Funny piece over at Condohype. Bob Rennie as much as admitted on air to Bill Good that he’s grown filthy rich overselling granite and stainless steel.

Caveat emptor, and all that, but it sounds like Condo King Bob is having second thoughts about his “contribution” to life in Vancouver. If he thinks too hard he may decide he wants to “give something back” by running for public office. Let’s hope he sticks to his art collection.

When the National Post finally gets around to calling it the “stink of corruption” it’s safe to assume that pretty much everybody has noticed the scandals piling up in the B.C. Legislature.

“There’s no way the Liberals can win the election next May.” I said to Mr. V. last night, while discussing the latest fiasco, this one involving the Coleman brothers, Rich and Stan, 28,000 hectares of land, a $150 million windfall for Stan’s employer, Western Forest Products, and not even so much as a sham public consultation for Rich’s employer, the people of BC.

Mr. V. tilted his head and raised one eyebrow. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Do you think the NDP could manage to squeeze in a leadership convention? There’s always Adrian Dix…” I mused. “What is it about the NDP and the women they select as leaders? They’re so nice, but there’s something missing. Audrey McLaughlin, Alexa McDonough, Carole James, they all come from the same ladylike mold, and they don’t seem to have any passion.”

We agreed it was too bad Joy MacPhail had worn herself out being 95% of the Opposition back in the BC Liberals’ squeaky clean days. She wasn’t always likable, but she was one passionate firecracker, with the kind of energy needed to burn the government’s feet in an election campaign.

Then I remembered a conversation I had a few months ago at a dinner party. As the conversation rolled around to politics, it took both of us a few moments to recall James’ last name. Maybe it was the wine, or the wavering memories of middle age, but we both chalked it up to James’ extended failure to appear in the local media. She wasn’t top of mind, and seemingly forgettable.

And that’s a real problem for her and her party. Today, Alex Tsakumis’ analysis of women in politics doesn’t even mention James, though he has plenty to say about many others.

All the NDP would need to win the next provicial election is another seven seats. It’s doubtful they can manage it under their current, forgettable leader.

I don’t have any allusions about the NDP’s capacity to bring about lasting change. Sooner or later, they will form another provincial government, and sooner or later, the power will lead to corruption and scandals.

Hopefully, come May 12, 2009, they will manage to knock the Liberals hard enough to prevent them from becoming corrupted absolutely.

Via Materialicious, an article in USA Today on shipping container housing, including mention of SG Blocks, who are constructing temporary container-based staff housing in Whister for 2010.

I would never have imagined, even as recently as a couple of years ago, that the objects of my admiration would be big- hearted, pragmatic blokes, seldom seen unstrapped from their tool belts. Nevertheless, these are the men I dream about:

1. Mike Holmes

2. Bryan Baeumier

3. Igor Shamraychuk

As Red Green used to say, “If a woman doesn’t find you handsome, at least let her find you handy.” And Mr. V, handsome devil that he is, is getting handier by the day.

Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, is a passionate advocate of “vertical farms” in skyscrapers that provide food for the surrounding urban population.

Thirty stories, he thinks, would be sufficient to feed 50,000. though in a city centre where real estate is as expensive as it is in Manhattan, it’s likely an investment banker would outbid a tomato.

Michael Smyth’s column in the Province this morning:

Campbell’s image makeover pure hypocrisy
It’s all about winning the middle ground

Premier Gordon Campbell, like most politicians, wants to be all things to all people — and you can easily understand why.

In our polarized province, the right-wingers mostly vote Liberal and the left-wingers mostly vote NDP. Whichever party captures the so-called “moderate middle” of that spectrum captures the prize of power.

That’s why Campbell wised up after the Liberals’ surprisingly close 2001 election victory and did a clever makeover of his political image — a side-step shuffle from the right to the middle.

So he stopped fighting against “race-based” native treaties and became a champion of justice for first nations. He stopped calling the public-sector unions nasty names and instead gave them $1 billion in contract bonuses.

His “conversion” on the environment is simply his latest costume change as he continues to broaden his appeal to those coveted “mushy middle” voters.

But while Campbell’s “bold vision” on global warming has won him praise from elite environmental leaders and some eastern pundits, those of us following his policy shifts more closely recognize them for the political gimmicks they are.

How else to explain why Campbell wants to save the world from global warming on one hand, while courting the emission-spewing oil-and-gas sector on the other?

Campbell just whacked British Columbians with a gas tax, supposedly to force us to drive less and to stop heating our homes with natural gas. This will theoretically reduce B.C.’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that causes global warming.

But in his last budget (the one printed on green paper in case anyone missed the point) Campbell delivered $327 million in subsidies to the B.C. oil-and-gas sector.

So let me get this straight: Campbell hammers you with gas taxes, because fossil fuels are destroying the planet. But he gives hundreds of millions of dollars to the companies that produce the fossil fuels in the first place — an industry that generates 21-per-cent of all the greenhouse gases in the province.

Hypocrisy is also on display when it comes to offshore oil exploration. There’s currently a federal moratorium against oil drilling off our coast. There’s a federal ban on oil tankers along part of the coast, too.

The Campbell government wants both bans lifted so we can drill for oil off the Queen Charlotte Islands and allow oil tankers into our coastal waters. He also wants to construct a pipeline across the province to deliver oil from the Alberta tar sands to our coastal ports.

What a “green visionary” he is!

Here’s the bottom line: The Campbell government is right to pursue offshore oil. It’s unfair that B.C. can’t develop these resources while Atlantic Canada can. They’re right to support the oil-and-gas sector, too. That industry pumps more than $1 billion into government coffers to pay for schools and hospitals.

But Campbell wants to have it both ways — stoking an oil-and-gas industry that drives our economy on one hand, while whacking the little guy with gas taxes because he wants to look like a “visionary” for those moderate voters on the other.

His carbon tax is pure politics. And pure hypocrisy.

E-mail: msmyth@direct.ca
Michael Smyth
The Province
Tuesday, July 15, 2008

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Use of industrial and human waste as a soil amendment component, once it has been processed into sludge or biosolids, is becoming an increasingly acceptable agribusiness practice.

Last September, the BC Government approved a new Soil Amendment Code of Practice. Permitting use of biosolids on agricultural and forest lands, says the government, has many benefits, not least diverting sludge from landfill sites and incineration facilities. It seems our government is so keen on agricultural use of industrial and bio waste, that the only requirement for its use is the filling out of a simple form.

There are doubts about the benefits of spreading sludge over agricultural and forest lands. According to this article in the Toronto Star, large food processors including DelMonte, Campbell’s Soups, and Gerber Baby Foods won’t use produce grown on sludge-treated soil. This is because of their concerns about toxic metals, particularly cadmium, which can hurt kidney function, and mercury, which harms the brain and nervous system.

BC’s Soil Amendment Code includes standards for permissible levels of heavy metals including cadmium and mercury. It also requires a 30 meter buffer between sludge and a water source. Once the sludge has been spread, signage must be posted for 38 months to warn life forms who can read to stay off the fields. Hopefully the vomitous stench would be disgusting enough to dissuade small children and wildlife from hanging around.

Sludge-amended soil cannot be used to grow food crops for 18 months if the edible portion is above-ground, or 38 months if below-ground. Domestic grazing, strangely, is permitted after 60 days. Murray McBride, from Cornell’s Waste Management Institute is just one soil scientist who was concerns about the impact this practice could have on our dairy and meat supplies.

Last September, a letter was sent to Barry Penner, BC’s then-minister of agriculture and lands, from a group of environmental and labour organizations, urging him to consider wiser approaches to managing biosolids, instead of spreading it “by the truckload throughout the province.”

For now, there is no way of knowing whether conventinal food has been grown or raised on sludge-amended soil. COABC standards do not permit the use of sludge or biosolids. “Organic” food sold in big box stores is grown in parts unknown, and under less rigourous standards that might permit the use of sludge.

What the world needs now is not love, sweet love, apparently, but yet another bit of mindless entertainment courtesy Carrie Bradshaw et al. A second, and possibly third SATC move is in the works.

Having watched the Sex and the City TV show three or four times, and sat through the modestly entertaining eponymous movie, I can’t imagine the point. More Manolos? More adultery? More obligatory nude scenes? Carrie’s fertility treatments? Big’s infidelity?

It seems like it would be a big stretch to cobble a few flimsy plot points into a marketable story, but HBO/Warners have dollar signs in their eyes. Maybe they’ll have to kill off Samantha to make this one sell?

Treasure found beneath carpets and in closets. Story via Viaduct East blog.

The Lido, an unassuming storefront on the south side of Broadway, between Fraser and Main, seems to have taken on a new life.

Back in the 70s, the Lido was a sketchy grocery store with irregular opening hours. Those in the know would arrive at the right time in order to buy slightly moldy packets of cheese, bashed cans of food from exotic or unknown origins, aging bread and pastries, and other semi-attractive comestibles, all at drastically reduced prices, from the Lido’s proprietor, Chris.

Chris was never known to be kind to his wife, at least in public, when she helped him with the store, but she must have been devoted. After he died, the store became a sort of museum to Chris’ memory. Aging packets of dried goods remained on the shelves, slowly draining of colour. For a long time, those packets remained on view to passersby, though the Lido never opened again.

A few years back, the windows were papered over. The Lido museum had become a private matter, unobtrusive and forgettable, lodged up against an auto body shop on an unremarkable stretch of Broadway.

Last week I noticed something had changed. The newspaper lining had been removed from the windows, which themselves had been replaced with smart sand-blasted panes. The exterior, and particularly the Lido sign itself, all looked as if they had been spruced up.

Back in the 70s my mother, a woman in straightened circumstances always looking for a way to stretch a buck, would shop at the Lido. Sometimes she would take me with her. My clearest memory was of the old wooden floors, well worn, dark, ancient.

I loved those floors. Whatever becomes of the Lido, I really hope they keep those floors.