 years ago
godchild offers up efficiency and pragmatism. It's hard to argue with either, unless of course they are devoid of philosophical underpinnings. godschild offers nothing in the way of values or ethics.
godschild has been challenged to explain, for example, how issues involving the use of common resources ought to be resolved. No response. Perhaps, no idea.
jim beam
6 years ago
WOW! Is this guy a Wanker or what?
seems he was schooled in the art of NA NA NA NA NA,i wonder which esteemed halls of wisdom he treked thru?
sounds awfully familiar,to tell the truth.
if PET wasn't dead,i'd say it twas he,the pirouetting,bird flicking,fuddle duddle ,chain yanker we unfortunately fell in love with way back when.
so,methinks we have here something even worse.yes!the anti PET,spewing empty rhetoric flavoured with tony references to expensive tastes and vacuous ideas.
lets see here,he's greedy,educated,and got nothin to do but piss off the peons.
hello,godsChild,you gotta be one of Gordons Dogs Of War to be barking like that.
wait til the fence comes down.
til then,keep barking.that way we know where you are.
godsChild
6 years ago
Laughable.
The vast and stupid Canadian middle class simply has too many American Idols to watch, too many potato chips to eat, too many beers to "chug back" (I love saying that!) and far too much fat on its collective ass to bother waddling up here to whine. Besides, their 93' Cavaliers been acting up lately.
They're too dense to appreciate what their striking forefathers rightfully had their heads cracked open for, too lazy to muster any energy beyond sending an email, too stupified by shiny, beeping, blipping objects and too scared of what they "might" lose to do a damned thing. Who can blame them? We like to call it an empathy trap up here. They and you would soil yourselves themselves before you'd consider risking what little you (or they) have - because if it hasn't occured to you yet Mr Cro Mag, someone would happily take it from you.
Personally I don't want your 1996 Sony 21" TV, but I bet one of your Whalley neighbours kids would happily steal it from you the moment you left your house. What is it about the cravenness of people that you don't understand?
You need to wake up.
Canadians would be the last place on earth to revolutionize. Even saying its a complete joke!
Face it... we (the cream) do as we like, go were we like, enact what we wish and when we deign to, we give a good hard pull on your leash... jsometimes for a laugh, sometimes just to remind the 'salt o' de earth' who's in charge.
You and yours have what you have by our grace.
They - and you - have got it good - all things considered. So you'll do nothing but chatter on call in shows or scribble to web sites. At least we've squeezed the productivity out of them at work...
Now why don't you have your kid grab you a cold one, so you can wash down those ding dongs with a "brewski"?
Stump
6 years ago
The whole upper-class twit schtick was funnier when Monty Python did it.
Of course old money doesn't crow about their wealth, which means God's Sputum must be nouveau riche. Worst demographic ever. The truly wealthy think you're a joke, your so-called old friends just want your money, and all you're left with are shiny toys and the nagging feeling your life is a joke. No wonder there's so much false bravado in each and every post.
grub
6 years ago
Stump on godschild:
Agreed. Further, when he/she frst appeared, there was a sense that perhaps, just perhaps, she/he had something to offer. But now it seems that dogshit is just as someone here warned earlier: A TROLL.
anne cameron
6 years ago
Ed Deak: Man, but I enjoy your posts and admire your integrity, your passion, and the fact you know that of which you write.
Godschild: yawn.
I'm not going to go into the whole salmon feed lot thing again, I've posted often enough people are probably bored to tears.
When I indulge in impossible daydreams I often fantasize of the day we take the LiEbrals, strip off their suits, shoes, and blingblings then "process" them and feed them, in pellet form, to the fish feed lot captives. That would solve two problems. No LiEbrals and all the fish poisoned and dead.
Keep up the good fight, Ed Deak! And please know there's someone out here who agrees and will support you all the way.
Good on you!
jim beam
6 years ago
godsChild(sic) is probably a troll from that military site that caused all the insanity here last couple of weeks.
there are statements of those right winged wakos saying they wanted the tyee address ,specifically for trolling.
you can thank Colin for that.
bob the cat
6 years ago
anne cameron
Ed Deak writes a really good regular column in the "Gold River Record"..
I don`t live on the Island but I subscribe to this fine little paper.
4gen8
6 years ago
Just a couple of points: From what I understand, Pan Fish is farming fish in BC because environmental laws make it illegal in Norway.
As for our newly acquired Child of God, here's a beginning answer to your query:
1. redo the UNSNA so that it reflects the real world - including the environment, and "women's work", and so that the main goal of the economic structure of the planet is the well being of the human race, and the environment which supports it, not "paying for the war",
2.take the creation/production of money out of the hands of the multinational banks, and put it back in the hands of the People (government - in case you are wondering),
3. have the People's governments in all G8 countries pass laws that make it illegal to sell goods that are not produced in ways that are not environmentally and economically just -no matter what country they are produced in.
Just a beginning.
Feel free to post your Frazer Institue Pap in response to this. I truly don't have time to come back to this site to read it. My apologies to those of you who will.
As for our neighbours on the rest of the planet, there is no question that the average North American has more than her fair share of the earth's resources, and I would imagine that the majority of the individual socialists in the Tyee's community are each doing what one person can do, towards equalizing that distribution of wealth. Beginning with being active in every way they can to reclaim democracy for the ordinary citizen.
And you Child of God? Hmmm. Never mind. I am sure you get all the opportunites for altruism you need out of the little fantasy you have created for yourself on this listserv. Enjoy!
jim beam
6 years ago
4gen8 , good stuff !
godsChild
6 years ago
4gen8:
Congratulations are in order! You've taken the mantle of solvability and exposed the "mental" in sustainability; or perhaps it's leftist kissing cousin, socialism.
Please let us know which of the 7 billion persons here on Terra you'd like to begin culling off due to overpopulation; I've no doubt it will make fascinating reading.
While you and the howling crowd might feel pleased with David Emersonian democracies, Bush league freedoms and Hamasian righteousness, I am curious as to how exactly you and yours will be tearing it away from those of us with the financial accounts to ensure its steady supply of policy makers.
You'll just "throw the bums out" one supposes.
Please.
As I've mentioned, and you've ignored; people will tend to look out for their own interests. You may feel union leaders are impervious to skilled head hunters and fat raises once in management - what you don't appear to recognize is that these union leaders and political rhetoriticians are in fact the same thing.
Dear boy - politics is money.
You must have it - because you poor fool - everyone wants it.
That's a "just".
It's a pity you and many here seem to think that people in the 3rd world feel the way you do. While I suspect many would prefer to live in a house half as nice as the one in which you park your buttocks, you and this group seem to think that if we just all rode bicycles, stuff would pan out just great.
hmmmmm....
I have an idea for you.
Why not offer to exchange everything you own with a resident of one of Brazil famous favela's? You'd be showing tremendous courage and be setting a fine example for your children too. Better yet, you could take them with you! What finer example could a parent show their children than to surrender all those things that apparently mean so little?
Let us know when you and your family are leaving, I think we could arrange a great laugh at your expense.
Are you cluing in yet or is your hypcrisy making you itch?
G West
6 years ago
godsChild(sic)
No, I think I'd prefer to offer you in exchange for a few residents of Darfur. If hypocrisy is the measure of a woman you are one humungous dame!
I have an idea for you. Why don't you run off and see if your buddy J has recovered from his recent malaise.
godsChild
6 years ago
GWEST SAID:
Just goes to show you cant keep a loud mouth shut.
willy
6 years ago
5G8 says
Just a couple of points: From what I understand, Pan Fish is farming fish in BC because environmental laws make it illegal in Norway
5G8 fishfarming in alive and well in Norway.
08 March, 2006 - EUROPE could soon have a full-scale facility for developing and testing new aquaculture technology as Norwegian aquaculture scientists are in the process of establishing a national centre for sea-based aquaculture technology - in the very waters in which modern fish farming allegedly was born in the 70s.
“In mid-Norway we possess all the prerequisites for success in developing a sustainable, future-oriented aquaculture technology that will benefit Europe in the competition with the aquaculture industry in other parts of the world,†say Alexandra Neyts and Leif Magne Sunde
The brain
6 years ago
godsChild:
If you think the middle class is slow, try reading this one.
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/01/02/LureOfNuclearPower/
5.5 billion, 7 billion... I told ya! It's 6.5!
The biggest lie economists and the few who so called profit from the many will tell us is that we consume, and must consume for an economy to thive. We don't consume anything. We merely alter or change what we get our hands on, often with some nasty side effects (all for pennies a share, of course). And when your children inherit the wastelands you and your rich buddies have left behind, will you still be laughing?
All you have convinced us of with your own beligerant ramblings is that you sounded no different than the Romans who drank their wine out of lead cauldrons to "sweeten the taste" giving the consumer what it wants... or to sell nukes to "keep the peace"... or to puff out some feeling of invincibility identical to Nazi Germany in 39'. Yes, you've got it all figured out. (except the old "everyone's a sellout for money part", that's friggin slow)
If you ever did consider yourself to be a "Gods child" beyond the mock, try John, chapter 17. Its Asian enough, if your diversified. And if the concept of "oneness" is too much for you and the rest of your 5.5 billion less than West, and the other 30 million or so species of life on this planet alone... maybe you oughta think of a name change.
G West
6 years ago
godsChild(sic)
Just wanted to drop by and make sure you were getting nourishment. I know proud Canadians like you and Joel might be having trouble finding anyone here to feed you - not being capable, as it were, to feed yourselves.
Stump
6 years ago
Brain:
(S)he doesn't consume because it's good for the economy, God's bile consumes to quiet the voices in her head reminding her that despite the size of her ego, nothing she's done will be remembered after she's gone, because she's done nothing worth remembering. She wants to enrage us, but unfortunately the best she can manage is some bemused derision.
p.s. if we did all ride bikes, it wouldn't solve ALL our problems, just a whole bunch of them.
godsChild
6 years ago
Stump:
You show me your bursaries and I'll show you mine. Whether I'm remembered for them or not is - as apparently unbeknownst to you - not something I care a whit about; since it's beyond my ability to influence.
Note the boldness of that last bit.
You and your ilk here do little to exert influence and then bitch and moan about how awful things beyond your control are.
Then some of you have the laughably childish gullibility to suggest that democracy is somehow the finest thing going.
And yet - it's apparently not working for you.
Children often complain and whine about things beyond their control and some of us recognize that it is that ability to determine what we can and cannot change that differentiates children from adults.
Either things are beyond your control - which makes you whiners and exposes the simple fact you have too much time on your hands (a plight our favela friends are unlikely to experience - day to day survival is paramount for them, whereas you babies have the immense luxury of telling them how they ought to live), or "things" are within your control and you're simply too caught up expressing your impotent rage by repeating quotes you read somewhere to actually, physically, practically "DO" something.
So which is it Tyee Gang?
Are you whiners or impotent losers?
Opinions are cheap, actions have value.
So what if the earth is destroyed because several billion Chinese want central heating, Birkenstocks, Che Guevera T-Shirts and hybrid cars?
Practice stoicism and/or grow up.
Stump
6 years ago
Yeah, I figured if I attacked your ego you'd respond.
You can take your oh-so-convenient protestations of powerless (makes bellying up to the trough so much less conscience-troubling doesn't it?) and go peddle them somewhere else.
Can't take effective action unless we talk about if first Einstein, or should we just plunge into things w/out regard for the consequences?
godsChild
6 years ago
"Effective action?"... HA! What are you, middle mangement?
In my realm, I "talk" about it with people that can do it, that know it and most importantly, get it done. Mistakes are made perhaps; so we fix those that we can and we try again. And we keep trying until we get the results we want.
I am not wealthy because I sat around and talked about it. My wealth is a byproduct of my actions, not inactions. Wealth was important to me, I wanted it, I got it. That's less pride than fact. You may feel insulted by facts, but that's your problem, not mine.
If wealth's not important to you, so what? Each to their own. Act on what is important to you.
That is how things get done, Mr. Closet Novelist.
And as far as your results - HA! - they speak for themselves.
All that talking gets you - talking about talking about talking about, etc, etc, etc...
G West
6 years ago
Just a few questions: Why are you so angry? According to your lights you've got everything you want, money, wealth and power. Everyone else, as you say, works for you and does your bidding. You make the decisions and take all the credit. Why are you so angry?
Stump
6 years ago
Angry because we aren't paying the proper respect to the monied and their infinite wisdom perhaps?
FWIW, God's child your money doesn't offend me, or your belief that you have all the answers. I just think you're kind of a joke and so I like to ruffle your feathers. I'm sure you can preen them back into place Princess.
grub
6 years ago
godschild forgets that when my people are in power, I have access to decision makers and, guess what, the decisions (and the actions associated with those decisions) go my way. Ain't politics grand!
stewardforthefuture
6 years ago
godsChild - Do you know how arrogant and out of touch you are?
You have stated such unbelieveable and naive beliefs as:
"If you choose to live near pollution, you'll reap the rewards of poor choices".
Wow. Have you never lived long enough in a reasonbly pristine place long enough to see industry and development destroy it, no matter what you want?
And, what if you can't afford to move? Can we all move to your upper class mansion in the lower mainland, and you support us with Kraft dinner (you said you recently tried that due to "dare" by your son). You know this is an unfortunate stable for most people.
Another arrogant and immature though of yours was that you were: "enjoying educating the naysayers and negative nellies here!)"
Too bad you wouldn't educate yourself first before you expound your minute wisdom and narrow perspective.
How about typing-in "sea lice" on google. How about getting involved in real change - it'd be more productive and life-awakening. you seem to have alot of time on your hands which you have been using to pooh-pah others legitimate concerns and experiences. I guess if you don't have compassion and understanding for youself - it's hard to have it for others.
I think that is why you wrap your cloak of arrogance around you GodsChild (which by the way, we are all Gods Children ) - you are too afraid to be more than superficial.
You keep telling yourself you are having fun "educating the masses", but you forgot to educate yourself.
At the end of our days, we will all die GodsChild - and what for? To buy the biggest house, and the most polluting SUV? Is that the reason we are here?
I almost feel sorry for you.
stewardforthefuture
6 years ago
Ya KWD - well spoken...
The brain
6 years ago
godschild:
earth.google.com
Google Earth. Download it. Then take a good long look at all of the cutblocks across BC. Don't be shy. Take a couple of hours in and around your favorite town. Then take a look elsewhere. Take a look at the rest of the world and tell us that our wonderful economic systems that padded wallets for the top few percent to the expense of many was worth it. Take a good look at the ice thats left in the artic and tell yourself that 15 to 20 summers from now, the north cap will be gone and its open waters from here on in. I shouldn't need to go on about the rest of it. We've left some ugly marks on this planet for the sake of... profits.