BRITISH COLUMBIA SHOULD FOLLOW TEXAS' LEAD

"How is it that two nations, so clear-sighted in recognizing human rights atrocities in other countries and so fearless in taking on tyrannical rulers on the other side of the world, have been so blind to the human rights violations committed against their own women and children?" - Daphne Bramham

I have a good relationship with some local Mormons. They pop in for a coffee once in a while and we chat. The faces of the missionaries change but the youthful missionary commitment to their faith remains constant.

The issue of Waren Steed Jeffs has been a black eye to Mormons world wide. He is a self-proclaimed prophet and head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints booted him out years ago. They renounced polygamy and many of Jeff's fundamental mormonism in 1890.

Jeffs is in prison. He was convicted as an accomplice to the rape of 14 year old girl in 2001. He is awaiting trial on charges of incest and sexual conduct with a minor in Arizona.

However, every time a story runs about Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ (FLDS) of Latter Day Saints, some people tie it to the Mormons and paint them all with the same brush. How many people in my own little circle of friends have I talked to who speak of this horrible Jeffs fella and Mormons in the same breath. They believe all Mormons are polygamous. We believe what we hear and see on the news or in a documentary. Hence good people are impacted.

Today Texas Child Protective Services and State Troopers removed 52 girls from a remote religious retreat in West Texas operated by Jeffs' cult. Sounds like something that could not happen here right? Well a few months ago I watched a documentary on the Fifth Estate that examined Jeffs' Canadian connection. Jeffs established another religious polygamous retreat in Bountiful, British Columbia. The place is run by Winston Blackmore who broke ranks with Jeffs in a power struggle a few years ago. I watched Blackmore admit on CNN and in this documentary that he has had sex with minors, but that t is his religious right.

While polygamy is illegal in Canada, no one has interfered with what is going on in Bountiful. No charges have ever been laid. Despite allegations of sexual abuse and the practice of polygamy, no one in the community has ever been charged with a crime.

The reason, British Columbia authorities think that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would see this as an infringement on religious freedom. Despite assurances from Ottawa that they will help cover the costs of the trials, despite recommendations by the RCMP in 1990 and 2006 to lay sexual exploitation charges, no one has moved to assist the young women of Bountiful.

Daphne Bramham, a journalist from British Columbia released a book just last week that explores the FLDS in Bountiful. From all accounts The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys In Canada's Polygamous Mormon Sect is an unsettling account of racists, child abusers, pedophiles and extortionists that are allowed to continue here in Canada.

A few weeks ago the Attorney General of British Columbia said his office was examining the Bountiful situation to determine a course of action. Well perhaps they will watch CNN tonight and see the best course of action is right before them and act before more people are hurt.

THE MOOD IS GETTING UGLIER

Wow! The comment section on the Telegram webpage is an interesting barometer of public opinion. Add to that the callers on the three daily open-line shows and you see how suspicious people are of the government's role in the delay in informing the public about breast cancer testing problems in the province.

Over the past few weeks I have expressed my opinion on the dangers of passing judgment on the Ministers and the Premier until the evidence is in. I thought this ridiculous farce around newly found e-mails only created more ammunition for conspiracy theorists. In general, the public has a general disdain and distrust for politicians. It feels like this inquiry is starting to impact how the average person thinks of a government in which they have trusted and put a great deal of faith thus far.

Listening to the open lines and reading some e-mails and posts on user groups prompted me to write about the dangers of witch hunts. The public is in the mood for a lynching, and the incompetence of someone in government who is responsible for finding archived e-mail messages on the breast cancer testing issue has notched up suspicion of a cover-up.

Now we can say the open lines are manipulated and that the comment section of the Telegram is easily skewed by those who wish to make a political point. I agree. However, as one who has some experience with this, I have noticed something new. The party stalwarts on both sides are being eclipsed by average citizens who feel passionately enough about the issue to express their concerns. Those are the voices that matter. I am sure that listeners know the Rons and the Tonys of the world are partisan and treat the message accordingly. However, when Ms. Murphy next door feels the urge to put her opinion to paper or makes a call to the Action Line, trouble is brewing.

As I have said all week, and the Telegram said yesterday, Get it Together!

FRIDAY'S EDITORIAL

Get it together
The Telegram

It appears we've gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. On Thursday, the inquiry into breast cancer testing was adjourned again, as lawyers dealt with the question of 40 new provincial documents that had not been presented to the inquiry. The lawyer for the inquiry, Bernard Coffey, suggested that, once the documents are reviewed, the inquiry may have to start recalling witnesses to question them on the missing documents.

This is the second delay this week, the first coming after a senior civil servant discovered three-year-old e-mails that were inexplicably missed when the government supplied documents to the inquiry.

Forgive us for the troubling doubts we've developed, but how on Earth can documents that the inquiry could order produced somehow be missed by provincial government officials?

And while we're on the topic of documents, there's also another question: what exactly has the province been asked to produce?

Because there are some documents that might shed a great deal of light on who knew what, and when. And it's not e-mails back and forth between provincial communications directors, either.

When a corporate management group meets, each of its division heads supplies a breakdown of any issues arising in his or her division. The management group considers the issues, and looks at what actions should be taken.

The province's management group - the cabinet - meets weekly, and, presumably, any significant issues in any government department would be raised by the respective minister and addressed by the full cabinet. Those deliberations are, of course, recorded, and would be information that would be of value to the commission of inquiry in two ways.

If there was no discussion of the developing crisis in breast cancer testing, that would show a significant failure on behalf of a cabinet minister. If there was discussion, cabinet conversations would add to information about who knew what, and when.

Now, cabinet information is particularly hard to get in most circumstances. After all, "information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of cabinet" is specifically banned from release by the province's Access to Information Act and sealed for 20 years.

But the Public Inquiries Act says "a rule of law that authorizes or requires the withholding of records, documents or other things, or a refusal to disclose information on the grounds that the disclosure would be injurious to the public interest or would violate Crown privilege, does not apply in respect of an inquiry under this act." And this is a public inquiry.

So let's stop pussyfooting around here.

Let's ensure the inquiry has the records. In fact, that it has all of the records - from missing e-mails and undiscovered documents, right up to the deliberations of the province's management team.

And if anyone has a problem with that, well, the inquiry can, and should, compel their co-operation. Sometimes a court order does wonders to clear the mind.

THE WORLD OF PIRATES

How do you know if you are a pirate? You just "Arrrrrrrr"...

Next to Legos the most popular thing at my house is pirates. The boys dress up like pirates, watch pirate movies - from Muppet Treasure Island to the Jack Sparrow trilogy - we eat Captain Crunch for breakfast too often and there is an armada of pirate Playmobil scattered around the play room and the rec room.


Pop Whittle just made Conor a new wooden pirate boat which they are both very proud of. Conor was expecting a full size ship and was planning a run to the Caribbean but this boat will suffice in carrying his imagination there.

Aidan and I have developed a liking for The Pirate Board Game from Wizkids. It is a fully constructible strategy game in packs of cards which come with at least two ships, dice and islands. We have picked up a few bonus packs and a nice cloth map. Great for teaching math and strategy.

For those of you who wonder about the Pirate Laws that Jack Sparrow speaks, of check out this site.

THE LCD APPROACH TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

I have been fascinated with public administration and the interaction of partisan politics for most of my adult life.

As complicated and multifaceted as the mechanics of the professional civil service and the irrationality of politics can be, I have always found that Monty Python eclipses great academics like Brent Flyvberg, Ian Gow, Ken Kernaghan, and Donald Savoie in showing how the system works.

I love it! I must confess to doing the occasionally silly walk when I was alone in the corridors of the Confederation Building. In particular, in the long link between the East and West Block.

And it was always hard to resist doing one along the corridor that stretches past the House of Assembly to the Government Caucus Room, with all of the busts of the former Prime Ministers and Premiers looking down at you.

STAYING THE COURSE SAYS I

Yesterday I asked a question: Who said in a 1990 newspaper interview that the province may attempt to renegotiate sections of the Atlantic Accord so Newfoundland could gain royalties from future offshore benefits. "It means reopening the Atlantic Accord equalization offset and I would love to see something done on that"?

The answer: Liberal Mines and Energy Minister Rex Gibbons. The headline in the Sunday Express: " NEWFOUNDLAND, OTTAWA CLASH OVER ATLANTIC ACCORD ROYALTY PROVISIONS." The date: Sept 23, 1990.

His boss Clyde Wells agreed but said, " I say to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador: don't object, because the people of Canada are taking the lion's share of the risk." He also expressed his reservations about provision in the 1985 agreement allowing Ottawa to reduce equalization payments to the province as royalties from the offshore projects started to flow.

Remain consistent and one gets branded a a pitcher plant! Funny how where your party sits in the House of Assembly affects your opinions.

BSG IS BACK IN THE BUILDING

Battlestar Galactica launched its fourth and final season last night with a major lead up on SPACE. No less than two one hour programs on the making and history of the series preceded the premiere. This was good for me because I was otherwise occupied until 11:30.

The opening scene is set in the midst of a huge dog fight between Galactica and three cylon base ships. It looks like the jig is up! We find out that four of the show's major characters are indeed cylons (seems Hendrix was the common bond) and Starbuck is back among the living - she thinks she was gone for six hours, when she was missing for weeks.

The new sleeper cylons have to come to grips with what they are, which is confirmed when Anders is scanned by a cylon ship and his retina turns red. With that the dog fight is over and the cylons withdraw.

The episode delivered on special effects, further developing the plot with lots of religious and moral quandaries and the mysteries of the identity of the remaining cylon and the route to earth, all of which continue to hook me.

Did I mention the special effects! Wow. I am sure people watch this show for lots of reasons. The special effects, while good, have not been the show's sole purpose. That would be too much like Star Wars or something. I have grown tired of the same static pictures of nuclear war heads being launched from the cylons over and over. In the old series it was the same repeated scenes of the vipers launching in the tubes into space. Last night's dogfight with vipers and cylon raiders going toe to toe, zapping each other, was brilliant! The sci-fi geek in me loved it!

My only regret is the hunger for more. Six more nights before another fix of my favourite space opera!

FUN HAD BY ALL

If you're looking for a new board game, I have a great recommendation for you - Thurn and Taxis. It has won the Spiel das Jahre award and plays in under an hour. This game is all about optimization, efficiency, and adaptation. The more we play, the more we are drawn into the game.

Kris and I were introduced to this game in the fall. Some friends of ours had gotten as a Christmas present in 2006! Our fascination with Carcassone and Ticket To Ride and the time it takes to learn a new game had resulted in this game being neglected. It has turned out to be a real treat.

Last night was dinner and board game night at our house. So I suggested T&T, Lynette said she had not brought theirs so we tore the plastic off mine and played the inaugural game on my new board. Kris mumbled about me buying another game. That is a topic for another post.

The main premise is that you compete to build the best postal system. You do this by building a network of post offices in the cities represented on the board, acquiring carriages, and collecting bonus tiles. To help in this endeavor, you enlist the help of 4 postal officials. When a player has acquired a value 7 carriage or has placed all his/her houses, the game comes down to the final round. The player with the most victory points wins the game.

The game has great depth. I felt compelled to see how many different ways I could go about obtaining the tiles and carriages to get the best score in the end. There are many variations and strategies. The environment changed often and so I found myself frequently having to adapt. It wasn't just me wanting to find other avenues of getting the best score - the other players kept wanting to play another game, and then another after that. Each game saw each player trying a different strategy to obtain the tiles and carriages and use the postal officials.

For the record Ken is king. He never loses. It's that analytical mind!

It is a fun game, relatively quick to play and never seems to get boring. I bought my copy at Downtown Comics on Water Street. Tell them you read my review here and they will give you a 10% discount.

CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

- Albert Einstein

While making a photo album - book this week the kids and I reviewed hundreds of pictures of them over the past 8 years and my pictures from youth. We could easily juxtapose pictures of me, Liam, Aidan and Conor and not only see the resemblances but often as not misidentify who was in what picture. The dates and environment helped us determine who was who.

This led to a discussion about DNA, hereditary traits, genes and the work of a monk named Gregor Mendal who was the first to determine that specific factors are passed along from parents to make us what we are. Most of his work was done in botany. The rules, it would later be determined, applied to other species as well.

So in the search for answers for the boys we discovered a great page that looks at DNA, chromosomes, the beginning of life. It has been a while since I studied high school biology and this site was really helpful, not only refreshing my mind but teaching me a lot of new science about DNA.

God sure created some complicated beings!

FLASHBACK

Who said in an newspaper interview in 1990 that the province may attempt to renegotiate sections of the Atlantic Accord so Newfoundland can benefit from royalties from future offshore benefits. "It means reopening the Atlantic Accord equalization offset and I would love to see something done on that"?

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN

A few days ago I wrote a post which highlighted the darnedest things kids say. One of my regular readers is a insurance claim guy. He is the person who comes by to take your statement and recommend payment. He said kids say the darnedest things but folks involved in accidents trump them.

He said the combination of not accepting blame, finger pointing and attempts to be brief create some interesting explanations. For example:

• "The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention."

• "Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have."
• "I thought my window was down; but found it was up when I put my hand through it."

• "No one was to blame for the accident, but it never would have happened if the other driver had been alert."

• "I was taking my canary to the hospital. It got loose in the car and flew out the window. The next thing I saw was his rear end, and there was a crash.I was on the way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident."

• "I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat, I found that I had a fractured skull."
• "When I could not avoid a collision, I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car."

• "I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way."

• "In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole."
• "As I approached the intersection, a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident."

• "The telephone pole was approaching fast. I was attempting to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end."

• "A truck backed though my windshield and into my wife's face."

• "I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment."

• "The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him."

POLICE DO NOT WISH TO SHARE THOUGHTS ON TASARS

The House of Commons committee on public safety and national security is holding two days of meetings with RCMP, border and airport officials on the use of electronic stun guns in Canada - but they are behind closed doors.

Apparently the growing use of Tasers in Canada is an issue of national security and the deliberations of the committee cannot be shared with the public. Nearly 7, 000 officers in Canada are armed with the stun guns.

The meetings are taking place at the Vancouver International Airport, where Robert Dziekanski died after RCMP stunned him with a Taser last October. The committee agreed to probe the use of tasers after this high profile incident.

Opposition parties are arguing that the meetings should be public. I agree. It seems counterproductive to be holding these meetings in secret when the public wants to know more. So much for instilling public confidence in the RCMP.

I guess the RCMP are still bruised up from the on-camera episode which captured four officers zapping Robert Dziekanski last October and his subsequent death.

TURNING TO ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF TRANSPORTATION

A few weeks ago while driving home to St. Bernard's from St. John's I was surprised that people's driving habits have not adjusted to higher gas prices. Considering how fuel efficiency goes out the window with high speeds I expected more people to be driving at or below the posted limit. Instead speeders were rampant! At what point do gas prices make people drive slower, walk more and consume less gas?

Statistics Canada data from the 2006 census indicates that more and more people are taking to bikes, buses and subways to get to work.

I like to walk to work and occasionally ride my bike. Riding a bike along many of the streets in St. John's is a riskier venture than I am interested in taking during rush hour. Walking is nice, lots of sights, CBC radio in my headphone and I am all relaxed by the time I arrive. However, the lack of side walks for nearly half of the year makes walking to work a seasonal thing.

CBC has a nice breakdown of the numbers.

NEW GIZMO

Here is a possible solution for those of you connected to your cellular 24/7! How about a small dental procedure that would allow the installation of a small mic in one of your teeth?

The durable composite resin filling is designed to fit in a hole 2.2mm in diameter and 1.7 mm deep and will pick up sound and vibrations from your mouth to produce incredibly clear sound.

I am awaiting news of a cochlear implant. Could be funny to watch.

ROLL UP THE RIM!

All of the talk of missed or overlooked e-mail communications got me to thinking a little bit more about ways officials can communicate with one another. It is pretty hard today not to leave a paper trail. Hard drive back-ups, digitization, centralized e-mail archives, phone logs and many others. Besides the face to face, one-on-one talk, a paper trail or an electronic record is nearly always left behind.

Except that electronic communication between government officials is not limited to e-mail or cell phones. The introduction of the Blackberry married those two together and RIM's Blackberry also has a kind of back door that allows messages to be exchanged without leaving a trail to be archived.

Enter SMS/PIN text messages and ubiquitous Blackberry PIN (Personal Identification Number) messages. PIN's are a universal identifier for every Blackberry device in existence. Every Blackberry has a unique eight-digit number

MS and PIN messages never pass through your email systems and therefore will not be archived by your email archiving solution. Users assume that PIN messages are secure and untraceable. Neither is necessarily the case but if your employer is not archiving the messages you can be assured they will not come back to haunt you.

The PIN is Blackberry’s own proprietary user addressing system. Every Blackberry has one and Blackberry users can send PIN messages to each other as easily as they can send emails or text messages. PIN messages are “peer to peer” and can only go from one Blackberry to another.

Many business organizations have had to ensure employees deactivate these features to ensure they are regulatory compliant for audits.

It would be interesting to know the Auditor General's position on the use of SMS/test messages on Provincial Government Blackberries which leave no trail to audit. Is the Government an enterprise that needs to keep track of employee communications? Does a list of all e-mail communication include the messages through a PIN to PIN exchange?

Does the PIN allow communication through a bit of black hole? Is it even significant? I would be interested to hear from people in the financial community (or other businesses) whose corporations are subject to audits that prevent the use of PINS. What is the federal government position on the use of PINs?

PAY AS WE GO

Earlier this year the Ontario Government asked Waste Diversion Ontario to come up with a way to reduce the tens of thousands of tonnes of electronics being dumped in landfills every year, which wastes valuable resources and unsafely disposes of toxic components.

What they've come up with a plan that would see 650 depots open across the province where people can drop off used electronics to have them recycled.

The $62 million bill is broken into per-item fees that would be charged directly to the manufacturer or first importer of the specified electronics. It's left up to them to decide how they want to pay for it: add the fee to the consumer's bill, increase prices or absorb the cost.

The plan calls for adding new products, such as cellphones, cameras and radios, in the future. The products to be covered and fees are: $2.14 for a laptop computer, $13.44 for a desktop computer and $12.03 for a monitor; $5.05 for a printer, and 32 cents for computer accessories like a mouse or keyboards; $10.07 for a television.

Fee based re-cycling programs are not new here in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Multi-Material Stewardship Board has been responsible for developing, implementing and managing waste diversion programs since 1997.

They started with a Beverage Container Recycling Program that I am pleased to admit that I assisted in developing. It is a deposit-refund system which the opposition criticized as a tax grab at the time. Millions of beverage containers have been diverted from landfills. Since that time bans have been placed on dumping tires and lubricating oil in landfills. Both of these programs are based on a fee structure at the point of purchase to assist with future disposal.

The tire re-cycling program has proven to be a huge challenge, as I expect re-cycling used electronics will be as well. I may not like the new fees but it certainly makes consumers more responsible for the waste they create and producers more responsible for the materials they produce

TIMS UPPING PRICES

Tim Hortons is about to increase the price of your morning cup of joe! Prices are set to increase Monday in Ontario.

In Ontario a medium coffee is currently $1.17 before tax; that will change to $1.22. The company last raised coffee prices in February 2006 and bumped up food prices in July.

Rising operating costs are to blame. The prices of wheat, sugar and coffee have been rising substantially.

Pricing is determined on a region-by-region basis, so no word yet on we can expect here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

THE NEW AD IN REVIEW

The latest campaign ad from Hillary Clinton is getting some mixed reviews. The ad is a sequel to the 3.am terror ad that they ran in Ohio. I would have to agree with my favourite debating partner that the premise of a 3 a.m. call about a financial crisis is a bit ludicrous. It's really hard to imagine a situation in which the phone would ring in the White House at that hour to report "home foreclosures mounting, markets teetering." Most of the U.S. markets close at 4 p.m.

The ad might have been a little more effective if the little girl was sleeping in a room filled with twilight, Hillary was drinking orange juice in her P.J's and it was 5:30 a.m. The concept that Hillary will answer the phone, with her glasses on, hair done, makeup finished at 3 a.m really makes a farce out of the ad.

However if the purpose is to create a buzz and get people talking about the ad, and than move into a serious discussion of the issue which is haunting millions of Americans, than it may work. Polls are showing Hillary is going to do okay in Pennsylvania but she wants to do much better, so she is driving home the economy message, which is at the root of most people's insecurities as a recession sets in. She needs to win big in Pennsylvania, big enough in Indiana, maybe even in North Carolina. But the same advice holds true for Obama, who, if you've noticed, is the one person who doesn't seem frustrated by Clinton's refusal to go away.

So this ad is aimed at McCain, in attempt to get her negative numbers amongst Democrats down. She cannot be seen as the bad person who destroyed a symbol of hope . So she gets to play the good guy against the Republicans for a change. If the Obama people tackle her they look negative.

Yea, I know the only 3 a.m. financial crises I have dealt with is a call from a friend for bail money or a teenaged sister-in-law whose ATM will not feed her the money she needs to get a taxi home from George Street.

3 AM- PART DEUX

Announcer: It’s 3 am, and your children are safe and asleep.

But there’s a phone ringing in the White House and this time the crisis is economic.

Home foreclosures mounting, markets teetering.

John McCain just said the government shouldn’t take any real action on the housing crisis, he’d let the phone keep ringing.

Hillary Clinton has a plan to protect our homes, create jobs.

It’s 3 am, time for a president who’s ready.

Hillary Clinton: I’m Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.

GET IT TOGETHER

The delays at the Cameron Inquiry this week related to the discovery of missing e-mails is intriguing. It certainly does nothing to enhance the transparency of government and provides rich fodder for the conspiracy theorists.

I have been on both ends of freedom of information requests. I have even tangled up in a few requests for my work e-mail connected to litigation involving files I worked on. I was always under the impression that all of my blackberry, groupwise/novel, laptop and desktop e-mail were integrated and stored on some server for years. In other words nothing is forgotten.

Surely the IT people, both at the department and in particular at Executive Council, would have been engaged to do what amounts to a forensic audit of the e-mail sent and received from the individuals involved in this file.

Many of these people have switched departments a couple of times since this began in 2005, while others have left government all together. Those people would no longer have their computers, blackberries or access to their old email accounts. That said they are there somewhere.

I am not alleging that someone has purposely failed to do their job or withheld information, but it seems a bit ridiculous that the former Clerk of the Council and current Deputy Minister of Health is trolling through his own e-mail looking for exchanges related to these past events. I can imagine that there is a lot of other sensitive information in his files but surely someone with the proper clearance is doing this for him and the other government officials to ensure that every single reference to the botched lab results is brought forward.

Certainly, I can understand people involved hearing John Ottenheimer's testimony and being reminded of a conversation, meeting or e-mail exchange. But I don't understand why the information would not have already been found by the specialists whom one would think have been engaged to ensure all this information has been rooted out. They have had months to do this. Let's not forget they have also been preparing for a legal challenge in the form of Chess Crosbie's law suit on behalf of those impacted by the false positive results.

It is too sloppy for a "cover-up," but it sure gives those conspiracy theorists who keep hounding me lots of ammo for their talk that the hearings have been delayed to get stories straight, and all that type of crap.

Apparently 40 new e-mails have turned-up since Tuesday. Ottenheimer is expected to continue his testimony on Friday.

If they cannot even find e-mails on official government accounts, why is anyone surprised that the numbers of people impacted has continued to rise with so many people still not contacted.

I damn well would not put up with this kind of incompetence. For god's sake, someone has to be accountable for this public relations and organizational nightmare. If I were the Premier I would be damned good and pissed!

THE O'BRIEN EFFECT

I just spent 10 minutes in the kiss and ride line-up in the Mary Queen of Peace Elementary School parking lot. The wait is always an opportunity to get Liam pumped up for another day of school. This morning I was mesmerized by Government Services Minister Kevin O'Brien's interview on CBC Radio about the public disclosure of health and safety issues related to food establishments.

A few weeks ago P&P expressed its pleasure with a new service offered by government that would provide customers, upon request, with information about the health and safety records of food establishments. I thought it would make more sense to offer a website with information updated on a regular basis. That information must be inputted into a database somewhere in the department, so offering it on a website did not seem to be a big stretch. The ability to host and maintain a web page is already in-house, the data is there in electronic format and it would not demand extra staff or tie up existing staff to deal with incoming requests and track down the information. It really does not seem like a big deal.

O'Brien disagrees. He says there are many demands before government and this is not a priority. His department has to work with existing budgets. Yet he admits that the process is slow because people are engaged with tracking down the information and that takes time. Again you would think that the reports would be inputted into a database fairly quickly by health inspectors and be available at the flick of a key. This is 2008 after all!

If the government is going to offer such a service than it should be committed to making it convenient, accessible and readily available to the public. A group of people heading downtown for dinner on a Saturday night will not find the existing service very helpful, so why bother?

If O'Brien was committed to this disclosure issue he would have offered something better that aspires to fill the need identified by the Telegram and the government instead of this cumbersome process that allows them to say they have a process, knowing full well people are not going to utilize it.

O'Brien has to be the worst salesmen of government policy in the current administration. He waffles and skids more than any politician I have heard in a long time. He may be a good administrator and district man but his communication style leaves me numb. Honestly, every time I hear the guy do an interview, I find myself feeling like I just got off a roller coaster.

I need an aspirin , I hope his PR person has Zantac!

CLINTON KEEPS THE LEAD IN PENNSYLVANIA

Hillary Clinton is maintaining her lead over Obama in Pennsylvania.

A Quinnipiac University Poll shows she maintains a 9 -10% lead over Barack Obama, which is a little narrower than earlier polls.

The two also remain strong with constituencies that have favoured them in past states: Clinton is doing well with women and older voters while Obama is strong with young voters. The two are approximately even among males.

Clinton has embraced the role of underdog. Obama currently leads Clinton in delegates 1,625 to 1,486. Obama also leads in the overall popular vote. It looks unlikely that Clinton or Obama will win the 2,024 delegates needed to capture the nomination outright, meaning the superdelegates probably will determine the Democratic nominee.

A convincing win in Pennsylvania is seen as crucial for Clinton as she seeks to end the primary season with enough momentum to swing the majority of undecided superdelegates her way.

KEEPING ABREAST OF FASHION

O boy am I going to get grief for this posting!

Video may have killed the radio star but demure fashion is killing the cleavage this year. Sky-high necklines are in vogue this season. Even Victoria's Secret is adjusting to the trend, revising its image to be more "feminine" and less overtly titillating!

All of the infamous nipple slips and wardrobe malfunctions of stars ranging from from Lindsay Lohan to Janet Jackson have resulted in the collar bone and the shoulder becoming the new cleavage.

Public cleavage once was reserved for specific social occasions like fancy cocktail parties. Now, there is no such thing as a cleavage-free zone, no escaping the great divide. Overkill!

There may be two reasons for the backlash: Britney Spears may not be influencing the world of music much these days but her disastrous comeback performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in that black, sparkley bra and panty set may have bushed the cleavage into extinction. Too much of a bad thing! Hillary Clinton recently created a bit of a stir when she showed up on the Senate floor in pants, a pink jacket, black blouse and cleavage.

I am expecting grief from Nancy on this post. Just to end on a note that will disgust her and not be classed as sexist. There is one kind of cleavage that is not acceptable for viewing, it is male cleavage. Male cleavage is always "look-away" cleavage, unless, that is, you happen to find Jell-O with hair on it appealing. :)

IRISH TAOISEACH PACKS IT IN

"While I will be the first to admit that I've made mistakes in my life and in my career, one mistake I've never made was to enrich myself by misusing the trust of the people"
- Irish Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader, B Ahern

Scandals on both sides of the big pond! Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern has announced that he will step down on May 06, 2008 in the midst of a ten year old public inquiry into planning corruption in the 1990s which is investigating his personal finances. The announcement comes a day after Mr Ahern began a court challenge to limit the work of the inquiry.

Last week, the tribunal heard that the Taoiseach's secretary, Grainne Carruth, put over £15,000 sterling into bank accounts owned by Bertie Ahern in 1994. Her evidence contradicts that of the Taoiseach.

Mr Ahern has been the most successful politician in the Republic of Ireland since Eamon De Valera, winning three elections. He is Ireland's second-longest serving taoiseach. He has been taoiseach since June 1997 and has been a member of the Irish Parliament for 31 years.

ANOTHER MINISTER IN OBAMA'S CLOSET

But you can't sweep all of these differences under the rug. If someone like Meeks -- a man who reportedly blamed "Hollywood Jews" for foisting "Brokeback Mountain" on the world -- starts making the news, it gets a little harder to ignore. - Ken Wheaton - Campaign Trail

Barack Obama has a closet full of anxieties that could make Michael Binkley the envy of Democrats, as the things that plague him only seemed to come out at night. It appears that Barack has another minister lurking in his closet. Why are people only discovering these things now?

Described in a 2004 Chicago Sun Times article as someone Barack Obama regularly seeks out for "spiritual counsel," James Meeks, who will serve as an Obama delegate at the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver, is a long-time political ally of the Democratic frontrunner.

When Obama ran for the U.S. Senate in 2003, he frequently campaigned at Salem Baptist Church while Rev. Meeks appeared in television ads supporting the Illinois senator's campaign. Later, according to the same Chicago Sun Times article, on the night after he won the Democratic primary, Sen. Obama attended bible study at Meeks' church "for prayer" and "to say thank you."

The problem for the Democrats is that Meeks' anxiety is homophobia! Take this quote from GayWired.com:

A spring 2007 newsletter from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) named Meeks one of the "10 leading black religious voices in the anti-gay movement". The newsletter cites him as both "a key member of Chicago's 'Gatekeepers' network, an interracial group of evangelical ministers who strive to erase the division between church and state" and "a stalwart anti-gay activist... [who]... has used his House of Hope mega-church to launch petition drives for the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a major state-level 'family values' pressure group that lauded him last year for leading African Americans in 'clearly understanding the threat of gay marriage.