Anybody Want A Peanut?

Seine: the forgotten river II

2012-01-29T23:40:00.001-06:00

Two years ago I wrote Seine: the forgotten river -- a short photo tour of a winter bike ride down the under-appreciated Seine River, south of Bishop Grandin Blvd. This weekend I took a short bike ride up the river north of Fermor Ave., past the Windsor Park and St.Boniface golf courses and took a couple of photos along the way. (click to enlarge)

broken pump house near Windsor Park golf course

This winter has been almost perfect for bike riding on the river because of the lack of snow. People walk up and down the river all the time, packing down a trail that is very easy to ride on. In years with lots of snow the trail might not get packed down, and it will be much more like pedaling through sand. I said "almost" perfect because there are some areas along the river that are still not quite frozen over, including one area in particular where warmer water is diverted into the river from the east.

This guy has a wicked setup: a cozy patio with fire pit
sheltered by pine trees with a decent-sized
skating rink cleared on the river.

People often ask me if I have special tires on my bike. I do own studded tires, but I don't always use them and did not have them on this past weekend. They're not really necessary unless you expect to be riding over icy surfaces. There are several spots along the river where people have cleared skating rinks, but you can usually either ride around them or glide over them. The key to biking over ice is to ride in as straight a line as possible.

At one point along the river there is a cleared skating trail that must run for several hundred meters. Sure it's a little more modest than the river trail at the Forks, but it's quieter and it was also open earlier in the season.

Damn beavers

The trail takes a diversion up onto land just north of the St.Boniface Golf Course where a beaver dam, made partially from wooden pallets, makes the trail unsuitable for walking .. for people at least. I can tell from the foot prints that dogs can't resist the trickle of cool tasty water.

Anyhow, I hope this inspires one of you to think outside the Active Transportation Path and explore a river instead.. If the nice weather holds up I might add a part III in the series before the snow melts.

A Terrible Beer Review

2012-01-27T22:12:00.000-06:00

I promise that I will not make any more bad puns with the name of the beer. I can't believe I already did it in the post title. I hate it when newspapers and TV news shows do that stuff. (Well, the Forks has really "gone to the dogs" today, Maralee...). It's just ... so HARD not to do it. I don't know what it is. It's like a mental disorder or something.

The beer, if you haven't figured it out by now, is called "Terrible" and it's brewed by Quebec's Unibroue. Like most Unibroue concoctions, Terrible is beefier than your average beer. This sucker comes in a 750 ml bottle and clocks in at 10.5% alcohol, giving this one beer 5.8 times the alcohol of a single bottle of Bud Light with Lime. (I only had one drink, Ociffer. ONE! [hold up finger for emphasis]) Fortunately it also has 5.8 times the taste.

It is listed on the Unibroue web site under their Specialty beers. You can tell it's a specialty beer because it's plugged with a cork instead of capped. Pulling the cork out with your teeth and pouring the pungent black liquid into your goblet will transport you back to the days of pirate infested waters, and spontaneous brawling in dingy pubs with straw covered floors to win the affections of drunken unshaven women. Unfortunately the cork broke when I tried to pull it out, and my medieval fantasy came screeching to a halt as I searched for a wine opener in my cutlery drawer. In retrospect, I should have bitten the top off the bottle.

It pours with a thick but airy head, with big bubbles and the colour of very lightly toasted marshmallows. After the head dies down this drink is a dead-ringer for Coca-Cola, which could come in handy some time. Store that one away in the memory bank for future reference. Unibroue calls this an "Abbey-style" ale on the web site, and the bottle says it's a "Dark Ale on Lees", whatever the fuck that means. It is tasty though. Imagine a stout and an ale having a baby. Kind of like that. You've got your malty coffee tastes, with dates and brown sugar. The taste fades away after swallowing leaving an light aftertaste not unlike the original thing.

I like this one, but it's more a special occasion beer on account of it being 6 times stronger than Bud Light with Lime. In other words, if it's your day to bring beer to hockey, this is not your drink. I do recommend you try it though. Maybe to share with a friend or to keep to yourself on a slow Friday evening in January. It goes well with leftover beef noodle Hamburger Helper. Probably other things as well, but I can only vouch for the Hamburger Helper. What I'm trying to say is, this beer is not ~~terrible~~ bad.

For other reviews, visit Beer Advocate or check out Cody's review over at The Cranky Beer Blogger.

Put a steak in the Kane rumours

2012-01-22T22:02:00.001-06:00

I first heard the rumour about three weeks ago. The story goes: Evander Kane was at Hy's Steakhouse with a group of people and tried to leave without paying the bill. When challenged by the waitress, he said something to the effect that he shouldn't have to pay because his presence there was a benefit to the restaurant.

I never mentioned this story before on social media because I had my doubts that it was true, and there was really no point in spreading a negative rumour anyhow. But then this happened:

Which led to this being written.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that the flashy-dressing young Kane did what the story says he did, but there are many other possibilities as well. Maybe there was a misunderstanding among the group about who was going to pay, and maybe Kane has a deadpan sense of humour and made a joke about not paying, even though he fully intended to. Maybe a waitress was just pissed about the tip she got, or maybe nothing happened at all and somebody with a bone to pick concocted the rumour out of thin air. Maybe he stopped at Co-op for a fill, and by word of mouth that turned into "stiffed a waitress on a bill."

You can't really blame Winnipeggers for believing that there's fire when they smell smoke. The rumours about the Jets coming back were obviously true, as were the rumours about IKEA coming and Tim being gay. (Inside joke. Please disregard if you don't know Tim.) However, whether it's true or not, we need to drop this whole thing ... as soon as I'm done writing this post.

If he didn't do it, then obviously it is wrong to imply that he might have. If he did do it, I am pretty sure he learned a lesson here and will not do it again.

Word gets around quickly in a small city like Winnipeg, and you just can't get away with that shit. Besides, he should get a second chance. He has a ton of potential, not just as a player but as an ambassador of the sport, and he's still very young. It is counter-productive in every way to anchor him to this story. It would also be unfortunate if the lesson that he took away from all this was that Winnipeggers are nasty and unforgiving.

That is all.

Yes, I am aware that this post may seem somewhat hypocritical.

By the way, if you haven't checked out my Oduya comic strip yet, click here.

The Adventures of Johnny Oduya: Episode 1

2012-01-16T07:01:00.002-06:00

Uh oh, somebody got into the crayons again...

Here's a doodle I've been picking away. Hope you enjoy.

Click HERE to view full size or click on the picture.

THE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY ODUYA

CMHR Part 2: Fund Raising (Where to find $10m)

2012-01-10T23:59:00.002-06:00

There has been a lot written about the cost overruns and fundraising woes of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. So much so that I'm beginning to think there's a problem. For example:

the museum's new interim chairman and its president also posted a letter on its website, confirming the construction budget had climbed to $351 million, a jump of $45 million, and they are looking to the private sector to make up the difference.

Looking to the private sector for money in an economy that's disproportionately public sector might be a tough proposition. There is not an abundance of ultra-wealthy execs and entrepreneurs in Winnipeg. As an indicator: we only have six CEOs of publicly traded companies in "the 7-figure club". We have only two people or families on Canada's Rich 100 list -- at positions 14 and 98.

We are lucky to have some rich and very generous individuals in this city, but we are asking an awful lot from them. I can't speak for all them rich folk, I'll let their personal speakers do that, but if I were a multi-millionaire business owner in this city I would feel a bit like a tourist in Tijuana.

Certainly I want the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to succeed, I really do, but there are so many other worthy causes as well like hospitals, universities, and zoos and whatever else. If I were a Hartley Richardson or Paul Giesbrecht, would the CMHR make my list?

There is also no way that average peeps like you and I will make up the shortfall. I can give a few hundred bucks to a place like Siloam Mission and make a real difference, whereas that money would only be a drop in an ever-growing bucket if I gave it to CMHR, so guess where I'm going to put my money? There are literally hundreds of causes I could give to where I'd feel like I'm making a real difference.

What this comes down to is donor fatigue. There are too places for a benefactor or donor to put their money, and there simply is not enough money to go around. Especially for a project where the 'ask' is in the tens of millions of dollars, and rising. So, although you may scoff at my next suggestion, I think we need to give it serious consideration....

How to instantly raise $10 million for the CMHR

There is a pool of pre-donated and unused money right now, as we speak, sitting somewhere in Winnipeg. $10.3 million dollars. The money was raised for the Upper Fort Garry Heritage Park and Interpretive Centre.

Right now you're thinking there he goes again -- whining about Upper Fort Garry, but let's think about this:

> The Upper Fort Garry park and heritage site is still nothing more than a website and diorama. There is no sunk cost. Construction has not started. If you go there and look at it you will see absolutely nothing but a flat surface of concrete and rubble.
> The project still requires another $10 million to build ... and that's a pre-construction cost estimate. If, like with CMHR, costs escalate after shovels hit ground, it could be more. (In fact there was already a reference to $12 million in the paper but I lost the link.)

Where is that $10 million+ going to come from? Who on earth is going to have that kind of change kicking around to contribute to a giant traffic-accident-causing holographic fort and Louis Riel shrine after all the relentless fundraising and arm twisting to bail out the CMHR? Even if you like what the Friends of Upper Fort Garry have put together, it's hard to imagine them meeting their fund raising goals on the generosity of the private sector.

So I say, let's focus on the big project. The one that has the biggest impact, the most potential, and is already half complete. Divert the money there and scrap the UFG plan. Go back to plan "A": reserve the foot print of the fort for a more modest park/gathering space/market and open up the SW corner of the lot for development. Use the tax income from the development to fund the park.

There are some hitches with this plan, including:
- not all of the $10.3 million may be real. For example, $1.35 million of that might be based on fictional property value.
- Some of the donors may not want their money going to the museum instead of the park

That last one is not likely to be a problem, except perhaps the $1 million donated by the MMF. If I recall, much of the money was donated by crown corporations, although we don't really know how much because that info isn't public.

But ultimately that's how this all will have to end: the government will end up bailing out the CMHR, and if we go ahead with UFG, then that too. My guess is that provincial crown corporations like MPI, Manitoba Hydro and MLCC are going to pony up most of the cash so that it can be called a "donation" in the press releases, but one way or another it's coming from your pockets. I personally feel this is a bit too much, and would love to see the government be realistic about this and retract it's support and funding of UFG and direct that money to the CMHR. That's the key project in this city right now, and if we can help it out while developing an empty lot on Main Street, that's what I call a win-win.

CMHR Part 1: Project Management

2012-01-08T19:40:00.007-06:00

I'm not a project manager by trade, but I have worked on projects and taken project management training and I am confident in saying this: if you want your project to come in on time and on budget it needs to be properly managed. Especially if it's a large project like, oh I don't know ... just pulling something out of the air here ... the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

It may come as a surprise to you then, that the project management contract was only just awarded, over three years after the ground breaking ceremony. The RFP (you can still view the notice here) closed on October 24 and approximately two months later the lucky (?) winner was picked. It was supposed to be announced at the end of October but you know how things go ...

When I say “the project management contract”, I mean the task of overall management of the project. The scope of the RFP includes:

- Oversight over the parallel sub-projects that go into the construction of the museum and everything inside the museum, leading up to opening day.
- Coordination, risk management, reporting and resource allocation
- Tracking the status of all major components of construction, including budgets.
- Guidance and recommendations to the CMHR executive.

Why is this only happening now? Maybe they (I don't know who “they” are exactly, but CMHR board, etc.) thought they could handle it on their own? Maybe they realized early on that costs would be tight and decided this would be a good place to cut back? If you bump into Gail Asper at the car wash this week, maybe ask her if you think of it. I would be interested to know. It could just be that the CMHR staff are running around with their heads cut off and didn't find the time to arrange for it.

You can even get a hint of the disorganization within the CMHR project from the RFP. One of the additional tasks that the new PM will have to take care of is creating the Master Project Plan. That's right: there is no Master Project Plan or Schedule. One was not created when the project started, I suppose because there was no Project Manager. They attempted to put one together leading up to this RFP, but were not able to complete it. It's anyone's guess how complete the master plan was when they gave up working on it, but the chosen firm would still have to review and sign the contract before they start working on anything so it's a safe bet that as of right now there is still no completed Master Project Schedule in place. Again, let me remind you: we are three years in to this thing.

The CMHR strikes me as being an organization that has got in a little over their heads. Will the project managers be able to get things back on track? Will they at least be able to keep it from going further off the rails? Will construction grind to a halt when it runs out of money? Questions I can't answer, but the chances of this ending well can't get any worse by putting an actual project plan in place.

New Winnipeg Forum / Photo Radar Photo Op

2012-01-02T21:52:00.001-06:00

Get in the Zoom

A new Winnipeg discussion forum has sprung up, not to be confused with the New Winnipeg discussion forum. This new forum called Winnipeg Zoom was started by former New Winnipegger Munchkinguy (Gabriel Hurley) to fill the void left by the defunct NW forum.

How big that void is remains to be seen. There is lots of competition in the internet time-wasting market, not the least of which is the ever-growing and ADD-enhancing Twitter. In fact, as I typed that 3 more tweets hit my feed, and now I have to go check it again. Hang on a sec ...

.. Okay I'm back. Oh that Rav Gill is such a card. I wish he was mayor. Where was I .. Oh right: do check out Winnipeg Zoom. It is brand new and still building momentum (or "mo" if you're as cool as I am), but hopefully it gets to that critical mass needed to sustain interesting and dynamic discussions like New Winnipeg once did. I do like the layout, I'll say that.

Get in the photo

Wise-Up Winnipeg is organizing a photo op Saturday morning at the sight of the controversial Grant and Nathaniel speed trap where they say inaccurate radar tickets are being issued. That's what they say. I say it's just a hot spot for minivan drag races.

Anyhow, if you want to support the cause, contact Todd Dube at mediascene@mts.net
to let him know you'll be there and then show up 11:00 am Saturday to get your free sign that looks something like this:

That sign doesn't do much for me but I'll show up if you can give me a sign that looks something like this:

2011 blog in review

2012-01-01T14:25:00.004-06:00

Although my number of blog posts dropped this year, party as a result of a career change and certain lifestyle adjustments, it has been a pretty good year for the Peanut.

Some of the highlights:

This blog had a couple pieces published in the Winnipeg Free Press Sunday Xtra's regular Blog of the Week feature (and got one other mention courtesy of The Cold Cold Ground.)

I joined Twitter.

Campus radio talk show Winnipeg Internet Pundits continued to build momentum under the guidance of "Top 30 Under 30" starlet Tessa Vanderhart. Yours truly was invited on a couple of times to assault the air waves. That was fun. For me at least.

I have heard rumours and stories about bloggers getting free stuff, but sadly I was always left out of the party ... until this year. Finally all of my hard work paid off with a small amount of schwag, including some movie passes which I was able to share with readers through our first ever caption contest.

I did another interview, this time with Green Party leader James Beddome. I get very positive feedback on my interviews, but damn .. they're more work than you might think. I'll look to do one or two more in 2012, but with no major elections coming up I'll have to think of another excuse.

Best new blogs

Not only has my post count dwindled, but so has my available time to read blogs. That said, here are some new Winnipeg-area blogs that caught my eye in 2011:

The aforementioned Cold Cold Ground is a great new urban-issues blog.

Winnipeg Girl started Love Me, Love My Winnipeg bright and early in 2011, and since posted some excellent thoughts about life in the North End and Winnipeg in General.

The Winnipeg Rag Review has picked up momentum to the point of writing 25 posts in December!

Westerner doesn't post a lot at The Land of Ice and Grain, but when he does post it is usually well thought out and worth reading.

Little Grey Bird is a nice blog written by an ex-pat Nova Scotian, and I admire the clean aesthetically-pleasing look also.

The Manitoba provincial election inspired a new set of 'coloured rods' to spring up in the bloggosphere. Many were short lived, but The Purple Rod and Rod Rouge have stuck around. Congratulations, guys! (Girls?)

Top blog posts

A recent poll showed that most people consider the return of the Jets to be the biggest story of the year. My hit counts corroborate that, as my top 2 posts were both Jets-related:

Winnipeg's new NHL team unveiled: this was my world-wide exclusive unveiling of a prototype jersey for Winnipeg's new NHL team:

New Jets logo, tweaked: I critique the actual Jets logo and suggest a slightly different version.

Thoughts on Hydro CEO Brennan: this was a bit of a surprise, as it was a pretty unremarkable post in my opinion. Some people obviously found it interesting.

2011 Manitoba provincial election platform: here I unveiled my hypothetical election platform. I'm glad this one drew some eyeballs because I actually put a little bit of effort into it. In fact, I strongly recommend that potential Liberal and PC leadership candidates give this post another look as your respective parties attempt to regain relevancy. What you're doing is not working. You need new ideas.

Winnipeg radio: FM station correlation: this is my analysis of the overlap amongst Winnipeg's lame mainstream FM radio stations. Traffic was aided by a link from a music industry blog.

Those were my top new posts. There are some old ones that still get decent traffic. Top of the list is How to get to Vimy Ridge from 2008 which still draws hundreds of hits throughout the year. I think this is pretty cool, as any Canadian who is in that area of Europe ought to make the trip if they have time, and if I can help a little bit then awesome.

Top search terms
(not including obvious ones like "anybody want a peanut" or "cherenkov")

leah hextall - I'll save you the trouble: I do not have nude pictures of Leah.
cool helicopters
find your fetish - in retrospect it was probably a mistake for me to publish the fetish post. That was a time when this blog was still trying to find itself.
phil sheegl - I'll save you the trouble: I do not have nude pictures of Phil.
how to get to vimy ridge

Honourable mention:
sam owns an acre of land on red river. the government dams the river. a lake forms behind the dam, covering sam's land. does the government owe sam anything? - I got 31 hits from this. Apparently this is a practice exam question for Applied Law in the U.S. I can just imagine the frustrated law students stumbling upon my blog. Sam Katz? Riverside Park Management? What is this? Sorry guys .. this is for the advanced course: How To Bilk Taxpayers Out Of Thousands Of Dollars.

Oddest search terms

The moment you have all been waiting for! A selection of this 2011's odd-ball search terms that somehow led to this blog.

boobs touch in bus - I'm listening ... tell me more.
buzz lightyear mulroney - Ha. Ya, they do kind of look the same, don't they?
did hugh mcfadyen rape girls - What??
hihiihhi - Hi!
jack motherfucking layton - Now now, don't Google angry.
safeway can burn in hell - My, what an angry readership I have. Do they even allow grocery stores in hell?
stephen hawking thingy - Oh, you mean gravitational singularities in space-time within the framework of general relativity? That thingy?
thank you universe anybody want a peanut? - Aw, shucks ...
why is winnipeg so poorly planned - insert your own quip here: __________

Other year end wrap-ups:
Slurpees and Murder - Alphabet Poem
One Man Committee - Looking back
The View from Seven - A few thoughts
Progressive Winnipeg's - Google searches.
Winnipeg .. One Great City - Good riddance
West End Dumplings Top Posts and Disappointing story of the year.

Thanks to all my visitors, and all the best in 2012!

Destroying brand new infrastructure: It's a Winnipeg Thing

2011-12-26T20:31:00.002-06:00

For a person who only bikes a half-dozen times a year, I'm surprisingly supportive of active transportation infrastructure. In a quiet sort of way though. I don't go around pushing the active transportation gospel on unwilling victims, and I realize that regardless of how much you try to develop it, only a very small percentage of people will ever commute by pedal power in a city as sprawling as Winnipeg.

However, I would love to see an integrated network of paths that would let me bike around the city without having to compete with vehicular traffic, and was therefore pumped when the brand new Bishop Grandin Trail West opened late last year. Now, if I wanted to I could bike all the way to Assiniboine Park or my friend's place in White Ridge without riding on a major road!

Winnipeg's newest active transportation corridor claimed the starring role in this year's International Trails Day festivities in Winnipeg, and earned sparkling praise from Winnipeg's AT Madame Janice Lukes: "This new trail is a stellar example of community connectivity."

It also happens to be a stellar example of poor planning, because this is what the trail looks like now:

Less than a year after it was paved, the trail was torn up and the communities are connected no more. That's about $2 million of trail torn up to make way for the construction of the Kenaston extension through Waverly West -- something that has been planned for over six years.*

I suspect the Winnipeg Trails Association is in denial because they have not yet recognized this destruction on their web site. Both the Bishop Grandin Trail West map and their spiffy new BETA version Bikeplanit.org map show the trail as being intact, which it very much is not. In fact, there are "No Trespassing" signs at the start of the trail section (which I, um, didn't notice until after I had taken the above photo. I mean, after my Research Assistant Julio took the photo.)

How does this happen? This particular section of trail was funded by the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund, which is an extension of the Canada-Manitoba Infrastructure Program. This is separate from the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund that gave birth to many other active transportation improvements of questionable wisdom, but like that program this one is a use-it-or-lose-it affair with a specific deadline for spending your money. I have noticed that putting a drop dead date on spending money will ensure the money gets spent, but greatly increases the chance that it will be spent poorly.

I can't tell you if this botched trail was a result of deadline-related pressure, or bad communication, or something else, but there is really no excuse for it. Somebody at City Hall needs to oversee this stuff and connect the dots. I've heard of other instances where a road was repaved, only to be torn up right away for sewer repairs or some such thing. Perhaps a big chunk of Winnipeg's multi-gazillion dollar infrastructure deficit it due to one $50k/year slacker who spends his time on Twitter instead of cross referencing project dates?

Anyhow, at some future time we'll get to see if this stellar example of community connectivity will be reconnected, and if there will be some reasonable way to navigate the new intersection at Bishop and Kenaston. I sure hope so, because some day I might actually want to hop on my bike and ride to Assiniboine Park for the afternoon. Well, okay ... I'll probably take the car, but it would be really nice having that option of biking though.

* Waverley West Area Structure Plan, December 2005. Dollar value estimated based on this article that specs $20m for 12 km of trail. Total length of trail between Waverly & Scurfield is 1.8 km, much of which is torn up,

did you know: that the MTS Centre got $34 million from the Canada-Manitoba Infrastructure Program?

The speed limit is too low. I have proof.

2011-12-18T13:46:00.002-06:00

If you follow local Winnipeg news, you probably heard about the kerfuffle over a photo radar speed trap at Grant Ave. and Nathaniel St. where the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and anti-speed trap advocates Wise-Up Winnipeg are urging people not to pay their tickets because they believe the speeds aren't being measured properly.

Earlier in the year, Wise-Up Winnipeg also questioned whether the speed limit was properly posted on this stretch of road.

Here's the thing: even if the speed limit signage is posted correctly, and even if the radars are calibrated properly, these tickets should never have been issued. Why? Because the speed limit itself is incorrect.

This is not just my opinion. It is fact. I'll explain: In 2003 a report was submitted by the Winnipeg Public Works Department titled "SPEED LIMIT ON GRANT AVENUE AND ON KENASTON BOULEVARD". The report was conducted by traffic analysts and signed by J.A.Thomson, Director of Public Works. It has since been removed from the City of Winnipeg web site (at least I can't find it) but I happen to have a copy.

It's conclusion:

"The measured 85th percentile speeds on Grant Avenue between Stafford Street and Kenaston Boulevard and on Kenaston Boulevard between Grant Avenue and Academy Road range between 61 and 68 km/h. The collision rates ... are comparable to the city-wide average of 3.3 on regional streets with similar characteristics. Based on this information and on the widely accepted practice for setting speed limits using the 85th percentile speed, it is reasonable to set 60 km/hr speed limits on Grant Avenue between Stafford Street and Kenaston Boulevard and on Kenaston Boulevard between Grant Avenue and Academy Road. Furthermore, it is expected that making these changes ... will (i) result in more efficient transportation routes along these streets, (ii) reduce the incidence of short-cutting traffic on adjacent residential streets, and (iii) provide motorists travelling along these routes with a more consistent driving environment in terms of uniformity in speed limits."

When this study was brought before council it was rejected for unspecified reasons:

"The Standing Policy Committee on Public Works did not concur in the administrative recommendation and therefore did not increase the speed limit.
Further, the Standing Policy Committee on Public Works requested that in the future, consideration of speed limits be referred initially to the Ward Councillor and if necessary to the respective Community Committee." (soucre: Minutes - Standing Policy Committee on Public Works - January 13, 2003)

The traffic analysts collected all this data, did all that analysis, and council just tossed it into the garbage can without any apparent consideration. Even if the policy is good the optics are bad, therefore the elected councillors won't even touch it. Get the Community Committee to agree and maybe we'll consider it ... as if that will ever happen. That's leadership for you.

There is a permanent red light camera installed on Kenaston Boulevard between Grant Avenue and Academy Road at Corydon Ave., and this Nathaniel St. mobile speed trap is on Grant Avenue between Stafford Street and Kenaston Boulevard. In both cases tickets are being issued to drivers that are driving a safe speed according to traffic industry standards. It is immoral and objectionable and counter-productive to issue speeding tickets to people in areas where you KNOW the speed limits are too low.

The reason I found this study in the first place is because a few years ago I was nailed with a photo radar ticket on Kenaston Blvd. I challenged it in court. I presented this study as evidence to show that the speed I was driving was safe according to accepted standards and argued that enforcing this ticket violated the intent of the law, which ultimately is to make streets safer. In fact, enforcing an artificially low speed limit can make streets more dangerous because it causes speed differentials to increase (less consistency in the speeds people drive) which leads to increased accident rates.

Unfortunately the judge I got was completely incapable of comprehending this argument. "But .... you were going over the speed limit."

GAAAAAA! This is why you're almost at retirement and still stuck working traffic court! (I didn't say that out loud.)

Perhaps if I had appealed I would have got a judge with a capacity for independent thought and abstract concepts, but appealing takes time and money and I wasn't up for the challenge at the time. However, if one of you have recently been dinged with a ticket in one of these areas, I will gladly send you this study and I will give you my full support and encouragement as you attempt to fight your ticket.

Derelict Properties Bylaw?

2011-12-07T21:30:00.003-06:00

The news that the City of Winnipeg seized an apartment building under their vacant building bylaw stoked up a little idea that was smoldering amongst the moss and twigs in my mind: Perhaps this bylaw could be expanded to include empty lots as well.

I am thinking of a couple in particular. One is on Portage avenue between Edmonton and Kennedy St. It used to be a small park with giant jelly beans that you can sit on, and apparently had a name other than "Jelly Bean Park" which is what I called it, but I don't recall what that name was. It was purchased by a fellow named Ray Rybachuk, fellow developer Russ Knight and his lawyer friend Ken Carroll who came forward with a plan to build a 12-story office and parkade there. That plan was probably a ruse from the beginning, as nothing ever happened there and it doesn't appear as though anything ever will. Instead, the park was turned into a make-shift gravel parking lot that violates every rule the city has about surface parking lots, which are an eye sore at the best of times. (See the bottom of this post for more dirt on Raymond J Rybachuk.)

If only the city had some sort of way to reclaim emply lots by law that are being willfully misused by derelict owners. We could call it a "bylaw" or something. Yeah, a "derelict property bylaw". That sounds catchy!

Honesty though, the city should have the ability to reclaim this land, as the owner is clearly not going to develop it as intended and is blatantly flouting city rules. It is also an ugly "missing tooth" on a high visibity street, and thus has greater negative impact than just any old vacant lot. Perhaps if the rules had more teeth, like the ability of the city to secure this property, then owners like Rybachuk might be more inclined to get their act together.

Another property that I fear may befall the same fate is the old Fat Angel lot on Main Street. Yes, I know what I said:

There are certain buildings that are just so ugly -- so disfiguring to the urban streetscape -- that they must be destroyed, even if it means replacing them with a gravel parking lot.

but to be fair, one of my staffers wrote that piece because I was busy smoking pot and counting ceiling tiles. I am slightly worried though: cars are starting to appear on the site of the old Fat Angel on Main -- another high visibility area -- although they may only be on what used to be the paved area behind the old building. However this may creep into becoming a full blown contraband gravel parking lot as well.

We need a carrot and stick policy. There should be incentives or encouragement for developing crucial areas like this, possibly including access to Tax Increment Financing. The city also needs to get out of the way of progress. There are numerous stories of costly red tape, most recently Basil's fight for a simple liquor license to reopen an establishment in Osborne Village. But there also needs to be a stick to move things along and prevent abuse.

*****

Ray Rybachuk does not have a good track record. For example, after scrapping his plan to develop the building adjacent to Jelly Bean Park, he put up a large lighted sign on the historic Boyd Building without permission, and only asked for permission after the fact when people started to complain. The city ordered him to take it down, or they would do it for him and charge him for it ... which did not happen. The sign remains, although he did grudgingly turn it off.

The name "Ray Rybachuk" comes up in another unseemly story as well, about stealing proprty. And then there's this: one guy on a website called scaminformer.com writes:

Keep in mind Raymond Rybachuk is a convicted cocaine dealer, so how much credibility should you extend to someone with that kind of history?

And more importantly, why is a lawyer Ken Carroll or a real estate professional Russ Knight associated with a known cocaine dealer? Or are they anymore, considering Raymond Rybachuk was evicted from his office on the 8th floor of the Boyd Medical Centre, and is now continuing his slumlord business from Lead Management on Notre Dame St in Winnipeg.

If you are a business professional, be very wary of dealing with anyone associated with Raymond J Rybachuk, including Lead Management, Ken Carroll, Russ Knight, Boyd Medical Centre or any investments offered using the phone numbers 204-951-6750 or 204-989-0635 these are the main numbers used by Raymond J Rybachuk in perpertrating his investment scams, including his most recent attempt at selling property in Belize that he doesn't even own.

Probably the same guy goes on another rant about "big fat guy Raymond Rybachuk" on a web site called ripoffreport.com.

More bizaarly, the website rayrybachuk.com advertises oceanfront property while accusing Rybachuk of being a scam artist and "convicted cocaine dealer". I don't know if this web site was hacked or what, but it is very strange.

Only $50k for a convicted cocaine dealer? And I can finance? I'd be crazy not to buy!

I didn't link to these web sites on purpose because they are kind of icky, but you can find them easily enough. Sombody certainly has it in for this guy though.

** Update **
Thanks to a certain person with access to the Free Press archives, I can confirm that Rybachuk was in fact arrested in relation to a drug smuggling operation.

Violence? Rebellion? What the hell is going on here?

2011-12-05T19:58:00.002-06:00

This is depressing. The global economy is imploding, my city is bankrupt, and now I'm being told that my country is going to explode into a civil war between whites and Indians.

We all agree that the Indian Residential School system was a grievous mistake. If you can't turn back the clock and reverse the mistake, what can you do? I thought we were on the right track here: the PM formally apologized, the government has allocated $1.9 billion for compensation, and we put in place a forum to allow IRS survivors to share their stories and begin the healing process.

I guess I was mistaken, because the man in charge of the Truth and Reconcilliation Commision is predicting "great violence" if we don't pick up our game. Those quotes by Justice Sinclair in that article are remarkably inflamatory by somebody in his position. This man whom we entrusted with ecouraging the healing process is instead creating greater divisions, and giving tacit approval to violence by implying that such violence is understandable. This is highly irresponsible, in my opinion.

Douglas Bland expands on this in Saturday's paper, saying that there are no positive stories to tell and that there is no way to bring these issues to light in a non-violent way. The solution? A rebellion!

There is, of course, another way beyond aimless violence to convince Canadians to redress past wrongs... Paradoxically, a unified nationwide aboriginal rebellion may be the best way.

I makes me feel so much better that the "great violence" won't be aimless.

I couldn't help but think of Machiavelli's The Prince as he goes on to pragmatically explain the conditions and preconditions for a rebellion based on "current research". You know, there are some places where advocating a rebellion would be called treason, but I had better let that line of thinking go, as I sense that it won't lead me anywhere good.

So how do we avoid these dire consequences? Please explain in point form with clear understandable steps so we don't screw it up again. You first Sinclair:

You can contribute to that solution by understanding, supporting and engaging in those conversations, by encouraging society to do those things that need to be done and by acknowledging the validity of that state of respect.

Oh geeze. We're doomed. Please Bland, give us something to work with:

Work with the First Nations' community vigorously and immediately to reshape this young population into a positive, community-oriented work and leadership cohort. Finally, and again in co-operation with First Nations' leaders, we could launch a national campaign aimed at convincing these young people they are indeed prized citizens in our national community.

I think people are getting frustrated that we're spending billions of dollars and not achieving any of these nebulous objectives that are supposed to solve the problem. And maybe that's because it's impossible for the government to solve. The government creates laws and spends money. That's really what it does. It can attempt to do more, as it has with the Truth and Reconcilliation Commision, but if you're looking for pride and respect, well, that's a little more complicated, because those are things that start first within your own families and communities. Allowing private ownership of land on reserves might be a step in the right direction, but if you're expecting Canadians and the government to find some way to conjure up these things in a short time frame, well ... just first give me some time to fortify my house for the rebellion.

Gone phishing / letters from Uganda

2011-11-26T18:22:00.003-06:00

I am writing this from somebody else's computer. Mine blew up the other night. Not with flames and all, but in an explosion of hard drive errors. I had it booted up in safe mode when the phone rang.

*ring*

Hello?

Hi. I'm from Microsoft support. We've been getting error messages from your computer. I will walk you through some steps to fix the problem.

(Microsoft calling me to help me with my computer? This is highly unusual ... but I have been having problems lately...) You've been getting messages from my computer?

Yes, for a long time. You computer has been infected with viruses and malware for a long time.
(Well I have had virus problems, but why did they wait so long to call if they knew I had a problem? ) I can take control of your computer and get rid of the problem, now go and turn on your computer.

My computer is on, but it's in safe mode so I doubt you can take it over; but I'm not sure I want to ...

What key is next to your left control key?

Uh .. the windows key.

Good, press the windows key and the "R" key.

What does that do?

Just hold down the windows key and press R. What do you see?

Tell me what it does first.

I'm going to help you fix your problem. Just hold down the windows key and press R. What do you see?

Geeze, okay: the 'run' command opens. (Boy is this guy ever rude...)

Good, now type e-v-e-n-t-v-w-r.. What do you see?

What does that do?

Just type e-v-e-n-t-v-w-r. What do you see in front of you?

Tell me what it does first.

Just type it sir. What do you see?

Look dude, I don't know who the hell you are. I'm not going to type it unless you tell me what it does first.

Just type the command. Okay, what do you see on your screen?

Can I have your phone number?

No, just type the command. I'll give you the phone number after you log in. Now enter e-v-e-n-t-v-w-r. What do you see in front of you?

I'm going to hang up unless you give me your phone number.

Just type the command first.

Okay goodbye. *click*

A quick search on the 'net shows that this scam has been going on for a long time. Eventvwr itself is harmless, but it produces computer logs which few people understand and may appear to indicate that your computer has a problem. The scammers use this to convince you to download a program which allows them to obtain control of your PC, and then you're fucked.

The weak link in this scam is the notion that Microsoft would actually call you to help you with your computer. The only thing that made this even remotely plausible in my case is that by coincidence my computer completely crapped out shortly before he called. I know my readers are far too sharp to fall for something like this, so I post this for your ammusement rather than as a warning necessarily.

This isn't the first time I've been scammed. My favourite was a 2-page handwritten letter in 2003 from Uganda. It had Ugandan stamps and was post-marked Uganda. The return address was a box at the Kabale Police Station, which appears to be a real place. It refered to me by name and came to my address, but it did not ask for money outright. The letter writer claimed he was a police officer who was guarding my father. He says "It is a really long time since we last met at Kabalagala Kansanga Kampala at the residence of your father... ". Wow, thats pretty bloody specifc! It's also not accurate. He goes on to mention other inaccurate details including relative's names and so on ... to the point where I almost wonder if the letter was legit and just went to the wrong person. It's impossible that they would randomly mail that to somebody who actually fit the narrative of the letter.

The letter ends with him explaining that his brother died and left him with 5 kids, and that he is struggling with money. Ah here we go, I thought. He wants money.. Still, the whole thing was so intriguing that I held on to the letter. I would scan it for you, except that my PC is toast. Maybe some day, if I ever make it to Uganda, I'll stop in at the Kabale Police Station and ask if Tumwebaze Alfred ever worked there.

Perusing the Headlines

2011-11-22T22:40:00.000-06:00

The NDP is anti-union ... who knew?

I submitted my second ever Winnipeg Cat meme with that. I wonder if It'll make the cut? (Actually, I think I might have messed up somewhere and I'm not sure it worked.) Anyhow, just had to chuckle when I read the this:

This intervention into the collective bargaining process at Brandon University is as dangerous as it is outrageous," he said in a statement. "It confirms for us the pro-employer bias shown by this allegedly 'labour-friendly' government."

Oh my. Yeah, if you think the NDP is outrageously anti-labour, then I think your perspective on the matter needs just a little tweeking. With a sledge hammer.

Also: No. No you don't get paid extra for catching up on work that you have neglected to do because you chose to go on strike.

*****

You don't say ...

Federal audit finds no evidence jobs created by $1 billion in stimulus cash.

Really? You really expect to be able to measure this somehow? Look, I told you about this already:

The recession ended so quickly, not because money was spent, but because people think money is being spent. Just like golf, or the voices that tell me to strangle dogs, it's all in the head.

I am dumbfounded that people are dumbfounded that we can't directly link jobs to stimulus spending. Look, if you're going to force the government to produce a report showing that it created jobs, they will produce a report that shows it created jobs, and the report will be a pile of steaming feces. Please don't make them to that. Let's all be adults here. We all know what the situation is.

*****

An online music magazine recently reported the demise of CDs. For fun, see if you can count the spelling and grammatical errors in that story.

Several mainstream media outlets have picked up on this story as though it has some credibility. I will acknowledge that CD popularity is decreasing, but when revenue from CD sales is still over 4x higher than from downloads, I think it may be premature to call the game.

Anecdotally , I have bought more CDs this year than in the past I-don't-know-how-many years. Mostly this is because they are so damned cheap now, no doubt due to market pressure from downloads, but still ... When CDs came out they were $15-20. Not in today's dollars, but in 19-whatever-it-was dollars. Today, CDs are still $15-20 regular price, but half the stock at HMV is on for $10 or $5. I bought an old Sound Garden CD just for the heck of it. I picked up Amy Winehouse because I like to listen to dead people. 5 bucks? Why not? Hey look, there's The Trews .. I'll get that too!

I do like having something tangible. I admit that, but I think many people do as well. So if you were thinking of putting a CD in somebody's stocking this Christmas, I just want to let you know that it's still okay to do that.

Winnipeg Police Service Strategic Plan

2011-11-19T18:30:00.007-06:00

Edit: oops .. I forgot to give the post a title! How embarrassing! Oh well ... fixed.

A few days ago Brian Kelcey wrote an op-ed in the Free Press admonishing Chief McCaskill for his failure to produce a crime reduction strategy, and our politicians for failing to motivate the Chief of Police to do so. Now today, we finally have a plan! Apparently the planning started over two years ago. The delay was probably a result of a low toner cartridge in the printer or something.

The document starts off with a message from the Chief that includes this:

"we must not allow ourselves to get comfortable with our past successes."

Comfortable? COMFORTABLE??? We've had 35 murders and countless arsons in less than 11 months ... who the hell is getting comfortable?!? Oh and by the way: buying a helicopter is only a "success" in the sense that you have successfully spent money. Success is in results, not actions.

You might think that if a plan is serious about dealing with violent crimes, they would provide some analysis of the violent crime problem. You know: you have to recognize that you have a problem before you can fix the problem. Later on they do claim that violent crime is going down, however all we are given in this document are three bar charts for broad categories of crime that are generally flattering to the police force. There is an effort here to make it appear as though everything is proceeding very nicely, and that by even putting forth a plan they are going above and beyond what is necessary.

Edmonton, our competition for Crime Capital, doesn't gloss this over:

New challenges have emerged including a marked increase in the severity of violence that we must address.

.. and they provide 9 "immediate initiatives" to deal with the violent crime problem, and remember, their Chief has been in office for less than half a year. How does our approach compare?

Jumping to the Violent Crime Reduction Strategy on page 20 ... we are given three goals:
• Reduce incidents of sexual assaults by 3% by 2014.
• Reduce incidents of assaults by 9% by 2014.
• Reduce incidents of strong-arm robberies by 3% by 2014.

Reduce murders in the murder capital of Canada? Not a goal. Murders are too unpredictable.

The strategy:

"Adopt a philosophy of law enforcement in Winnipeg to be proactive and fluid in the approach to policing higher crime areas and the rest of the City."

Is that all? What about "thinking outside the box" and "drilling down to the root causes"? Even "leveraging synergies in the pursuit of efficiencies in law enforcement" might be a good way to go. Geeze, do I have to do everything for them?

Thankfully the proposed actions are marginally more specific:
A. Establish and Enhance New Permanent Beat Foot Patrols
B. Implement Project-based Initiatives.
C. Create High-value Target Suppression Database
D. Develop Crime Prevention Partnership Program .. notably the MLCC
E. Did we mention Beat Patrols?

There are other little things here and there, like "give apartment owners and managers the power to evict or deny residency to those residents who partake in criminal or nuisance activities" and "Recruit and train Crime Analysts", but overall I am somewhat underwhelmed. It would have been nice to see more details and creativity ... but at least we have targets, like reduce assaults by 9% in 3 years. The real target that everybody else will be keeping an eye on, however, is that pesky murder rate.

The Police can't do everything however: What we really need is greater differentiation in sentencing. A focus on rehabilitation for new offenders but progressively harsher punishment for repeat offenders. For that we need reformed legislation at the Federal level, and a reformed attitude at the Provincial level.

An aside:
The report provides an interesting summary of our urban sprawl:

"Since the 2006 Census, Winnipeg has developed, and is in the process of developing a number of new neighbourhoods. Notable new neighbourhoods include: Amber Trails, Canterbury Park, Richmond West, Royalwood, Sage Creek, Transcona West and Waverley West. Together, these neighbourhoods add 3205 hectares (7919 acres) of newly inhabited land in Winnipeg. The new developments represent an increase of 6.74% of patrollable land within Winnipeg’s boundaries."

Winnipeg's population increased by less than 5% during that same time frame, therefore population density has decreased as well over that time. Just FYI...

Related: The Crime Scene .

What's the scoop?

2011-11-14T23:47:00.001-06:00

I'll give a plug for the new Scoop.It! website for Winnipeg Internet Pundits. This is the link.

Winnipeg Internet Pundits, if you don't know, is a Winnipeg urban-issues type talk radio show on 101.5 UMFM. It features cleaver, witty, and knowledgeable local bloggers James, Walter and Christian; and hosted by the enchanting Tessa. You can catch them once a week on your drive home Wednesdays from 5-6 pm.

Anyhow ... Scoop.It I guess is a new web publishing platform that any schmo can use to make their own 'zine or news aggregator. Isn't the web wonderful? You can jam your Scoop.It full of photos or fill it with nothing but text. Winnipeg Internet Pundits fills theirs with a mix of mainstream media articles and blog posts for a great little scan of Winnipeg news and opinions.

Check it out.

Remembering a Veteran

2011-11-11T00:00:00.001-06:00

I don't remember ever talking to Pépère about the war. I didn't see him a whole lot anyhow, and I was told that he didn't like to discuss it so I never attempted to bring it up. I never even saw his medals until his funeral.

All I know is a summary of what he did and what part of Europe he fought in. Much of what he experienced over there went to the grave with him, and perhaps that's the way it should be. We can't ever forget what happened in WWII, but the individual hardships and tragedies, terror, boredom, relief, discomfort, whatever -- the personal experiences and details -- that doesn't necessarily need to be passed on, and there is really no way to properly convey it anyhow.

So while I may be curious, I know all I need to know: that Pépère went over and played his small role to help us all, and suffered lasting effects because of it. That's why I will think about him today.

How to rebuild the PC Party of Manitoba

2011-11-07T23:41:00.004-06:00

Some 'Rods' have stepped forward with solutions: The Black Rod's solution is a secret formula that he/she/it wants to sell. The Rouge Rod is proposing a merger with the Liberals. Clearly we need more ideas.

Naturally the AWAP? Policy Team has been hard at work coming up with boffo ideas in between margarita parties and building a LEGO version of the MTS Centre. Our plan is based on the premise that people aren't stupid. This is a false premise. People are stupid. Some people. But most people are intelligent enough to recognize when somebody is being disingenuous, and they appreciate honesty.

Our plan is also based on the premise that just because people have voted for the status quo 3 years in a row does not mean that they want the status quo or are happy with it. They haven't been given an alternative. The PCs said they offered an alternative, but they did not and by saying they did they were being disingenuous and insulting the voters' intelligence.

So, here's what you do:

STEP 1: Cut a hole in the box. No, wait. That's for something else. Dang ... my notes are all mixed up. K .. Step 1: get a charismatic leader. It does not matter where they are from; only that they have good communication skills and appear trustworthy. I thought McFadyen was that guy 5 years ago, but even a well-spoken youngish lawyer cannot overcome a God-awful campaign.

STEP 2: Accumulate good policy ideas. There are plenty of ideas out there. The CTF has some. The CFIB has some. AWAP has some awesome ones. Steal from the Liberal Party or the Green Party. It doesn't matter where they come from, just collect good ideas. Remember, I'm not talking about ideas that poll well or are easy to sell -- we'll deal with that in Step 3 -- but ideas that makes sense and actually make things better.

STEP 3: Start selling the ideas well in advance of the next election -- like, 2 years. Get them out there, have discussions with the community, and start rebuilding your oh-so-damaged brand. I suggest presenting the ideas in a Problem/Solution format, such as:

Problem: Manitobans consume more electricity than any other jurisdiction on the planet.
Solution: Implement inverted rates that will keep electricity affordable for small households while increasing the benefits of reducing energy use.

See: people will be begging to be charged market rates if you present it the right way. Okay, maybe not, but they will appreciate the fresh straight-forward approach after hearing nothing but rhetoric trash for 10 years. This approach also allows the challengers to attack the government's record, but in a constructive manner.

STEP 4: Ignore the other party's attack ads. It will make the other party seem petty and void of ideas, giving more strength to your own.

If you follow these 4 easy steps you should have a chance, and I guarantee voter turnout will increase, and voter pissed-offness will decrease. Some may argue that it's time to scrap the PC Party altogether and start something new like the Wild Rose Alliance or the Saskatchewan Party which just cruised to a massive majority next door. That is an option, but I think there is still some political capital left to be exploited with the PCs in Manitoba, and starting a brand new party foregoes any chance of winning the next election.

Regardless of if it's the PCs or the Prairie Crocus Alliance or Manitoba Party, they need to drastically change what they're doing for the good of the province.

Transportation Master Plan. (How exciting!)

2011-11-02T20:32:00.000-05:00

According to Blade Runner, filmed in 1982, we will have colonies on other planets and androids so perfect as to be "more human than human" by the year 2019 -- only 8 years from now. Think about it: that's when Hugh McFadyen was planning on balancing the Manitoba budget. In fact, in the movie the 'Nexus 6' model of replicant has already reached the end of its 4 year life span, meaning in only 4 years we will be building these 6th generation bots that are so advanced that you can have sex with them and make them breakfast without even knowing they aren't human.

People, I think, have a tendency to believe things will happen faster than they really will. Sometimes things do progress quickly ... for example: in 1918 we were flying biplanes in WWI, and less than 30 years later we had jet airplanes and nuclear weapons. In other cases the pace of progress disappoints. Which brings me to the point of this post ...

The City of Winnipeg has unveiled their $1.25 million Transportation Master Plan. There are two major components to the plan: a $2.7 billion rapid transit initiative, and $2.1 billion in road improvements. Sorry: "improvements". All of which is to come to fruition (did I really just use that word?) in a mere 20 years. (The active transportation component is mostly window dressing and can be discussed separately some other time.)

ROADS

To me, road improvements would involve making existing roads better. Maybe I misunderstand the term, because the focus of the "improvements" in the Master Plan mostly involve adding miles of new roads on the periphery of the city, sucking more infrastructure money away from the populated areas of town. I personally would call this "facilitating sprawl", but what do I know?

There are plans to widen Kenaston and St.Mary's, which will help. Otherwise, the focus is on building a ring road network inside the perimeter highway and around CentrePort. This plan is a component of the overall OurWinnipeg plan. In the Our Winnipeg plan, there is a map that identifies key "Regional Mixed Use Centres" and "Major Redevelopment Sites". For giggles, I decided to plot these destinations on the map of road improvements from the Transportation Master Plan -- green circles for Mixed Use Centres and yellow rectangles for Redevelopment Sites:

Virtually all of the road improvements on the map lie outside of the key urban areas identified by the City's own visionary document. We are building a web of roads around the city while the roads in the city that people use everyday get more cluttered and dangerous. Supposing we could actually get our hands on $2.1 billion for road improvements, I propose fixing some of the poor planning of the past, rather than just saying "oh well, what's done is done .. let's build more roads!"

I'll give you an example: Fermor @ Lagimodiere is a busy intersection and a dangerous one, ranking #2 in the city with $5.9 million in bodily injuries in an eight year span. . Instead of spending $80 million building an extension of Bishop Grandin to Fermor, why not spend the money fixing Fermor @ Lag? There is plenty of room for an overpass, ramps, merge lanes or whatever. But no. Instead we will build a redundant road through a field, resulting in 3 dangerous and annoying intersections where before there were only 2.

I looked for answers at the Master Plan Open House today . The guy I was talking to explained that the purpose of the Bishop Grandin extension was to provide access to the Sage Creek and Southlands neighbourhoods, which makes no sense at all for reasons I'll explain in the comments to save room up here. I had it out with this guy over all kinds of road-related things, but generally related to poor planning and creating a sprawling network of roads. He scoffed at the idea that developers should or would pay for proper infrastructure. My response: if there is demand for another 10,000 houses or a sprawling retail development, the developers will pay what it takes. There is no need to encourage faster sprawl by cutting corners on infrastructure, and by building new roads in the middle of farm land.

RAPID TRANSIT

A lot can happen in 20 years, but apparently not rapid transit in Winnipeg. I don't even know when the rapid transit planning started, but in the last decade all we've accomplished is a partially completely 3.2 km piece of pavement for a yet-to-be-determined mode of transportation. I was not encouraged by the sign board at the open house that said the SW Rapid Transit Corridor was expected to be completed "Before 2031". What, is Sam planning on running for mayor another 5 times?

I certainly support its development, and I have no initial complaints about the proposed routes in the plan -- except the maybe it will maybe it won't .... But it will ... jog in the SW transit corridor away from Pembina highway into the controversial proposed new development. But let's be realistic: we just came off a decade of economic growth, budget surpluses, and increasing transfer payments, and we got nothing done. We are now in a period of slow economic growth and massive budget deficits. How will we get money for this? If comes down to a choice between rapid transit and new roads, I fear new roads will win out. After all, we at least know what kind of roads we're going to build, and there's less resistance to building them given that most are in the middle of nowhere.

The bottom line is that if we really want to make rapid transit happen, we need determined and decisive leadership, both within the City of Winnipeg and the Province. Place your bets now. While we can put together glossy $1.25 million transportation plans, the sad reality is that I'm more likely to have my Nexus 6 sex bot order filled before we have anything close to efficient transportation infrastructure in this town.

Regrouping...

2011-10-27T21:57:00.000-05:00

I'll be back soon.

Buildings, brain damage and food

2011-10-16T23:39:00.001-05:00

Acid wash architecture

There has been a small kerfuffle about what to do with the old YWG airport terminal now that the fancy-pants James Richardson International terminal is opening. Heritage advocates are crying out for somebody to save it, because it is an excellent example of mid-century modernist architecture. That may be, but modernist architecture happens to be the acid wash jeans of the architecture world. Nobody, for example, would ever say “Wait! Don’t throw out those parachute pants -- they’re still perfectly good!”

Modernism ranges from the bland and block-ish, like our terminal, to the Jetson-ish stylings of the Winnipeg Clinic building, where the designers gambled on the look of the future and lost. But looks aside, the terminal building has a couple of other knocks against it: size and location. It is big and expensive to maintain, and it’s located (obviously) at an airport, which drastically limits potential uses, as does the purpose-built interior that would require massive renovations for almost any other use.

Heritage advocates should pick their fights. We have a hard enough time preserving our turn of the century classics in the exchange district to be distracted by this. If a legitimate proposal comes forward that doesn’t require a bundle of government money, then fine .. but otherwise take one last good look and say good bye.

*****

Blog action day

Apparently today was blog action day. Apparently this year’s subject was food. I do not have anything to contribute because (and this is true) I was busy building a garden. A small raised vegetable garden for next summer. Plus I completely forgot that it was blog action day. That was a factor too.

Since I have failed you, here are a couple of other local Blog Action Day blogs that are worth reading: Conceited Jerk & One Man Committee

*****

Brain damage in two languages

I read that bilingualism prolonged cognitive function in people suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Brain scans showed that “bilingual patients had twice as much atrophy” when diagnosed as unilingual patients, leading to the conclusion that speaking two languages helps you overcome brain damage from the disease. That is one possibility, but I think the researchers are missing the obvious conclusion: that speaking French causes brain damage.

*****

Late addition: Ramblin' Dan

I feel I'm not offering you enough with this post, so here is a video for you ... local artist, prolific songwriter, and old buddy of mine "Rambling" Dan Frechette, with a reggae-ish tune recorded at the Park Theatre a couple weeks ago:

Check out Dan's YouTube page for more, or better yet: go pick up one of his albums!

Beer review: Lia Fail

2011-10-14T20:21:00.001-05:00

Hmm .. I see that it's been a while since I've done a beer review. Well okay then, here we go:

The bottle tells me that Lia Fail means "Stone of Destiny" in Gaelic. The Irish Republic Party Fianna Fáil is translated as "Soldiers of Destiny". Therefore, with my super intelligent Mensa-eating ultra-brain I have deduced the following:

Fail = Destiny

Lia = Stone

Fianna = Soldiers

Thus I have learned three new words today, and so have you! I also presume that Lia Fianna, though it may sound really gay, actually means "Stone Soldiers". Someone out there should name their son that. I dare you.

The bottle also tells me that Lia Fail is "distinctively rich", and that it's "from the heart of Scotland", and there is also a Celtic Cross on the label further adding to the mystique. This here brew has a lot to live up to.

The bottle also tells me that Lia Fail is a "Scottish Dark Beer", although Beer Advocate tells me that it's more precisely an Ale. She comes in a 500 ml bottle and weighs in at a welterweight 4.7% alcohol. The ale pours a cloudy copper colour with a nice foamy off-white head. My nose picks up toffey and citrus, and a little bit of foam if I stick it in too far. The beer feels a little flat in the mouth when you drink it, and I can't say that there is an explosion of flavour exactly. I can taste hops, and maybe ... rye bread? There is a finish of orange peel and stomach acid. It's not as bad as that sounds.

So: is it a pass or a ... *ahem* ... Fáil ? I'll give it a marginal pass. I was a little disappointed after reading the label, but it turned out to be a run-of-the-mill British ale, which is still better than most of the factory beer you get in the vendors. Give it a try. It is your destiny.

TMNT like you've never seen 'em!

2011-10-07T07:14:00.001-05:00

OK ... no more posting about politics for a little while ... like two years or so. My subject matter today is, I think, much more appealing: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Enjoy:

***

I have been following a collective art blog called Gorilla Artfare for a while now. While I pride myself in being able to doodle better than at least 30% of the general population, I have mad respect for those who are truly talented. I also think that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are one of the best cartoon concepts ever; and this is where Dave Raposa comes in.

Dave, who contributes to Gorilla Artfare under the alias Mr.Delicious, started on a series of TMNT fan art a few months ago and has produced some stunning work. Please click on the links to see the pictures in full size, and see the rest of his GA portfolio here. For some reason he has not posted the final two Turtles, Raphael and Michelangelo, on GA, but you can see them on the previous link to his personal web site.

An interview with Green Party leader James Beddome

2011-10-03T01:00:00.001-05:00

I sat down with The Green Party of Manitoba leader James Beddome for a coffee at Stella's on Sherbrook. I do not guarantee that the transcript that follows is 100% accurate, but it is at least a close approximation:

*****

Anybody Want A Peanut?: So, some background: you're studying to become a lawyer ... what brings you into this nasty, dirty arena of Manitoba politics? Why not work as a lawyer for 10 years, make a pile of cash, and then enter politics?

James Beddome: You know, politics has always been my passion. At a very young age I have wanted to get into politics. I think I looked at it the other way: law was going to be my way into politics, along with a Political Science and Economics degree. So for me, the question is why not be involved, and how could I not be involved? I literally am a little bit of a political animal, so that's why I am involved and I'm enjoying it as it goes along, and I hope that I get elected as MLA, but if that doesn't work out, then the plan B is I go through law school and I'll see what happens in four years.

AWAP: You did a great job in the televised debate.

JB: Thank you.

AWAP: You have been excluded from other forums, though you seem to be getting more recognition in the media. But as a party that does not have any members in the legislature and does not have a full slate of candidates, why should the Green Party be considered as one of the big players?

JB: I think that all parties should be included, and I extend that beyond the Green Party, because I think it's really important that we get the ideas out there. I think voters are smart enough to be able to determine which ideas are good for themselves, and to not include the smaller parties creates such a structural disadvantage in the sense that all you hear is the status quo ideas. I think it's good for people to hear new bold ideas, even if they're not ready to agree with them, because I think it helps to create change in and of itself.

AWAP: But you have to draw a line somewhere...

JB: Our argument was that we had candidates in 56% of the seats -- 32 of the 57. We did want a full slate. We're going to keep pushing for that four years from now, so our point is we want some credibility, we are becoming a provincial party: we've got a candidate in Flin Flon, we've got a candidate in Kewatinook, we've got a candidate in Brandon, we've got rural candidates and we've got candidates in Winnipeg, so it's not as if we don't have fairly accurate diversity and representation. I should put another diversity plug out there: we have a 50% female slate, we've got I think five candidates of aboriginal and/or Métis descent, and two people you could identify as visible minorities as well as people who are part of the gay and lesbian community, so we have full diversity in Manitoba.

AWAP: Okay. So... tax: In the past 12 years the tax brackets have rarely been increased, resulting in a de facto tax increase every year, and we have one of the lowest basic personal exemptions in Canada, meaning overall we are one of the highest taxed provinces in the federation. Does the Green Party promote any meaningful tax reform?

JB: Ya, we propose bold tax reform, and I have to be frank and admit that we know it will take a while to implement, so what we're trying to sell as a party is that, look, we'll give you the 20-year vision and work towards it rather than people who only look at their four year fortunes. So, to go to our tax plan, it actually deals with what I talked about on the debate which is the universal basic income, and it would work as a de facto positive tax exemption.

The way that we want to structure it is such that everyone is guaranteed a certain set minimum -- let's say $10,000 per year.. maybe that's too high, but it works well for the numbers that I'll use here -- so, $10,000 per year is what people would be guaranteed to receive -- about $800 per month -- so you have that positive amount. Now, on every dollar you earn ... let's go high, let's say 50% -- now I know that's going to scare voters but this is just hypothetical ... but if we're taking 50% of every dollar you earn but you're guaranteed $10,000, when you start earning $20,000 you've actually paid fully back into the system. The system would operate in such a way that it ladders up as you earn an income. It's a more fair way that we think we could reform the tax system. Now it would require a lot of cooperation from the Feds, and we think we could replace a lot of social service programs -- employment insurance, other social services, employment and income assistance programs -- with this, while still retaining some special programs for people with disabilities. So we think it's a bold way to reform the entire tax system. I'm not naive enough to think that it will happen overnight, but that's why I hope we get into the legislature and have some of the resources available to research this, talk to the people in the tax department and have a little more weight as to why I'm requesting this information ... why I should be entitled to have it.

AWAP: One thing that I write a lot about on my humble little blog is Bipole III. We've talked a little bit about this before. If I understand the Green Party's position, it's that the Bipole III line doesn't need to be built at all. We can use our existing capacity and build on that with conservation and clean energy. Is that more or less correct?

JB: That's fairly correct. I would just caution it with saying that we may build it at some point, but what I think is most important is that our own regulator, the Public Utilities Board, is warning that we may lose money on these export deals that we're signing. Maybe over time we'll be able to pay down this debt, but of course Manitoba Hydro wants to increase its debt to equity ratio. We don't have a Manitoba energy plan. We have some good programs like Power Smart, but I don't think we've taken energy conservation seriously in terms actually trying to focus on demand management. Further to that, we think that there is a lot of capacity in southern Manitoba for the 1000MW of wind energy that's already licensed. That adds to your reliability factor because you have some local electricity -- granted intermittent electricity, so there is a need to overcome some of the technological barriers with intermittent renewable energies -- but the fact that we have the base of hydro that we can generally count on I think very much helps us, because we can learn to become leading edge managers in what they call "smart grid technology" and how you manage energy flow with intermittent energy and a baseline of stable electricity, in our case hydro. So, it's sort of like "let's hold off and think this thing through." We don't have to build it right away. The real driver for building Bipole III is Keeyask and Conawapa, so what we're trying to say is let's not just talk about one line, let's talk about the whole energy development strategy and then let's try to map out an actual plan, and I think there are so many more possibilities that might open up if we look into creating an actual plan.

AWAP: Your hair always looks great.. Do you have a stylist you can recommend, or certain products that you use?

JB: (laughing) Really I don't even have a consistent styling product that I use, but thank you. The Free Press has some pictures of my hair dangling in my face so it doesn't always look great.

AWAP: Actually it's better that way.

JB: Oh you think the hair in the face works? Okay..

AWAP: As a former employee of AECL, one thing that caught my eye was a promise by your party to stop, if I understand it, the transportation of nuclear products across Manitoba. I can tell you, as far as risks to the population goes, this is one of the smallest ...

JB: It may be a fairly small risk. I know that they have very secure cement containers. I guess for us the biggest problem though is they want to store it up in Creighton Saskatchewan, is basically the issue, right? They want to store waste coming from Bruce in Ontario in Saskatchewan, and what that means is the waste is going to be transported through our province, and I think that Manitoba needs to stand up and say something. Yes, the risk needs to be mitigated, but not only that it's wear and tear on our highways .. we're basically on the losing end of the stick on that one on so many levels and we need to stand up and say something. Why should we get pushed over by Ontario and Saskatchewan? I do know that it's a small risk but there are a lot of people who are concerned about it and I suppose Greens are not particularly in favour of nuclear energy. The waste factor makes it problematic, so part of it comes from that.

AWAP: All of the other party leaders seem to be in favour of hiring more police officers for Winnipeg, even though we have high per capita staffing levels already. I know you have a different idea about that. Explain ...

JB: Ya, it's about actually interacting police with the community. Basically what we would like to do is embed police officers in the same community on a regular basis. So in my riding here in Wolseley you would have, I don’t know the staffing levels so this is hypothetical, let's say you had 6 police officers, that's 2 police officers per day on a rotating shift. So let's just say .. you would have two officers who regularly work in Wolseley all the time. They would get to know the people in the neighbourhood. If you get to know the people in the neighbourhood they will be more comfortable confiding information and you will also be able to figure out the patterns and habits of people and you'll have a better idea of where you should be keeping a closer eye, and we think that's a way of making policing more effective. The province already funds police officers here in Winnipeg and in other places in Manitoba, and basically what we're saying is, we're fine with that but here is how we want you to implement it. There is a lot of power with the province to actually work with municipalities in terms of offering funding but making it conditional on certain conditions.

AWAP: I was going to ask you about that too, because Winnipeg is a big battleground and all of the parties are planning things for Winnipeg: soccer fields, police officers -- here is how many we want you to hire and how to deploy them. Why is it the province's responsibility to sort of micromanage the city this way in the first place? Why not allow city hall to deploy officers as they see fit, or build soccer fields as they see fit?

JB: Well, because inevitably city hall is going to be coming to the province for money. That's just the reality of finances in Canada. If we're going to be funding the municipalities -- and we should be better funding our municipalities in Manitoba -- then let's try to do it in such a way that we can work constructively together. Too often we have the city and province working at opposite aims, and it's the citizens that pay. We get ineffective government and we get waste of your tax dollars because one level is trying to do one thing and the other level is trying to do the other, and it creates needless expenditure of time and money.

AWAP: Alright, so last question: there are I imagine lots of undecided voters out there who don't who to vote for because they are all promising the same thing or they're disengaged. For somebody who is going to the polling booth on Tuesday, what would you tell them if you could say something? What should be the one issue on their mind?

JB: If they don't want to vote then they need to understand that they're letting somebody else make the choice for them. If they're scared into voting for one party or the other because they're being told they have to vote strategically, they need to understand that a vote isn't just a vote for the party that's going to win, but you should vote with your conscience, vote with your heart, vote for who you think would make your best representative. You're not voting for the Premier, you're not voting against Hugh McFadyen or Greg Selinger. You're voting for the representative of your local area. People should to take that into consideration as well. I'm finding a lot of undecided voters here in Wolseley. This isn't a riding that the conservatives are going to take. This is a riding where you have a choice of a number of people and you have to make that choice.

AWAP: Good. Thank you very much and good luck in the election.

JB: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to do the interview.

*****

The Green Party finished a distant second in Wolseley in 2007, but they have since increased in stature on the political scene. If they have a chance to win a seat, this is where they would do it. It will be interesting to watch on election night.

MANITOBA ELECTION: STILL UNDECIDED?

2011-09-26T22:58:00.004-05:00

I don't blame you. Choosing between the parties in this provincial election is like choosing between a light grey Chevy Malibu and a dark grey Chevy Malibu. If only a bright red Dodge Challenger SRT8 was available...

So far in this election, the boldest idea has come from the Green Party: free bus fare. The second boldest idea has come from the Liberals: relax Sunday shopping laws. Both the Greens and the Liberals are holding back on the excessive spending promises, meanwhile the NDP and PC parties are dropping money bags from helicopters. Unfortunately, neither the Liberals or Greens have a chance in this election. John Gerrard may get re-elected as the Liberal's only seat, meanwhile Green Party leader James Beddome is an underdog in Wolseley and no other Green candidate even has a shot.

The realistic discussion pertains to the NDP and the PCs, but when you look at the two main parties from a high level they look pretty much the same:

CRIME
NDP: more cops on the street
PC: more cops on the street

HEALTH CARE
NDP: more doctors and nurses
PC: more doctors and nurses

ECONOMY
NDP: won't balance the budget
PC: won't balance the budget

TAXES
NDP: minor tax credits with no significant tax reform
PC: minor tax credits with no significant tax reform

EVERYTHING ELSE
NDP: spend lots of money
PC: spend lots of money

Rather than campaigning on ideas, the NDP is campaigning on things the PCs might do, and the PCs are campaigning on things the NDP failed to do. The only difference is the NDP has a track record, and the PCs do not. Whether you think that track record is good or bad may be your deciding factor in voting, but if you're looking for something to tip the balance, this should be it:

BIPOLE III

I haven't blogged about Bipole III 2,587,398 times because I think it's just that interesting. I've written about it because it's an irreversible and extremely costly decision, and also because I have a very low tolerance for idiotic behaviour. The NDP government has routinely addressed problems by throwing money at them rather than making any sort of difficult decision, and this is the most extreme example of that, except in this case there is more at stake than just money.

Let's just cover the main aspects:

COST: The west route will cost about $1 billion more. That's "billion" with a "B". This is if we build additional capacity with Keeyask and Conawapa. If we scrap our export plans because they turn out to be too high-risk or may result in losses for Manitoba Hydro, then the East side route will not require converters, saving us an additional $2 billion, for a total of $3 billion savings.

FOREST: The argument is that the last piece of "pristine" boreal forest east of Lake Winnipeg need to be protected. A) the forest east of Lake Winnipeg is not pristine. There are mines and communities and roads and other things. B) Even if it were "pristine", there are thousands of square KMs of pristine forest elsewhere, from Labrador to the Northwest Territories, in the vast Boreal forest. C) Even if it were the last piece of pristine forest in Canada, the government has already promised to damage it even more than a HVDC line would by zigzagging a new road right through it. D) There are scarce aspen parklands to the west of the lakes. I don't know to what extent the preferred route impacts them, but I know it was a concern in the routing study. E) The west side route plows through as much forest as the east side route. In terms of the quantity of lumber produced, it's a saw-off. (haha, get it? "saw off". Anyways ...)

LINE LOSSES: The amount of electricity burned off in transmission depends on the how close to capacity the lines are running, but whatever the amount, it will be much greater for the west side lines. The cost in lost exports will be in the tens of millions of dollars each year. These lost exports have another cost too: pollution. The wasted 'clean' hydro energy will not displace 'dirty' fossil fuel energy in the US, resulting in thousands of tonnes of additional green-house gas pollution each year. How green is that?

CARIBOU: Yes, there is a threatened caribou herd on the east side of the lake. Based on the 2005 Caribou survey, there are also four or so caribou herds that might be impacted by the west-side line, at least three of which are threatened. Furthermore, these herds have less territory to maneuver than the east-side herd, who's territory extends right into Northern Ontario.

UNESCO: A) A UNESCO official is on record as saying that the east side route will not preclude UNESCO designation. B) the government hasn't even applied for UNESCO designation. C) the east side line would only graze one corner of the proposed UNESCO site, and D) In what way is a UNESCO designation worth $1 billion anyhow?

LAND USE: Aside from forest, there is agricultural land to consider, and to this point, the west side route involves huge compromises. Land owners will need to be compensated; route adjustments will probably be required to avoid owners who refuse to be bought out (since Hydro will not expropriate), further increasing the cost; aerial spraying will be difficult or impossible to do safely along the route, impacting farm productivity; etc ...

EXPORTS: The argument that an east side line will somehow risk exports to the US is laughable. Environmental groups can't stop the US from buying every drop of oil sands petroleum that we can give them. On what grounds could they prevent the US from buying clean power? There are parties who are associated with power producers in the US who want the exports blocked because Hydro is a competitor, but they don't give a shit what side of the lake the route goes down. Honestly. It's preposterous. In fact, this Hydro report suggests that export sales could be compromised by the west side route, because it can't supply reliable power.

RELIABILITY: The west side route would be much less reliable because A) it is in an area of the province that is more prone to tornados and other weather-related disasters, and B) it's a longer route and therefore has more potential to be damaged.

ENERGY SECURITY: Should the Interlake lines go down, the west route would NOT be able to support our energy commitments, whereas the east-side route could carry the load.

TECHNICAL: Lastly, there are other technical aspects of the Bipole line that I can't begin to explain because I don't understand them, but what I understand is this: Hydro engineers prefer the east route. In fact, the east route is not just preferable ... it is the only route that makes sense from a technical perspective. In addition, the west route could require us to build another bipole line 25 years sooner. (source)

In the televised debate, Greg Selinger berated Hugh McFadyen for his "reckless" plan to move the bipole line to the east side. Only Greg would call accepting the advice of engineers, reducing pollution, protecting our energy security and saving $1 billion reckless. The venom and conviction with which Greg lied about the east side route was almost shocking. This isn't a matter of opinion. This isn't a case where each side has equivalent pros and cons that have to be weighed. This is a case where the east side route is superior in every tangible respect, and the costs of going the other way are enormous and long-lasting.

So if there is one issue in this election that should turn your vote, make it this one.

*edit*
here are a couple of other related blogs
stumbling
TTNTBS
dobbin
ice & grain with a good post

Brain Dump for Saturday, September 24

2011-09-24T13:50:00.003-05:00

Thoughts ..

1) Geese

The Winnipeg Free Press article on goose overpopulation touched on several ways to deal with the problem, none of which are as good as my idea: There are millions of these 15-lb pea-brained menaces assaulting our city and country side ... and there are millions of people starving in Africa. It's time for a mass slaughter of geese so that they can be ground up and shipped to the Horn of Africa where they would provide desperately needed protein to little children with distended bellies and their skeletal mothers.

2) Rex Murphy

I completely disagree with Rex Murphy this time. He proposes that the NDP change their party voting structure to give Quebec greater say in the upcoming leadership race, saying that not doing so "is not a winning formula for the long run." Perhaps his bloated vocabulary has started invading grey matter normally reserved for logic, but the exact opposite is true: Changing a fundamental party rule to favour Quebec, where there is very little grass-roots support (as evidenced by the mere 1600 memberships province-wide), is "self defeating politics". The Quebec anomaly is no more than a flash in the pan, and if they tilt their rules to favour that province they will piss off their base everywhere else.

3) Garbage

What the heck am I supposed to do with my big plastic garbage can when I get my big plastic garbage cart? This is a serious question.

4) Coloured Rods

Another Rod has joined us in the local bloggosphere. Rouge Rod started posting a little over a month ago and has kept up a torrent pace since then. Rouge joins the original Black Rod, The Blue Rod, and The Purple Rod who hasn't posted much lately. The Orange Rod has closed up shop, and there was also a Red Rod that didn't make a very good go of it. You can understand my hesitation to accept new Rods, given some of the fly-by-night rodders in the past, but Rouge seems to be making a genuine effort, so good luck Rouge!

5)Vladimir Putin

Barack Obama needs a little Vladimir Putin in him. No .. that's not what I meant. Oh God, you guys are so immature.

6) Dinner tonight

Do you leave the cover off the roaster when you're cooking a Canada Goose? What do you think: rosemary, cracked pepper and thyme?

The NEW Winnipeg Jets!

2011-09-20T23:25:00.002-05:00

What can I say? Amazing first game here in Winnipeg. Just a few of photos from the game:

Hitting the ice:

Last 20 seconds of the first Jets WIN in 15 years!:

The leaders go downtown. (Most of them).

2011-09-19T23:15:00.002-05:00

Two blocks down from where two people got shot half a day earlier, the Provincial leadership candidates got together for a debate on downtown issues. Most of then anyhow. Greg Selinger sent one of his ministers, just as he did with the Bipole debate earlier.

Moderated by Dan Lett and Richard Cloutier, the panelists were the familiar Hugh McFadyen and Dr. Jon Gerrard. Gord Mackintosh sat in for Selinger. The Green Party's James Beddome was not invited to participate as a full member, but in an odd arrangement was allowed a few minutes to speak part way through the session. More on that later.

That's the set up. Here is my haphazard recount of what happened:

The first subject was rapid transit:

Jon spoke reasonably about how transit development should be planned before new neighbourhoods like Waverley West are built -- not after. The Liberals are the only party that has a firm policy on rapid transit as far as I know, and Jon talked about it frequently, seeing it as one of his strengths.

Gord surprised me by saying "the money is on the table" for 1/3 of whatever type of rapid transit the city chooses: LRT or BRT. This is in contrast to the government's previous stance of sticking to plan 'A': the original BRT agreement. Nothing like an election to shake loose the purse strings.

Hugh was pressed to pick his preference on BRT or LRT. He personally prefers LRT but would work with the city on either. He spoke of the breakdown in relationship between the city and province as the reason for the lack of progress.

crime:

Gord: more cops and cadets on the street.

Hugh: more cops and cadets.

Jon: NDP failure. More cops and cadets.

Question from the audience: more cops won't matter as long as judges are letting people back on the street (to thunderous applause from the audience):

Gord: Blames Ottawa's lax criminal laws for the high crime rate. Points out the NDP anti-gang program.

Hugh: Ottawa's laws apply to all provinces. Does not explain why we are the worst. There are provincial policies that can be changed as well.

Jon: We also need more recreational opportunities for kids.

Question from the audience: poverty & homelessness are the root cause of crime. What will you do about that?

Jon: talked about rapid transit!! The questioner rightly stopped him and said "Rapid transit will not fix poverty." Bad answer by Dr. Jon.

Hugh: The government's anti-private investment regime has stalled private development of housing, and the government itself has not built enough public housing.

Gord: The NDP just announced today a plan to turn 7 acres of parking lots in to 2100 housing units.

All three parties would maintain rent controls.

More on housing: Jon wants to force high-rise buildings to have a % of affordable housing. Ya, that's going to encourage developers to build.

Question from the audience: organized crime has infiltrated the government.

Whaaaa?

A discussion of whistleblower legislation ensued..

On the issue of affordability:

Gord promises increases to the minimum wage every year.

Hugh briefly mentioned the high tax rate for low income earners, after using up all his time repeating stuff he talked about earlier. Should have hammered on the high tax rates right off the bat, as the government's record here is shameful.

Jon: I have no notes. Was probably talking to somebody.

Closing speeches:

Jon: Rapid transit (of course); something about an anti-poverty reduction plan; and will increase the personal tax exemption!

Hugh: Supports TIFF development; land transfer tax exemptions for first time home buyers; increase private investment. Also gave Green party leader Beddome a nod, and promised to wear a better suit to the televised debate on Friday.

Gord: The usual stuff plus a quote from Jian Ghomeshi! Well, with Jian Ghomeshi in their corner how can they lose?

*****

So about 2/3 of the way through the event, they interrupted the show and invited James Beddome up on the stage to talk. No questions or prompts or anything. Just "here is the mike. You can use it for 2 minutes." Dan and Richard made sure to mention that it was "agreed upon", although how this agreement was arrived at I don't know. By a show of hands all three party leaders said they would have welcomed the Green's participation, and Beddome himself certainly would have preferred to be at the table. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Anyhow, Jimmy Bop made the most of his 2 or 3 minutes on the podium with an energetic pitch about small business, free transit, and the pending platform release on Wednesday (Memorial Park at 11:00.) He is a very good speaker and could surprise a few people during the televised debates on Friday.

I was speaking with James on and off during the debate and I asked him if we really need more cops on the street. His thought was that more cops are not necessarily the answer. Perhaps deploying cops more consistently in a given area might help them to get to know the people and gain their trust. More of a community-based approach to policing.

*****

There were a few other things discussed through the night, but I got tired of scribbling in the old Moleskine. It was also good to bump into Kevin McDougald again.

Manitoba election checkpoint

2011-09-18T22:25:00.005-05:00

Well, the election campaign has been underway for a couple of weeks or something by now, and the election day is only, um, a couple weeks or something away, so now is a good time to review how each of the parties are doing:

NDP

What does the coach always tell you? Stick to the game plan. The NDP has stuck to the same formula that they've been using for a decade: vilify the opposition and don't do anything drastic. Their motto could be No Vision, Slow Change, and Little Progress, but it's proven to be a winning formula in this passive little province. They are also milking the fortunate return of the Winnipeg Jets for all it's worth.

The PCs have let the NDP dictate the play. They could have put forth a real conservative agenda and shrugged off the nonsensical NDP attacks, but instead have chosen to try to beat the NDP at their own game with numerous spending promises, no balanced budget for 7 years, and no significant tax relief. They have the advantage on the Bipole III issue, but otherwise have not done much to distinguish themselves from the NDP. Maybe their new attack ad will work for

See Brian's blog for more on the missed opportunities by the Conservatives.
them.

Liberal

Of the three main parties, the Liberals seem to be running the best campaign so far, but I have to admit that I've only been watching them out of the corner of my eye because I don't really think they'll be much of a factor. They need to put out concrete ideas like repealing the Sunday shopping laws, in order to get people to take notice. I like what they bring to the debate, but unfortunately the soft-spoken Mr.Gerrard will have a real tough time.

Green

The Green Party probably has the boldest ideas of the election, including free transit. In Manitoba however, the Greens are still a fringe party and thus have been excluded from most of the mini-debates so far, although Bart was nice enough to include James Beddome in his pop culture quiz. Perhaps the election of Liz May to the House of Commons will give the Green party enough legitimacy here in Manitoba to allow Beddome a run at office in Wolseley, but not if he continues to get excluded from debates.

Bottom line: if things continue as they are, the NDP will win.

Update on Longboat development

2011-09-16T19:45:00.004-05:00

The big downtown development announcement this summer was an impressive new 20-story hotel/office/retail building across from the MTS Centre at Portage & Donald. (OMC / Me) In the comments of my post on that, fellow blogger Bryan Scott wondered about the future of the Alabama Building and the tenants within. Well, now we know ...

I picked up some information today as I was ordering my clubhouse sandwich at the Wagon Wheel restaurant. The owners of the Wagon Wheel were informed yesterday that their building on Hargrave would be torn down. The Alabama Building containing Bryan's favorite Ethiopean restaurant on Ellice and Hargrave will disappear as well, to make way for a parkade.

But fear not my hungry friends. Arrangements are being made to revive at least the Wagon Wheel. I don't know about the other tenants, but I am sure they have all been made offers of some kind as well. The new location is up in the air at the moment. It could be in a storefront on Donald in the primary building, or in a retail location on the main floor of the parkade. In anycase, the lady at the Wagon Wheel seemed pretty confident that the diner would continue on, which is good news for anybody who likes clubhouse sandwiches. Perhaps they can add a few more booths and a washroom.

Waterfront hotel experiencing development hostility

2011-09-11T01:08:00.001-05:00

What a glorious day it was yesterday. I stood outside as the sweet warm breeze ruffled my hair, and airplane vapor trails hung in the blue sky like scattered chopsticks. Yet here I was thinking about Gordon Sinclair. Damn you, Sinclair.

You see, I happened across Sinc's latest editorial atrocity while reading the Saturday Free Press this morning. But to give you a little background: a few years ago Gordon Sinclair was a key player in the effort to stop a residential development (something that everybody agrees is critical to the vitality of downtown Winnipeg) at the corner of Assiniboine and Fort St. in order to build an interpretive centre for Upper Fort Garry. He led the deceptive PR campaign with repeated "save the fort" columns in the Free Press, giving people the impression that a critical piece of our history would be destroyed, when in fact the only thing that would be destroyed was a deteriorating surface-level parking lot. Ultimately this PR campaign and a little backroom arm-twisting was successful in pushing out the developer in favour of a park that has yet to begin construction and has already ballooned in cost to $22 million, over twice the original estimate.

So it was with this as a mental backdrop that I read Sinclair's piece today, where he explains that an empty parking lot on Waterfront Drive is actually an irreplacable part of our history because somebody "contends" that Selkirk settlers once planted wheat there, and it was also a gathering place for people during the great strike. He goes on to accuse recent residential development (no, not that again) of "putting the boots to" this historic area, and finishes his ridiculous column in typically sappy fashion:

Now, apparently, a former premier of our province, and our mayor and city council are going to finish the job.
Play the pipes loudly, today boys.
And bang the drums slowly.

Fortunately, the "Friends of History" that are the would-be heros of Gordon's column do not have the clout of the Friends of Upper Fort Garry, so their campaign is much less likely to be successful. However, I happen to know somebody closely involved with the development, and it is not a sure thing at this point. In my conversation with him we didn't get into details about what the sticking points were, but it is conceivable that a coordinated opposition to the project could derail it.

There are great journalists and there are not so good journalists. Not everybody is gifted enough to be one of those great journalists, but at a minimum they should strive to at least be truthful and not do damage to the city in which they live.

****

I had a couple of replies on Twitter that suggested that our water front area should be preserved on principle, not because of some trumped up historical concern. I understand that viewpoint. I admire other cities that had the foresight to preserve their river front as green space. So why would I advocate a riverfront development in the middle of a relatively unbroken stretch of undeveloped shoreline greenspace? Well, first of all, I'm not advocating for the Sunstone development, but against idiotic newspaper columns. However I would also make the following points:

If this area deserved to be reclaimed as green space, the city should have acted long ago. The time to decide that an area should be a park is not at the 11th hour after a RFPs have been solicited, proposals submitted, and designs approved by a city hall committee. The Upper Fort Garry debacle was damaging, not just because a critical development had been stopped, but because it was stopped at the last minute after the developer had gone through all the hoops, had a contractual agreement to build and made additional compromises to appease opponents. Continual behaviour like this will drive developers away.
There is already a building on-site: the old brick Harbourmaster Building. We can either tear it down, leave it sitting vacant and deteriorating, or re-purpose it as part of a new development. Which option do you think is best?
The Sunstone development will link the greenspace on either side: "The plan also calls for pedestrian walkways to link up with existing riverfront pathways" -fp-
The development of the east Exchange is tenuous. Additional development is required to reach that critical mass that will turn it into a thriving community. A hotel and restaurant will help.

I can't think of a snazzy way to wrap up this blog post, so I'll leave you with a video of Wild Rumpus' Rock the Joint featuring Beardyman:

New Winnipeg Jets jerseys

2011-09-06T23:00:00.000-05:00

Hey there. Here is a quickie post to let you know that I'm still alive. Due to a recent career change the posting has been a little sparse lately, but I can't let something as important as the Jets uniforms to go uncommented.

source

Much like the logo, the jerseys are not bad but not quite right either. The colours are sharp in jersey format and the logo has found it's home right in the middle of the chest like a bullseye. I think where the uniforms go wrong is with the arms, and in particular the stripes on the sleeves.

The horizontal strips are low down on the sleeves and give the appearance of the uniform being bottom heavy because they create visual width below the mid-point of the uniform, while there is nothing up top to balance that. This is more pronounced on the white uniform, but the dark one also has that width down low.

If you are a pear-shaped Jets fan, this is bad news for you. Fortunately, other than the Dustin Byfuglien, none of the Jets are currently pear-shaped. Furthermore, the jerseys should appear more balanced when the players are all geared up with the shoulder pads. If I buy one -- and I probably will -- it will probably be blue.

For my analysis of the logo, click here.
For my original jersey concept, click here.

McFadyen's platform: smart or sell-out?

2011-08-29T18:35:00.000-05:00

Oh goody! A platform leak! I shall naturally assess everything I see against the paradigm of provincial election platforms, located on this blog.

First of all, the PC platform posted on the Free Press web site does NOT have rainbow-coloured category titles. Big fail right off the bat.

In terms of content, let's go through some of the items:

program to provide financial resources to landowners to preserve natural wetlands and riparian areas.
- something similar was suggested in the comments of my blog post, but I was skeptical about how much potential there was for preserving or reclaiming wetlands this way. It's probably a good policy though.
re-route Bipole III to the east
- you know how I feel about this.
Join the New West Partnership
- I suspect it's not that simple. Were we not denied entry because we're a "have not" province? If we make strides in the right direction, perhaps we may be allowed in, but I don't think we're excluded because Doer/Selinger forgot to ask.
Provide funds to pave unpaved back lanes in Winnipeg
- smacks of vote buying. I prefer my promise of rebuilding Winnipeg's sewer systems to reduce overflows into the Red River. Less glamourous, but important for the environment.
Elimination of the enhanced Manitoba driver's licence to save $13 million
- Depends: it was a bad program to begin with, but set-up costs are sunk. Are we losing money on an on-going basis?
Reduce administration costs at regional health authorities
- Yes, also on my platform. Probably easier said than done, but certainly lots of opportunity.
Cuts to personal income tax
- Good, but I hope part of that includes indexing tax brackets.
No harmonization of PST with the federal Goods and Services tax.
- Bad. As unpopular as it may be, HST is more efficient and implementing it would net us a nice bonus from the Feds. Alternatively, we could implement it temporarily, then reneg on the deal and refuse to give back the bonus money like BC.
Extend $700 property tax credit to cottage owners to make cottage ownership more affordable
- don't quite get this one. Why not just have the credit for primary residence?

In a list that is mostly unremarkable, there is one promise that really stands out:

Balance the provincial budget by 2018, four years later than the NDP is currently targeting

Clearly this is intended to knee-cap the NDP's assertions that the PCs would hack and slash everything into oblivion as soon as they get into office. It may be a smart promise in that sense, because it reduces the fear factor for the on-the-fencers who value healthcare more than fiscal responsibility, and conservatives will still vote PC because they know that the NDP won't balance the budget any sooner regardless of what they say.

It is, however, a risky position. After hammering on the NDP for fiscal irresponsibility, Hugh could lose credibility because of this. Is Hugh just saying what he thinks the voters want to hear? Can we believe him? The whole "I won't privatize Manitoba Hydro" thing hinges on his credibility. Being in opposition, Hugh has had little opportunity to build trust with Manitobans, and can not afford to squander what he has.

This promise is a half-baked attempt to combat negative ads by the NDP, but it could very well backfire. The political analysts here at The Peanut believe that Hugh would have been better off staying true to his principles rather than letting the NDP drive his policies.

Over all, it's a less than stunning platform, although there are some good things in there.

Jack Layton

2011-08-22T13:03:00.002-05:00

We here at the Peanut are sorry to learn of Jack's demise. Jack was a dynamic figure in Canada's political scene and as leader of the NDP he provided an important counter-balance to the traditional governing parties.

I certainly feel for Olivia and the rest of Jack's friends and family, but I am not going to pretend now that I have any particular personal attachment to Jack simply because he has passed away. And though I regret his passing, it is certainly no surprise. My mother, like Jack, won a battle with cancer but lost the war. I know others who have fallen to cancer's sword as well, including both parents of a family that I am acquainted with. In both cases cancer struck with shocking speed, taking both parents (years apart) in less than one month from their initial diagnosis. Once cancer grips your body there is little than can be done to stop it.

That is why, when Jack appeared in his press conference, suddenly frail and weak, less than a month ago, I feared the worst. I was not one of those who optimistically predicted that Jack would be back in September or even that he would be back at all. I knew he would not. I suspect most people knew as well, but did not want to face reality. I read all of those tweets and commentaries that said Cancer better watch out because it doesn't know who it's dealing with and other silly things, and I shook my head. Sure, hope for the best, but if you convince yourself that he's going to beat it, it will only hurt more when he does not. It may be a blessing for the NDP and its supporters that the end came as quickly as it did, rather than stringing them along with false hope of a return of Jack.

On a personal level his death is no more or less tragic than any other, but it has great significance to the country on a political level. With his loss, we have not just a rudderless opposition party, but an extremely inexperienced rudderless opposition party. It is a party that has a lot of work to do just to sort itself out. There will be a leadership race that could potentially become nasty, having recently adopted a lopsided Quebec-oriented posture but with most senior MPs coming from other parts of the country. When at one time the NDP knew what it stood for and had a small but solid base under a charismatic leader, it is now spread thin, with no leader and a suspect agenda.

I don't know if there has ever been a time in Canada's history when a national government has ever has so much leeway. There have certainly been larger majorities, but as far as I know there was typically some sort of effective opposition to hold them to account. (Mind you, I am no political scholar.) But here we have a situation where Harper is faced with a full term of majority rule, and every opposition party is in complete disarray, with the exception of the Green Party which only has one seat.

Layton was a remarkable man, and the rise of his party to official opposition status under his leadership was stunning. The void that will be left by his departure will be equally remarkable. The NDP was over-achieving with Jack at the helm, and now that he's gone and Nycole Turmel is temporarily in charge, the party is completely out of its league. In retrospect, the rise of the NDP may have been more of a victory for the Conservatives than it was for the political left. In any case, the man went out on top and had an impact on the nation, and that is something to be remembered.

Thoughts on Hydro CEO Brennan

2011-08-18T10:29:00.000-05:00

As reported, Manitoba Hydro Big Cheese Bob Brennan is retiring. Dan Lett suggests in his commentary that "it is meaningless to ask why he is stepping down." I think otherwise. Being at 70 years of age you certainly can't blame the guy for packing it in, however the timing is meaningful in that it tells a story about how Hydro has been run over the past 11 years.

I have been very critical of Bob Brennan in the past, however I don't doubt that, if left to his own devices, he could have been an excellent CEO. As Dan points out, many of the more controversial decisions were not made by Brennan, but by the very "hands-on" (nice-speak for politically interfering) NDP government. The decision to spend an extra billion dollars on the less environmentally friendly and technically inferior west-side route was made by the government, not by Brennan. Likewise, the decision to plow ahead with aggressive northern Hydro development for export, regardless of the financial viability and irrespective of the risks, was made by the Provincial government, not by the CEO.

My beef with Brennan is not in making these decisions, but in so willingly supporting them. He sold out faster than a Winnipeg Jets home opener. He fudged numbers about Bipole III, he fired a consultant who dared to expose the risks of the Hydro development strategy, and he never wavered from the arm of his political masters. What I question is the man's integrity. If he had any, he would have put up more of a fight. He would have said: "look, according to our engineers the west-side route is inferior to the east-side route. I don't think we should do that." or "there is no need to rush into low-margin, high-risk export contracts." But he did not. Instead he committed to the ill-advised policies of the government of the day, and that now puts him in a bit of a pickle...

With an election pending and a potential change in administration on the horizon, Brennan has pulled the plug. I don't think this is a coincidence. Brennan's willing support of the indefensible NDP policies would make his relationship with a new PC government unworkable. He would either have to reverse course on everything he stood for in the previous years, or he would be in conflict with his new masters and would be forced out. Leaving now allows him to avoid that conundrum and leave on his own terms.

The announcement of his retirement is therefore a smart move, and it is not insignificant. It tells the story of a senior civil servant who too willingly steered the ship in the wrong direction, and fled in a life boat just short of it hitting the iceberg. The question now is: will we get a new captain that will direct it to safety?

2011 Manitoba provincial election platform

2011-08-15T10:12:00.002-05:00

If you elect me as Premier, this is what I will do:

BUDGET

- balance budget ahead of schedule

- strengthen balanced budget legislation, including requirement to balance gross budget incl. crown corps on 3 year moving average basis.

- reduce dependency on equalization payments
- end defined benefit pensions for public employees in favour of defined contribution (grandfather basis).

TAXES & FUNDING

- reinstate a 1% income tax for small business (is 1% really too much?)

- phase out the payroll tax

- enact legislation to require the indexing of all income tax brackets. (see here)

- raise basic personal exemption 20% per year for first term.

- reduce education component of property tax & eliminate operational and capital funding for cities/municipalities. (see here)

EDUCATION:

- allow school divisions to close underutilized schools and redeploy resources

- consolidate school divisions

- lift university tuition freeze

ENVIRONMENT

- remove requirement for City of Winnipeg to remove nitrogen from wastewater (save $350m)

- fast track & help fund improvements to reduce the release of raw sewage into the Red River by the City of Winnipeg.

- review management of water levels and improve drainage, especially in the Interlake region.

- assess cost and practicality of replacing Hecla causeway with a bridge.

HYDRO

- immediately stop development of west-side Bipole III route and re-start assessment process for east-side route.

- direct PUB & Hydro to reduce electricity costs for base residential levels, and charge market rates for everything above that (inverted rates).

- reduce red tape allowing small private generators to feed electricity back into the grid.

HEALTH CARE

- encourage private clinics to operate in MB

- review effectiveness of the regional health authorities and hospital bureaucracies and eliminate redundancies in administration.
- fire 1000 nurses and doctors. (just kidding. yeesh.)

AGRICULTURE

- review building and electrical codes for hog barns and other animal barns.

- re-evaluate hog farm moratorium based on best scientific evidence.

TRANSPORTATION

- restrict scope of taxi cab board to safety-related concerns only. Open up taxi industry to competition.

- open up rural bus service to competition, eliminating Grey Hound's monopoly. Allow companies to bid on routes.

- improvements to Trans Canada Hwy, Perimeter Hwy & Hwy 75 including overpasses for key intersections, increasing speed limits to 110 km/h for entire lengths.

CRIME

(to the extent possible)

- focus on rehabilitation for first & second offenses for property crimes and minor offenses, with exponentially harsher penalties for each additional offense (see here)

- crack down on parole violations

- implement training and educational opportunities for prisoners, and make them mandatory for any prison terms longer than 6 months

- parole must be earned through the completion of education or training.

- scale back penalties for DUI, but implement a new tier of criminal offense for: DUI over twice the legal limit, DUI while speeding & DUI while texting, with much harsher penalties. (see here)

- make penalty for texting and driving equivalent to DUI

- include hands-free cell phones in cell phone driving ban. (see here)

- *NEW* expedite serious offenses in the court system

OTHER

- open adoption records, on the recommendation of my policy advisor.

- scrap rent controls and accompanying regulations, and restrict condo conversions until vacancy rates improve. (see here & here)

- immediately rescind all provincial funding to the Upper Fort Garry heritage park or whatever it's called.
- ban advertising by public sector unions in the 6 months preceding an election.

- revise Liquor Control Act to allow private beer boutiques and the importing of wine and beer independently of the MLCC.

This is a living document. Let me know if something here is out to lunch, or if you have a better idea, and I may very well update this list. If you have a blog, post your own platform!

NewWinnipeg update

2011-08-12T09:20:00.003-05:00

The NewWinnipeg forum is still dead, but a date has been set for the next and presumably last NW get-together:

Saturday, August 20 · 2:00pm - 5:00pm *NEW TIME*

The location is still TBD, but you can stay on top of it at this facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=175747359160914

unrelated p.s. :

I was just cleaning up some old email and found this spam ->
Subject: Scotland acquired A of to Korean Tibetans
Body: When tilapia are raised in the tanks, they are able to eat algae, which naturally grows in the tanks when the tanks are properly fertilized.
Wove paper does not exhibit "laidlines", which are small regular lines left behind on paper when it was handmade in a mould made from rows of metal wires or bamboo.

Still the best spam I've gotten so far.

Winnipeg radio: FM station correlation

2011-08-09T00:42:00.001-05:00

Have you ever experienced one of those times when it seemed like every radio station was playing Aerosmith?

Winnipeg FM radio is very predictable and lacking in diversity. If it seems like you're hearing the same stuff over and over again, it's because you are. I would estimate that we get exposed to 5-10% of the popular music spectrum, but there is a whole world of awesome music out there that we're missing. When was the last time you heard The Cribs on Winnipeg radio? Of Montreal? (seriously, have you heard a better bass line than that?) Gigi d'Agostino? Black Flag? Neko Case? The Rakes? Texas? Winnipeg's own Grand Analog?

Curve 94 showed some promise when it first came online, playing some things that you didn't heard elsewhere like Metric and MGMT. However Curve is now gone, opting instead for a sorry mix of classic light rock retreads. I don't for a second believe that 94's ratings went up after this change. The rating system is seriously flawed. Every comment I've heard about 94 echos my own sentiment: 94 is dead to me now.

But alas, there was hope on the FM horizon! A new station was coming! Evanov Radio Group bought that last remaining FM slot in town -- 106.1 FM. It was one last chance for something new. Something different. Would the heavy metal/hardcore hole be filled? Maybe it will be worldbeat? Would we finally get some interesting alternative radio here?

Nope ... the new format was released this month, and instead of breaking new ground and drawing in a new audience, the risk-adverse cowards at Evanov decided to fight over the exact same radio real estate that Hot 103 occupies with Energy 106. It's a lower risk approach, I suppose, but it's a loss for the Winnipeg radio audience because it brings no new choice in music.

(click to enlarge..)

The graphic above is based on a sample of the playlists only. In reality, there is probably much more overlap than I show here.

Now, to make matters worse, 99.1 Groove FM has decided that it can't make a go of it as a Jazz station and wants to change it's format to (buckle your seat belts...) "a variety of today’s pop and rock hits, mixed with songs from the 80’s and 90’s". (a tip of the hat to Kevin McDougald for noticing that.) If that goes through there will be still less choice on the radio dial, and one more station fighting for the exact same radio turf as all the others.

.. and one more station playing Aerosmith.

Congratulations again to Jon Montgomery

2011-08-07T20:37:00.002-05:00

The 2010 Olympic gold medal is now his second biggest prize.

Russell Manitoba's Jon Montgomery successfully got married today in a small ceremony in Kelowna BC to fellow Canada sliding team member Darla Deschamps. Jon and Darla make a great couple, and Anybody Want A Peanut? would like to wish them a long as prosperous marriage, as well as a couple gold medals in Sochi.

Free Press: Comments not allowed!

2011-08-03T15:44:00.003-05:00

Now I know that commenters can be idiots some times, but four of the top 5 breaking stories on the Free Press web site at the moment of this writing are not accepting comments:

The Free Press recently changed its comment system. I really like the new comment features, but the moderation of the comments (if I recall John White's tweet correctly) has been farmed out to a third party. Since that happening, the web site seems to be pulling the trigger quicker on closing down the comments. I have to wonder if the comments are really that bad, or if the hired mods are just being "proactive" (ie. lazy).

I have noticed as well that some times a disproportionate number of comments (in stories that do allow comments) have been censored. Perhaps, instead of all that exhausting work of banning users and censoring comments, they decided it would be easier if they just disallowed comments on anything remotely contentious.

The Free Press has the right to accept comments or not, but one has to question the purpose of accepting comments if anything contentious or crime related is automatically off limits. Are we interested in people's views of law enforcement? Do we care what people think of the 2-for-1 credit for time served, or the fact that it's being taken away? Are people concerned about arson, bus safety and sentencing? Or is the only thing we want people's opinions on is whether Ashton Kutcher is a suitable replacement for Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men?

The Hacienda-ization of St. Mary's

2011-08-01T23:55:00.000-05:00

Those who know me know that I am not a big fan of things that are fake. For example: the big plastic spoilers that douche bags bolt to the trunks of their Chevy Cavaliers, tofurkey, or Stephen Harper smiling. There are however certain exceptions to this rule, such as breasts, and ... uh ... there are others but I can't seem to think of them at the moment.

Anyhow, what I'm here to talk to you about today is faux-Mediterranean architecture. You may have noticed it popping up here and there, but especially if you communte up and down St.Mary's Road here in Winnipeg.

I can't tell you who started the trend, but I'll give credit to Piazza De Nardi for getting the ball rolling. Piazza De Nardi transformed the busy corner of Taylor Ave. and Waverley with a unique shopping experience that mimicked a little Italian market. With the recent expansion, it has become little more than a fancy-looking strip mall, but the success of the original design showed that frozen 'Peggers like to pretend they're strolling on the streets of Tuscany, even when they're wearing Sorels.

(source)

It was no surprise therefore that other establishments caught on to the idea. When Banville and Jones relocated to St. Mary's Rd. from Meadowood in 2005, they added a big splash of colour to the street with their Tuscan villa-esque store, one-upping Piazza De Nardi with a second floor terrace.

A couple of years later, and a little further up the street, Miller's Super Valu Meats had an opportunity to expand into the neighbouring building. They did not only that, but merged the two buildings and refaced them in a Mediterranean style with earth-toned stucco, little arches over the windows, and terra cotta roof tiles.

(Miller's, by the way, is a good place to buy more than just meat. They have a decent little grocery section with some specialty items you might not find at large grocery stores, and prices are generally pretty good.)

And just this year, even further up the street, Santa Lucia completed their overhaul of their Norwood location by turning it into a Mediterranean villa-style building with all of the same architectural cues, as well as a large roof top patio.

Three building on the same street in 6 years. It doesn't sound like a lot, but to me this represents a definite trend, and it got me thinking ... is this good? Do I like this faux-Mediterranean style of archtecture?

I have to say "yes", especially on a street that is so lacking in character as St.Mary's. Despite the attempts by the City at street scaping and turning parts of the street into a "villiage", there is no unity or personality that could possibly be harmed by this trend. Instead, these buildings add welcome life and colour to a drab palette of residential units, strip malls, and commercial buildings.

Faux architectural cues are nothing new. Some of our most beloved heritage buildings have fake columns and sconces and other such things. We should welcome any building designs that create a more interesting and more welcoming urban street scape. I therefore give these buildings my stamp of approval.

Ciao!

UPDATED: New Jets logo, tweaked

2011-07-25T22:18:00.003-05:00

Evan Marnoch articulates well my thoughts on the new Jets logos.

Let's get the secondary logos out of the way first. This logo, which I presume is a shouder patch, is very nice. I approve!This alternate scripty-looking logo is not good at all. It's disjointed and clumsy, and the plain sans serif WINNIPEG does add anything. I hope they reconsider this one.
Now on to the main logo. I don't think it's bad, but it could be better. Evan does too, saying this:

The main logo could have been so much stronger if they were able to cut ties with the maple leaf ... The shape of the plane alone occupies a similar shape to the leaf and I think it, along with utilizing similar colours (ie. blue circle & red plane), would have been enough. Sure, some people might miss the reference. But for those that would get it - it would allow them to feel closer to the concept, as if they were in on the reference. This would have created a much bolder mark. Much more identifiable. Instead - they tried to do too much by including both images.

The plane superimposed on top of the leaf looks forced and uncomfortable to me. You have too many pointy things everywhere. This logo has bad feng shui, plus the red little pointy tail beneath the plane bugs me because that is not part of the maple leaf. It's like they took the top part of the leaf and stuck it where the stem is supposed to be, or turned the maple leaf into a jet plane flying south.
So the first thing we do is get rid of the maple leaf, because our team is The Jets, not The Maple Leafs (thank God).
It's much cleaner, but too drab. Evan suggests making the plane red so let's do that:
Better? I think it's better. You have the red inside the blue circle which leaves a strong resemblance to the original RCAF logo without going to unnecessary lengths to replicate it. One minor problem is that the grey or silver is relegated to a secondary color, when I'm sure the mandate was to make it prominent.

Thoughts? Better? Too plain? (Too plane?)

original logo soure
h/t Brent Lauman

UPDATE ****************************************
Right, well it appears that I wasted my time modifying the logos. Some guy not only made the exact same change, but went through the trouble of mocking up the uniforms on Jonathan Toews. I only hope he spent more time on it than I did:

source
h/t: shifty

LRT to U of M under construction!

2011-07-24T22:08:00.004-05:00

I discovered this weekend that construction of a new rapid transit route to the University of Minnesota is well under way. Hmm .. I probably should have specified "Minnesota" in the title of the post. Oh well, there is nothing I can do about it now.

Ya, so it seems that everywhere I go I get rapid transit envy. Last week I was in Calgary where they are going crazy building a new LRT leg out to the western edge of the city; and this past weekend I headed down to Minneapolis for the U2 concert at the new TCF Bank Stadium, home of the U of M gophers. My trip to the on-campus hotel was complicated by the fact that Washington Ave. was completely torn up. I was able to forgive the slight inconvenience to me when I found out it was for a good cause: building a $957 million rapid transit route to the University and the new $288.5 million football stadium. They don't fuck around down there. They get shit done. That could be part of the reason why Minnesota is running $5 billion deficits, but still ... they get shit done.

by the way ...

Hell's Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis is a great place for breakfast / brunch / lunch. They told us it would be a 45 minute wait, but seated us in less than half an hour, and there was a nice waiting area with complimentary coffee, and they gave us a comp. caramel pecan bun for our trouble. The service was fast and friendly ... and wearing pijamas.

The meals themselves were very good. My bison burger with pepper jack cheese was cooked to medium well even though I ordered it as medium, but it was still very good, as were the sweet potato fries. The wife loved her lemon zest pancakes.

So to summarize: worth checking out and not too expensive.

Did you know: Hell's Kitchen is unrelated to Gordon Ramsay or his show of the same name.

Impact of festivals on downtown

2011-07-20T21:00:00.002-05:00

I was on Winnipeg Internet Pundits today talking about the impact of festivals like Fringe on Winnipeg's downtown. You can (and should!) listen to the show's pod cast, but I thought I would type out the gist of what I talked about.

This came about because I opened my twitter yap last week suggesting it as a topic for the regular insightful WIPs gang to discuss, so of course I end up having to talk about it instead. That's okay though. Good excuse to get back down to the 101.5 studio, meet the gang (and Paul Hesse) and torture the air waves with my broken muffler-esq voice.

From an economics perspective, you can put a dollar value on things like festivals. You can google it and find lots of examples. I have some experience valuing things, having worked as an RA in University on a government-funded project to value Manitoba's wilderness, and I also at one time surveyed studies on the value of a human life for reasons that I don't recall (varies widely depending on methodology, but median was around $6-8 million at the time. Less if you're left handed. Just kidding.)

Right, so let's get down to it: looking at Fringe , in 2010 there were 86,717 tickets sold plus additional attendance at free events for about 150,00 total. Ignoring the freeloaders (though they spend money too) let's just ball park $15 per person -- $9 for a ticket plus a couple drinks each. This may be high, but the freeloaders will make up for that. That works out to $1.3 million in direct spending downtown.

The Ontario Trillium Foundation estimates that with large-ish festivals like Fringe, about 10% of the attendees come from other provinces. Let's say 10% x 86,717 = 8,671 tickets @ one show per night = 8,671 tourist nights in Winnipeg; at $150 per night = $1.3 million in tourism spending downtown.

Plus, the budget for the Fringe festival itself was about $650,000, for a sub-total of $3.2 million.

Why just a sub-total? Because you forgot the multiplier! The multiplier says that each dollar spent reverberates around in the economy like a wave, creating additional impact until it fades away. Economists like multipliers because it lets them make numbers bigger without doing any additional work. Again, there are varying estimates but they seem to gravitate between 1.2 and 1.5. This detailed Scottish study puts the local multiplier at 1.25, which works out well for me because it gives me a nice even number: $3.2 million x 1.25 = $4.0 million economic impact.

The Jazz Winnipeg Festival does not seem to like publishing ticket sales, but I phoned them and the lady I spoke to estimated that there were about 40,000 sold. That's about half the Fringe total, but average cost is much higher. Without better information, let's be lazy and say another $4 million there.

Those two downtown fests alone bring something close to $8 million in annual economic impact to the area. That's what we in the biz call a "gee whiz" number. Nice and big. Looks great in a tourism brochure.

Economic impact is great and all -- it means some pay cheques are bigger and some businesses are more profitable -- but that's only part of the story. Maybe more important is the long term impact on the vitality and image of downtown Winnipeg.

The Fringe and Jazz fests both started around 1988. Back then the exchange district was known mostly for it's hookers and Chinese food. The hookers are now gone and the area has cleaned up substantially, and I submit that the festivals were one of the keys to giving the area that nudge in the right direction.

When I was 18 I recall going to Old Market Square and watching the Jazz Fest and thinking "this is really cool." It changed my impression of the area. It is not just a place where weirdos and johns go. It's a place where you and other normal people can go and enjoy yourselves. And when you go there, you see unique businesses like Hoopers or The King's Head or Hillary Druxman, and you go back and check them out sometime and discover other places and become a fan of the area. All because you went to a Fringe play.

This happens bit by bit. It is a slow transformation but a sure one that has helped drive the growth momentum in Downtown Winnipeg and especially in the Exchange. I think that, moreso than the actual festival spending during those few weeks in the summer, is the most important impact, because it's cumulative and lasting.

Updated: Caption Contest!

2011-07-14T20:20:00.002-05:00

Caption contest Winners!

With a little bit of help from production floor staff at the Anybody Want A Peanut t-shirt factory, we have selected the winners:

Shaun Wheeler

Manitoba: Because we've all woken up in a strange place after a night of drinking

Runner up: Reed Soloman

The Manitoba Government's plan to kill Purple Loosestrife with a controlled release of Polar Bears got off to a rocky start today when instead of destroying the weed in a fit of rage, the Polar Bears frolicked and later attacked the cameraman in a drunken stupor. When asked how it will deal with the increased population of Polar Bears, conservation Minister Bill Blaikie replied "That's when we release the genetically engineered velociraptors. It's all a part of the circle of life.

Reed gets points for most elaborate caption, plus I like the part about the genetically engineered velociraptors. Congratulations, dudes. Your tickets will be in the mail as soon as I know where to send them.

We sincerely thank all people who entered. I think this was fun, and there were a lot of good entries. I will definitely do it again if somebody else sends me swag.

Thanks also to Eugene and Cineplex Movies.

*************************************************
Welcome to the first ever Anybody Want A Peanut caption contest!

I have some summer movie / IMAX 3D passes to give away courtesy of the nice folks over at Cineplex Entertainment. Rather than randomly giving away tickets, I thought I should make you work for your movie, and I found my inspiration when I visited the Manitoba Government website http://www.gov.mb.ca/

I am sure that a full 0.000001% of Manitobans have seen a polar bear in a meadow of purple flowers, so it is certainly an appropriate picture to represent our province. As soon as I saw it I began thinking of captions, like:

WTF? Maybe I was supposed to turn left at York Factory

I think you can do better. Send me your captions, and I'll pick some winners and send them a couple tickets. You can leave your caption in the comments of this post or you can send me an email at cherenkov *at* live.com, but make sure I have some way to get a hold of you.

The contest closes on ~~Tuesday, July 19~~ Wednesday, July 13. NOTE NEW DEADLINE!!

update: purely by accident, I stumbled upon the ad agency that created this web page: McKim Cringan George. They also did the new City of Regina logo that I mentioned a couple months ago, and a bunch of other stuff you would recognize, like the very cool Folk Festival posters.

New Winnipeg send off

2011-07-13T21:20:00.000-05:00

If you haven't already, I encourage you to read Shaun's summary of the demise of the New Winnipeg internet forum if you were ever one of the NWers.

Read it? Good. Now I don't have to write all of the same stuff.

NW was a good time waster for the slow periods at work, but it was also the source of a great deal of insightful and passionate discussion. I echo the thoughts of the guys on today's show over at Winnipeg Internet Pundits that it would be a shame for all of that intellectual capital, if you'll allow me to call it that, to be lost for good. There seems to be some sort of archive feature here but I can't seem to make it work.

For all the good things that happened at NW, it was also the cause of this blog's rise from the internet's primordial mud. I created this blog during a prolonged NW outage and my very first post was about NW. I met many good folks at various NW meet-ups, and like the discussions themselves, it would be a shame to lose contact with all of those people, most of whom I only knew through the forum.

Happily there is a movement afoot to arrange one more get-together. Credit goes to Gabriel (aka Munchkinguy) for getting the ball rolling. Shaun has jumped aboard with his blog conceitedjerk.com. So if you're a former forum member, or perhaps just a lurker or autograph seeker, contact either of them, or feel free to contact me (cherenkov *at* live.com) and we'll try to figure out a time and place to meet. We'll get some discussions going, have a few drinks, maybe toss around ideas of what if anything can fill the void and bring fresh discussion that involves thoughts greater than 140 characters in length.

Hope to see you all soon.

related:
Old Chum
One Man Committee

Foreseeable gang war

2011-07-05T14:31:00.001-05:00

So it appears we have a gang war on our hands. A Montreal-style Rock Machine versus Hells Angels blow-em-up kill fest. This here is big-boy gang fighting, not like the amateur north end drive-by nonsense perpetrated by wanna-be gang bangers wearing hoodies and DC sneekers.

How could this have happened? Well, son, it all started back in February 2006 with something called Project Defense. The Manitoba Integrated Organized Crime Task Force, along with the RCMP, Winnipeg Police Service and Brandon Police Service, conducted raids and arrested 13 people including high-ranking Hells Angel Ian Matthew Grant. To accomplish this task, they paid an informant with a "less-than-savoury background" over half a million dollars. (source)

Then in December of 2007, Defense was followed up by Project Drill, in which there were 18 arrests, made possible by paying an informant $650,000 plus expenses, according to court records. (source)

Despite all these arrests, crime continued to escalate. "Many legal experts believe a subsequent rise in Winnipeg street gang crime over the past two years was triggered by the fall of the Hells Angels and an ongoing battle to fill the void and make lucrative profits from the sale of drugs." wrote Mike McIntyre and Jennifer Pawluk in 2009. Perhaps if we made the void larger that might help ... December 2009 was Project Divide, which netted more arrests than the other two combined: 35. Once again, assistance was obtained by purchasing the services of a "longtime criminal" for "at least $500,000 of tax-free money".

Now, in 2011, after paying criminals over $1,650,000 for their assistance and hundreds of thousands more in court costs and witness protection costs, the Hells Angels have been sufficiently neutered to allow the Rock Machine to make a play for our drug market. Hence the shoot-ups and fire bombings.

This was not unforeseeable. I recall some people predicting this outcome back when Project Divide was carried out. Much like overthrowing a corrupt middle-eastern government, unless you can replace it with something better, you risk, in fact, making things worse.

Options:
1) Stop busting the gangs. Let them fight it out and (hopefully) establish a new stable order in the drug underworld.
pros: less violence in the longer term, less money spent on informants, prosecutors and attorneys.
cons: continued violence in the short term, and uninhibited flow of illegal drugs into the community

2) Keep busting the gangs. Follow Projects Defense, Drill and Divide, with Projects Doubtful, Dandelion, Denture Cream, Dampness, Dystopia, etc..
pros: maybe ... just maybe ... the gangs will get the message that Winnipeg is not open for illegal drug business and they will stop trying to infiltrate our city.
cons: but more likely, we will spend millions of dollars and have continued violence on our streets

3) Legalize drugs. A favourite of the Libertarian nut jobs, er, advocates.
pros: easier access to drugs! Wait, I think that's a con. K, forget that. Pros: remove the demand for illegal drugs, thereby permanently neutering the gangs via market forces; Increased tax base with sin taxes on newly legalized drugs.
cons: easier access to drugs. Potential for crippling trade with the U.S.

Tough choices ... What's your favourite option?

also posted/printed in the Winnipeg Free Press

Storm live blog - July 4

2011-07-04T15:20:00.007-05:00

Boy, this will be a waste of time if there's no tornado...

3:00 pm Southdale Standard Time: bubble clouds and rumbling in the distance:

3:30 pm: big heavy rain drops, but not pouring. Lightning & thunder approx 1 sec apart.

3:45 pm: okay ya, now she's raining good and hard:

4:00pm: OK, the rain has stopped and it's clearing up already. WTF? Where's my funnel cloud? What a rip. Worst live blog ever!

Bipole and Beers debate, with bonus doodle of John Baird

2011-06-30T09:39:00.003-05:00

My haphazard notes, impressions, and thoughts in no particular order from the debate Monday night:

Panel:
Dr. Jon Gerrard (Liberal)
Hugh McFadyen (PC)
James Beddome (Green)
Stan Struthers (NDP)

Host/Moderator:
Colin Craig (Cdn Taxpayer Federation)

I missed the openings for Jon and Hugh because my garage door came off the rails and jammed, trapping my truck in my garage. (Yeah, that’s right James: I drive a truck. It’s a small one though and I carpool to work.)

Stan’s opening: we can’t shy away from making the “tough decisions” (an ironic choice of words I thought); if we go down the east side “there will be no sale at the end of the line”, implying that the U.S. will not buy power from us if we do so – a theme that came up several times; and talk of lawsuits etc. for an east-side route. He also said something else interesting: that the west side route would allow exporting power to Saskatchewan, while mocking the idea of building a line all the way over from the east side route. More on that later.

James was as well prepared for the debate as anyone. His position was that Bipole III need not be built at all, and that we should focus on conservation of energy and increasing renewable energy sources instead of exporting to the U.S. with uncertain profit margins, pointing out that the costs of producing hydro power have escalated over the years. (My thought as he was saying this was that from a ‘green’ perspective, exporting hydro power is beneficial because it largely displaces fossil fuel power and reduces green house gas emissions.)

Jon, while acknowledging the inferiority of the west side route, advocated for the under-lake route rather than the east route. At one point, during a discussion about reliability, the conversation turned to east side vs. under lake, which Stan Struthers must have loved. Jon is very soft-spoken and there was a camera blocking my view of him, so for me it was almost like he wasn’t even there.

Hugh generally got the largest applauses of the evening, and argued very cogently on most points. He ran over time on several occasions, and Colin Craig, perhaps showing a little bias, was reluctant to crack the whip and cut him off. There was one time where Hugh voluntarily stopped talking because of shouting from the crowd when Colin refused to prevent him from finishing his somewhat lengthy thought.

Colin was also involved in the funniest moment of the evening, when Professor John Ryan took the microphone to question Hugh’s numbers. His run up to the question was rather long, and Colin took the mic away, only to give it back after protests from the audience, but then there was an amusing little wrestling match over the microphone itself. Colin had a couple pretty good jokes through the evening too, but otherwise left the talking to the politicians. Overall the debate had a good tempo, and Colin deserves credit for that.

Stan Struthers had the unfortunate task of representing the NDP in front of a mostly unsupportive audience, but loyally carried the party’s position. He drew jeers for two things:
1) his claim that the U.S. would not buy power from us if the east side route was chosen, even after former Hydro President and CEO Len Bateman got up and told him he was full of shit (but in slightly different words). Stan was very cagey at first. He said that the U.S. politicians “were very clear” that they would not buy power “if we kept doing things the same way.” Oh, is that very clear? Sounds pretty damn vague to me. He would NOT say “if we build bipole III down the east side”. At least not the first several times it came up, but eventually he did make a more direct connection with the east side which drew boos from the audience who knew better,
2) his mention of privatization. It did not come up as a question, but Stan made sure to weave it in to some of his responses. One time it drew jeers so loud that you couldn’t even hear him talk. “Stop wasting our time” people would yell, during Stan’s futile attempt to convince people that Hugh is actually Gary Filmon, only more evil.

I had some conversations with the candidates after the meeting. Highlights:

Jon Gerrard: I questioned Jon about confusing an already confusing topic by adding the third underwater alternative, suggesting that if he sided with Hugh leading up to the election it would give voters two clear choices and would maximize the chance that the west side route would not be built. Jon would not be swayed however, and insisted that the underwater route needs to be on the table right now. I think I insulted him a little bit when I said it wouldn’t get built because the Liberals would never win power, but he rightfully pointed out that they could hold the balance of power and have influence that way.

James Beddome: I had a good time talking with James, who it turns out is not a stranger to this blog. He and I agree on certain things, like the concept of inverted Hydro rates and allowing small private generators of electricity to feed power back into the grid. At one point when I was talking to James, Hugh came over to complement James on his intellectual consistency and his thoughtful arguments. I also found out that his nick name is Jimmy Bop, although I thought Elle (Federal NDP candidate) said “Jiffy Pop”, so I will forevermore refer to James as Jiffy Pop.

Hugh McFadyen: I had a good chat with Hugh too, about converters and the west side route. When I suggested the underwater route would allow us to avoid the most problematic areas of the east side, Hugh said no, not really, because the underwater route may still go through Poplar River traditional territory, and they are the First Nation most opposed Bipole III.

On the converter issue, I argued that he should include converters in his cost estimates for the East side to give his numbers more credibility, and also to undermine the NDP’s only argument related to reliability. When Stan Struthers was questioned on reliability all he had was the fact that they are building new converts to add redundancy to the Dorsey station – something the PCs would likely do too, but cannot claim because they are not including the costs in their estimate. Hugh tells me that for technical reasons the converters for an east side route would be cheaper than the west side converters, but reliable estimates are not available yet.

Finally, Stan Struthers: I questioned Stan on one thing – his claim about being able to export power to Saskatchewan more easily from the West side. I pointed out that both lines terminate south of the city, so is he claiming that we can just splint into the line half way down and divert power off to Saskatchewan?

Stan: the engineers have assured us that we can send power to Saskatchewan.
Me: but you will need converters
Stan: we’re building converters
Me: but those converters are located south of Winnipeg, the same place as the East side converters would be.
Stan: but the west side route goes closer to Saskatchewan.
Me: so you’re saying you would build extra converters somewhere up near Dauphin to export power?
Stan: we’ve already factored in converters
Me: Yes, but those converters are south of Winnipeg. Either way, you’re running a line from Winnipeg to Saskatchewan
Stan: no we would run it from up near Dauphin
[repeat above conversation 4x]
Me: Okay, but you would need additional converters for that, which would cost billions more dollars
Stan: Well, we would sell them billions of dollars in power.

Wow, that was … more difficult than it should have been.

One last note: the power sales to the U.S. are in U.S. currency. Should the bottom fall out of the $US, Hydro would be in big trouble. The scuttlebutt Monday night after the debate was that the infamous NY whistleblower was fired in part because she suggested the possibility of Hydro going bankrupt as a result of a drop in the American dollar.

****

Now, as your reward for making it through all of that, I give to you the latest in my long tradition of offensive comic panels. This is a doodle I did on my coffee break on Monday when I found out that John Baird was visiting the rebels in Libya:

UPDATED: The new Longboat development on Portage

2011-06-29T00:06:00.001-05:00

There is not much I can say about the project that One Man Committee hasn't already said, but it should be noted that this isn't quite a done deal just yet. I'm sure it will be, but certain details need to be worked out over the coming weeks. Those details could include the delisting of the former A&B Sound building from the heritage building list. The Mitchell Copp building is also a class II heritage building, and I'm not clear on what is required in order to demo that but maintain the facade. Whatever it is I don't anticipate it being a problem. I am sure that if Chipman wants a building delisted our politicians will trample over each other running to the office of whoever is in charge of delisting.

click to enlarge:

******
The Free Press has a little bit of advance info on the Longboat develpment, to be announced tomorrow. Most of what I have heard agrees with the Free Press article: there were be a base of about 4-5 stories for retail and office space, and the hotel will be built on top of that. Most of the buildings on the block will be demolished inclding A&B Sound, but the facade of the Mitchell Copp building will be retained.

The design is a Stantec design. Stantec has been involved in many projects, but some urbanists may remember them most for the maligned WRHA building on Main St. The Longboat development should receive a much better response. There will be street-level retail, and the upper floors will be office/commercial, and the hotel will be a mid-rise tower on top of that. Office tenants could include Stantec itself, which is rumoured to be moving it's head office to downtown from its current location on Waverley.

It's a pretty exciting development. The relocation of the Stantec head office -- if it does happen -- is particularly positive in light of the recent story of Western Financial Group abandoning the core because of safety concerns.

Some people may be alarmed about more buildings being torn down, but this is the type of development that downtown needs -- more retail off the side walk, more people working and staying downtown -- and it would not happen if we insisted on holding on to the current buildings. The Mitchell Copp building is completely useless and uninhabitable, and the A&B Sound building is an awkward space that would be difficult to repurpose and integrate into a new development, although I happen to think it would make a great space for a casino.

We at the Peanut are looking forward to the announcement.

UPDATED: Bipole, Beers, and (sigh...) more math

2011-06-26T18:51:00.003-05:00

UPDATE: I talked to Hugh McFadyen about converters. He conceded that they are planning to build new converters for the east side route, but that for technical reasons they would not be as expensive as the west side converters ... they just don't know how much less expensive. I'm not about to make a wild guess, so I'm leaving my number alone, but consider it a starting point. It could be much higher. Given that the west side converters could cost upwards of $2.6b, even a small % difference in price would make a big difference to my number.

Also, under the other things to consider category: I heard suggestions last night that Hydro is using an estimate of $1000/acre as the price for acquiring farmland for their right of way, which might not be bad if you're buying a whole section, but if you're only buying a strip of land through the middle of a field, not many farmers are likely to bite. Hydro said it will not expropriate land, so expect the cost of negotiated settlements to increase greatly.

****

Every time I do a post on Bipole III I think it's going to be my last, but invariably they keep pulling me back in. They = every politician who is confusing the fuck out of the population.

There is of course a ridiculous discrepancy between the competing estimates of what the additional cost will be of building our new HVDC power line down the longer west side route versus the more direct east side route. The PCs say it will be $11,748 per family. The NDP says it will be $13.68 per household. As you might imagine, virtually every assumption in these calculations is different: the route costs, inclusion of line losses, amortization of costs, population figures, etc.. I was tossing around the idea of bridging one number to the next, in much the same way as that old video (which I can't seem to find anywhere) showed Courtney Love transforming from a hot starlet into a disgusting junkie. However, that would have been much too much work, so instead I'll calculate my own numbers from scratch.

I am doing this because I have not really seen any good analysis of this data out there in the Media. The Press has been reporting the numbers and doing some peripheral commentary on them, but the reader must still be left thinking "so who am I supposed to believe? What is the REAL number?"

The best analysis I have seen so far comes from up-and-coming blogger Westerner with his Land of Ice and Grain blog. Westerner has been doing some good work with his blog, and I encourage you to read his post on Bipole III because it has good critique of some of the methods used by the two parties, and lots of links to lots of data sources.

So here we go. I am going to try to keep this as simple as possible:

TRANSMISSION COSTS

This is my source for the west side costs.

Original: $1133 million

Addendum: $1477

New March 2011: $1451

New leaked estimate: $1516*

I will forego the leaked estimate in favour of the new official estimate:

West side: $1451 million

Cost of the east side line:

The PCs say $600 million, plus $188m for licensing costs. I could not find this amount in my scan of the source that they listed, so I'm not sure I trust this number, but I suspect that it is an original estimate -- not an updated one suitable for a comparison.

This Free Press article says that Hydro pegged the additional cost at $571m. At the time, the official estimate for the West side was still the original estimate of $1134m, which puts the East side cost at 1134-571=563 ..even less than the PC estimate. I suspect, however, that they were basing it on updated costs, perhaps the 2009 CPJ addendum costs which place the West side transmission at $1477m, which means the East side would be $906m. It is hypocritical for Brennan and the NDP to use updated costs for the East side route, but original costs for the west side route. I will go with newest March 2011 numbers because I used those numbers for the west side as well. $1451-571=880. This puts the cost per km almost on par with the west side route.

East side: $880 million

Incremental cost: $571 million

LINE LOSSES

This one is pretty simple: the number being used by the PCs based on a leaked Hydro report is $300m. I haven't heard anyone dispute this number (which means it's probably higher) so I'll use it.

In Brennan's $13 estimate, by the way, he treats line losses as follows: "I did not include what Mr. McFadyen was talking about, increases losses that occur, I excluded that." Way to go, Bob. "What Mr. McFadyen was talking about" in reference to the waste of enough electricity to power every household in Brandon. Aren't you due for retirement or a heart attack or something?

Incremental cost: $300 million

CONVERTER COSTS

Here is where the biggest confusion lays. Bob Brennan, in a waffling sort of way, is on record as saying that new converters are needed for both routes. The NDP doesn't waffle on this at all. They say converters are required for both sides, period. End of story. The PCs, on the other hand, do not include converters in their estimate. Who is right?

Here are Brennan's exact words:

Mr. Brennan: When we originally looked at the proposal to build the line down the east side, it was at that point being tied in to the existing conversion equipment, and at that point, it was–the converter stations, without considering new generation being added to the system or the reliability associated with something happening to the existing converter stations, it was not included at that point.
When we went to the west side, there was a need to have conversion equipment which, in our opinion, took away reliability issues that we had at that time and at the same time provided for new generation to be able to come down the line at that point in time. So conversion equipment should be considered on both sides in our view.

At first, I thought Brennan was full of shit. The routing study only mentioned converters for the East side as an afterthought, to mitigate the unlikely catastrophic loss of the Dorsey station. The secret leaked report that the PCs cite for some of their numbers also says that the converters are not required for the east side, but then it also says the following (section 5.1):

Converters would be required on the east route to facilitate additional northern generation to be sent south but would not be required to, at present, solve the reliability concern for HVdc line outages.

So there you go. It seems implausible that the routing study would not take into consideration added capacity, but I am now inclined to believe that converters are indeed required for the east side, even though the original design point was to tie it into the existing Dorsey converters. Perhaps the construction of new converters could be delayed for the east side, thereby saving money, but let's assume not:

Incremental cost: $0

TOTAL INCREMENTAL COST: $871 million

This is lower than what the Canadian Taxpayer Federation is reporting, but my research assistants here at Anybody Want A Peanut assure me that it is a fair and conservative figure.

Now, since everybody insists on doing this as some sort of per capita cost, I might as well too. The PCs use a family of four (total pop/4). Brennan uses some household number from the future. I personally like Westerner's idea of using rate payers. I think it is the most logical way to do it. There are about 510,000 rate payers, so the average cost per rate payer is:

$1,708 per ratepayer

There's your number. I give you permission to use this free of charge. You don't even have to give me credit.

This is still far from the end of the Bipole III story. The costs are sure to continue increasing, the process of buying farmers out of their land is only beginning, and there are numerous adjustments one could take to account for the time value of money, among other things.

There are also the very major issues that the West route is far less reliable, in that it is much more susceptible to natural disasters, unable to carry the load should the interlake HVDC lines get blown down again, whereas this is not a problem with the east route; and building down the west side would require a new Bipole IV line to be build 25 years sooner according to this report. All of this is potentially very costly and favours the east route.

***

There is a "Beers and Bipole" doohicky Monday evening, June 27, hosted by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and featuring Hugh "I'm not Filmon" McFadyen, Jon "the good doctor, but gosh I wish he had more charisma" Gerrard, James "who?" Beddome, and Minister Stan "my boss is too busy for this shit, but I have no idea why Wowchuk can't make it" Struthers. That ought to be interesting, if you find this kind of thing interesting. If you made it this far in post I can assume that perhaps you do, so go and grab yourself a beer, and listen to the politicians continue to confuse the fuck out of everybody. Beer: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems (except probably Bipole).

(credit goes to Homer Simpson for that last line.)

* Leaked estimate was $4.1m total cost. Converter costs went up 132%, which puts them at $2584m, which leaves $1516m for transmission costs.

Peter Falk and the HBC mug

2011-06-24T16:19:00.000-05:00

Acting legend Peter Falk passed away yesterday. Though best known for his Emmy-winning role Columbo, Falk was also the narrator of this blog's namesake movie: The Princess Bride.

Here's a neat little factoid about that: as Falk's character is reading the story to his grandson, played by Fred Savage, he drinks coffee from an Hudson's Bay Co. coffee mug:

Completely useless trivia, yes, but this blog is nothing if not completely useless, so there you go.

Rest in peace, Mr. Falk.

Corydon-Osborne open house

2011-06-23T13:06:00.005-05:00

"If it's broken, fix it, but don't change it."

That was a quote from a kid, like 14 years old or something, on CTV news last night. Smart kid. Winnipeg's Property Planning and Development department should listen to him.

PPD held an open house for their plan to tamper with the success of the Corydon/Osborne area. Er, I mean, "enable a 20 year vision". Needing a coffee after work, I decided to drop by because I've been to these open houses before and I know they have coffee. In fact, not only did they

have coffee, but juice boxes, fruit bars, and cookies!

I am no longer a resident of this hip urban area. I am now a back-yard hamburger-flipping suburb dweller. I am still a frequent visitor to my old hood, however, and thus am somewhat concerned about what well-intentioned bureaucrats might do to it.

In case you missed the open house, which is likely given that it was not well advertised in advance and poorly attended, I shall give you a quick run-down.

Part of it focused on development around the new rapid transit hub. You know -- the one that runs from downtown all the way to one-third of the way to somewhere that people might want to go. I personally have a hard time seeing a vibrant mixed use area evolving around the transit

station, with it being framed by major thoroughfares and railway tracks and all, but best of luck

to them. I get the impression from talking to the PPD guys that some of the land owners, like the Masonic Temple, are waiting for the opportunity to make some big coin selling their land.

Corydon, however, seems to be the major focus. There was a lot of discussion about Corydon. In the initial design workshop, the small group of Chosen Ones were given worksheets on which to doodle their impressions of the current state of the Corydon strip, like this:

or like this, my favourite:

Chicken Delight looks so happy to have made the list of important features! It makes me smile. :-)

The panel also commented on various options for the area. The stars, I suppose, indicate the most favorable options:

My general impression, not just from the charts but moreso from listening to the PPD reps, was that there is a great desire to increase open space -- green space, plazas or piazzas, "pocket parks" and so on. They REALLY want to do something here, whether it be force business owners to build open space adjacent to the sidewalk, or to construct little patio areas at intersections or whatever.

Cross-referencing that with The View from Seven's "how not to kill Corydon" checklist:

No formal open space: “There are no parks, plazas, or other places of repose in the [entertainment zone]. Other than parking lots, the only outdoor open space is private and is associated with bars…”

I think they may be on the wrong track here.

One interesting idea that came out in conversation with the reps was to close off street parking on one side of Corydon so that the whole lane could be turned into a big patio. Interesting as in "isn't it interesting that businesses are losing customers because there is no where to park" or "isn't it interesting that residential streets 5 blocks over are packed with cars now?" or "isn't it interesting how there are so many skateboarders here now".

The one rep kept saying that they are still in the very early stages of the plan. Marty Gold, who was hanging out at open house, seems to disagree with that but I'll let him tell you more about it. (Call me crazy, but I think I noticed a wee little bit of electricity in the air when Jenny Gerbasi walked by Marty.) They do seemed to have learned something from the not-so-great active transportation project last year. Last year, they basically presented completed plans and said: "Here you go. This is what we are doing, and now we are pretending to consult with you. See our plan. Admire our plan. Now go away. Oh, but don't forget to sign the sheet!". This time, the information was all pretty vague. It's like a game where you have to guess what they have up their sleeve. Perhaps they really do want your input, but they're not going to get much of it based on the attendance last night. Perhaps that's the idea: have a poorly attended open house just so that they can say they tried to consult with the community.

If you have something to say about the plans, contact Valdene Buckley and let her know what you think.

My advice to the planners: have clear building guidelines to address major concerns like parking in front instead of behind, and encourage organic growth, but be very careful about screwing up something that already works quite well. Kinda like the kid said.

City financing: thoughts from the peanut gallery

2011-06-21T14:22:00.003-05:00

I am going to tread on other peoples' turf here. There are other pundits who are more knowledgeable about City financing than myself, like this guy and this guy. However I am still compelled to chime in because I don't believe this pony has been flogged quite enough. We have been hearing and reading about "new deals" and calls for a share of the PST and whatnot for years, but the whining from the Mayor for more money continues, and is sure to continue as long as the City of Winnipeg is dependent upon the province for funding.

Incidentally, I was just watching feeding time on the falcon cam, and it struck me that it very much resembles the relationship between Sam Katz and the Provincial government.

Yes, we could cut a new deal for a share of the PST or some other revenue stream from the province, but wouldn't it be better if the City wasn't dependant on the province at all? When any organization is responsible for funding itself it tends to be more responsible with its money. This is true with people and this is true with governments. You need look no further than our provincial government and it's free spending ways as evidence of that.

How would you like it if the City could fund itself AND decrease property taxes? While the City of Winnipeg is squawking and begging for Mother Broadway to tear off hunks of it's revenue and stuff it down it's gullet (okay, maybe the falcon metaphor isn't great), the City is collecting close to half a billion dollars a year for the Province. Education is a provincial responsibility, but it is funded in part through property taxes collected by the cities and municipalities. I do not know why it is the way it is, but I suspect it's just one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time and nobody has ever bothered to change it.

This blog post is certainly not the first time that somebody has suggested taking education off the property tax roll, but each time it seems to be shrugged off as some unobtainable pie-in-the-sky idea. The political landscape in these parts, both at the provincial and civic level, has been devoid of bold ideas for far too long. Perhaps it is time to take this concept a little more seriously.

Transfers to the City from the Province in 2009 totaled $187m (both operating and capital). As mentioned, the City collected $474m in school taxes for the Province. If the Province funded education in its entirety and dropped the transfers, the City would have room to increase property taxes to fund itself and still able to reduce the overall property tax bill. In fact, they could increase their revenues by $250m while still reducing the tax bill. No more complaining about not getting enough money from the province to fix roads!

The PC party needs more votes in Winnipeg if they want to form the next government. This issue could be a winner for them. Vote for us: we will reduce your property taxes! Of course, that leaves the Provincial government with a $287m hole to fill, but giving up a point of the PST would be almost as painful. Stop me if I'm out out to lunch here, but if we need to increase funding to Winnipeg this is the best way to do it, plus it simplifies the education funding situation:

We elect trustees for each school division who have the task of setting a budget. While the Province imposes various requirements on them and does not give them the autonomy to close underutilized schools, they also cannot raise the mill rate or else the Provincial government will punish them by withholding their "tax incentive grant". They are between a rock and a hard place. That would no longer be a problem if everything was funded centrally.

If $287m is too big of a pill for the Province to swallow, they could always reduce but not eliminate the education property tax. Have a smaller fixed mill rate for education but still eliminate transfers from the Province to the City. Provincial funding will no longer be driven by what provides the best photo op. No more whining to the province for money and no more sharing the spotlight with a grinning Premier when the ribbon is cut.

Do you want another helicopter? Fund it yourself. Too many pot holes? Fix them yourself. Is the traffic snarled all the time at the new IKEA? Increase taxes by a quarter point and build a bloody overpass like you should have right from the start. You have control over your own revenues. You get the credit. All you have to do is justify it to the tax payers -- as it should be.

School taxes collected by the City:

2008 $465m

2009 $474m

Transfers to the City from the Province:

Operating Capital Total

2008 $135m $53m $188m

2009 $123m $64m $187m

http://winnipeg.ca/finance/files/2009AnnualReport.pdf

Schram Hockey

2011-06-16T13:37:00.001-05:00

Back in high school we had a phys ed teacher named Schram. He had a first name, but nobody used it. Anyhow, one of almost every student's favourite activities during phys ed class was a sport we dubbed "Schram ball". The rules are as follows:

1. there is a net in opposite corners of the gym
2. put the ball in the other team's net

Those are the rules. You can kick the ball, throw the ball, carry the ball. You can body check, grab, tackle. Whatever you want. I suppose eye gouging was frowned upon, but there was no explicit rule against it.

I tell you this, because last night's game 7 Stanley Cup final was not unlike Schram Ball. It was not the same sport that the Canucks excelled at during the regular season. It was a slightly different sport. One where slashing, holding and interference were legal. Now, I am generally a fan of physical hockey and "letting them play", but you don't need dirty hockey to have an exciting game. The 2011 Winter Olympic final is a good example of that.

Set the tone early by chucking people who hold or interfere into the bin, and then pull back a bit and refrain from calling any marginal stuff. That gets you good hockey. You know, I'm not sure that Aaron Rome's hit that earned him a 4 game suspension would have even earned him a minor penalty last night.

And this is certainly no excuse for the rioting after the game. That unfortunate debacle could ruin the chances of us watching the Jets on the big screen at 201 Portage if they ever make a playoff run. However, when you get so far only to have the rules changed on you, it would be very aggravating. Especially when the new rules hurt your best players and favour the other team.

It was certainly a deliberate decision - one that the refs discussed prior to the game. Perhaps they even received direction from league VP of Hockey Operations Mike Murphy on how to call the game. The same Mike Murphy who suspended Rome for 4 games based not on precedent, but on a gut feeling. The same Mike Murphy who overturned a Canuck goal in the first round last year upon video review, then later admitted it was the wrong call -- according to this wiki article.

Whoever made the decision, it's something for the league's owners and new director of officiating to think about before next year's playoffs. (note: I am a little bit bitter because I was cheering for the Canucks, so you can take that into account. )

related local post: S&M

An award for what now??

2011-06-09T10:35:00.001-05:00

An award for the best parking lot strikes me as being the kind of thing that you would only find in Winnipeg.

The first "gold standard" award for parking lots will be awarded to FNP Parking, operators of the Portage Place underground parkade. - fp -

Seriously? A parking lot? Congratulations! You've done an outstanding job at being a flat empty space with lines!

Okay, so we'll give out an award for parking lots, but is this really the best parking lot that Winnipeg has to offer? I mean, it's not bad... I park there for work because of convenience, and it's often where I park for Moose games or concerts. They repaint the lines periodically and indoor parking with skywalk access to the arena for $5 is pretty good. But the best? Allow me to take you through my parking lot experience today:

Go through the door with the gold star for parking excellence:

See that the elevator is still busted after more than a week:

Go into the stairwell to take the stairs, passing the used condoms:

Watch out for the exposed electrical!

Wasn't that a great experience? At least the ticket paying machine is working now. So ... congratulations to FNP! Keep up the good work!

Return of the Jets / Portage & Main party

2011-06-01T00:32:00.002-05:00

As a Winnipeg blogger I am obligated by an obscure bi-law to write a post about the return of the NHL to our fair city. Okay, I'll do it, but it will be mostly pictures.

The long awaited moment -- even longer awaited than IKEA -- has finally come! The press conference this morning confirmed it. Chipman was professional and passionate in his announcement. Bettman looked like he was telling his patient that he had inoperable brain cancer. Premier Selinger's speech went something like this:

It's such a pleasure to be here for this announcement. It wasn't long ago that we retired Mark Keane's jersey. Mark was such an outstanding player and he sold me a great mattress. No wait, that was David Keane. Haha. Yooooouuuu'll find us! I love that guy! Except he drives too fast. No wait, that was Steve McQueen. Great actor. Loved it when he sang happy birthday to the President. No wait, that was Norma Jean. Norma Jean is not my lover.She's just a girl that says I am the one. Haha. Where was I? Oh right, welcome back to the NFL!

Oh well, we all make mistakes. The important thing is: we're getting the Jets back!

You hear three things as you approach Portage and Main from the south: wind howling through the buildings, beer cans clanking along the road, and the din of a crowd. The closer you get, the more the crowd noise takes over, until you find yourself in the midst of a mob. Here are a few photos and a video of a conga line that eventually encircled almost the entire intersection.

A story about Regina

2011-05-26T09:31:00.003-05:00

For reasons that I'll leave unexplained, I ended up in Regina last weekend. Saturday, what was to be the Day of Reckoning, was an overcast drizzly sort of day. I found myself downtown taking a short walk in the early evening.

As I walked past city hall and approached the drab-looking public library on 12th Ave, a gust of cool wind hit me. I looked at my watch: 6:00 pm. Isn't that the time that the Rapture was supposed to happen? The was no earthquake. No fireballs raining down from the heavens. Ha! I knew this end of days stuff was all nonsense.

I continued on my journey for a few steps before freezing in my tracks...

Wait a minute -- I looked up Smith Street, I looked back down 12th, I looked up towards Victoria Park -- everybody was gone! My GOD. It DID happen! I was expecting more drama, but the rapture took everybody and left only ME! Oh wait .. I'm in downtown Regina. Heh. Nevermind. Unless ... unless this is just the beginning of my 5-month period of horrible torment!

It was an uneventful walk .. there were few people milling about. I ran across only one homeless dude, who, maybe not politely, but meekly asked if I had any change, and I likewise ran across relatively few clean-cut people. As I often do when I'm in the downtowns of other cities, I draw comparisons to Winnipeg. Regina has a block of Scarth St. closed to traffic -- something that we've talked about doing in Winnipeg (perhaps Albert St.) although Scarth St. tends to be mostly vacant of people whenever I go there. Perhaps after Regina finishes renovating Victoria Park into some hybrid of Winnipeg's Central Park and Old market Square, there will be a larger mass of people attracted to the area ... though I doubt it. In terms of liveliness, Winnipeg definitely has the edge, except on nights when the Riders play. Winnipeg also has more shops, restaurants, and more and nicer heritage buildings.

It's not everyday that a Winnipegger can feel smug in the core of another city ... and then I came across a construction crane. There was a sign with a diagram of what is to be a third Hill Centre office tower, adjacent to the two trademark towers that are highlighted in Regina's logo, with the Mosiac head office as the lead tenant. I guess Regina will have to redesign their logo now. A quick look on the Skyscraper Page shows two additional proposed buildings which would be the two tallest structures in the city, and another 16 story office building, all of which appear to be driven by private investment.

Geeze .. when was the last time Winnipeg had construction like this from private investment? A few years back, a company called Crystal Developers was prepared to build a 15 story apartment building downtown, but current and former politicians and other miscellaneous elites made damn sure that wouldn't happen through a media-driven campaign of public deception and private arm-twisting. As a result, our skyline has remained untarnished by private development for many years now.

Feeling glum, I picked up a copy of Regina's local freebee paper and headed back to the hotel. Maybe this hillbilly publication will cheer me up with stories about the quaint little accomplishments of simple Regina folk. Back in the room, I brew a coffee, sit down, turn the page and read: "Winnipeg’s screw ups are a free lesson for Regina". Gaaaa! Even the Prairie Dog is beating us down.

The editorial, which reads like a blog post, riffs off of the Globe and Mail story about Winnipeg's downtown revitalization. It is written by the editor of the Prairie Dog who grew up in Winnipeg and "spent the first half of his life going bananas watching Winnipeg wreck itself"; and it contains a couple zingers, like:

When I think about the place I think of how Regina’s future could go horribly, horribly wrong. And I don’t just mean we could have a football team as bad as the Bombers.

Ouch.

He ends up concluding the same thing that the G&M piece does: that Winnipeg is heading in the right direction. "Even the dorkiest politicians are starting to get it." (He is referring to Sam Katz, in case you're wondering). Like Winnipeg, Regina is developing a comprehensive community plan. Unlike Winnipeg, they may actually follow it. When writing the curriculum for these free lessons for Regina, this should be at least one module: "Community planning -- more than just creating a document?" Other modules could include:

Creating traffic chaos with bike paths
Designing a new logo -- perhaps something that looks like a nipple?
Infrastructure planning: traffic lights good, overpasses bad.
Bait and switch with schools in new developments, and other ways to screw up sprawl.
Street banners -- the more the merrier.
How to be "world class": IKEA, Helicopters and waterparks

We could have a whole undergrad program on botching up rapid transit. Anyhow, we should all learn from each other, and I wish Regina luck with their own revitalization. Don't blow too much money on Victoria Park.

*****

Although Winnipeg's skyscraper diagram page doesn't show anything proposed or under construction, there is some reason to be hopeful of new development downtown. First, there is a promising project brewing for the A&B Sound Building and adjacent area. Expect to hear more about that in the coming months. [UPDATE: Bart Kives has a story about this on the Freep website today]

Also, Crystal Developers, who should be given credit for not blowing off our city entirely, may eventually start building their new Heritage Landing project on the problematic Assiniboine Ave. lot that we stuck them with after screwing them out of the Fort Street location.

Also, it appears as though Regina does have a new logo (and slogan) although you don't actually see it anywhere when you're in the city. Sadly, it does not look like a nipple. I don't really like the new logo, but I'm glad they changed it because the old one bugged me because it was inaccurate. There was no angle from which the Hill Centre towers appear as they do in that logo.

Harpers new cabinet

2011-05-18T22:55:00.003-05:00

Today, PM Stephen Harper appointed his new majority cabinet, with 39 MPs. People are calling it "bloated" and other derogatory things, simply because it's bigger than any other country's cabinet. For example, it is almost twice the size of the UK's cabinet, even though they have 650 MPs, 362 of which are part of the ruling coalition.

Well, to those of you who are all outraged by this symbolic example of government excess: have you ever considered that perhaps our cabinet is just the right size, and that every other country's is too small? Out of the UK's ruling Conservative/Lib Dem reckless coalition's 362 MPs, only 23 have been awarded full cabinet posts. In other words, only 6% of them are doing anything useful. The rest are probably just sitting there, collecting fat paychecks and charging their moat-cleaning bill to the tax payers.

By contrast, out of Harper's 167 Conservative MPs, 39 of them, or 23%, have cabinet posts. That's productive! Why not mobilize all the soldiers you can to take advantage of this historic opportunity to right all of the wrongs created by 5 years of minority rule and a decade of destructive Liberal negligence? You would be irresponsible not to.

With an inept minority opposition mostly composed of NDP newbies who need a GPS to find Parliament Hill, the government should have no trouble implementing the real conservative agenda that they have been yearning for all these years. With all these guys at work, I expect that within 1 year we'll have an elected senate with term limits, a balanced budget, and reduced crime. They will also unlock the shackles of the Canada Health Act, allowing provinces like Not Manitoba to experiment with health care reforms that could improve service delivery and lower costs.

2 Years, max. After that, they have to start thinking about getting re-elected, so they have to act quickly. But what's stopping them? Nothing! So mobilize those soldiers and go get 'em, Steevo!

Spring Cleanup in St.Vital

2011-05-04T23:25:00.000-05:00

If you're looking to get out and do something Saturday morning, the Bishop Grandin Greenway organization is holding it's annual spring cleanup.

Meet us in the south-west corner of the Home Depot parking lot near Bishop Grandin Blvd. and St.Anne's Rd. We will supply garbage bags and free coffee. All you need to bring are boots, gloves, and yourself!

It starts at 9:30 and goes until round noon. Check in at the Home Depot at St.Annes & Bishop Grandin.

Election 2011: Anybody Want A Peanut? endorses:

2011-05-02T09:56:00.000-05:00

Maybe not "endorses". Everybody sucks. We can't endorse any of them. However, I got together with my advisors and the Anybody Want A Peanut? editorial board to decide who I should vote for.

Here's the thing: An NDP government would be a disaster for the nation. They are a well-intentioned bunch, but the misguided economic policies, spending increases and economic interventionism would be bad news. Fortunately, I don't believe the NDP will win the election. They may be surging, but I think there will be some pull-back today at the voting booth. Just like the first time you go sky diving: when the moment of truth comes, you look out the door of the air plane and say to yourself "what the hell am I doing? This is crazy!" Plus, if the announcement of Osama Bin Laden's death will have any any impact of the Canadian election, it will be to detriment of Jack Layton. It brings an issue to the forefront that Jack is in the minority on, plus it brings new hope that the war in Afghanistan is not futile. In fact, it may be more winnable now than ever before, making an immediate pull-out of troops irresponsible.

Likewise it is clear that the Liberals will not win the election. This is a good thing, because Ignatieff, who could have chosen a fiscally conservative platform, instead chose to veer left into NDP territory. Not quite as far off into the socialist bramble, mind you, but too far for my liking.

I happen to live in a riding that is a battleground between the Liberals and the Conservatives. Between incumbent Conservative Shelley Glover, and former MP Raymond Simard. Those are my only two meaningful choices. Andrew Coyne puts the decision this way: "would the Liberals do more harm to the economy than the Conservatives would do to democracy?" That is a tough question to answer, however, since the Liberals will not win, I don't have to answer it. Instead, the question becomes: do the Conservatives deserve (or need) a majority government?

I have argued before that Harper would be on a path to an easy majority if he was only less of a dweeb. He is his own worst enemy. Every time he gained in the polls, he pulled some aggressive or mean-spirited move that turned off marginal voters and knocked his rating back down. I do not like his style of leadership. I do not agree with many of the things that he has done, and I think his current campaign that primary revolves around coalition fear-mongering is absolutely terrible. I think the Conservatives would do much better under a different leader, and I think the Canada would benefit from that change as well. As a result, I am inclined to say that Harper does not deserve the majority that he is looking for. To give him a majority is to give approval of his horrendous campaign and his systematic destruction of parliamentary process in Ottawa. When this election is over, I want the Conservative advisors to sit down and say to themselves: "Okay, that didn't work. What can we do differently?". Politics in Ottawa is sickening, and it's largely because of Harper.

If there was a chance that any other party would win, I would probably vote Conservative, because the alternatives are even worse. For various reasons I don't believe there will be a Liberal/NDP coalition government if Harper gets a minority, and if there is, I don't think it will last long. Therefore, my decision is based on giving a vote of disapproval to Harper and the Conservatives by voting for Liberal Raymond Simard.

At least that's the decision that my advisors and I came to. I might get a sky-diving flashback and change my mind in the voting booth.

*****

Hey look! A couple of bloggers have awoken from their comas to post special election-edition commentaries!

Hacks and Wonks

Prairie Topiary

Good to see your blogs come alive again.

*****

My election predictions, as tweeted on Friday:
CPC 140, NDP 85, LPC 61, BQ: 21, GPC: 0, Ind: 1

Thoughts on the UofM CUPE 3909 strike vote

2011-05-01T14:56:00.003-05:00

This past Friday, the University of Manitoba union CUPE 3909 representing teaching assistants, markers, and tutors voted to authorize strike action, rejecting the University's contract offer. The issue: wages, job security, and guaranteed hours, according to union President Matt McLean.

When I was at the U of M, I was all three of those things: TA, marker, tutor, as well as a research assistant. In fact, I too participated in a strike vote. I voted "no". Why? Because I had accepted my wage and conditions of employment when I took the job. What grounds did I have to demand more?

Besides, all of these jobs pay very well, relatively speaking. I was paid about double what I made at my weekend job. These were by far the best paying jobs I had in my life, at the time. Oddly, the hourly wage for a marker has not changed much from when I was doing it, although TA wages have gone up a fair bit. Even still, the $13/hr you make as a marker is better than what most students could expect at any alternative employment, which often involves a spatula.

In addition, it was common to get paid for more hours than were worked, especially for markers. My first marking job: I handed back the papers and told the professor that it took me 25 hours to complete them, even though he told me in advance that his budget was for 50 hours. "Are you sure it didn't take you 50 hours?" he asked? "No, only 25" I said. He looked at me like I was some crazy person, before explaining that normally profs are expected to spend their whole budget. I was only being honest, but I didn't know about "the understanding." I didn't make that mistake again.

On principle, I don't generally agree with striking for wages or job security. There are economic implications to having an inflexible labour market that such actions can lead to, but my general attitude can be summed up more simply as: "If you aren't happy with your job, get a different one." Mind you: the work force for these jobs is a captive one -- you can't exactly get a job as a TA at SFU when you're a student at the U of M. But on the other hand, these are plum jobs, and there is a lot of competition for them. I would have done the work for half the money, not just because I needed the money, but because at that stage of my life a TA position was by far the best looking thing on my résumé.

Although I don't agree with striking for wage increases or job security, I can understand the motivation in some circumstances -- but not this one. These are not career jobs. A person can not expect to be a marker or student lecturer for any more than a few years. Job security should be a non-issue, and the wages, for a student, are good. There is no rationale for striking in this stituation except for greed.

Collective bargaining agreement

Tangerine Wheat Beer

2011-04-29T20:22:00.001-05:00

I haven't reviewed a big-ass bottle of microbrew in a while, so now seems like a good time to crack this thing open:

It's Tangerine Wheat Beer, brewed by Lost Coast Brewery & Cafe in Eureka California, and no I didn't leave the beer sitting on the table for 45 minutes before taking the picture. That is a freshly poured beer you're looking at. The head is white and very thin and evaporates in nanoseconds leaving you with a glass of flat orange liquid that could very well be urine from a dehydrated horse.*

I have probably only eaten a tangerine twice in my life, so I can't tell you if it smells or tastes like tangerines or not. My nose is picking up dried apricots (not literally.. my nose isn't that talented) which may very well be similar to tangerine, seeing as they are both fruits. Actually, it has a sweet sort of smell, like a hard fruit candy of some kind. Wheat beers are not generally the most flavourful beverages in the world, although some can be quite tasty. This one has more of a feel than a taste. It is slightly tingly in the mouth with a bit of a metallic fruit flavour, leaving not much behind after disappearing down your throat, except for some reason my saliva glands are going crazy.

Overall, I think this one misses the mark. It might appeal to the sort of person who drinks Bud Light with Lime, though I can't see it being as refreshing on a hot summer day. At 5% alcohol it's not much stronger; and coming in a 650ml bottle, it could be shared with a friend. Or an enemy.

For other perspectives, go here.

*caution: even though it may look like pregnant mare urine, you should not have unprotected sex after drinking this beer.

Revolution fatigue? UPDATED

2011-04-22T23:59:00.002-05:00

Remember Egypt? Remember the protests? Remember the 'round the clock news coverage? Anderson Cooper looking as handsome as ever, even when he was getting pelted in the head?

I think all the North American news cycle can handle is one revolution a year. Maybe a decade. There are other revolutions going on, and one became extra deadly today:

At least 88 people are reported to have been killed in Syria in the bloodiest day since the uprising began, as security forces use live ammunition and tear gas to quell anti-government protests across the country

The AlJazeera story also contains a video with footage from several cities of protests getting fired upon, included blurred-out footage of a kid with his head blown apart. It's not hard to find videos posted by individuals on YouTube too, like this one:

We have an excuse for not paying attention here in Canada. The NHL playoffs are on. Oh, also that election thing.

They probably have good excuses for not paying attention south of the border too. Let's just see what the headline story is on CNN.com. "Lindsay Lohan jailed for violating probation". See there you go. It's not like Syria being ignored completely. On CNN's NewsPulse meter, it's right up there, only 9 spots back of "Snooki's diet plan".

I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to accomplish with this post, except maybe to remind you that there's still stuff going on out there. Stuff that's at least as dramatic as the events in Egypt. Maybe it's also a criticism of the media, and the lack of coverage relative to the Egypt revolution.

But is it really a problem? The media shows us the stuff we want to see, because if they show us stuff we don't care about they'll lose viewers, advertisers and money. If we want to see Lindsay Lohan's ass getting carted off to jail, so be it. It's not the media that's the problem ... it's our priorities. Actually, it's the America's priorities. Our priorities here in Canada are just fine. Hey look, Selanne just got an assist laying on his back!

*** UPDATE ***

Jesus. Apparently Syrian forces are now killing people at funerals of people they killed. This isn't looking promising.

Winnipeg's new NHL team unveiled

2011-04-20T07:35:00.001-05:00

The end of the Phoenix Coyotes' season is nigh, and with that comes the announcement of Winnipeg's new NHL team. The accountants and lawyers have worked out all the details under the shroud of a secrecy agreement to prevent information from being leaked out, but it's tricky to keep everything under wraps. And so it is that I have come across some important information, via a friend of the Peanut who happens to be connected with the Chipman family.

Ever since rumours of the Coyotes coming back to Winnipeg started, there has been speculation about what the name might be. Will they be called the Jets again, or something else? If something else, what?

Well, I have the answer for you. And not only that, I have a prototype of their jersey. They will not be called the Jets, primarily for marketing reasons. Virtually everybody in the city has a Jets jersey in their closet at this point, so there will be a new name and new colours, forcing all true fans to buy new gear. The name will have a connection to the City of Winnipeg, it will invoke the pride of Manitobans everywhere, and will symbolize the best of what we have to offer the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

drumroll....

There is of course a back-up name, in case this one doesn't work out for some reason, though I can't understand how there could possibly be a problem. But just in case: welcome to the Falcons!

(yes, I'm recycling material. Whatcha gonna do about it.)

Who's donating to who?

2011-04-17T17:22:00.000-05:00

This is a phenomenal resource for nosy people:

Federal political party contribution map

You can zoom right in and look up your neighbours to see who they're donating to. You can look up your favourite politician or local minor celebrity to see who they're supporting. Or you can randomly click on spots in Tuxedo like I did when I stumbled across Gail Asper:

Gail has donated thousands to the Conservatives, thousands to the Liberals, and even $1500 to the Green Party, but nothing to the NDP. This is only federal of course. I don't doubt that she has tossed some pesos in the hat of the provincial NDP party. From this, a person could infer that Gail is really a Greeney at heart, but gives to the Tories and Libs for strategic reasons.

Not that it's any of my business. Nor is it yours, I don't think. Yet, here it is, in convenient map form with little coloured bubbles, making it ridiculously easy to find. All the data is provided to the public by Elections Canada, so Elections Canada must think that it is our business.

I suppose a case could be made that it is. There should be a way to find out if the government is being 'bought'. If contracts are being awarded to people who have monetarily supported a party for instance. Or, to borrow a phrase from Marty Gold, if governments are supporting the pet projects of millionaires who happen to donate thousands of dollars to them. But it just seems really odd to me that I can have such easy access to the political donations of random private individuals.

I love this stuff though. I like maps and I like data, so interactive maps with data embedded in them is like cat nip. It's also awesome how Wolseley is so totally NDP. Nothing but brown dots.

h/t David Akin

Modest tax cuts? How about 10th consecutive tax increase?

2011-04-13T17:00:00.000-05:00

My fellow Manitobans, you have seen or read stuff in the press about the modest tax cuts in the new NDP budget. You might therefore be surprised to learn that you will probably be paying more income tax next year, not less. There are various targeted credits that apply to certain specific groups of people, but there is only one broad personal tax cut in this budget: a phased increase to the basic personal exemption of $250 per year over 4 years.

Well, that's pretty good, isn't it? Yes, it's good. The basic personal exemption should increase ... every year. But how much does that actually put in to your pocket? $27 the first year. Yes, that's all. You get 10.8% of that $250. $27.

What you won't read about in the press is the personal tax increase in this budget. Aside from the basic personal amount, your personal taxes otherwise remain unchanged. This means that the tax rates remain unchanged, and the tax brackets remain unchanged. How is that a tax increase you ask? I'll demonstrate:

Suppose the Stephen Harper increased the federal income tax rate by 0.5%. Is that a tax increase? I dare you to say "no". Well, the federal government indexes it's tax brackets. That 0.5% tax increase is equivalent to a 0% tax increase with tax brackets that are not indexed, assuming a 2.3% rate of inflation.* In other words, the money out of your pocket is exactly the same.

The Manitoba government does not index it's tax brackets. It has increased the lower tax threshold only once since 2002, and that was only by a meager 1.5%. Let me show you how that looks in comparison to the Federal tax threshold, and that of our arch nemesis Saskatchewan:

Inflation data: 2002 = 100 (right axis) source

Not increasing the tax brackets is just as real a tax increase as actually increasing the tax rate, friends, and in fact for most people this "hidden" increase far outweighs the "modest tax cut" that you'll hear about in the news. If you make $50,000 and you get a modest 2% cost of living increase, you will pay $127.50 more in taxes due to the bracket creep. According to my calculations, which I am willing to share with you, anybody who makes more than $25,000 will pay more tax next year than last year, independent of the miscellaneous credits.

That is called a tax increase.

For more on bracket creep, here's Colin Craig of the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation:

*this is also dependent upon the government indexing the brackets sufficiently to actually mitigate the impact of inflation.

related: budget commentary from some people you may know

Debate: quick impressions

2011-04-12T20:12:00.005-05:00

Layton looked good. Some pre-debate face airbrushing going on there. Didn't think he made much of an impact though. NDP supporters will think he did great -- and he didn't do bad -- but most of what he said was just swatted aside like a bug.

I couldn't figure out what Duceppe was talking about half the time, but he made me laugh a couple times. "If you shoot a duck, you have to register the duck. If you blow away a dog, the dog is registered. The only thing not registered is the gun." He's good for entertainment value if nothing else.

Iggy was at his best when he got passionate about an issue. My favourite moment in the whole debate was during his one on one with Layton when he was defending the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. He was off script, came across as being a genuine and intelligent person, and stomped all over Layton in the process. He had some other good moments too, but he appeared off balance at times and he returned back to his talking points too often, repeating the same things several times over. It was repeating that Liberal party script that lost me.

Harper never lost his cool. He answered everything with ease, and he denied every charge against him. A deal with the Bloc and the NDP? Denied. Corporate tax cuts? Denied. Didn't give cost data to parliament? Denied. And done with the same cool demeanor the whole time. His opponents were getting frustrated with him.

If I have to award a ribbon, it goes to Harper for his cool as a cucumber performance.

Notes:

1. The one-on-one format was awkward, and the one-on-ones between Layton/Duceppe and Iggy/Duceppe were especially lame. It was of interest to nobody and like a coffee break for Harper. Get rid of it.

2. Two national debates give Duceppe more air time than he deserves. He should be booted from the English language debate and replaced with Lizzy May, or with an empty seat.

Provincial Income Tax Comparo

2011-04-10T22:26:00.006-05:00

Hi there. With the Manitoba budget coming down this week, I thought it might be a nice idea to have a chart of how our provincial personal income taxes stack up against the other provinces. You know, just for reference purposes.

Manitoba is the bright yellow one. In case you have trouble finding it, it is the line that is higher than any other line for all incomes below $49,500, and second highest after that.

source: CRA & Taxtips.ca

The comparison excludes Quebec because they do their own thing, and PEI because they are too small to matter. No offense. I'm sure PEI is a very nice province; I just don't see them stealing any head office jobs from us anytime soon (although two of their three tax rates are lower than Manitoba's too.)

related: caring for the lower class

Connect Caption Contest - Jack Layton

2011-04-08T19:59:00.004-05:00

It must be pick on Jack Layton day here at the Peanut. Just watching Connect with Mark Kelly. A spur of the moment entry into their caption contest:

Pleeeease ... can't I take a few stem cells for my hip?

Okay, I'll Jack alone now. Let's see if it makes it past the CBC mods.

Poor Jack Layton

2011-04-07T22:56:00.002-05:00

Did a little doodle of Jack, in honour of his having no chance of winning.* Actually, not much thought went into it .. I just started doodling and this is where I ended up:

I kind of like Jack in some ways. He's not a bad guy. He is just an otherwise normal guy who happened to be born with that abnormal gene that turns you into an NDPer.

I did one other sketch of him while I was at work some time ago. I'll share with you, because I don't know what else to do with it:

* further to this: NDP seems to be trending down in the polls, especially in Ontario. Not promising. How does Jack make the NDP relevant?

11 Japan 11

2011-04-05T21:45:00.000-05:00

Found this picture on the 'net. Thought I might share...

Click to see full size.

Artist's explanation:

Tsunami project: cfsl.net/tsunami
If this art is chosen, this will be sell in auctions (August 30, 2011, Arludik gallery, Paris) -> 100 % will be reversed to GIVE2ASIA.

Explanations on symbolic details:
+Blood on her breast symbolizes Japan
+A flower of hope is growing on her kimono
+I was inspired by Tsunami wave by the artist Hokusai, well known piece
+the golden sky behind the grey skies in the upper part of the picture, symbolizes hope.

With all the coverage of the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, you ought to remember that the tsunami had the greatest impact, and still does. Over 12,000 dead and 15,000 missing from the earth quake and tsunami.* Fukushima: 0 dead and 0 missing. Possibly the greatest tragedy about Fukushima is that it's diverting attention away from the real tragedy.

*source: BBC

Debate debate

2011-04-03T21:11:00.004-05:00

I love that 25% of people don't think the PM should be in the leaders' debate:

- fp -

25% of people also don't think the official opposition should be part of the debate. This just proves my theory that people are too dumb to vote. We should appoint William Shatner as Tsar and be done with elections.

***

If you're wondering when I'll get to some real election punditry: probably not for a couple weeks. I'm saving up some energy for the Manitoba budget, but free time might be a factor for reasons that I can't get into here. Meanwhile, I'll be watching Harpo and Iggy and Gimpy out of the corner of my eye. I might even work on a new cartoon of the boys.

I'll be in touch...

Tear it down! (urban improvement through destruction)

2011-03-30T21:56:00.000-05:00

If you read blogs -- and I have reason to believe you do -- you have probably read a great deal about urban density and the preservation of buildings downtown. There are dozens of posts on different blogs lamenting the destruction of certain buildings, or heralding the preservation and redevelopment of others. That is all great, but if you are sick and tired of the usual urban revival shit and crave something different for once, I bring to you:

Buildings that must be torn down

There are certain buildings that are just so ugly -- so disfiguring to the urban streetscape -- that they must be destroyed, even if it means replacing them with a gravel parking lot. (note: I was

going to do this post later in the spring when I had a chance to get out with my camera and snap some photos, but a recent event has prompted me to fast track it using Google streetview images...)

The Fat Angel

Three years ago on Bryan Scott's blog I typed: "Actually, wouldn't mind seeing the Fat Angel dynamited, and a new Blue Note Cafe built in it's place. That would be awesome." Well,

sometime in the last 24 hours the tractors moved in, and by the time I

passed it on my way to work this morning it was nothing but rubble.

Sure, the building was over 100 years old. Sure, it was once a classic blues bar. None of that matters because the building was a also disaster. Worn pale yellow paint covered the steel facade, the door was boarded up, and there was tattered parcel paper covering the mess that was left inside when the Fat Angel ran screaming from the rat infested shit hole. That could all be cleaned up, but it's a little harder to clean up the giant cracks in the exterior walls and the structural problems made apparent by the fact the building had a noticible horizontal bend in it.

Nobody was ever going to lease this building again. The building died. Period. We have to move on.

The APTN building

What kind of a demented architect would design a building with blue plastic panels on the side and a giant windowless ribbed concrete wall facing the street? I have seriously considered getting my pilot's license for the sole purpose of flying an airplane into this hideous building.

The plastic panels are tacky, but if that were the only crime I could live with that, just as I can live with the 4Play sports bar building a block away or the Newport building across the street. However, when you take a tacky building and add an industrial concrete front with no windows except on the bottom and top floors, you get something that is so ridiculously fugly that it should be evacuated immediately and imploded.

If that weren't bad enough, the current tenant grafted on a huge TV screen that juts out from the wall as though it was impaled from the back by a giant chisel. A TV screen which, by the way, either shows nothing but the APTN logo, or programing that is completely useless to somebody walking down the street.

Now, there will probably be architecture geeks who would say "oh, but this building is such a great example of mid-century brutalist modernism" or some crap like that, but you know what? I don't care. It's a disgrace and should be bombed without further ado.

Surprisingly, those are the only two buildings that I want destroyed at the moment, and one has already happened! If I think of any others, I'll post a follow-up. What buildings do you think should be wrecking-balled out of existence? Any suggestions?

***

So what becomes of the Fat Angel? The Blue Note was almost before my time, but I do recall being in it once or twice. I caught the tail end of it's life after I moved to Winnipeg, and although it's not as historic as I originally thought, it would be awesome to see it rebuilt. The neon sign is still kicking around somewhere .. apparently at the Manitoba Museum.

source: flikr

The location is an interesting one: sandwiched between the ancient Winnipeg Hotel and a twin pair of similarly old three story brick buildings, one of which houses the Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club. (By the way, Bryan, I hope they got your permission for using that picture on their web site.) I hope that whatever gets built here is better suited to it's neighbours than the old building was.

source: blue note facebook group

... That's if something new gets built. There's no guarantee. The location has it's drawbacks too: one being located next to the Winnipeg Hotel, with it's riffraff-ish clientele. Another being next to a vacant building on the other side. Not exactly a hot spot for money spenders; however transit access is good. There is always the threat that it could turn into a vacant lot or a "temporary" parking lot. Like Main street needs more parking lots.

This spot isn't the only concern, but the vacant building to the north as well. I can't remember the last time I saw somebody walking into that place. Is it doomed to a future of demolition by neglect? Could it be revived with the help of TIFs? Would it be an acceptable compromise to allow the Fat Angel space to be used as a parking lot if it meant saving the brick building to the north?

Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself a little here. The main thing is that the Fat Angel eye sore is gone. Hoo-rah.

Illegal advertising, the Insiders, Twitter

2011-03-27T12:15:00.002-05:00

One more post about this political advertising thing, then I'll leave it alone. I think I've finally got to the bottom of the matter. To recap:

o Two posts ago I discussed a Hugh McFadyen-bashing mail ad that came addressed as an official-looking government communication. I thought to myself "this can't be right .. what are the rules about this?"
o Last post I discovered that advertising rules don't apply to advertising if they're paid by the taxpayer instead of by the party. This loophole was one of Gary Doer's first accomplishments as Premier back in 2000.

In the comments of the last post Steve Lambert pointed me to The Legislative Assembly Act, where they have some rules about how these tax dollars can be spent by a caucus. Specifically: section 52.23 says that this money may not be used for advertising ... but ... only within 60 days of an election. So right now they can spend it on whatever they want.

But!! What about this whole thing about disguising partisan ads with a Manitoba Legislative Assembly address and the Manitoba coat of arms? Isn't there some rule against that? Well, there is one more thing: the expenses authorized under section 52.23 are subject to yet another act (the fifth one I've looked at now):

The use of money received under this section is subject to the criteria or guidelines established under section 6.1 of The Legislative Assembly Management Commission Act

Makes you wonder why they can't put all this shit in one place. Anyhow, let's mosey on over to this other act and see what kind of criteria or guidelines have been established:

6.1(1) The commission must, as soon as reasonably practicable after the coming into force of this section, establish criteria or guidelines to ensure public funds are used appropriately in respect of
(a) material printed, mailed or distributed electronically; and
(b) advertising in newspapers, magazines or other periodicals, on the Internet, on radio or television, or on billboards, buses or other property normally used for commercial advertising;
by members and by caucuses of recognized political parties.

That's it. That's all there is, except some crap about how this supposed commision is to come up with these guidelines "in a timely fashion". This section was created in 2008, and they haven't even created guidelines yet. They don't even have interim guidelines. Apparently "as soon as reasonably practicable" is somewhere north of three years.

So the bottom line is this: The rules about advertising using tax dollars are: THERE ARE NO RULES.

Good to know...

***

As part of the Free Press' election coverage, they had a bit in the Saturday Free Press called "The Insiders". Theses guys -- one from each main party -- are supposed to give us their "analysis and insights of the campaign."

The concept is a good one. I like listening to party insiders on TV share their views and perspectives, and it adds to the coverage, but only if their views are actually insightful.

Of the three Insiders that the Freep assembled, only Orange Crush had what I would call a good write up. In fact, the NDP insider's analysis was excellent. The commentary was reasonable, it wasn't patrionizing or overly biased, and he or she even tossed in a little joke about Viagra. Well done.

True Grit's commentary wasn't bad, but had a fair bit of Harper bashing that wasn't entirely accurate, and it was kind of snarky. But it was a masterpiece next to the Conservative commentary...

Big Blue gave us no insight at all; just talking points mingled with insults of the opponents. Instead of giving us a "best opening salvo" like the other insiders, Blue gives us a "worst opening salvo" by ranting about the "sheer stupidity" of the opposition parties. The whole thing was meanspirited, and this insider is doing his party no favours by giving people the impression that the inside of the Conservative party is ugly.

My advice to Blue is to read Orange's column and learn from it. Both for my sake as a reader, and for your party's.

***

Guess who's on twitter? Yes ... you're right ... Charlie Sheen is on twitter, smart ass. I mean: guess who else is on twitter? Me! @cherenkov_blog I don't know what I doing yet. I'm not following anybody. I don't have any followers. I don't know how the stupid thing works. I just thought I should reserve my place in the twittersphere in case I should need it, with elections coming up and everything.

I will probably start following some of you and getting the hang of it, but I have no plans to be a hard-core twit. I am very wary of The Twitter. I have seen The Twitter suck people right out of the bloggosphere, like Hacks and Wonks and Policy Frog. Beware the power of The Twitter.

Illegal advertising or unlimited advertising?

2011-03-22T22:57:00.000-05:00

Hey boys and girls, how would you like to go for a walk through the tundra of obscure government regulations? Watch out for the loop holes...

Last post, where I discussed a fascinating little ad that I got in the mail from the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, I wondered if this was legal and all. My concern was that partisan material was being sent as something resembling an official government communication, and was almost certainly being paid for with tax dollars.

A commenter, Paul St.D, suggested that using the legislative return address might be a violation of section 54 of the Election Finances Act. I had a look at section 54 and didn't see it. I saw something else that looked like a possible violation though:

54.2 tells us that advertising by a registered political party must be authorized by the party's chief financial officer, and that this authorization must be printed on the advertisement.

This is clearly advertising by a political party (see 54.1(6) for descriptions), but there is no authorization to be found anywhere in the ad, unless it's written in microscopic type using carbon nanotubes. Is that not a violation? Looks like one to me.

... and then I read the very short, one scentence, sub section 54.1(5) a little more carefully. It says:

If an allowance is paid under The Legislative Assembly Act respecting an expense incurred by a member of the Assembly or by the caucus of a political party, that expense is not an advertising expense under this section.

Now I'm not a loophole-ologist, but that looks like a loop hole to me. The way I read that is: if you bill the tax payers for your ad, then it isn't an ad. The rules of ads, like spending limits and authorizations, and so on don't apply to you. That one sentence apparently renders the entire section of the act null and void -- but only for the party in power of course. Good luck to any opposition party getting allowances for your ads.

Surely there must be some limit to this? I scanned the The Legislative Assembly Act and was unable to find anything relevant. Maybe you have sharper eyes. My impression is that this loophole creates a no-limits advertising free-for-all for the ruling party.

This loophole, by the way, was part of the ammendments that Gary Doer enacted his first year in office. Just thought you might like to know.

I am sure I am interpreting this incorrectly. I am not a lawyer. I am not familiar with navigating the dull and cold terrain of government acts. Still, something doesn't pass the sniff test here. Maybe I should just keep my nose out of this stuff and concentrate on more useful things like perfecting my mojito recipe before summer arrives. I like the smell of mint.

Bipole disorder: the games politicians play

2011-03-17T21:50:00.004-05:00

Good thing I snoop through my neighbour's mail, otherwise I would never have seen this...

It's a glossy ad knocking Hugh McFadyen's plan to route the bipole III power line down the east side of the province (in case you weren't able to figure that out). It came delivered in an official-looking addressed envelope from the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, with the Manitoba coat of arms in the top left corner.

Interesting that it's packaged this way. Almost as an official government communication. It does say "NDP Caucus" in smaller type below. Did anybody else get this thing?

So here's the main part (click to see full size):

They get off to a great start, comparing the east side route to the BP oil disaster. (Oh, by the way.. for newer readers, I posted some great pics of that here.) A comparison I find somewhat insulting, and maybe even distasteful given the hardship caused to many by the BP disaster. There is no comparison to begin with, but if you insisted on making one, the NDP's west side route would come out on the losing end -- both in terms of pollution to the environment and inconvenience to people. (I've been through that so many times, I am not going to rehash it here.)

The second paragraph makes it sound like Hugh McFadyen is ass-raping a virgin forest. The third paragraph serves us the dire warning that should this happen, the forest would be gone! FOREVER!!! Not only that, international groups and lobbyists will sue us. Somebody please explain to me how an international group could have any jurisdiction to sue a Canadian provincial government, supposing they had any interest in doing so to begin with.

It's quite a piece of work. The release of this thing is obviously timed to coincide with the "feel good ads" that Dan Lett wrote about in the Free Press. The TV ads soften you up, and the mailers knock you down in a vicious 1-2 partisan propaganda punch, paid by you, the tax payer. (Wow .. went a little crazy with the alliteration there.)

I couldn't tell you if this mailing is even legal, but the packaging, with the Manitoba crest and "Manitoba Legislative Assembly" return address, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not a fan of negative ads, but I accept them as a part of politics. What I really don't like is the government spending my own money to lie to me and everybody else for partisan gain.

Will they work? The absurd comparison to the BP disaster could backfire on them, much like the "Hugh is going to pee in your mouth" ads that the NDP put out earlier seemed to. As I recall, Hugh's numbers went up after that.

***

This made me wonder: has Hugh done one of his Hugh TV episodes about bipole III yet? In Episode 1, if you'll recall, he was talking to Ladybug Girl about the homeless. Episode 2 has him talking to Paramedics about heart disease, and in episode 3 he's talking to firefighters about muscular dystrophy. Still no talking to Hydro engineers about bipole.

Though it might not matter: with only 145 views for E2 and 83 views for E3, these things don't seem to be drawing many eyeballs. Unless large numbers of people are tuning in to Shaw TV, this campaign might not be making much of an impact. Perhaps if he started putting out something with actual policy or vision, as was promised...

***

I actually have to give a plug to NDP fanatic, very frequent Free Press commenter, and blogger Brian Oakley. He did a pretty good remix of Hugh's episode 1 and stuck in You Tube. It has almost as many views as the real thing:

I mean, good lord dude .. do you have a job? (Or is this your job?). in any case, that's not bad.

***

Final note: Our sympathies go to Winnipeg Girl who slipped on ice this morning and can't sit in her favourite chair.

Anybody Want A Peanut?

Seine: the forgotten river II

A Terrible Beer Review

Put a steak in the Kane rumours

The Adventures of Johnny Oduya: Episode 1

CMHR Part 2: Fund Raising (Where to find $10m)

CMHR Part 1: Project Management

New Winnipeg Forum / Photo Radar Photo Op

2011 blog in review

Destroying brand new infrastructure: It's a Winnipeg Thing

The speed limit is too low. I have proof.

Derelict Properties Bylaw?

Violence? Rebellion? What the hell is going on here?

Gone phishing / letters from Uganda

Perusing the Headlines

Winnipeg Police Service Strategic Plan

What's the scoop?

Remembering a Veteran

How to rebuild the PC Party of Manitoba

Transportation Master Plan. (How exciting!)

Regrouping...

Buildings, brain damage and food

Beer review: Lia Fail

TMNT like you've never seen 'em!

An interview with Green Party leader James Beddome

MANITOBA ELECTION: STILL UNDECIDED?

Brain Dump for Saturday, September 24

The NEW Winnipeg Jets!

The leaders go downtown. (Most of them).

Manitoba election checkpoint

Update on Longboat development

Waterfront hotel experiencing development hostility

New Winnipeg Jets jerseys

McFadyen's platform: smart or sell-out?

Jack Layton

Thoughts on Hydro CEO Brennan

2011 Manitoba provincial election platform

NewWinnipeg update

Winnipeg radio: FM station correlation

Congratulations again to Jon Montgomery

Free Press: Comments not allowed!

The Hacienda-ization of St. Mary's

UPDATED: New Jets logo, tweaked

LRT to U of M under construction!

Impact of festivals on downtown

Updated: Caption Contest!

New Winnipeg send off

Foreseeable gang war

Storm live blog - July 4

Bipole and Beers debate, with bonus doodle of John Baird

UPDATED: The new Longboat development on Portage

UPDATED: Bipole, Beers, and (sigh...) more math

Peter Falk and the HBC mug

Corydon-Osborne open house

City financing: thoughts from the peanut gallery

Schram Hockey

An award for what now??

Return of the Jets / Portage & Main party

A story about Regina

Harpers new cabinet

Spring Cleanup in St.Vital

Election 2011: Anybody Want A Peanut? endorses:

Thoughts on the UofM CUPE 3909 strike vote

Tangerine Wheat Beer

Revolution fatigue? *UPDATED*

Winnipeg's new NHL team unveiled

Who's donating to who?

Modest tax cuts? How about 10th consecutive tax increase?

Debate: quick impressions

Provincial Income Tax Comparo

Connect Caption Contest - Jack Layton

Poor Jack Layton

11 Japan 11

Debate debate

Tear it down! (urban improvement through destruction)

Illegal advertising, the Insiders, Twitter

Illegal advertising or unlimited advertising?

Bipole disorder: the games politicians play

Revolution fatigue? UPDATED