Vancouver Secrets

Give Them A Lane and They’ll Take The Whole Bridge

Happy Friday – Vancouver’s downtown commuters got something else to complain about other than the heat.

The monthly Critical Mass ride is a stupid way to prove a point, and we should be called what it is: Bicycle Terrorism.

Now that the ride is over, they’ve managed to give a few thousand drivers a good reason to hate cyclists. Great protest by stupid people.

Our mayor used this group in his bid to get elected and even took part in a Critical Mass ride last August.

So if you have any complaints, drop him a friendly phone call at (604) 294-7340

Glad I drive a motorcycle.

photo credit: cinocino

Saturday Night Video: How To Get Millions To Watch Your Wedding Video

This video of a couple’s from St. Paul, Minn is getting over 1 million view a day. Beats any wedding I’ve been to.

Republicans For Ignatieff

Great new site that is getting behind Iggy. And driving the left nuts.

Who’s really behind this?

Some of the great quotes:

Message To Vancouver’s Bar Owners

“An organization must not, as a condition of supplying a product or service, require an individual to consent to the collection, use or disclosure of personal information beyond what is necessary to provide the product or service.”

“Individuals who violate the Personal Information and Privacy Act are liable to fines of up to $10,000, and companies can be fined up to $100,000.”

In Vancouver, you need to have you ID scanned into a BarWatch program before they allow you in. The process was probably designed to catch underage drinkers and troublemakers.

Someone decided it would be great to build a database. What other things they may be using the data for is anyone’s guess.

Maybe next they’ll address the practice of businesses asking for our health care number? This is an even worse invasion of privacy, and I have never been able to understand why someone like a cable company or utility would need my health care number.

Freedom is on the horizon.

photo credit: Marty.FM

US Health Care Plan – Simplified

Here’s the detailed flow chart of the complex health care reform proposal by Democratic congressional leaders.

The chart identifies at least 31 new federal programs, agencies, commissions and mandates that accompany the unprecedented government takeover of health care in America.

The attached chart depicts how the health care system would be organized at the national level if the Democrats’ plan became law.  These new levels of bureaucracy, agencies, organization and programs will all be put directly between the patient and their health care.

Now the Americans can quit using Canada’s free health care as an argument – the Obama plan looks like something right out of Communist Russia.

Full size here.

Dems trying to censor the chart here.

Bleeding Billboard

From Australia: Bleeding Shame.

What will they think of next?  Let’s hope PETA doesn’t see this.

Vancouver Solves Global Warming – Trap and Trade

Now that we are the only place in North America with a carbon tax, which I think was supposed to stop global warming, Vancouver has decided to make cars slow down even more and force a commute into downtown to become more difficult.

From our Vancouver Sun:

Car commuters (of which I am often one) may prefer not to see it in such terms, but the power and sense of entitlement a car confers is a political act, especially in an age of global warming, where every car trip is an incremental crime against nature.

This is the commuter’s secret thrill — the speed and ease and selfishness of a car — because necessity very often has little to do with it.

Most people drive not because they must, since there are other ways to get around, but because they want to. The bridge doesn’t just carry traffic, it carries addicts.

The solution is to convert a grossly overloaded bridge that lead into downtown, The Burrard Bridge, into a pedestrian overpass. The bridge has 6 lanes, and they are going to convert one into a bike lane. Brilliant.

They nixed the idea of a pedestrian bridge because it would cost more, preferring to create an even bigger traffic jam heading in and out of downtown. Just in time for the Olympics, when the city is expected to set new records for traffic jams.

The agenda is to make downtown Vancouver a no-car zone. Trap cars and trade them for Kitsilano bikers.

Ultimately this means that when the Olympic office leases expire next year, the vast empty office space will be impossible to rent. Ask a Cambie street merchant what the public transit policy means to them. If they are still in business.

The good news is that now the Golden Ears bridge is complete, there is now good (and urgent) reason to move your business out of downtown. The Fraser Valley is beginning to make a lot of sense, and is slowly getting an infrastructure to allow for easy access – in and out. Employees can live in homes that are affordable and actually have money left over to pay for gas and food…. or a bike if they decide they want one.

Although the Fraser Valley doesn’t have panhandlers and hookers on every corner, injection sites, weekly protests, or bike lanes… life is good out here.

Since I no longer work downtown, I have been there twice in the past 6 months. Not to eat or shop, but because I had to go there. I really don’t miss it.

Give downtown to the cyclists – The Fraser Valley is now open for business – and cars.

Did I mention the 6-8 months of rain?

photo credit: Canadian Veggie

Visualize Success – Performance Reviews Coming To USA

Obama says the purpose of the performance reviews is to have a little face time to make sure we’re all on the same page going forward.

We should do this in Canada. It’s time to pull your weight.

About Those IOUs California…

Banks firm: No IOUs after Friday

H/t The region’s biggest banks are standing firm that they will not accept state-issued IOUs beyond close of business Friday.

Instead those banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo N.A., JP Morgan Chase and Citibank — are playing power broker, saying that continuing to accept the so-called registered warrants are a cheap borrowing vehicle for the state that could in fact work to prolong an impasse.

“I can confirm that we will not be accepting registered warrants after Friday, July 10, for several reasons,” said Bank of America spokeswoman Britney Sheehan.

The time limit, she said, is based the bank’s 1992 experience when California last issued IOUs.

“The longer the registered warrants were accepted, the longer it took the legislature to resolve the matter,” Sheehan said. “We do not want our acceptance of registered warrants to deter the state from reaching a budget agreement as soon as possible.”

Since July 2 the State Controller’s office has issued 101,930 IOUs worth $389.2 million through Thursday in personal and corporate income tax warrants, travel reimbursements to state employees, and payments to health care programs, state vendors, legislative per diems and court appointed attorneys.

In the first few days, most of the IOUs went to personal and corporate income tax payments. The protracted impasse is beginning to have a broader impact, said Controller’s Office spokesman Jacob Roper.

“That’s the unfortunate thing about having to issue these,” he said.

Big bank customers might be stuck with paper until the Oct. 2 maturation. While not all banks have set a deadline on honoring IOUs, institutions such as Fremont Bank, City National Bank, Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union and Meriwest Credit Union have explicitly said they would only honor warrants held by “existing” customer — some with additional caveats.

Fremont Bank and Meriwest, for instance, have instituted a $5,000 cap per customer.

“We have to think about what if the state doesn’t pay. I’m sure that every business is out there thinking that,” said Meriwest spokesman Greg Meyer. “We’re just protecting ourself from a loss.”

Wells Fargo spokesman Chris Hammond said the San Francisco bank simply can’t accept the IOUs indefinitely and was reluctant to accept them in the first place, but had to strike a balance between the gravity of the situation and the needs of its customers.

“The State of California — just like any household or business — has to be responsible for living within its means,” Hammond said. “Banks are not and cannot be the solution to California’s budget problems.”

That didn’t take long. I’m still wondering what those on social assistance are going to do.

What California has done to itself to what Obama and the Democrats are doing to to America. Democrats in action.

A Monetary Protest?

Will this form of protest move to the USA? With Obama printing money faster than an African dictator, it could soon be reality.

Advertising with trillion dollar bills. Brilliant marketing by the newspaper in this video.

Imagine if this took hold in the USA and people started stamping the currency with “Help Stop The Obama Looting -It’s Cheaper To Print This On Money Than Paper.”

I can see this coming to a US dollar bill soon. Nancy and Barney are seeing to it. And with Obama’s popularity falling fast, American’s may be finally recognizing that he may be the downfall of the country.

The Zimbabwean newspaper, has been driven into exile for reporting on how the Mugabe regime has rigged elections, crushed the opposition, caused poverty, disease and the total collapse of the economy.

Having been exiled, the regime has slapped a 55% luxury import duty on the paper (as if freedom of speech is a luxury) that makes it unaffordable for the average Zimbabwean.

To get the paper into Zimbabwean hands, it needs to be subsidised, and our client can only do that by raising awareness, acquiring new customers and driving sales outside Zimbabwe.

Yes! Old Dutch Bar-B-Q Returns

About time we had some good news.

They’re back – after many long months of emails, blog posts, and general complaining about the new “bold” taste, Old Dutch Bar-B-Q has returned to the shelves. My favourite chip for over 40 years.

It’s like Coke Classic all over.

Enjoy!

Sorry – only available in Canada

Sarah Palin Decides To Return The Favor

Sarah decided that enough is enough and it’s great to see that she is turning the tables on the Soros funded left-wing attack machine. The issue isn’t free speech, but libel. And it’s time that they were taken to task for it.

To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as “fact” that Governor Palin resigned because she is “under federal investigation” for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation.

This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law.

The Alaska Constitution protects the right of free speech, while simultaneously holding those “responsible for the abuse of that right.”  Alaska Constitution Art. I, Sec. 5. These falsehoods abuse the right to free speech; continuing to publish these falsehoods of criminal activity is reckless, done without any regard for the truth, and is actionable.

Thomas Van Flein, for
Governor Sarah Palin

Full text PDF here..

Proof the dialogue has gone just a bit over the line:

Go get ‘em..

photo credit: Chesi – Fotos CC

If You Needed Another Reason To Go Galt

We must overhaul everything. We cannot have a system of rentiers and social dumping under globalisation. Either we have justice or we will have violence. It is a chimera to think that this crisis is just a footnote and that we can carry on as before.” Nicolas Sarkozy, French President.

The Answer from Global Guerrillas:

There are growing signs — from a black swan in savings/debt reduction to massive debt loads to quarterly trillion dollar losses in personal wealth to stagnant/falling consumer purchases to persistently low consumer confidence — that the parasite ridden American “consumer” is finally dead.

If this is true, the economic model of the latter half of the last Century is likely dead too, and that will mean wrenching change.  It’s my belief that the dominant solution is to prepare for a local future to ride out this storm.  Here are some of my random (more random than I would like) thoughts on what you should do to prepare:

• Ruthlessly reduce debt. Nothing on credit. Pay off every loan. Strategically walk away from underwater assets (like homes that are worth less than the mortgage).  This will allow you to stay one step ahead of the death throes of the old economy.
• Turn your hollow home into a productive asset.  Most homes are devoid of any productive capacity.  Adding energy, food, etc production to them turns them into real, productive assets. Get your assets out of financial derivatives (stocks, bonds, etc.) as fast as you can and put them into productive assets (not commodities) you can touch.
• Make everything you can yourself. Grow your own food.  Produce your own energy.  Make/repair your own clothes.  Turn costs into savings.  Reskill to do this. The new “fashionable trend” isn’t what you can buy, it’s what you can make.  Anyone that buys “designer or branded” anything is a fool.
• Work online. Convert your skills into something that can be sold electronically (most of my complex work is done this way).   Develop the skills necessary to work as part of a virtual team.  Telecommute whenever possible (and push to do this, even if it means less money), reduce the number of cars/dress clothes/etc you own in sync with this conversion (and move to a less expensive locale when possible!).   Always have two jobs going at the same time.
• Build a local business. Own assets that produce and sell that production locally.  Even if it is small, it will help down the line via contact networks/experience (a new spin on modern “networking”).  Develop the niche skills that sell locally. Group/tribe up when possible to tackle larger opportunities.
• Barter.  Cashless trades.  Convert what you have to what you need.  Skill set bartering is amazingly effective.  Become part of a local barter network (the backchannel).
• Bring your family home. Grow your home to accommodate more people.  Bring back parents and grown kids (with their families).  This will allow you to pool incomes and radically reduce workload/costs.  It’s also beneficial for security.  NOTE:  I’ve found that consideration/compromise is the best way to handle an expansive family home environment.
• Suggestions welcome!!

This change doesn’t require cute and crunchy notions about “lifestyle” environmentalism.  It’s all about mitigation of stresses in the short to medium term as living conditions deteriorate, while at the same time preparing to ride the resilient community wave to rapid and sustained long term success/wealth.

Good thing I am an optimist… but here’s a good place to start in case you want to be prepared.

photo credit: Mikey G Ottawa

Vancouver Secret Cities – Fort Langley

Now that the Golden Ears bridge has opened (and it’s free for a moment), we can get finally explore the other side of the Fraser River.

Jumped on my motorbike the other day and stopped by one of Greater Vancouver’s gem cities. Fort Langley is the birthplace of BC, and it has managed to not become one of those theme park attractions.

It’s off the beaten track and the restaurants and shops take you back in time. Once you cross the bridge you’ll need a map to find Fort Langley, even though it’s only 10 minutes away. No signs until you are close.

The downtown is a one-of-a-kind where you feel you are in a movie set (and not in a tourist trap). They have an interesting collection of restaurants and a local shops that still have the 50’s feel. No Starbucks here.

Fort Langley will be losing the ferry now that the bridge is in, so I’m hoping for two things: Its shops survive on less traffic, and that real estate drops so I can move there. There are only a few homes for sale today…

For a small town, it’s got a lot to do while still being close enough to Vancouver. If you’re looking to do something fun this weekend, take the drive…

photo credit: janusz l

photo credit: PotatoBenevolence

Arnold Bucks Could Jar California Into Reality.

California will issue IOUs may be issued to anyone owed money by the state with the exception of state workers and other exceptions covered by state law or court order (such as school bond funding). State tax refunds,  Cal-grants for college students, most health and welfare programs, funds to local governments and state vendors can all be “paid” via IOUs.

The IOUs will amount to almost 3 billion a month. It’s now California’s way of printing currency.

Formally called “registered warrants,” the state’s IOUs consist of a piece of paper that says the state owes a payee money, plus interest, to be paid at some point in the future.

The last time California issued registered warrants was in 1992, during two-month budget battle between then-Gov. Pete Wilson and the state’s legislators. But after the state issued almost $4 billion worth of IOUs, many banks stopped accepting them as deposits, claiming the five percent interest didn’t pay for the hassle of processing them. Today they are paying 3.75%.

Since tax refunds came in the form of an IOU earlier this year, people who pay taxes (the few) have lowered their payments so that they aren’t in a refund position come the next tax year.

Now that the Obama voters are finding that their free gas and mortgage payments have been replaced by IOU’s, one has to wonder when the looting begins.

California’s GDP was around $1.812 trillion in 2007 – far more than Canada’s GDP. Good reason to keep Canada moving away from socialism and left wing politics. All you have to do is look at the staggering difference in red and blue states to see which political leaning works.

Long Weekend Auto Fetish

The Bugatti Veyron 16.4  – a real car for real men. 1,000 horses and 12 radiators. To hell with those global warming pussies. They can have their VW vans.

The acceleration is so immediate you can feel your eyeballs deform under the G-forces. It’s a sensation of isolationist joy, an out-of-body awareness that you’re moving faster than the world can react. Bystanders vaguely remember seeing a flash of expensive paint a few seconds after you disappear over the horizon; entire generations of insects die on your prow. Passing other motorists becomes a dangerous entitlement that has you resenting oncoming traffic for hogging your “VIP lane” — especially when you realize that you can outrun not only the 5-0’s cruisers, but their helicopters, too. If they wanna catch you, they’re gonna have to dust off Airwolf and drag Jan Michael Vincent out of rehab.

Story here…