Forget-me-not 2010

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Calamity Kath Dunderdale: the Miracle Max Ploy

Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only *mostly* dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.

On the one hand there is the CBC account of the latest Dunderdale-torqued version of  the Lott/Motion Invest proposal for Grand Falls-Windsor:

Despite several confusing twists and amidst accusations of 'confidentiality breaches' and 'misrepresentations' from a company seeking to revive a paper mill in central Newfoundland, the province's deputy premier says the deal may not be completely dead.

Then there is the version from the Telegram, straight from the company spokesperson:

“To be clear Motion Invests’ position has not changed since its release, and we have not communicated any message to any person in government which indicated otherwise,” the spokesman wrote in an e-mail to The Telegram.

Given Dunderdale’s propensity to shag things up so badly and blatantly, it’s amazing the Ceeb is still giving her the positive play on her obvious torque-ploys.

But when she starts channeling characters from the Princess Bride?

It’s just as well to go through the pockets and look for loose change.

Miracle Max knew what to do.

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Motion Invest’s statement on Grand Falls-Windsor project

“Date of Release : 28th June 2010

Motion Invest withdraws it's interests in the former Abitibi Bowater newsprint mill at Grand Falls-Windsor Canada

Motion Invest announced today that it has no longer any interest in the Abitibi Bowater newsprint mill at Grand Falls-Windsor Canada.

Motion Invest had been in confidential discussions to undertake a feasibility / viability study into creating a new non-newspaper print mill at Grand Falls-Windsor Canada.

However due to recent and wholly incorrect reports / statements that it was close to a deal to purchase the Abitibi Bowater newsprint mill in Grand Falls-Windsor Canada, Motion Invest has now decided to withdraw its interest.

At no time was Motion Invest ever close to preparing any offer for the Grand Falls-Windsor.  Its interest was wholly subject to the completion of a feasibility / viability study into moving production at the Grand Falls-Windsor mills away from newsprint production. 

Motion Invest has already spent over $ 75,000 conducting a preliminary review and site inspection of the mill regrets that the serious breach in the confidentiality and the misrepresentation of its interest in the mill makes the continuation of the project unviable.

Accordingly Motion Invest has been left with no option withdrawn its interest.”

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Mind-boggled Dunderdale continues to blunder

In an interview with CBC, natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale misrepresented her own earlier comments on talks to re-activate the paper mill at Grand Falls-Windsor.

According to a story at cbc.ca/nl, Dunderdale said:

“We have said very little about it. My response was a reply to a direct question in the house of assembly [sic] when the leader of the Opposition [sic] asked had we received a proposal from this company."

But that’s only partially correct if one limits consideration to a fraction of what she said last week.

Dunderdale first discussed the interest in the mill in response to a question in the House of Assembly on May 25 from New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael.  She didn’t name the company but she did make it sound very up-beat and positive:

We are very hopeful about that prospect, Mr. Speaker.

The next day in the House she didn’t issue many notes of caution either.  Rather, Dunderdale was full of bluster about the ability of her party to negotiate with companies compared to the inability of the other crowd.  Then she added this bit:

Mr. Speaker, we have a very good company coming out of Germany that have expressed an interest in that fibre.

Dunderdale also told reporters that she expected to have further contact and that the visit to the mill was a sign of the seriousness with which the company – consistently identified as being a company with paper-making experience – was viewing the mill:

The indication of their seriousness, Mr. Speaker, is they sent somebody from Germany to have a look at this mill. When I asked him what his observations were, he told me quite frankly that it was exactly what he had expected to see. They have gone back to do some work. We expect to have some kind of a submission from them in the next month or so, Mr. Speaker, and based on that we will see where we go.

It’s likely no coincidence that Dunderdale raised the site visit and potential interest at the same time that the opposition was hammering Dunderdale and her cabinet colleagues over revelations about the botched mill expropriation.

Getting her facts wrong is nothing new for Dunderdale on this issue.

As recently as last week, Dunderdale continued to link the company to pulp and paper production, something now known to be wrong.

Dunderdale also indicated in the House of Assembly that the company had submitted a business plan that was being assessed by three government departments.  Outside the legislature, though, she told reporters government had received a detailed letter and expected to have a business plan from the company – identified as Lott – on Monday, June 28. [Report starts at 2:30.]

According to a news release sent to CBC on Tuesday June 29, and quoted online, the company – now identified as Motion Invest was withdrawing its expression of interest in the mill.  And the release also identifies the potential project as being about something other than making newsprint:

“Motion Invest had been in confidential discussions to undertake a feasibility-viability study into creating a new non-newspaper print mill. However, due to recent and wholly incorrect reports and statements that it was close to a deal to purchase, Motion Invest has now decided to withdraw its interest,"

In comments to CBC on Tuesday, Dunderdale also claims that she didn’t miss-speak when she identified the company interested in the mill as Lott, a company that is in bankruptcy protection, rather than Motion Invest.

Dunderdale is confirming the new information which is in the public domain:

"The first contact we had was from Bob Roche on behalf of Lott Paper. The investment was going to be made by Motion Invest," she said. "The principal who was interested in making this investment was a principle with Lott Paper who would be bringing the knowledge and experience from Lott Paper to Grand Falls-Windsor, even though the investment was coming from Motion Invest."

Dunderdale never once mentioned Motion Invest at all until the company issued its own news release to CBC.

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Potential investor quits mill talks, accuses government of “overt politicization”: CBC

CBC’s David Cochrane reported this evening that the investment company that had expressed interest in the defunct Grand Falls-Windsor paper mill is withdrawing its offer. The first segment is at about 15:00 into the Here and Now broadcast.

Cochrane quoted from a statement issued by the company shortly after 1800 hrs Newfoundland Daylight Savings Time. 

According to the statement, Lott Feinpappen was never the company looking at the mill.  Instead it was a company called Motion Invest, in which an individual named Bob Roche was a principle.

Roche is quoted as saying that at no time was Motion Invest close to an offer for the mill.  There was an interest in doing a feasibility study on moving the mill away from what Cochrane described as unprofitable newsprint production.

In the statement as reported by CBC, Roche accuses the provincial government of a “serious breach of confidentiality of a commercial issue” of wholely incorrect statements and misrepresentations of Motion Invest’s intentions.

In the most recent session of the House, Dunderdale boasted about the ability of the current administration to negotiate successfully with companies.

The statement appeared to have been drafted in some haste, according to Cochrane, as it contained as many “broadsides” against the government as it did spelling mistakes.

Cochrane added to his report at about 49:00 with initial provincial government reaction.

According to Cochrane, natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale found the Motion Invest comments to be “mindboggling” and “absolutely incorrect.”  The proposal went well beyond a feasibility study and included targets and timelines.  

The company was also looking for loans and loan guarantees totalling $52 million, according to Dunderdale. 

The provincial government may release documents within the next 24 hours but is currently consulting with justice department lawyers.

Dunderdale told reporters in St. John’s last week that the company was looking for financial assistance.  She did not specify what the amount was at the time.

The latest information is also significantly different from Dunderdale’s previous comments in which she consistently described the project as being about a pulp and paper operation of the type already in the defunct mill.  In late May, she said:

“It's a pulp and paper company that sees some opportunity because Abitibi is withdrawing from its markets in Europe.”

Dunderdale also initially rejected the idea of the government providing “big loan guarantees or big subsidies.” 

However, by last week she was more concerned to “understand clearly what they are looking for from us”.

Provincial government policy includes interest free loans and outright gifts of cash for companies.

Update:  Motion Investment’s brief statement

 

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In Alberta, they have problems too…

with a biased, incompetent Speaker in the provincial legislature.  As the Calgary Herald quoted recently:

In an unprecedented attack, she [Danielle Smith] went after legislature Speaker Ken Kowalski for twisting the rules to keep his party in power.

"The Speaker needs to remember that his job is to serve the interests of all Alberta," Smith said.

"Time and again he has failed in that role and failed Albertans. And make no mistake, it is Ed Stelmach who has given the Speaker permission to run roughshod over Alberta's democracy. . . ."

"I think Albertans are as shocked as we are by the behaviour of this government, having seen the games they play, having seen how they treat Albertans, having seen how they push around political leaders and bully their own caucus. . . . I don't recognize them as the party I once supported."

How many people in this province say the same sort of thing about the shenanigans that go on here?

Hint:  it’s a lot more than the freshie-gulpers would like you to believe.

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Dunderdale still awaiting proposal from bankrupt company; spokesperson promises “due diligence”

According to cbc.ca/nl, natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale is still expecting a business plan from a German company to take over the Grand Falls-Windsor paper mill.

An unnamed spokesperson in Dunderdale’s office promised that the department will conduct “due diligence” on the proposal.

But as Bond Papers readers learned on Sunday, the company – Lott Feinpappen – has been in bankruptcy protection since June 15.

CBC added more detail on Monday:

As well, a lawyer with the Achern firm of Schultze & Braun told CBC News that Lott does not have the cash to pursue ventures, and cannot do business in Canada because of its legal situation.

The lawyer told CBC News that Lott is currently in "deep trouble." The German state is covering workers' wages at Lott — which produces high-quality paperboard products, and which has been in business for more than a century — until the end of August.

Insolvency procedures are to start in Germany in September.

In a news release late Monday, opposition leader Yvonne Jones said that this new information on Lott “highlights [the] careless and superficial work by government in not learning and disclosing this information to the public.”

Jones said that the provincial government “likes to talk due diligence, but rarely performs it.”

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NL population up by estimated 96 people

Don’t worry.

You read that correctly.

Statistics Canada estimates the population in Newfoundland and Labrador went from an estimated 510,805 to estimated 510,901.

96 people.

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Potential GFW mill buyer in German bankruptcy protection for second time in six years

The same week German papermaker Lott sent deputy premier and natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale a detailed letter proposing to take over the former AbitibiBowater mill in Grand Falls-Windsor,  the company went into bankruptcy protection in Germany.

According to the Insolvenz Rategeber:

Über das Vermögen der  Lott Feinpappen GmbH & Co. KG in Achern wurde Insolvenzantrag gestellt. Der Antrag erfolgte durch eine Gläubigerin des Unternehmens. Betroffen sind 70 Mitarbeiter, deren Löhne für die kommenden drei Monate über das Insolvenzgeld abgesichert sind.

The company – which employs 70 people – previously sought bankruptcy protection in 2004.

The premier’s hand-picked deputy told the House of Assembly on Thursday that she had received a business plan from the company the week previously:

Mr. Speaker, late last week we received a business plan from this company. It is currently undergoing assessment by us, the Department of Finance and the Department of Business. We do not have anything further to report at this time, Mr. Speaker, until that analysis is completed.

Outside the House, she told reporters that she was waiting to receive the business plan. What the company had sent was a detailed letter.

According to euwid-papier.de, Lott sought bankruptcy protection on June.

Dunderdale told reporters on Thursday that the provincial government would study the proposal very carefully.  Dunderdale raised hopes in central Newfoundland in late May by announcing in the legislature that representatives of a then-unnamed company had toured the mill and were interested in re-opening it. Apparently, even though she assured people of the province that her officials would review any proposal carefully, no one had, up to that time, done a preliminary review of the company and its financial history.

This is not the first time the Premier’s carefully chosen right hand has run into problems with business proposals.  As Bond Papers noted in 2005:

Then yesterday, we find out that no one [in Dunderdale’s department]bothered to check out American call-centre company Teletech using what Jack Harris has hilariously referred to as due diligence for dummies: the Internet search engine google.

Dunderdale is well known for blunders.  Some have been laughable.  Some are just plain ridiculous. Some are far more serious.  The deputy premier misled the legislature in 2006 over public tender act violations by a former Tory candidate filling a pork-barrel appointment.

In 2009, the deputy premier told the legislature a memorandum of understanding with Rhode Island for Lower Churchill had fallen through because the state lacked the necessary legislative jurisdiction to handle some aspects of the deal.  Turns out that NALCOR just couldn’t get the power to the state at a competitive price.

Dunderdale has also been known to score the odd own-goal of a far more  significant nature.  In September 2009, she revealed that she and Danny Williams had tried unsuccessfully for five years to interest Hydro-Quebec in an ownership stake in the Lower Churchill.  The deal would have been without redress for the disastrous 19569 Churchill falls contracts.  Before 2003 Williams insisted any deal he signed on the Lower Churchill would have to include redress. 

The secret talks to sell a stake in the Lower Churchill remains the biggest story of the Williams administration which has still not be reported by any mainstream media.

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Traffic drivers: June 21-25

1. A Crown corporation by any other name
2. China and CSIS:  the naive and sentimental writers
3. Today in history (Meech Lake)
4. The Spleen (Bill Rowe)
5. Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Hiring Test (Communication Directors)
6. Rowe book due this fall. Why?
7. Public money in inflatable shelter company now hits $4 million in four years
8. The Money Program
9. Suns News?  Ya gotta be kidding.
10. Government Talking Points:  the oil spill will never reach the shore edition

Bonus:  Spleen Audio! Here’s Bill in all his call-us interruptus glory.

This is what people in the blog business call a bizarre week.

Why bizarre?  Because an old post about Bill Rowe eclipsed the one posted fresh this week.

More on that way below, but other than that the traffic drivers were pretty straight forward.

Clearly people are interested enough in a company getting huge wads of public cash in a short time.  Three top posts this week relate to Dynamic Air Shelters.

Meech Lake grabbed a bit of attention even though the topic isn’t at all obvious in the headline.

China/CSIS and Sun News were popular national stories so that pretty much makes sense.  Undoubtedly more than a few people were surprised to learn the current administration in Newfoundland and Labrador had signed a pretty generous  memorandum of understanding in 2004 with a company they should have been more cautious about. Then again, this would be the first time they’ve blundered into something anyone with basic google skills could have warned them about.

The hiring test is clearly humourous.  Some people make have mistakenly thought from the headline it might be real.  Hopefully, they enjoyed the chuckle.

Posted late in the week, the oilspill quotes clearly hit a chord, just eclipsing a post about Dipper candidate in St. John’s South-Mount Pearl Ryan Cleary and the discrepancies in his story about why he left voice of the cabinet minister as its late night talk show host.

If the problem with VOCM was that Cleary wanted to spend more time with the family, being a member of parliament would be more incompatible with that goal than spending five nights a week yacking to the locals about whatever is on their sometimes less-than-sober minds.

Usually, it is a bad idea to draw attention to your own major shag-ups.  In this case it turned out to be a really, really idea for PAP as the smear attempt backfired big-time. Anyone who clicked through to BP clearly loved that Cleary post plus the old stuff about Billy Rowe. 

Double own-goal!

Just like the IRA bomb-maker in Belfast who liked to shift the nitrogen fertilizer around on his concrete garage floor using a metal shovel.

They never did find all of him, let alone the shovel or the garage or chunks of the backyard.

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US courts accept AbitibiBowater backstop commitment agreement

AbitibiBowater issued the following on Friday: US$ ABWTQ (OTC)

MONTREAL, June 25 /CNW Telbec/ - AbitibiBowater Inc. today announced that, in connection with its creditor protection proceedings and exit financing efforts, the Company has obtained approval of a backstop commitment agreement by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. On May 24, 2010, the Company had announced that it had secured a backstop commitment from certain unsecured note holders for a rights offering of up to $500 million. In this rights offering, AbitibiBowater would offer new convertible notes with a seven-year maturity from the date of closing to eligible unsecured creditors. Upon the effective date of the plan, the notes would be obtained upon exercise of the rights and convertible into common stock of the emerged company. Additional information on this rights offering has been disclosed in the Company's court filings, which are available at www.abitibibowater.com/restructuring.

"We are pleased with today's court approval which supports our exit financing efforts. This is another important step forward as we look ahead to the Company's ultimate emergence from credit protection scheduled for early this Fall," stated David J. Paterson, President and Chief Executive Officer. "The Company expects to emerge with a significantly improved financial position, resulting from its efforts to reduce costs, lower debt and mitigate the impact of ongoing market and currency fluctuations."

Before emerging from creditor protection, the Company must obtain adequate exit financing and complete efforts to address labor costs and pension issues, as well as satisfy other conditions set forth in the plans of reorganization. AbitibiBowater has commenced a process to obtain an exit financing package that will provide sufficient capital for the emerged company to manage business operations and execute its plans.

Ultimately, the Company's plans of reorganization will require creditor approval and confirmation by the courts. Affected unsecured creditors who are entitled to vote will receive the court-approved disclosure and voting materials, which are expected to be mailed in July subject to court approvals. More information about AbitibiBowater's restructuring process can be found at www.abitibibowater.com or by calling toll-free 888 266-9280. International callers should dial 503 597-7698.

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Government Talking Points: the oil will never reach shore edition #oilspill

Danny Williams, speaking in the House of Assembly in May 2010, as reported by CBC:

"As recently as this morning, we've looked at just exactly what the situations are in the North Atlantic," Williams said.

"It is a general understanding that because the offshore sites are significantly offshore and well east of the province that ... there's a lower likelihood that oil would actually come ashore in Newfoundland and Labrador."

From the Wall Street Journal, June 2010:

BP PLC and other big oil companies based their plans for responding to a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on U.S. government projections that gave very low odds of oil hitting shore, even in the case of a spill much larger than the current one.

Natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale, in the House of Assembly, June 2010, as quoted by the Telegram:

  Mr. Speaker, based on 40 to 50 years of wind study, it is shown that oil, because of the wave action and the coldness of the sea, Mr. Speaker, breaks up and disperses. ... Mr. Speaker, we had an oil spill in 2004 on the Terra Nova. Mr. Speaker, that oil dispersed, broke up, and went away. Ocean floor studies have been done, Mr. Speaker, there is no evidence of oil from that oil spill on the floor around our Terra Nova project.

The WSJ, again:

The government models, which oil companies are required to use but have not been updated since 2004, assumed that most of the oil would rapidly evaporate or get broken up by waves or weather.

 

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China and CSIS: the naive and sentimental writers

Richard Fadden, head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said something a few days ago that did not go down well with many people.

In an interview taped on Monday past with Peter Mansbridge, Fadden said:

“We're in fact a bit worried in a couple of provinces that we have an indication that there's some political figures who have developed quite an attachment to foreign countries."

In the days since CBC broadcast the interview, Fadden issued a public apology in which he retracted his statement that CSIS was discussing with the Privy Council Office how best to deal with the provincial government’s involved.

Some commentators have made a big deal out of the fact Fadden made the comments this week, in advance of the G8/G20 meetings.  Others have taken the apology as a sign that Fadden has been reckless and that he may well be  - or ought to be - replaced very soon.

Two things:

1.  In the context of the week’s events, an apology and retraction would be absolutely necessary if only to save the Prime Minister’s face with foreign leaders.  But no one should take that official retraction for anything other than that.  Canada plays in the big leagues and Fadden is too experienced a public servant to make comments that are as off-the-wall as the apology might suggest. 

Fadden’s comments may alarm the uninformed  - and there are evidently plenty of those out there - but for anyone even passingly familiar with CSIS publicly available intelligence assessments there is no surprise in anything Fadden said. China has long been mounting a campaign of economic and political espionage around the globe.  The country’s aggressive moves into the energy sector is well known.  The two things together suggest a need for wariness, if not increased vigilance.

Incidentally, you can include in the ill-informed list none other than Brian Mulroney’s former chief of staff, Norman Spector. The facts are at cbc.ca.

2.  Around these parts, no one should be surprised either at the Chinese presence  or the potential naiveté of some provincial administrations. 

In 2004, the Williams administration signed a memorandum of understanding for the potential development of the Lower Churchill. 

The company – Sino-Energy – was a consortium of companies that included a state-owned Chinese corporation that has been involved in questionable arms shipments.  The memorandum of understanding gave Sino-Energy complete access to NALCOR information, including details of the interconnection between Churchill Falls and the rest of the North American energy grid.

Bond Papers discussed the MOU issue - including the national security implications – in a 2005 post. No one has followed up on the story since Jeff Ducharme started it. 

The Williams administration might not be on CSIS’ watch list  - they might; China might not be the only foreign country of concern either - but that doesn’t mean they been known to make some amateurish shag-ups when it comes to signing secret deals like that memorandum of understanding with questionable foreign companies.

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Public money in inflatable shelter company now hits $4 million in four years

With a dose of $249,978 research money from the provincial government’s research and development corporation, Dynamic Air Shelters has now received about $4.0 million in public cash since 2006.

The federal government dropped $300,000 on the company on Monday.

That was on top of nearly $3.5 million the company had received between 2006 and earlier this week.  Most the cash has come within the past 18 months.

Here’s how the official news release described the most recent cash infusion:

Dynamic Air Shelters Limited is a world leader in inflatable blast shelters. Dynamic has the lead in this market and must maintain it by demonstrating constant improvement and validating the improvement through rigorous and controlled testing. The goal of this R&D project is to prove the performance of a production-model prototype of a fully upgraded blast shelter system that includes components and assemblies not yet tested. Expanding the blast resistant market and repelling competition is the most critically important feature of this product development. The RDC’s investment is $249,978 of a total project cost in excess of $1 million.

Dynamic Air Shelters received the largest single batch of funding in the most recent announcement.

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Rowe book due this fall. Why?

Danny Williams’ former personal envoy to Hy’s tossed out a few bon mots to those listening to the province’s Open Line show on a sunny Wednesday.

Someone else picked up on the rest of the chat but your humble e-scribbler chuckled at this bit:

There were a number of excerpts from the work in progress  that are now being compiled into a full length book.

Rowe thought he had something from his short stint in Ottawa that was worth putting to paper. It was a short time (six months), if memory serves, but Rowe apparently had great insights to offer.

So great were the insights that he quit his stint as a columnist at the Telegram to write the book.   Rowe claimed that writing a column every week for the largest circulation daily in the province would hinder his writing ability. Your humble e-scribbler had a great larf at that idea back when Rowe forecast his magnum opus was in the works.

So weighty were the burdens of a weekly column that Rowe took to writing a weekly column for the Spindy which would become the book. And of course, collectors of great local literature will recall Billy once edited a collection of his old Telegram columns together into a book as well.  Column-writing does indeed interfere with book-writing.

Don’t worry, folks.  This makes no more sense now that it did when Bill first penned his good-bye in the Telly.

And, as you may have noticed, those Indy columns were the works in progress now being compiled into a full-length book, not unlike the 1980s vintage compilation which also wound up in a full-length book. 

Just go with this for a second.

A full-length book would be in contrast to a half-length book or a three-quarter length one. 

Just take a book off the nearest bookshelf and see how many pages it is.  Now randomly pick another one – any book, any shelf – and preferably not from the same series or encyclopaedia.  Note that the number of pages is different from one to the other.  Pick another.  Same thing?

That’s because “book” is not a standard unit of measure.  There can be no full-length book since, by definition, every book is “book” length.

Yes, folks, Bill is a fountain of these sorts of idiotic remarks.

But anyway…

By now, those of you who haven’t clicked off to the old post from Bill’s last column at the Telly might be wondering how long this book  - covering a mere six months of time, don’t forget – has taken to cobble together.

Rowe started the Ottawa gig in 2004 and quit in the winter of 2005. Bill’s last column for the Telegram was in October 2007.  Presumably he was writing it then or had pulled together some bits and pieces to start work.

If this book appears in the fall of 2010, then we are talking six years from the time he started the gig, five and a half years or so from the time he quit the job and three years from the time he quit the Telly.

Even if we allow Billy boy finished bashing out the manuscript in late 2009, we are still talking two full years to document his recollections of events that took no more than six months to experience in real time.

And that’s allowing that he had three or four of the episodes published in the old Spindy.

So what’s so special about this fall for a book covering events that are already rapidly receding into the mists of time?

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Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Hiring Test (Communications Director)

The provincial government is looking for a few new communications directors.

Standards are high.  Not everyone can do the job.

The public service commission is under such pressure to find enough people to meet the stringent criteria set down by the Premier’s Office that they’ve had to simplify the qualifying exam.

Gone is the intensive two stage examine, including a written test, before the list was passed to the Eighth for selection.

According to the latest internal e-mail circulated last week – and obtained by your humble e-scribbler – public service commission examiners are to place two objects in front of the candidate.  They are not allowed to say anything. They must merely observe what the candidate does.

See if you can figure out how to pass the test.

Object 1:

Object 2:

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The Fragile Economy confirmed

BMO Capital Markets lays out the scope of the problem:

Newfoundland & Labrador [sic] saw a sharp 10.2% real GDP contraction in 2009, the worst performance in Canada. However, improvement in the mining sector and a reversal of some temporary factors will drive 4% growth in 2010 and solid 2.8% growth in 2011.

Problem? sez you, wiping the purple freshie from your lips. 

Growth returns. 

Here’s the problem:

However, the biggest economic driver in the province in the next two years will be construction activity. Government infrastructure spending will total about $1 bln in FY2010/11, helping boost total
capital spending an expected 23% in 2010. Provincial government infrastructure spending will amount to more than $5 bln over the next several years, keeping the economic fuel burning into 2011. At more than 3% of GDP, the Province’s infrastructure program is among
the largest in Canada relative to the size of the economy.

It is definitely not good when the public sector is driving the economy to such a degree.

And as for all the rosiness in BMO’s outlook. 

Well, let’s just say they obviously haven’t done any detailed analysis of the local economy especially if they think the recent population growth is driven by anything other than migrant labourers returning home from other parts of the country.

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The language of Shakespeare

On the one hand, you have the regular performances of Julius Caesar at Cupids, site of the of early 17th century English colony.

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

And on the other hand, you would scarcely recognise the language of Shakespeare some four centuries on, as it is spoken in the House of Assembly:

Staff members at the school say that the faces of the children light up as they eagerly access the food items each morning.

Yes, that’s what we all long to do with food:  access it.

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Brazil to expand oil production

From UPI:

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 22 (UPI) -- Brazil will spend $224 billion in five years on doubling its capacity for oil production and export despite cautious business optimism on the future global outlook for crude prices.

State-run Petrobras oil giant unveiled the spending plans as Chief Executive Officer Sergio Gabrielli set out the company's strategy to build capacity in the run-up to 2020, when Brazil will have doubled its production to 5.4 million barrels a day from 2.7 million barrels a day at present.

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Anti-Rubinesque Update:  Peak oil, Schmeak Oil:

But crude oil itself has already peaked – at least five times since 1950, Prof. Boyce says – without beginning to approach the demise of oil anticipated by peak oil theory’s famous Bell curve. Indeed, crude oil reserves have doubled roughly every 15 years since 1850 and the world now has more proven reserves than it has ever had in the ensuing 150 years.

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A Crown corporation by any other name

A company that has received almost $3.5 million in federal and provincial government money since 2006 is getting another $300,000 from the federal government to support its production.

Dynamic Air Shelters will receive another $300,000 for “research, and development, engineering and marketing initiatives.”

That’s in addition to the $575,000 the company has received over the past two years for research from the federal government.

Since 2008, the company has received more that $2.0 million in federal and provincial government money to support its business operations.

A Crown corporation by any other name would not  be sucking so much public money.

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