Four women in hospital after Calgary shooting

The Calgary Herald is reporting that "Four women have been rushed to hospital after a shooting in Castleridge early this morning. At about 4:15 a.m., police were called to the 0 to 100 block of Castleridge Way N.E. for reports of gunshots. When emergency crews arrived, they found three women between the ages of 20 and 40 inside the home suffering from facial injuries, said Stuart Brideaux of Calgary EMS."

"A fourth victim, with a wound to her neck, was located later this morning at a different location. Brideaux said the woman in her mid-40s had been at the original scene, but left and was located on 22nd Avenue N.E. at about 4:40 a.m. Three of the victims were taken to hospital in serious but stable condition. One of the victims sustained soft-tissue injuries and is in stable condition."

"This is the second shooting to take place on Castleridge Way this year. In February, a man was shot while leaving a house party in the same block as Saturday morning’s shooting. Shot multiple times with a handgun, he was rushed to hospital in critical, life-threatening injuries. "

Norm Farrell on the Site C Dam and the privatization of health care

Readers have sent in links to two interesting posts on Norm Farrell's blog called In Sights. I have kept a pretty neutral stance on the Site C dam myself because I'm from Vancouver. I support hydro electric power. It is cost effective and environmentally friendly. They are a lot better than nuclear reactors. Yet I do support the freedom of speech and if people have legitimate concerns with the Site C dam then let's hear them.

NS News: Not worth a dam

The first article is about the Site C dam and states: "Most of the British Columbia’s corporate media rides the Liberal bandwagon but the Glacier Media paper in my town, the North Shore News, takes a strong position against Site C, the most expensive white elephant ever conceived by bankrupt politicians."

The blog posts then quotes the North Shore News which said: "The project, which was approved without a proper review by the B.C. Utilities Commission, is going to cost $8.8 billion we don’t have to produce electricity we can’t use, to power LNG plants that won’t exist, at a cost too expensive to sell to foreign markets…"

That is the most logical opposition to the project I have heard thus far. Hydro electric power is normally cost effective. Why does this project cost so much money and what need will it be fulfilling? Will it be powering LNG plants that don't exist or will it be supplying power to foreign markets at below cost rates? Since the project costs so much money we need to ask who is really building it? Is SNC-Lavalin using a shell company to get the contract? Why in God's name would we give SNC-Lavalin the contract for anything? Is that what this is really about? Why would we sell power to foreign markets for less than it cost us to produce it?

Liberal supports health system privatization

The second post on Norm's blog that my readers have sent in is with regards to Liberal incumbent Linda Reimer's position on the privatization of our public health care. I totally support fiscal responsibility. Lower taxes and less spending means business and taxpayers prosper within a free market. Yet public health care is good business. It's not a Communist plot to take over the free world. It is actually a British tradition.

I have a friend whose mother lives in Arizona. He said in Arizona the hospitals have a legal obligation to provide emergency health care to everyone even if they don't have medical insurance. As a result all the hospitals are built in the rich areas and no one wants to build a hospital near a poor area because they don't want to be the ones that get all the poor people showing up needing emergency care when they don't have insurance. That in my opinion is not an example of a civilized society.

House arrest for former Ottawa judge who stole from Catholic church

The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that "a former small claims court judge who pocketed a quarter of a million dollars from the cemetery funds of his Catholic church will spend the next year under house arrest."

Ronald Houlahan was an Ottawa lawyer who served as a small claims court deputy judge. This is why judges need to be accountable to the public in Canada. I remember speaking with one concerned citizen at a local criminal justice rally. He said to me "at what point does a crooked lawyer become an honest judge? Is there some kind of epiphany that is suposed to take place because I'm not seeing it. "

Peter Fassbender drops the ball

Local media are somewhat pessimistic about Peter Fassbender's reelection chances after dropping the ball since he was narrowly elected last term. He is one of Christy Clarks insiders and created quite a division within the Liberal party after Christy Clark let him hijack the nomination process and run without being nominated and elected by the party.

James Plett was the Vice President of the Surrey Tynehead riding association of the BC Liberals at the time and resigned as a result of the sweetheart deal claiming on Twitter that he was 'Sick of "Today's @bcliberals" corruption + scandal after scandal. Worse than the BC NDP of yesteryear. I quit effective now #bcpoli'

As mayor of Langley Fassbender was part of the Metro Vancouver Mayors gluten counsel that epitomized the tax and spend model of pork barrel politics. While he was mayor he sat on a committee overseeing the RCMP contract negotiations when his son was a member of the RCMP. As a result he was quickly promoted within Christy Clark's insider trading group.

After he was elected MLA he pissed off all the teachers by bypassing the collective bargaining process and emailing all the teachers directly trying to explain why they were wasting massive amounts of tax dollars on court fees justifying their illegal acts instead of paying a fair contract. He helped Christy Clark burn massive amounts of tax dollars in a legal battle which they lost for knowlingly breaking the law. That act of arrogance defied reason.

After that fiasco he was quickly shuffled over to the minister of Translink position where he perpetuated the Mayor's Glutton councils tax and spend fraud by trying to introduce a tax levy on all businesses that were located near a skytrain station. More taxes on small business. That is their MO. Most recently he started raising eyebrows by handing out tax dollars to constituents from his campaign office.

I live in Peter Fassbender's riding. I didn't vote for him last time and I most certainly am not voting for him this time. We need to elect a government that supports small business not one that chokes them unconscious with more tax and spend gluttony like the BC Liberals have done. Ever heard the term from Shakespeare me thinks thou doth protest too much? It's when someone's raging denial becomes so passionate it becomes suspicious. When the BC Liberals claim the NDP will tax and spend we know they are the real offenders of tax gluttony not the NDP.

As for the rest of Surrey The Vancouver Sun is reporting that On the NDP side, MLAs Harry Bains (Surrey-Newton), Sue Hammell (Surrey-Green Timbers) and Bruce Ralston (Surrey-Whalley) have said they’re running again in what is considered comfortable New Democrat territory for the multi-term incumbents."

Fatal shooting in Nanaimo

The RCMP are reporting that "The Nanaimo RCMP is continuing with their investigation into a shooting which left one person dead. At approximately 3:20 am on Wednesday April 19, 2017 officers responded to a report of shots fired at the Howard Johnson's Hotel, located at 1 Terminal Ave, Nanaimo. When officers arrived they found one person deceased in the lobby of the hotel from apparent gun shots. Approximately one hour later a vehicle was stopped by North Cowichan Duncan RCMP officers and one male was taken into custody without incident."

Giant Iceberg floats past Newfoundland

Iceberg watching season along iceberg alley in Newfoundland has started with a bang. CBC is reporting that "It's an unusual sight on Newfoundland's Southern Shore highway: bumper-to-bumper traffic, packed along the side of the road. And they're all there to get a closer look at a massive iceberg stuck in shallow water, just off the coast of Ferryland, on the Avalon Peninsula. Over the Easter long weekend, resident Don Costello said the area was "swarming with people" taking photos of the iceberg." The picture was taken in Ferryland, NL.

I was going to make a cross Canada trip on my motorcycle this summer but I'm not going to be able to make it this year. Here is an intersting link to a website that tracks icebergs that are floating past Newfoundland in case you want to visit. That's worth seeing so it is.

Netflix series filmed in Whalley

Yesterday they were filming a Netflix series in Whalley. They converted the KFC that just went belly up into a Taco ta go for the film. They had fire crews on site. It looked like they were going to burn the place down but no such luck. They're all done the filming.

CBC has picked up on the story the Surrey Now-Leader ran about businesses leaving the area due to the drug related problems associated with harm promotion. They quote the owner of Motorcycle world a few doors down the street as saying "Nobody is going to be here pretty soon, it's going to be a dead zone." That is the natural consequence of harm promotion. It's time to wake up and smell the coffee and stop pouring gasoline on the problem and start getting people off the streets and into treatment. To accomplish goal that we need to clean up the rehab houses in Surrey that are just flop houses scamming the government and burning tax dollars.

Landfill Harmonic - Inspiration from the Hood

A few stories to catch up on but I just wanted to pause for some inspiration from the hood. The Landfill Harmonic is a group of kids that live in the slums of Paraguay and made musical instruments from landfill trash. I first saw them on a Lindsey Stirling video.

The website for the movie has a powerful video about the slum that is built on a landfill and states "If you ae born in the wrong place, you don't always have the right to dream." The video is called dreamer and states in darkness you shine. So they do.

"The world sends us trash, we send back music." Beethoven's 5th Symphony - Transcendence

Easter Morning

I made it up to Hollyburn Lodge this morning while it was still open. This is the last weekend for skiing on the local hills but there's a huge snowpack remaining. Saturday there was a break in the clouds so I rode up to Seymour. As soon as I hit the second narrows bridge you could see dark dark clouds very low covering the peaks. It looked very dark and dreary. It was snowing on the way up and very limited visibility.



Today the sun was out and fresh snow revealed. In the city the cherry blossoms are out.



This is springtime in Vancouver. Cherry blossoms in the city and a melting snowpack on the mountains. It's a wonderful time of the year. Yet even with today being Easter I think many of us out there just aren't feeling it. Today at Hollyburn Lodge a young family walked in and the mother told her young children this is Hollyburn Lodge. This is where my parents took me when I was a child. Those are good traditions to have and uphold.

I gave a small easter basket of chocolate eggs to the young Syrian kids next door and their eyes lit up. I smiled and said it's kind of like our Ramadan except we eat. I suppose people fast during lent but even that tradition is disappearing. Some say the old ways are lost so they are. Some but not all. It's time to make new memories so it is, for the kids. Peace.

Bat out of Hell 2017

Billboard dot com is reporting that Just in time to celebrate its 40th anniversary, Meat Loaf's famed 1977 rock opera Bat Out of Hell is being made into a musical scripted by Jim Steinman, the man who wrote all the songs on the best-selling album. It opens in London England June 20, 2017 and will hit Toronto October 14 to December 3, 2017.