S-92 crash links

For those looking to keep track of the reporting on this story, here are the two best local sources:

1.  CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

• Raw video
• Comprehensive web page, including links to raw video, others news coverage, a live feed of the news conferences associated with the incident and a live online forum.

2.  The Telegram: the province’s largest daily newspaper has been updating regularly with short snippets in the daily news section [rss link]. They also have some of their “Top Story” coverage available as well online [rss link].  There is also some coverage in the “Local News” section [rss link]

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Bullshit

Williams has been in contact with the Prime Minister and the province's federal representative Peter MacKay keeping them up to date on what's happening on the ground.

Extract from a voice of the cabinet minister “news” report

The search and rescue resources from Greenwood, Nova Scotia and Gander, Newfoundland currently deployed in response to the Cougar S-92 crash are from the Department of National Defence.

The Minister of National Defence is Peter MacKay.

He receives a daily briefing from the Canadian Forces on these sorts of things and can be briefed more often as necessary from people in direct contact with the pilots in the planes.  Heck, Pete can speak to them himself from his desk as they fly above the ocean if he wants.

The coast guard, transport department and all the other entirely federal agencies working on this tragedy report to – wait for it – the federal government.

The defence minister and the prime minister have access to detailed information on this incident in far greater detail and in a far broader scope than just about anyone else.

So what exactly did the Premier have to say that would keep the people with all the information first hand “up to date” with what’s happening on the ground?

Maybe the reporter(s) curious about the water depth at 47 26 05N 51 56 58W might add that to their list of questions to pose. Either that or someone could ask VOCM to check their understanding again of what the Premier actually said.

Either way, one of them is full of it.

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Upright in a hurricane

This is raw video of what appears to be a sales demonstration of the S-92 for a Hungarian audience. This one is in military configuration, hence the H-92 reference.

At about the 2:41 mark, there is reference to flotation equipment on the aircraft both at the tail and the nose which is designed to keep the aircraft upright in a ditching.  The pilot (?) makes a comment about keeping the aircraft upright even in a hurricane.

The internal configuration for this aircraft is for military use.  Hence the demonstration refers to a crew of four and emphasises the ease with which the internal arrangement can be switched out to accommodate a purely cargo mission.

The civilian passenger configuration provides 19 seats in rows of three, set up with two on one side and one on the other. Passengers face forward, whereas in this military configuration, anyone in the main cabin sits with his or her back to the fuselage wall.

Reported weather conditions at the site at the time of crash were  two to three metre seas and winds at 20 knots.

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Gearbox oil pressure implicated in S-92 crash

Cougar official Rick Burt, interviewed by CBC Radio the morning after the crash, indicated the aircraft commander declared a MAYDAY after getting a gauge indication of  “zero oil pressure” in the main gearbox.

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Related:

1.  CADOR excerpt on CHI91 incident.

2.  Previous S-92 airworthiness directives involving the main gearbox and oil pressure issues.

CADORS 2009A0212

From the Transport Canada’s incident report on the Cougar S-92 crash:

CHI91, S92, enroute from St. John’s (CYYT) to the Hibernia Oil Platform at 12:15Z, declared MAYDAY due to a main gear box oil pressure problem and requested to return to St. John’s. Air Traffic Control cleared the flight as requested. At 12:25Z aircraft ditched at position 472605N515658W.

The time reported here for the MAYDAY is 0945 hrs local, not 0910 hrs as reported in an evening media briefing. The ditching time is given as 0955 hrs local.

This is an initial report and may be subject to change.

Timeshift update:  The ZULU times are apparently correct.  Initial reports came from the SAR co-ordination centre based in Halifax which initially converted ZULU to Atlantic time out of habit.

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If a little knowledge…

is a dangerous thing, reporter Brian Callahan’s comments this evening about search and rescue response to the Cougar S-92 accident is proving what you get from complete ignorance.

Morning after update:  Asking questions is one thing.  Making accusations directly or by innuendo is quite another.

Questions about search and rescue in the aftermath of the crash aren’t confined to Callahan.  One caller to CBC Radio yesterday afternoon and again the morning and a radio talk show host on another network tried to turn SAR into some kind of  “us” versus “them”, Newfoundland versus the mainland political racket.

“Irresponsible” would be the most polite word for these sorts of ill-informed or ill-considered comments.  Obnoxious might be a better word for it.

The North Atlantic is a cruel and difficult place.  Working offshore in any industry is inherently dangerous and even with good training and excellent standards and equipment tragedies will occur. That doesn’t mean we accept the tragedies;  it merely means we have to always bear in mind that reality.

The people who work SAR – private sector, coast guard and the air force – are highly trained and they work tirelessly to provide the very best search and rescue service that is humanly possible.

The ones I know are anything but as cavalier and irresponsible as the people making the comments about SAR over the past 24 hours. 

 

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Sikorsky S-92

1.  Australia:  Airworthiness directive AD/S-92/4 dated 2/2007 re: tail gearbox.

2. Australia: Airworthiness directive AD/S-92/3 dated 2/2007 re: main rotor gearbox. Mandates replacement of main gearbox housing at 2700 hours time-in-service.

3.  Australia: Airworthiness directive AD/S-92/2: “This AD requires replacing the MGB lubrication/scavenge pump vespel spline adapters before further flight, and thereafter, replacing them at certain intervals”.

4.  Sikorsky signs gearbox maintenance deal with VIHAG, Cougar parent.

5.  The S-92 was a candidate to replace the Sea King in the role of Marine Corps presidential helicopter transport.  it lost out to the Merlin/Cormorant under the designation US-101.

6.  The Canadian defence department selected the S-92 to replace the aging Sea King fleet.  The program is behind schedule.

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Government pollster misses more interesting story

Here’s a great comment attributed to the provincial government’s pollster, CRA’s Don Mills, by voice of the cabinet minister:

Mills says Williams draws support from all pockets of the province, regardless of the party voters normally support.

That’s a really interesting claim for Mills to make given that he has absolutely no data on which to base it. 

Firstly, in his quarterly survey CRA doesn’t ask people which party they “normally” support. Heck, they don’t even provide demographic or geographic data so that we could all get a better understanding of what is going on out there among potential voters.  They could be polling 100% on George Street on Saturday night or – less facetiously – polling overwhelmingly in the traditional Tory base of support in and around St. John ‘s for all we would know.

Secondly, given that Mills’ polling is wildly out of whack with the results of the last provincial election, he really should wonder whether or not he could even infer “normal” party support from his polling.

Third, even if he possibly could draw that conclusion reasonably by inference, the CRA data  - presented as CRA presents it suggests a much more interesting story about a drop in support for his client.

Mills doesn’t talk about that aspect of his client’s numbers, though. In fact he’s been known to issue news releases making claims his own data doesn’t really support, once you take out the distorting of discussing only decideds.

One of the things to notice about the November 2008 poll is that it showed the lowest PC party numbers in recent times and also happens to be considerably more accurate (as a function of margin of error) than any poll Mills has done recently.  The one just released had a margin of error almost double the one from November.

Fourth, if you wanted to do some longer term analysis, even accepting CRA poll results as presented as being valid, you can get something a lot more interesting than just saying “He’s more popular than Jesus.” Incidentally, the Alex Marland quoted in the VOCM story that started this is the same guy mentioned in that link. Take note too of the frequency of CRA polls with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%.

Even with CRA’s own release you see an interesting couple of things that Mills won’t mention.  Rather than use his own data and generate some interesting news, he seems to favour stroking the client in public.

Since February last year support for the Provincial Conservatives has dropped eight percentage points.  It’s an unmistakeable trend. That’s roughly a 10% drop, for what it’s worth.

At the same time, and given that the poll just taken shows the lowest level of undecideds in the past 12 months, the Liberal party support has gone up by eight percentage points, nine if you include the drop in the second quarter of 2008. Soaring economy, bags of money and public support for the ruling party goes down.  A rump opposition party with a temporary leader picks up steadily.

Not only that but this is best performance by the Liberal party since November of 2005.

That trending comes despite the current governing party holding onto the kind of popular satisfaction numbers you’d only see in North Korea.

Yep.  Even as crude an instrument as a CRA quarterly poll can yield way more interesting stuff than what gets reported if you just look.  Part of seeing that would be to look past the old story of popularity or saying stuff for which there is no data to support and actually analysing the information that you do have.

Would that get government’s pollster a nasty phone call one wonders?

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Dysfunction and disconnect

How many times does a government get to do and say completely contradictory or unfounded things before people wonder about the competence of the people involved?

1.  "The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is unable to support this at this time on the basis of very genuine concerns that our province’s issues [shrimp tariff, seal hunt, custodial management] may not be safeguarded or dealt with in an appropriate way by the Federal Government."  Government of Newfoundland and Labrador news release, February 20, 2009.

2.   “It is clear that the efforts of our government, in collaboration with those of the Government of Canada and industry, are indeed paying off,” continued Minister Rideout.”  Major progress made on European Union shrimp tariff, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador news release, July 11, 2007.

3.   "That's how things have worked for us over the years, and we've got shafted as a result of it," he said, claiming that Newfoundland fish stocks have been traded off by the feds. Danny Williams, comments to reporters, quoted in “Williams ponders own deal with EU”, The Telegram, March 7, 2009. [Not on line] This is a commonly held belief of some people in the province but there is no evidence to that such trades ever occurred.

4. "We strongly endorse your commitment for bilateral agreements and look forward to working with the federal government to achieve a bilateral agreement with the EU." Innovation minister Trevor Taylor,  August 11, 2008, letter to then federal international trade minister Michael Fortier, quoted in “Province backed trade talks: 2008 letter”, The Telegram, March 10, 2009.

5.  “If that means that there's an agreement between Canada and 12 jurisdictions, and there has to be a separate agreement negotiated with Newfoundland and Labrador, then I'm fine with that." Williams, quoted in The Telegram, March 7, 2009.

Williams reportedly conveyed his concerns to Quebec premier jean Charest in the latter’s capacity as chairman of the council of provincial premiers.  Charest has been one of the driers of the EU trade deal since he first proposed it after the annual economic conference in Davos, 2007.

6.  "The EU doesn't negotiate trade agreements with provinces or federations," MUN's Steven Wolinetz said. “Prof puzzled by premier’s call for own EU trade deal”, The Telegram, March 9, 2009.

7.   "I do understand from behind the scenes that this is actually causing some very, very serious concerns from people in the EU," Williams said. quoted in The Telegram, March 7, 2009.

8.  “It would have been ideal if all provinces had joined” in Friday’s pro-trade declaration, [EU official] Jan Sliva said in a statement. “But in our view those provinces and territories that did join represent the majority of Canada’s trade and investment potential.” quoted in “N.L. won’t stop Canada-Europe trade talks: EU”, CanWest, March 10, 2009.

Given all that, it would seem logical to conclude that the provincial government actually isn’t interested in resolving its three big issues.  After all, they cannot be resolved if the provincial government refuses to address them or has no means to address them given its refusal to work on an obvious mechanism to resolve them.

And hey, it’s not like Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t have a significant interest in expanded trade with the European Union.  After the United States, the EU is Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest foreign trade partner.

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The poll numbers – first quarter 2009

We’ve bashed the Corporate Research Associates polling around in these parts for quite some time. 

Since since it’s the only game in town, however, it’s what we have to work with.

Here are some quickie observations on the most recent poll:

1.  The margin of error for the most recent poll is plus or minus 4.9%.  For November, 2008, the MoE was 2.8% and for the ones before that, it was 3.5%. Bear that in mind as you go through media coverage that talks about things being where they were.

2.  The chart at left adjusts the CRA numbers to present them as a percentage of respondents rather than adjusting  them as a percentage of decideds.

3.  If we accept that the undecideds dropped seven percentage points from November, note that both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives picked up equally from that.  The extra point came from the New Democrats.

4.  The most accurate of all CRA polls  - measured in terms of the margin of error - was the one in November.  The MoE was plus or minus 2.8%.

5.  There’s something slightly counter-intuitive about these numbers. At a time of growing economic uncertainty – including some sharp blows in this province – one wouldn’t expect party choice for the governing party to go up. Ditto for the satisfaction numbers which remain at astronomical levels. Look at the satisfaction numbers and it doesn’t get any less curious; you just wouldn’t expect 88% of people in the province to be mostly or completely satisfied with government giving all that’s gone on.

Doesn’t matter the party.  Doesn’t matter the leader.  When things are bad or going bad, there just isn’t as much generosity toward government. 10,000 ticked off  nurses and their families should amount for something, shouldn’t they?  How about a 1,000 paper workers?  Apparently not.

6. Poll goosing.  CRA was in the field beginning on February 9.  They stopped polling on February 28th. Oddly enough, when asked about it by a talk show host on February 19, the premier knew CRA had started polling the week before.

He also offered the view that if he was going to goose the poll he would have started goosing the week before polling started.

Interesting.

The Equalization racket started in late January even though by all indications the provincial government had the numbers on Equalization and offsets from early November onwards.  Anyone else find that news conference in the middle of the night thing odd, especially since government had already planned to scrum the finance minister the day after the federal budget came down?

Notice all the feisty, fighting talk running into that first week of February.  Take that as sort of the background noise to the month.  Nothing like a racket with Ottawa to get the juices flowing in polling season.

Then there’s the Lower Churchill project.  The infeed to Soldier’s Pond – an integral part of the project – is shaved off for some inexplicable reason and submitted to its own environmental review process starting on January 30. On top of that there were two more major Lower Churchill announcements in February, one of which was merely to say the Crown corporation had solicited six expressions of interest;  not received:  asked for.

Government decided to try playing nice with the nurses.  They did it very publicly in February a week into polling.

Let’s not forget the “historic” infrastructure announcement made – you guessed it – right smack in the middle of polling. That was followed by a few speeches to give the thing a few legs.

Overall, though, February was a very busy month for the provincial cabinet.  Lots of good news and happy talk.  Marinas, fur farms, air ambulances, all announced in February.

7.  Rolling Stones Update:  Can’t get no satisfaction? We’ve had some issues with CRA polling before and the tendency to generate results that leaving you scratching your head.

One of those would be “satisfaction”.

Let’s leave aside entirely the problem with the question -   what exactly is the difference between “mostly” and completely”? – and look at the relationship between the satisfaction number on the one hand and the party support number on the other.

Without any prompting one might suspect that satisfaction goes with support.  If you are mostly or completely satisfied with government performance, then you’d be inclined to support the government party.

Not so, according to CRA.  In Nova Scotia, for example, people are very happy with Rodney’s government but they plan to vote for the Grits or Dippers.

We are not talking small numbers.  The Liberal and NDP vote numbers here are running fairly steadily at a combined 64% of decideds for the past three quarters.  The satisfaction numbers have been running in the 50s.  So if you believe CRA, a majority of Nova Scotians like their Tory government but a larger number wants them out of office.

Huh?

It gets fruitier when you look at the Tories coming in second or – in the latest poll – third place among parties.  People are happy with the job government is doing but they don’t want to vote for the government party.

Those odd numbers don’t just apply to Nova Scotia.  Satisfaction with Roger Grimes was decently in the 50s pretty much right up until the end.  Take a gander at CRA’s polling and there’s a good likelihood you’ll find lots of examples of this completely incomprehensible correlation.  According to CRA, Nova Scotians like the job a government is doing but want to throw the bums out.

Doesn’t make sense.

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Baby Talk

A news release on Tuesday from the provincial government agency that collects and analyses health statistics showed the number of live births in the province in 2008 at 4905, the highest number “in any year since 1999”.

That’s true but more than a few people wondered why the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information took the arbitrary year 1999 aside from the fact it is convenient to measure by decade. The other thing people wondered is why the agency would editorialise with the claim that “[t]his increase in the number of births is a positive step toward population growth for our province.”

The analysts at NLCHI ought to know that the number of live births is just one factor in population trending.  In addition, they would need to understand the cause for the increase, year over year, to see if this is actually something other than an anomaly in what has otherwise been a fairly steady decline in the number of live births to mothers whose residence is Newfoundland and Labrador.

A look at NLCHI figures on live births going back to 1995 (chart, left) shows the long term trending.

The number of births has been declining for some time.

The number for 2008 is the highest number of births over the past decade, except for 1999.  There were more than 5,000 live births that year.

The figures for 2006 and 2007 aren’t available, apparently. NLCHI didn’t release any data and only described the 2008 figures as being more than 300 higher than 2007.  Statistics Canada figures cover the period up to 2006 and they are the same as the NLCHI figures.

It’s not hard to understand the declining number of births in the 1990s.  Outmigration in the late 1990s took about 70,000 people out of the population, most of them in their child-bearing years.

The increase over the last four years is most likely due to a general improvement in the economy.  The population continued to decline annually throughout the period and only showed an overall increase within the past year or so.

A look at the crude birth rate (live births per thousand of population) gives another perspective. The birth rate declined precipitously as the population dropped among people of child-bearing age.

After the major outmigration ended, the rate stabilized again and until the economy really started to surge the rate stayed relatively low.

One of the things to bear in mind when looking at these numbers is the inherent lag in births from time of conception. That sounds like a penetrating insight into the obvious but since some people are undoubtedly going to credit the government’s pro-natal policy for the increase the time lag has to be factored in.

Children born in late 2008 reflect parental decisions (even allowing for surprises) taken in the early part of the year.  Children born in the first few months of 2008 were conceived before the bootie call announcement in September 2007.  That time lag is the reason why the overall economic climate might have more of an impact on the decision to have children than a cash bounty of $1,000 for each live birth and $100 per month per child for the first year after birth.

Statistics Update:  The number crunching labradore picks up on the decline thingy.  He points out that the number of births in the province has been declining every year since 1956 or so.  There have been periodic upticks but the trend is decidedly downward.

Skeptics update: To go with that, there’s a Bond Papers post from February that discusses some comments the finance minister made to Voice of the Cabinet Minister during polling season.

At that time, we were skeptical that the 4900 figure was real.  We are still a little curious about the number and the timing of the release.

Halfway through 2008 and the preliminary figures showed everything on track to deliver about 4500.  That’s an even more curious figure since the cash allocated by government for the program – which includes adoptions not accounted for in all the live birth numbers – works out to be 4500 children annually. 

But as for 2008, even allowing for season variation and the nine month time lag, that would mean all the extra kiddies were hatched in the second half of the year. Makes you scratch your head a bit.

And if all that weren’t enough, consider this line from the provincial government’s main statistics agency:

The number of births has been trending downward for four decades because of declining fertility rates and, more recently, a decline in the number of women of child-bearing age.

That pretty much says it all.  The population of people willing and able to have babies has been getting relatively smaller in this province. We’d have to go into a more detailed demographic breakout to see if there is an echo generation showing up.  That’s the offspring of a previous boom suddenly showing up having children.  It happened about 20-odd years ago as the children of baby boomers started reaching child-bearing age. We might be just at the leading edge of time when the baby-boomers’ grandchildren are starting to have babies.

As labradore noted at the time, since the population in child-bearing age has been going on, a baby crop of 4900 would mean that fewer people are having more children.

Sorta runs against what you’d expect.

 

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God save us…

From mainlanders who spent a bit of time in St. John’s at some point and think they understand Newfoundland.

For the most part, the only thing worth saying about Senator George Baker’s comments is that they have been matched in their shallowness by the editorial commentary in some of the country’s newspapers.

If Dan Leger actually knew anything about Newfoundland – and maybe even Labrador – he’d realise that Senator Baker is largely the pre-occupation of the mainlanders. 

Outside of the local crowd that stand eternally ready to promote their fantasy of victimisation, the rest of us had better things to do than sweat the rise of a bloc-head party.

We’ve heard all this before.

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November 2008 Churchill Falls fire knocked out two of 11 generating units

A fire last fall at Churchill Falls knocked out two of the 11 generating units at the facility, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro confirmed for Bond Papers Monday.

Repairs began immediately after the fire and one of the two disabled generators returned to service in February.  Repairs continue on the other.

The fire damaged cables connecting the underground transformers to transformers on the surface. There were no injuries.  The fire was contained on the surface by Churchill Falls fire and security staff.  Newspaper reports at the time indicated that the facility was evacuated as a safety precaution.

An investigation into the fire is expected to be completed shortly at which time further details will be released.

A January 16 story in the Montreal Gazette warned readers to be cautious about their power consumption. Winter is normally a time of heavy demand in Quebec.  As the Gazette reported:

Hydro's provincial grid is stretched especially tight these days because two turbines in Churchill Falls, N.L., that normally supply Hydro-Québec with 1,000 megawatts were damaged by fire in the fall.

CFLCo’s Churchill Falls facility generates in excess of 5400 megawatts.

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Rex should check his video archives

Rex Murphy, in his Globe and Mail column, Saturday, March 7:

Mr. Harper is not Canada. Mr. Williams is not Newfoundland.

Danny Williams, from Rex Murphy’s profile for The National after the October 2007 Newfoundland and Labrador general election:

I think I represent in my own heart and soul the hearts and souls of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

The one may not be Canada but as for the other, for l’etat terre-neuvien?

C’est lui.

Well, at least in his own mind.

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Bursting bubbles everywhere

last year the provincial government budget for 2008 forecast the provincial economy would shrink by 2.2%. Even with the economic down-turn, the economy seems poised to grow by that much.

But that was last year.

And the provincial government number was a forecast.

In 2009, the economy in Newfoundland and Labrador will shrink.  There are no bubbles to protect any economy from the recession.

The Conference Board of Canada puts the drop at 2.6% and for good reason:

Despite a positive outlook for consumer spending and construction, Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy will decline in 2009 by 2.6 per cent, the worst performance of all the provinces. Oil production continues to fall off at mature sites and the closure of the newsprint mill in Grand Falls will hurt manufacturing output.

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Darwin Awards Runners Up: Things that go boom in the night

Police answered an unusual call this week in North River, Conception Bay. Someone wanted the police to dispose of a  naval five inch shell that people had been keeping as some sort of souvenir.

The thing reportedly dates back to the early part of the 20th century and, if the media report is right, was pilfered from an old Royal Naval Reserve training ship in St. John’s.

Ah the stories one comes across like this. 

In the mid-1990s there were a couple of reports in the space of a week of old hand grenades (Mills bombs) turning up in the Maritimes.  If memory serves, one was found on a mantle piece where it had rested undisturbed for decades until someone noticed it while cleaning out the house.  In the other incident, someone coming out to change the flag on a government building found the thing sitting there like an abandoned baby.

An old friend who served with the local constabulary relayed another story years ago of responding to a call to a home in what was then a less developed part of the city.  It was quite near an old Canadian army depot, though.  Somewhere along the line, the old codger who’d owned the place had managed to find a few treasures and stored them in his shed.  Included among the goodies was – as it turned out – a stash of 25 pounder artillery shells, less the bagged charges of gunpowder used to shoot them out of the cannon.

Still, though, the stuff was mighty dangerous.  Had they gone off, they would have left a mighty great hole where the shed and house had been, not to mention what would have become of the people.

It’s one thing to be a farmer in France and Belgium where this stuff comes up out of the Earth almost a century after it was first used.  or say to be a farmer in Afghanistan where the unexploded bombs and booby traps from recent conflicts still claim lives.

We are talking a whole other matter, though, when you have people who think that bombs, shells, grenades and other things intended to kill and maim might actually be worthwhile things to have around so there won’t be a lull in the conversation when the lads come round for a swalley.

At least someone had the good sense to call in the experts and have the thing disposed of properly.

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Romaine clears environmental review

The Romaine hydro project in Quebec cleared the joint federal-provincial environmental review panel on Friday.

In making its decision, the panel noted that it worked within the legal boundary between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador:

Par ailleurs, elle a évalué les effets environnementaux du projet selon le tracé de 1927 du Conseil
privé et ne se prononce aucunement sur la validité de cette frontière entre le Québec et Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador.

Quel shock for the League of Professional Victims.

For those whose French isn’t that good here’s a rough (not literal) translation:

In addition, it evaluated the environmental effects of the project according to the boundary set in 1927 by the Privy Council and does not come to a conclusion at all about the validity of this border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.

It comes to no conclusion since it had no grounds on which to question the whole issue. So much for the twaddle pushed by the League that somehow this decision would see the federal government endorse a border change. Apparently only one private individual appeared before the committee to recommend that the border be erased altogether.

There is extensive discussion of the environmental issues, including the potential impact on migratory caribou herds. The panel recommends that the Quebec ministries involved develop a plan with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to protect the caribou.

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Former judge dies; played role in uncovering details of major political scandal

Retired judge Lloyd Soper passed away in St. John’s on Friday, aged 89.  Soper had a distinguished career on the bench where he earned a reputation for his diligent, thoroughness and high standards.

For those who recall, Judge Soper served as commissioner for an inquiry into a political scandal that swirled around a fire at Elizabeth Towers in the late 1970s.

Soper may be best known for examining how confidential police reports wound up in the hands of news media.  He had no trouble weighing the evidence and making a firm decision in a report that ran a mere 47 pages.  The scandal, especially the events of the weekend of 23 September 1978  proved to be a turning point in many political and journalistic careers in the province.

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Islands

1.  The latest writings on the mess that is Iceland:  Winston Smith links to the New Yorker article, while here’s a link to a  feature in Vanity Fair. 

2.  nottawa gives us a couple of links to the story of an island in the North Atlantic that feels isolated from its mother.

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Stephen Harper’s bitch

“Williams bough[t] it hook line and sinker. He threw his considerable political machine behind the Federal Conservatives.”

Extract from a entry in the journal of the main local traitor brander

Smack in the middle of a post about the supposed accuracy of Senator George Baker’s comments on separation comes this comment from the blog author.

According to this blog that need not be named, in 2005, Danny Williams supported Stephen Harper based on the “it” in that quote, namely the promise to remove all non-renewable resources from the Equalization calculation. Then Harper reneged and the rest is history.  Among the League of Professional Victims, this episode has become yet another one of the grievances – more fantasy, fiction and invention than reality – that fuels their daily angst.

That was the point of the post which claims that baker is “telling it like it is.” 

Now it’s not like the political problems with this Equalization fiddle weren’t fairly obvious to anyone familiar with the issues.  Or for that matter for anyone surrounded by a bunch of expert policy people all of whom were familiar with the whole thing. 

And it’s not like a majority of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians voted for Harper in 2005 despite the workings of the “considerable political machine.”  They saw through the whole thing from the beginning, apparently.

But despite all that, this fellow who usually says the Premier is always right contends that Danny Williams – super-lawyer, wonder negotiator, walker on water, bender of spoons - was duped.

Fooled.

Taken for a ride.

Played for a patsy.

He was a sucker.

He was outsmarted, outwitted, bamboozled, hoodwinked.

By Stephen Harper.

Of all people.

Yes, according to the province’s chief quisling hunter and boffo rally organizer, Danny Williams was Stephen Harper’s bitch.

Okay.

If Stephen Harper could con Danny Williams, who else has done it?

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