Rites of Spring #37 - Most stupid story I have heard this month · Saturday June 19, 2010 by colin newell
Part of my morning ritual – listening to Gregor Craigie of CBC on the Island while he interviews folks, delivers the news and coaxes the weather and sports out of his cheery colleagues at 90.5 Mhz
My part of staying informed obviously.
Particularly on Monday’s when there is no paper because the Times Colonist is eliminating papers to serve us better.
Anyway.
The CBC story this morning ( in June I think…) was Gregor interviewing one of Thrifty Foods brightest executives explaining why Thrifty Foods was shipping Island produce to the mainland for storage and inevitable shipping back to Vancouver Island.
Right.
Smarty pants Thrifty Foods exec explains… We were bringing over fruit and vegetables and stock from around North America… and (get this) sending empty trucks back over to the mainland!
Gregor bit his lip and girded his loins and replied…
“Wouldn’t it be better to have a cold storage facility on Vancouver Island for produce destined for Vancouver Island?”
Good digging there Gregor!
Reply.
It did not make sense for Thrifty Foods to send empty trucks back to the mainland when we have perfectly good cold storage facilities over in the Vancouver area.
Jesus. Of course. Psyche. Why didn’t I get that? (bashing my head against wall like Dobbie of Harry Potter)
For the record, our Island proud company, Thrifty Foods, is now owned and operated by Sobey Foods of Ontario.
Which explains the wizard like thinking above.
Good journalism Gregor! You really held that exec dudes toes to the fire.
This reminds me of the local hospital society that sends their dirty laundry to Calgary, Alberta for scrubbing… as opposed to using a local laundry – which simply would not make sense… would it?
No. Of course not.
Website issues are temporary - stay tuned. · Tuesday June 8, 2010 by colin newell
I am currently bouncing web requests for dxer.ca and coffeecrew.com over here because of technical issues at my ISP – things should fix themselves by morning…
hopefully… and they are.
Thanks for your patience.
Rites of Spring #27 Billion dollar G8-G20 security boondoggle · Friday May 28, 2010 by colin newell
Canadian security warlord and dweeb Ward Elcock (photo at right) is the bureaucrat who is spending nearly a billion (of your) tax dollars worth of security for the G8/G20 summits and, to hear him explain it..
“Hyuk, that’s money well spent, Hyuk, hyuk, nyuk…”
Say what?
“Protecting world leaders (from nasty hippy protestors) “requires a lot of people and people are expensive,” Ottawa’s nerdy security czar told The Globe and Mail in an gushing interview.
No.
Here is what really adds the dollars to these events: Security resellers…
Take a product (like a security officer or policeman) that we are paying for or have paid for already – and out-source it to a company that normally supplies us with security products but marks up that service by a factor of 10 or 100.
Example: A mall cop or community police constable might cost 12 to 35$ an hour.
Contract a “security supplier” to provide this service and they hire the McCops and “resell” them to us for upwards of $1000 an hour. The “reseller” pockets the difference and you line the pockets of the “reseller”
Another great example of this is an “unnamed” community in Canada that is having troubles with its mega-expensive trunked police communication system – that never seems to work. The supplier (who will remain nameless – they are a trans-national telecom with billions of dollars in sales) sells an accessory product for this communications system to a reseller for $49 and the the communications-security subcontractor resells it to the bottomless pocketed police force and ultimately to a beat cop for $499. It is a great scam. And in this way, these mysterious costs sky-rocket.
Remember the term “Golden Toilet” seat that costs $10,000 in a government stores system? This is what we are talking about. It’s pure pork barrel and pure boondoggle.
With no end in site.
He denied allegations of profligacy (wasteful excess), saying that Canadian taxpayers have to understand the logistics of deploying thousands of federal agents.
Also, he said, other countries lowball their own costs.
“Nobody has written a blank cheque,” he said of Canadian spending.
No. He has written a blank cheque and signed our name to it.
Ask yourself this: Why are we re-paying for RCMP officers? Yes, there is overtime but this is an event that needs less than a weeks security.
Think about it… because you are paying for it.
Rites of Spring #23 West Jet flight credits watch your dates · Wednesday May 26, 2010 by colin newell
Andrea and I had a trip we had to cancel a year ago that was the result of a family illness – that ultimately resulted in the loss of a loved one.
We ended up with a West Jet credit of $1500.
And once things settled down we were planning on taking a short trip south of the border… to San Francisco to visit friends, or Los Angeles… or Portland, Oregon.
Alas, I misread the dates on the credit. I had a year from the date of cancellation – not a year from the flight.
And so I discovered when I called West Jet a week or so after the credit actually ran out.
“Mister Newell, your account shows zero dollars…”
No apology. No “we’re sorry…”
$1500 down the drain.
I would have even humored a “read the fine print you doofus..”
I would like to ask West Jet… where does that money go?
I could have paid $10 to extend it another year.
So why not take $10 of value off of the voucher and leave me with $1490. No, that would not make sense.
Bummer. Thanks West Jet. In the air you are loads of fun.
On the ground you are no fun whatsoever.
Note to self: Always read the fine print… always.
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