9/26/2011

Labour Problems in the North

     Because of time constraints I recently sent BC Mary an article from the Kitimat Daily that I thought would fit with her recent column on Rail in the north. She ran with it posting parts and referring to the Kitimat Daily.

To my complete surprise Professor Robin Mathews has weighed in on the subject with a short story about the Smelter and the labour troubles back in the day when they built the smelter. His main question is where is the NDP and the Media. I might add "Where is the BC Federation of Labor and Jim Sinclair?"

9/25/2011

Getting Back On Track (so to speak)

     The past few months have been trying times for me. Personal and political problems erupted in the lead up to Recall causing me to back off and confront them. Politically I just stopped getting involved feeding things to other bloggers when I could and letting them run with it in their own way.
    
     On the personal end, just when I thought things may drag on for a year, things did a complete 360 in my favour. As I suspected, the main cause of the problems was initiated by others. I will be filing injunctions and a lawsuit is not out of the question, yet. At this point in time I am winding down these problems and will be ramping up this blog in between the continued saga of building Gary's Daughters house. (now two years in the making).

     Just as Gordo the "wannabe great" had decided to stick you and I, the low and middle income people, with a draconian money grab that he claimed was revenue neutral, I had commenced procuring drawings, permits, and materials for construction. All this on a very meager set of pensions while working on the initiative petitions and recall. I don't use credit simply because in a project like this any cards I might have would be maxed out and I simply can't afford 27% interest on unpaid balances. So I pay cash and build it one step at a time. Or in this case one block at a time.

     Six months before I decided to move forwards with drawings and permits I had decided to go as green as I could. So I am building this home with ARXX Blocks. They are styrofoam fire resistant blocks that you snap together like leggo, and fill with concrete and rebar. When it is finished I will conceivably be able to heat the building with matches.lol. Not quite but I certainly will be able to heat it with much less than the three cords of wood I am now using.

     I am also going solar. I have already acquired the hot water solar panels and an emergency propane "on demand" water heater for now. I will be using composting toilets and have purchased the one for the main bathroom. And the big kicker is I will be GOING OFF THE GRID.
For those of you who may be wondering I will eliminate BC Hydro from my life. I won't even sell them back any excess electricity I may have because they don't pay you shit for it.And they want a surcharge.

     So, I haven't been sitting on my duff. Just been a little busy personally. I hope to pump out a lot more on the sorry state of the Campbell/Clark reruns we are now watching but I will be coming back slowly as the other problems wind down.

Stay tuned and go green.

9/23/2011

People Still Want to Twist the Facts

 Following is my response to a LTE in the 100 Mile Free Press ( which by the way is not monetarily free)

  Mr. xxx appears to be making statements without checking some facts.

First, the biggest thing we gained was not monetary, but the right for British Columbia to set their own provincial taxes. If this were left to the Federal government there would be little we could to to hold back any government that wants to tax and spend.

Second, the "enormous amount of money to defeat the tax" is a misstatement at best. The enormous amount of money used was not done by the the "yes " side. It was the government and their big business biddies that spent well over $50 Million to try and save their tax. A tax by the way which has been described as the biggest money shift in BC history.

Switching back using an enormous amount of money, I allege, is a government/business scare tactic. Put more succinctly it is a lie. People need to get the fact through their heads that removing this draconian tax will remove the burden from the middle and lower income people and make business pay closer to their fair share. And taxing the air we breath is not far off. Look at what is happening with our water.