The Vancouver Scrum

I am a lazy bastard.
Therefore, this post is based on search-engine queries that have led people to this web log, and what I think that they were looking for.

"Arianna Huffington" boots -- I'm sure that hers are very nice and fashionable, and that they cost more than I have ever earned in a week. It may also be what she's been giving to George W. Bush.

bc liberals fish farms rafe mair -- Rafe Mair, former Social Credit cabinet minster, is no fan of either fish farming, which in his opinion is destroying wild Pacific salmon stocks (see below), or of the BC Liberals, but he'd still rather vote for Gordon Campbell and company than the New Democrats. The BC Liberals, on the other hand, got tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from fish farmers and their suppliers, and they are fans and promoters of open-pen fish farming in BC's coastal waters.

stolt neilsen sea farm Stolt-Neilsen is the corporate parent of Stolt Sea Farm, the largest fish farming operation in BC. What they've been doing to wild salmon stocks in B.C. is no laughing matter.

"gordon campbell" argument drunk -- I really wouldn't want to get into an argument with Gordon Campbell when he's drunk. Actually, maybe I would... if I were drunk at the same time. I might coat him in vomit during an argument, but that's a grand Canadian political tradition.

ken king leader of the b.c. conservatives -- Indeed, Ken King (no relation, thanks for asking) is the leader of the B.C. Conservative Party, a party that has not elected anyone to the legislature since 1975. He also was the federal PC candidate for Burnaby-Douglas in 2000, where he got a whopping 2,477 votes, fininshing a distant fourth to the Canadian Right's favourite whipping-boy, Svend Robinson. Sticking with the Tories in BC is a sign of loyalty if nothing else, so you've got to give him credit where it's due.

translink 234 trolley buses -- down from 244 after 10 were stored for parts last year. New ones are sceduled to arrive in a few years once TransLink, the local public transit authority, awards a contract for new buses sometime this summer. They won't be chaep, either. Here's inflation at work for you: Vancouver's first electric trolley buses, delivered in 1947, cost $21,000 apiece. Later ones (from 1951) cost about $24,500. The Flyer E901A and E902 buses currently working in Vancouver were around $180,000 each when they were new in 1982. A new order of 205 40-foot and 40 60-foot electric trolleys to be delivered in 2005-2007 will likely come in at close to a quarter-billion dollars, or around a million dollars per bus!

Norman Ruff -- Every other political pundit in B.C. quotes this University of Victoria political science professor. Why the hell shouldn't I do the same?

Vancouver Olympic plebiscite cost to taxpayers -- $575,000, or $37,000 more than estimated by City staff. The 46% voter turnout was 50% higher than anticipated, and three times the turnout for a municipal by-election or special vote, so this might account for the over-run.

Surrey school trustees spend too much on gay books -- Most Surrey school trustees would rather have nothing to do with homosexuality. What they spent too much money on was trying, for religious reasons, to keep books that feature (and in one case, only as minor characters) same-sex parents out of Surrey schools. In their failed attempts to keep those books out of schools, they've racked up a tab of $1.5-million over the last 5 years that Surrey taxpayers have had to deal with. Not content to fight religious battles using Surrey taxpayer dollars, the board has since tried to convince the cash-strapped provincial government that it should cover the bill for the Surrey school board's religious crusade. And they claim to be the taxpayer's defenders? Hypocrites.

"Vancouver Scrum" -- Nice to see that the word's getting out. You are hereby obligated to inform your friends and acquaintances of the wisdom contained in this mass of electrons.