But...But...But...

Thanks to the HST voting preferences of the great unwashed, many of whom are not, apparently, 'professional people', we have no money for...

Schools?

.

Hate to sound like a broken record, but

None of this can be surprising fro those who heard - and remembered - Gordo's words on stepping up to the mike to victorize: "It's our turn now". Haven't they had their turn, and then some? When will we give them the boot? How much do they have to step us in the face and do it laughing, before we get it: These people are all about getting to the trough, applying their scoop, and making a really big hole in the stew.

That "oink" you hear...

...will become a deafening roar by the time an election is called.

Nothing new here

In business circles this is called : "Networking"

The idea being that you avoid regular channels and exchange favours between those who have influence and privileges.

There is a whole society in this province that never pay regular prices for anything, because they are able to "trade" amongst each other.

Obviously that practice also include arranging for plum positions, and we are fools to thing that there is no payback there.

What Can The Plebes Do?

What a disgusting old boys/bridesmaids network. We know it exists but to have it so blatantly rubbed in our faces .... How do we stop these crooks masquerading as public servants?
Furlong, who offered his services, should have done the job gratis, particularly after the wealth he accumulated through the Olympic boondoggle and especially after he and his crony produced a document that any good researcher or journalist could have written for a tenth of the cost.

$200G for two months "work"?

Without splitting the proverbial hairs, $50G/month = 150X the average salary in Canada.

Life ? in The Firm:

"A bridesmaid at Clark's wedding, Mentzelopoulus was deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs and head of the Public Affairs Bureau under premier Gordon Campbell."

"and head of the Public Affairs Bureau under premier Gordon Campbell."...

Well, golly gee whiz....what is that saying?.....coincidence is when we can't see the levers and the pulleys.

Um ...

So, Muir said:

"... the riot review was 'probably the most intense, sustained deadline period that I have ever worked on in 25 years of being a journalist.'"

I don't know. Is that something he's proud of?

As I'm sure anyone here who has worked on deadline documentation knows, as soon as you get a really demanding deadline, the primary focus becomes What can we cut out; where can we shortcut; what few things can we not overlook; how much can we discard.

It is no longer an issue of trying to provide comprehensive, accurate, meaningful material; it's just slash and burn.

Well John, he shouldn't be very proud of this turkey

Take a few minutes and read some of this deathless prose.

It would be one thing to be overcharged for a good piece of work - the cost of this turkey is even more of a waste because it is such a terrible piece of writing.

Clichéd, trite and mindlessly repetitive – it isn’t even a decent cut and paste job – it’s a hack job. They’d have done better to hire a Tyee intern to do their ghost writing.

G West

Purely indicative of the contempt they have for the "great unwashed"........

riot report retort

I confess to only breezing through the report. I agree that it appears poorly written. The connection to the Premiers office is unpardonable. Not only was she a vocal hockey booster, of the sort rallying citizens to come on down and enjoy the spectacle, (and I maintain, contributing to the pandering to the mood of expectation that has to underline the cause of the riot,) she clearly wanted the rioters to be charged and quickly. All well and good. Is it any wonder that the report spends way too much time blaming the obvious miscreants. Of course the rioters were to blame. But those who cavalierly set the stage and failed to prepare and plan sufficiently are culpable.

On the matter of the title of the report,what the heck does "The night the city became a stadium" mean? Ridiculous title. The city,if it became a stadium, ceased being one when the riot erupted.

The city became a cesspool of property carnage, extreme human bad behavior, lawlessness and fear.
It should have been,perhaps, the Night the City became a Zoo...except Zoos are well run.
Perhaps it should have been The Night The City Became Another Example of Drunken Stupidity and Rampant Disregard for Reasonable Behaviour by People who Clearly Don't give a fig for anybody but themselves...and even that barely.

Bob!

The last line of this story says it all, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

So THAT'S what Deputy Ministers for Corporate Priorities Do....

Okay, let me get this straight.

First, in August Ms. Mentzelopoulos is hired by her close friend the Premier as deputy minister for corporate priorities.

Then completely coincidentally and out of the blue, her hubby Mr. Muir gets hired to edit a report that he "did not discuss with his wife".

And his hiring had absolutely nothing to do with his wife's job, unless of course the report can be defined as a 'corporate priority', whatever that means.

Riiiiiight.......