A mere pittance

Just a few other observations come to mind at the end of the week on the province’s newest old research and development agency.

The original post – that highlighted the sooper sekrit powers the R & D agency has – can be found here.

1.  Glenn Janes,  The chief executive officer of the thing, was appointed in December 2007. 

2.  The legislation to reinvent the agency was passed through the legislature in December 2008, isn’t in force yet and is already being amended in a bill currently being rushed through the legislature before the nurses’ strike hits.  It’s a council or agency or thingy since one of the changes being made will give cabinet the power to change the name whenever it feels like it.

3.  On the one hand, support for research and development is good.  On the other hand, $25 million is a paltry sum.  Well, paltry compared to what will be flowing from the oil and gas sector – for example – under offshore board regulations. 

The first three projects will pump considerably more than that annually.  As The Telegram described it in February:

The new rules require companies to spend a percentage of their annual offshore revenue on research, development, education and training activities in the province.

The rate will vary from year to year. This year, for instance, it is 0.36 per cent.

Basically, one project offshore will pump more cash into research and development than the provincial government alone.  We are talking hundreds of millions from Big Oil thanks to the offshore board.

4.  Had the government been really serious about R & D, they could have worked a deal with the oil companies to channel the Big Oil R & D payouts through the revamped agency/council/ thingy.  Since they appointed Janes way back in 2007, it’s not like they didn’t have time to work that into the Hebron talks or something.

5.  Speaking of Hebron talks, getting excited about $25 million in funding for R & D seems a bit odd given that the provincial government settled for a flat amount from Hebron.  That flat amount  - $120 million over the entire 25 year lifespan of the project - is way below what the project would have had to put into the provincial economy if the offshore board regs were applied. 

Put another way:  Big Oil involved in Hebron will shell out about less than $5.0 million a year.

Put another way still, Hibernia alone has put on average almost $20 million a year into local research and development since first oil in 1997.

6.  A couple of years ago there was plenty of tough talk, but the reality is that both the royalty deal and especially the R & D aspects of the Hebron project are actually a lot less than they should have been.

That’s pretty ironic, considering the Premier was quoted by the Financial Post two years ago talking about the need – supposedly – to get more out of Big Oil, not the less he settled for:

"In these times of extremely high oil prices where consumers are bearing the burden and companies are taking in exorbitant profits, the time has come for new arrangements for projects on a go-forward basis."

It was a new arrangement, of course, just one that ensures the companies keep more of their cash from Hebron.

7.  When it comes to the independence needed to run a successful research and development operation, the new agency won’t have it.  The chief executive officer is appointed by cabinet – not the agency’s board – and all staff hiring must be approved by the minister. 

With any R & D agency like this, autonomy should be the watchword.  Think of the research successes at Memorial University and its associated agencies.  Instead what we are getting is like a think tank where the thinking is watched over by Joan Burke and her colleagues. 

That never works well, especially if this new agency is going to be funding social science and policy research. 

All of this is a big shame really, since the guy in charge is evidently a sharp fellow.  Too bad he is working under such obvious hindrances.  It would be hard to imagine Janes came up with these himself working from what he described as a clean sheet of paper.

Maybe in a few years time, some other administration of whatever political stripe can  fix the fairly obvious problems with what started out as a really good idea.

40 years ago.

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Whadidwetellya?

On Wednesday we warned the government was putting on the push to slam the House closed.

It’s twoo, It’s twoo, as Lily von Schtup would say. Even voice of the cabinet minister is covering it.

The reason:  nurses strike.

If the House is open on Wednesday, nurses will be filling the galleries and the opposition will be hammering away at the provincial government asking all sorts of difficult questions.

Hardly likely the provincial government would want that when their pollster is in the field collecting the quarterly harvest of poll goosing results.

Very embarrassing would it be to have nurses doing even one tenth what the crab crowd did to government in the spring of 2005. 

Not only that but with cracks opening within the government caucus there could be a sorry-assed repeat of the whole Fabian Manning fiasco.  Seriously, people.  If Ray Hunter has to get up from his uncomfortable new pew to refute an accusation he’s been muzzled – and thereby confirm the accusation – then you know there are others who are feeling a tad unsettled trapped between the wishes of their constituents and the diktats that come via blackberry from the Tower.

Ray’s on edge.  Who else? Sullivan maybe and the pressure she must be under from people in central Newfoundland pissed off about Abitibi.

Jim Baker and the crowd in Labrador west?  More bad news coming on Friday, if rumours pan out.

Anyone feeling heat from Corner Brook and the failed Grenfell autonomy thing? Increasing uncertainty about the Kruger mill and one of its machines?

How about townie MHAs?  Or those from the Third City?  Must be hard having all those former mayors in one spot and the guy who goes in to cabinet is the one who can’t speak in whole sentences.

Close the House and let the pollster do his part in poll goosing saga free from all that “counter-spinning negativity”.  The line still brings a chuckle since it starts from the premise that there is “spinning” in the first place that is being countered.  Think of it as a round about confession, like telling Randy Simms that if one wanted to goose polls one would start the week before the pollster goes to the field.  Which of course is exactly what they do.

Anyway, it’s not like someone didn’t tell you what was going on.

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TJ the Latte Boy

The Kristin Chenoweth version that started a bit of a craze:

Another version which is actually much funnier in some respects:

And of course there had to be a counterpart from Taylor’s/TJ’s perspective:

Now the rest of you can be infected with a song that will get stuck in your head, too.

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Turn off the damn phone

From a couple of months ago, admittedly, but still worth watching again.

Sexist and inaccurate coverage at macleans.ca

Apparently, macleans.ca couldn’t find a story worth writing about from Newfoundland and Labrador so they had to showcase provincial environment minister Charlene Johnson as the poster child for provincial legislatures and their lack of maternity policies.

The thing is called “Why MPPs aren’t having more babies.”

There are more than a few factual problems with this piece so let’s start running through them.

1.  If you look at the demographics of the legislatures across the country you’ll like find that very few of the elected members are women and fewer still of those are in their child-bearing years.

2.  If you look at the men elected, you’ll also likely find most of them are at the point in their lives where their families are already started. A lack of clear maternity policies isn’t keeping women – let alone younger women – out of politics;  other issues are.

3.  It is incorrect to state that there is no maternity leave policy in the House of Assembly.  Johnson had to apply for leave, the same as anyone else would in any other situation.  Why the management commission or the Speaker hasn’t addressed her request yet is the problem. Johnson has obtained leave previously for medical issues.  This one would be no different, at the very least.  if Johnson wanted to take maternity leave, she’d have no trouble getting it.

4.  Therefore, the suggestion she’d have to pay a couple of hundred bucks is crap since it is highly unlikely the Tory cabinet minister would be denied maternity leave from a legislature dominated by the Tories and presided over by a Tory Speaker (even if by some remote chance her application might be denied.)

5.   There is an entirely different angle on this story, of course, which macleans.ca ignored in favour of the sexist one they took.  Like any, modern, progressive couple, Johnson and her husband didn’t see it as automatic that the woman had to take time off to care for the child.  After a month or so, Johnson is returning to work and her husband is taking parental leave .

6.  macleans.ca also didn’t note that Johnson is eligible for $1,000 for her child as part of the government’s bounty on live births announced during the last provincial general election.

7.  Referring to members of provincial legislatures as MPPs suggests that someone at macleans.ca needs to check the old style guide.  That particular appellation – short for member of the provincial parliament – is strictly found in Ontari-ari-ario.  They are members of the National Assembly in Quebec and Members of  the House of Assembly in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Canadian Press warns against using the abbreviations for provincial legislature members since the titles vary.  Good advice, but even in a pinch MLA – member of the legislative assembly – is generic enough to pass.

8.  Stories macleans.ca ignored in favour of this one:

-  Public funds diverted to partisan purposes (rather timely given goings-on in the U.K.

- The related story of a partisan appointed as chief electoral officer

And that’s just two of the juicier ones with some national relevance.

9.  As a last note, though, it was nice to see Judy Tyabji back in the news again.

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Quality matters

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians got a huge reminder today of a piece of red tape the provincial government deliberately ignored in its recent three year crusade to rid the province of unnecessary and burdensome government regulation.

Gas prices leaped six and a half cents.

The provincial government’s petroleum products price fixing agency has cost taxpayers in the province more than $65 million above what would have occurred if the regulatory system wasn’t in place. 

Some taxpayers, like those on the coast of Labrador, get an extra shaft from the province’s price fixing scheme.  Early price freezes mean the price per gallon stayed well above what the island portion of the province paid through the fall and early winter as prices everywhere else dropped.

Supposedly the provincial government eliminated 27% of the red tape that used to be there.  How they measured it is beyond anyone other than the people who issued the news releases over the past three years that contained little more than numbers:  government has cut another 3,652 pieces of red tape on its goal of cutting some other bigger meaningless number.

Rather than quantity, they should have gone for quality.  if they really wanted to wipe out useless government bureaucracy they’d have closed the gas pricing fixing office.

That’s something every consumer in the province – businesses included – would have seen every single day.

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Reinventing the wheel and keeping it secret

According to a provincial government news release, the Premier announced something new today: the “Research & Development Corporation (RDC), a new Crown entity for improving the province’s research and development capacity.”

Problem One:  it isn’t new.

At some point in the distant past, the legislature passed the Research Council Act which created an agency to fund research and development.  The thing is old enough to be included in not only the 1990 consolidation of provincial statutes but in the 1970 one as well.

The purposes of the council, as established long ago, are to research into just about anything anyone can think of with respect to the local economy and society and to take whatever steps are necessary to support both the research and potentially the fruits of research.

Last December, the legislature passed a new bill to create a research and development council.  The new legislation isn’t in force by the way, so the announcement today was completely bogus on that front as well. 

But aside from those extra two words in the title, the new bill doesn’t do much that the old one didn’t.

Problem Two:   the research and development council act, passed in December, copies almost word for word the sections of the energy corporation bill and thereby that makes pretty well everything connected to the council exempt from the province’s open records laws based solely on the decision of the cabinet-appointed Rhodes scholar who runs the thing.

That isn’t sarcasm, incidentally.  The guy is yet another Rhodent appointed by the province’s chief Rhodes beneficiary.  

Public money – to the tune of $25 million is going in – but what happens to will remain a state secret.  Not only are the fruits of research to be hidden from the people who paid for it but the new corporation can hide just about everything related to its own operations.

The information and privacy commissioner and anyone else who would normally examine a secrecy decision by a government body are directed by this bill to uphold the corporation’s decision on keeping secrets.

The old corporation had a mandate to publish research results, incidentally, which is pretty much consistent with the idea of making ideas available so the private sector can develop them and make something out of them.  Academics publish the results of their research so their peers can either profit from it for their work or tear into it and find the flaws. 

Not so in the brave new world of the research and development council.

Everything will  be secret except for whatever trivial bits of information the people controlling this enterprise – cabinet appointees all – deign to tell the nasty little proles who are footing the bill.

The cabinet gets to appoint the chief executive officer and the staff hiring must all be approved by the minister.

But even though this new version of the research council legislation was just created last December – and the bill isn’t in force yet -  the government is already making amendments.  The government bill exempts the new entity entirely from the Corporations Act and gives cabinet the power to pick a name for the council (it went from being the Research and Development Council to a name to be chosen later). 

The tenure of board members has changed as well for some inexplicable reason. Here’s the December version of section 7(1):

7. (1) Members of the board shall be appointed for a term of 3 years but may be removed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council for cause.

Here’s the May version:

7. (1) Members of the board, whether appointed before or after this Act comes into force, shall be appointed for a term of up to 3 years but may be removed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council for cause.

Anyone want to venture what difference the change makes?

To help you out, here’s the provision of the bill under which the current members of the council were appointed (remember that the new bill isn’t in force yet):

4. (1) Members hold office for a period of 3 years from the date of their appointment.

What we have here is yet another example of policy recycling by an administration that has been surprisingly bereft of any original ideas since 2003.

On top of that we have a government which can’t seem to sort out its own legislation.  We had three versions of the energy corporation bill in each of three years and here again we have a piece of legislation that hasn’t even been proclaimed and yet is being altered already.  Both of those things suggest serious problems in the policy-making processes of government.

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, we have yet another example of a government that talks a great deal about openness, transparency and accountability but seems to do exactly the opposite.

Where is the novelty, where is the innovation in any of that?

What a way to start out what is supposedly a bold, new venture to come with some original ideas.

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Government pollster in the field

You can tell Corporate research Associates – the provincial government pollster – is doing the quarterly omnibus.

1.  Yet another federal-provincial funding announcement.  (The second in three days)

2.  More public cash for a ski club in Labrador.

3.  Federal and provincial cash for aquaculture.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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Legislature to close early?

Don’t be surprised if the House of  Assembly shuts down suddenly later this week or early next week before the nurses’ job action starts.

After weeks of no activity, there’s been a sudden flurry of night sittings and extended hours that seem designed to clear off a few pieces of legislation so the House can close well before the original planned closure in mid-June.

The reason for closing early is simple:  there’s no way government could afford to have the House open with a nurses strike on the go at the same time the government’s pollster is in the field.  That’s right folks:  Corporate Research Associates is making its quarterly calls as we speak.

They can adjourn the sitting and then call it back later, if need be to send the nurses back to work suitably punished, as the Premier threatened today.  Rest assured though, the House wouldn’t be called back to vote on the bill to end a nurses strike until Don Mills’ people have stopped making their calls or have all but finished.

Never forget the extent to which provincial government pronouncements are driven at certain times of the year by the poll-goosing imperative. 

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One thing you can count on…

If the nurses take any strike action, the provincial government will legislate them back to work with a vengeance.

Sure the Premier and finance minister have drawn a dozen lines in the sand and made countless threats all of which came to naught.

But when it comes to the point where the labour struggle is, this provincial government will use the power of the legislature to smash whatever it needs to smash in order to get its way.

Just ask the Abitibi workers who thought the expropriation bill was about helping them out and not about skimming off the cream of Abitibi’s assets for the Premier’s pet crown corporation.

Plus, they’ll change the current legislation to make sure that there is as little chance of a court challenge as possible.

But…

It’s hard to imagine that the provincial government would follow on one aspect of the Premier’s latest threats simply because it would only have the result of making an already tough labour environment even tougher:

"So, there'll be no standby increase, there'll be no shift differential increase, there'll be no educational leave. There will be no additional steps for nurses coming into the system, and there'll be no additional steps for nurses that are already in the system."

No educational leave?

No additional steps?  That would have the effect of making recruitment and retention even tougher even allowing for the union busting provisions government will take for themselves so they can cut one-off deals with individual nurses.

Then again, in the Great Game of Chicken that is government’s negotiations with the nurses, logic and sense just don’t apply.

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Nose-puller alert: Frank and Brian never spoke after 1987

Via the National Post,  a description of a bit of Brian Mulroney’s testimony at the inquiry into the whole Airbus mess:

His relationship with Frank Moores, at one time a great friend, was “nonexistent” after 1987, when Moores trashed Mulroney’s government. “I simply severed communications with him completely.”

Does anyone else find it hard to believe that Brian Mulroney and Frank Moores didn’t speak – even once – during the period after 1987?

Like say, maybe around the time of Meech Lake?

Maybe September 1990?  Frank was here for the Hibernia signing but the poor old e-scribbler brain can’t recall if the Prime Minister at the time made the trip as well.

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S-92 Q and A

While it is stamped for internal use only, CBC has posted an internal questions and answers document prepared for use by the oil company officials and Cougar for use at some meetings being organized with offshore workers prior to the resumption of helicopter flights to the three platforms.

The answers are straightforward and leave out information that is still subject to the Transportation Safety Board investigation of the S-92 crash two months ago.

Some answers stand out, though, like this one about gear box warning indications:

Q79. Has there ever been a Gear Box alarm incident before? How was it handled? Was anything different from this incident? Did it happen with the S-92A? (Questions 112, 45, 277)

A. In the entire global fleet of Sikorsky S-92A helicopters, there have been a
total of five incidences related to three types of gear box issues.  Two (including Cougar’s helicopter) related to filter bowl studs, two related to lube oil pump Vespel spline couplings, and one related to overfilling of lube oil. The change from titanium to steel studs as mandated by FAA directive has been completed. The Vespel spline couplings underwent a design improvement that was previously implemented.

or another on the 30 minute run dry issue:

Q81. There has been comments that the gear box should be able to
run dry for thirty minutes, if this is the case why did this not happen?  (Question 240)

A. Sikorsky states that there is no “30-minute run dry” regulatory requirement for civilian certified helicopters. The S-92AA main gearbox is fully certified, without waiver or exception, to the latest Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs), including Part 29 through Amendment 47. Sikorsky states that total loss of oil is considered an extremely remote event based on system design. Further,that for all gearbox failure modes that are not deemed as extremely remote, continued safe operation of the S-92A helicopter main gearbox has been demonstrated in excess of three hours running time. In the circumstance of total loss of lubrication, a “Land Immediately” instruction is directed.

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Clarity

Here’s an old chestnut used to teach people about clear communication.  Your humble e-scribbler first came across it about a decade ago in an army staff officers’ course and it has turned up in several places since then.

What you are looking at is a picture of a note written by General George Custer at the Little Big Horn to one of his subordinates. 

Your challenge, should you chose to take it up, is to translate the scribbles.

What does the message say?

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Public cash not enough

Teletech, a controversial American call centre operator, is pulling up stakes and leaving the province after only four years of its five year agreement.

Back when she was innovation minister, Kathy Dunderdale offered the company $1.1 million annually in wage subsidies for five years in order set up shop in Mount Pearl.  Controversy erupted when it turned out that the company had a string of labour relations lawsuits but Dunderdale’s department hadn’t noticed even though the suits are well documented on line.

Due diligence for dummies, Jack Harris called it at the time.  He meant “google”.  Harris was playing on Dunderdale’s love of meaningless phrases which came out in force as the minister faced pointed questions about her departments fairly obvious incompetence:

In another interview, the minister said that the outside companies hired to carry out the "due diligence piece" would not necessarily pick up these sorts of issues. So what were they looking for? Lint?

She also said this information turned up by reporters wouldn't have "negatively impacted" on government's decision, had it been known.

Observers will note that Dunderdale loves those meaningless phrases when she’s under pressure – as in this and countless other cases – and when she isn’t.  It seems, as we suspected back then, that Dunderdale thinks this blather makes it sound like she knows what she is talking about when she likely doesn’t.

Interesting that the company never had to operate a single day in the province without a cash infusion from government. 

Wonder where they are going next?

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Trade deals and petards

The premier’s excuses for not participating in talks on a European trade deal just get more bizarre as time goes by.

First there was the whole idea that Stephen Harper can’t be trusted to look after Newfoundland and Labrador’s interests so the best solution – according to Danny Williams’ logic – is to let Stephen Harper look after Newfoundland and Labrador’s interests.

Then there was the whole idea of a side deal which, of course is impossible constitutionally, not to mention practically.  As a European Union spokesperson put it:

"The Government of Canada is the only government with the authority to conclude international treaties under the Canadian constitution, so our interlocutor and negotiating partner will be the government of Canada,"…

The spokesperson indicated she’d apparently met with Our man in a Blue Line Cab to talk about seals.

But apparently, nothing else.

Then there was the whole go-it-alone thing, which consisted of nothing more grand than sending Tom Hedderson off to talk to a few ambassadors in a hastily arranged series of meetings on seals.

Now there’s this little gem, from Question period in the House of Assembly on Monday:

So there are other bigger issues. There is also the whole issue of the Atlantic Accord and what is going to happen when European countries do business in Newfoundland and Labrador.

What issue is he talking about? 

Or more accurately, which Atlantic Accord?

The 2005 one – the only one he usually talks about – doesn’t have anything to do with Europeans or trade.

The 1985 one – the real one – establishes a local preference policy for Newfoundland and Labrador companies doing business offshore.  The only way to get rid of that would be for the federal and provincial governments to agree to eliminate it.  That’s because the deal can’t be amended unilaterally.

Well, it isn’t supposed to be amended unilaterally.

Under section 60 of the 1985 Accord, neither party could amend the enabling legislation unilaterally. Until 2007, no one thought they might.  Then Stephen Harper amended the offset provisions in a rather sneaky way.

But the really odd thing is that the provincial government did not raise a single objection  - beyond some generalised gum-flapping about Equalization - to the amendment of the 1985 deal. 

Not a one.

No letters of protest.

Nada.

To the contrary, when they opted for O’Brien 50 this past winter – and pocketed  Equalization cash in the process – they accepted the federal Conservative’s 2007 amendment as part of the deal.  In fact, as the premier has indicated recently, the provincial government decided at least as long ago as early 2008 to flip to O’Brien/50 in early 2009 in hopes of pocketing Equalization cash. Heck, they might have even signalled that privately at the time to the federal government.

So maybe the real reason the Premier is in a snit is because he’s worried that through all of this he’ll just be hoist by his own clever Equalization petard.  Rather than see the local preference rules of the 1985 deal preserved to the benefit of local companies, we’ll see them disappear.

That would go a long way to explaining the sudden about face the provincial government did on this deal back in February.  Maybe the feds made it clear that the local preference provisions of the 1985 deal were up for consideration and one of the things the feds could throw back in the Premier’s face was his own acceptance of the unilateral changes to the 1985 Atlantic Accord.  You can almost imagine the conversation:  “Danny, it doesn’t matter if you show up or not.  We can change the thing by ourselves if we have to – you just told us we could when you accepted the changes from 2007.”

Still, though, it doesn’t explain why he would sit on the sidelines rather than become personally involved.  After all, as he told the legislature: :[w]e are going to do what we have to do here to protect the interests of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and I could not care less what the rest of them do, I have to be quite honest with you.”

Well, to be quite honest with you, if the provincial government was really hell-bent on protecting Newfoundland and Labrador interests, the place to do that is at the table, inside the Canadian negotiating team.

Seal-bashing just doesn’t seem like a reason enough to turn down the invitation to sit on the team.  And like we’ve said before, if custodial management and shrimp tariffs are so important – and they are – the place to deal with those is at the negotiating table.

And look, if you really want to get a sense of how much is at stake for the province just look at what the Premier said himself in the legislature:

There are also a lot of very big, multinational, European companies that want to do business in Newfoundland and Labrador, because of our minerals, because of our oil and gas, because of our fishery, and we have to take the abuse from these hypocrites basically saying that we act in an inhumane and a barbarian manner, when they chase bulls through the streets in Spain, and matadors pierce bulls in a Roman type atmosphere, and we are out trying to earn a living.

So  - if we try and follow the Premier’s own logic – a vote by the European parliament that affects maybe a few million dollars that comes to the province from seal-bashing is way more important than billions in new economic development throughout Newfoundland and Labrador that would come from participating in the trade deal negotiations.

Okay.

That makes sense.

Not.

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Inconvenient truths: voting math

From the House of Assembly and a discussion of the recent vote taken among the province’s nurses on a contract offer from the provincial government:

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, quite simply, a strike can be avoided if the nurses decide not to go on strike. It is my understanding that 80 per cent voted and that 63 per cent of those who voted, voted to have a strike. The math on that is 50.4 per cent, so one out of two nurses wants a strike and one out of two nurses do not want a strike.

He’s right.

That’s the way the numbers break out if you look at the total number of eligible voters.

Of course, that isn’t the way, the Premier and his supporters like to look at the results of the last provincial election. They’ll talk about things like the nearly 70% of the popular vote for the Provincial Conservatives.

Of course, as some people conveniently forget, only 60% of the electorate turned out to vote.

The math on that is 41.76%.

So…

you can fill in the rest.

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No deal. No cash.

The lack of a deal with the federal government is holding up approval of projects eligible for the federal government’s economic stimulus spending.

The provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Manitoba, as well as the three territories, have yet to reach agreements with Ottawa on the program, although some contacted last week said agreements were imminent.

However, one official told The Globe and Mail that the deal with Alberta was delayed because the government in that province wants some of the previous money it allocated to infrastructure spending to count toward its one-third share of the program. Alberta feels it has spent substantially more on infrastructure than any other province and that their actions should be recognized. A federal official said Friday that the two governments have since reached an agreement in principle.

Maybe the provincial government has sorted that out in the meantime.  There’s not much else that could prompt a joint federal-provincial newser.

Lots o’ cash and cuddles update:  Turns out that there was a deal and that the federal government was quite happy to hold a giant news conference with both federal and provincial Conservatives attending.

But the cuddles didn’t stop with the newser.  Provincial Conservative public works minister Trevor Taylor even issued a ministerial statement on the cash, this being polling season and all.

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Airborne misadventures, Part Deux

For those who enjoyed the video of paratroops exiting an aircraft in a less than proficient manner, here is another one to lighten up your day.

This one is “Airdrop mishaps” which – as the title suggests – is a string of things that went wrong in dropping equipment and supplies to soldiers.

There are flipped-over trucks, a LAPESed pallet that breaks open, spilling  its load all over hells half acre, a parachute deployment problem (it didn’t deploy until it was way too late) and  - a personal favourite – the vehicle that broke free of its restraining straps and started off down range on its own.

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Well positioned, indeed

In the past year, Newfoundland and Labrador has shed 8,800 jobs.

That’s right.

There are almost 9,000 fewer people working this time in 2009 than there were at the same time in 2008.

CBC News is focusing only on the 2,800 dropped in one month – that is last month.

Fair enough, but that other number is staggering what with all the talk from the provincial government the past few months about the province being supposedly well positioned to weather the economic crisis and then emerge unscathed on the other side.

8,800 jobs shed in a year.

If you look at the figures from Statistics Canada you see that the figure is made up of almost equal numbers of full-time and part-time jobs. But, look a little harder and you’ll notice that in the part-time employment segment, the job loss amounts to 12.5% in a single 12 month period. 

Those people didn’t switch to full-time employment status nor did they leave the province, necessarily.

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Sound familiar?

A bunch of politicians accused of living high on the public hog and getting into an argument about what the rules permit.

From Guido Fawkes:

Guido has been shouting about the Green Book Rule changes which came into force on April Fools Day - and politicians really do take us for fools. To stop all the rule breaking by MPs they came up with a clever solution. Scrap the rules!

Meanwhile, there is a hunt on for the person who leaked information on the story to the papers.

The Mother of Parliaments might wind up following the path taken in the Bow-Wow Parliament once the whole thing explodes.

We could loan them a Chief Justice who could sort the mess out quite nicely.

In the meantime, it might be interesting to find out if any of their cash from their spending scandal had been directed to paying party campaign expenses as has been the case here, albeit something the ruling party isn’t at all interested to see investigated with the same judicial vigour.

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