Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Hey Mikey...You (And Yours) Liked It!

AllTheRepressedMemories
ThatFitVille


With the Dean on spring break and Ron Obvious coming back strong with columns on Alberta and Mary Jane's new dance in Washington after a conflicty-free (at least according to his editors) defense of his collaborator, we figured that Michael Smyth was our last chance.

Last chance for what, you might be asking?

Well....

Last chance that one of the Lotuslandian Puffed-Up Pro-Punditry (LPUPP) would actually take a run at Ms. Clark for carrying all that FedCon water in front of the unilateral dismantling of the treaty process that was telegraphed just before the longest of long weekends of the year began late last week.

But that didn't happen, and the newscycle has pretty much passed it by (can you hear the sounds of wizards and/or PAB-Bots cheering?).

****

Instead, Mr. Smyth wrote a column about Translink and Faregates and all that.

Which, I guess, is new news for Mr. Smyth.

Or some such thing.

Of course, the ever flippant Mr. Smyth was caustic without bringing up the Hat Man who got the ball rolling in the first place (and who Mikey himself actually kinda/sorta covered way back when in more ways than one).

In addition, Mr. Smyth failed to mention how the LPUPP aided and abetted all the Hat Man's men when they helped wurlitzer-up up all that nonsensical fare gate evasion hysteria that generated the 'market' for those damnable $200 million turnstiles in the first place.

And, as you might expect because, 'both sides', Mr. Smyth got all conflationary when he compared the Turnstiles to the Fast Ferries.

But here's the thing.

Those gates and their already obsolete technology were NOT made in B.C. by British Columbians who had real jobs to do so.

Union jobs that paid for things like mortgages and groceries and tuition for the kids to go to university.

And don't get me going (again) on how it is my opinion that having the next round of ferries built outside the country was designed at least in part to kill those kinds of jobs 'round here.

OK?


_________
On the other hand....Bob Mackin actually has some real new news on the continuing faregate fiasco...
Have your doubts about the fare evasion hysteria being nonsensical from the get-go?...Stephen Rees' excellent post on the matter will reassure you.


.

5 comments:

JasonS said...

You know what`s funny on many different occasions ive posted to the province forums most of the time to one of Smyths columns and the last 3 times they have not posted my comment which had 0 profanity 0 threats . This translink column i posted how the compass card would be the liberals fast ferries if not for the 6 other instances of them blowing the budget on BC place roof , south fraser etc. Then explained to mikey how the fast ferries were just sold to a company from abu-dhabi which im sure made a huge profit for washington marine group. I used to deliver the province and its basically the only newspaper i buy but im thinking their ideas are stale and tired and not for me any more. The state of our 5th estate in Canada and BC in particular is pretty pathetic.

RossK said...

Excellent point Jason--

And you can add that $200 million junk IT thing as well.

A question for you, and this is snark free...Why is the Province the only local paper you buy?


.

e.a.f. said...

so symthie wants to talk fast ferries does he? well he and others might want to remember, Glen Clark left money in the provincial bank account and got himself a real job, with the Pattison Group. Now el gored, he's still at the public trough, still not working at a real job.

RossK said...

Very interesting juxtapositionals e.a.f.

.

JasonS said...

In all honesty i like the comics better. As stupid as that sounds. Im a news junkie and i read as much as possible from all over. But if you look all the news is the same now . All the same stories in all the same papers. I delivered the province 6 days a week from ages 12-15 at 5am weather be damned. In the winter i would drag a sled with my 60-70 province papers through the empty streets like a low budget santa. $5 bucks a month i believe it was. Maybe my only buy the province is a form of Stokholm syndrome.