You can take the girl out of Saskatchewan but ....

You can't the Saskatchewan out of the girl.

Brenda A. Craig: Amarillo By Morning

Brenda A. Craig: Amarillo By Morning

Terra Del Fuego

Living in the Hot Zone - Notes from the BC Interior
By Brenda Craig

Central Canada has its killer tornadoes, Atlantic Canada is a hurricane destination and every summer, British Columbia goes to war with fire.

It's late August now and cooler this morning, but the town of Kamloops has more days over 30 degrees than any other place in Canada and by noon it will likely hotter than a jalapeno. A blue-gray haze is laying low in the Thompson Valleys below Kamloops’ iconic desert hills, scorched yellow in the heat. No doubt, a Northern Pacific Rattlesnake or two is lazing in the sagebrush-tufted hills and God help the hiker who steps off the trail and irritates one of those rascals. The pine beetles have sucked the life out of about 50 percent of the pines that splash the hillsides around town -- and it is so dry a fart could start a fire.

All day long, there's the constant whoop-whoop of helicopters carrying water buckets to a fire somewhere, the long moan of big prop air tankers swooping shoulder first and fast down onto the runway at Kamloops Davey Fulton airport to fill up with a fresh load of retardant. It feels like a warzone and it is.

With over 600 fires burning across the province and a monster fire close to burning down the little town of Lillooet in BC Fraser Valley, a sweaty Premier Gordon Campbell appeared on television at the height of the summer's heat wave, begging people to be careful. A tossed cigarette, a tin can or glass bottle can work like a magnifying glass and set the forest ablaze. “Stay out of the back country,” he implored. “You can’t get out if a fire starts, and we can’t get in to save you.”

The province’s minister of Forests, a few weeks ago, got into a ‘heated’ argument when he came across a group of campers ignoring the ban on outdoor fires. Although, who would want to save people who are that dumb? – one might ask.

There’s a new word in the forest fire lexicon – the ‘Urban Interface Fire” meaning, according the BC government website, “the geographical point where the diverse values of the wilderness and urban development meet.” Ungovernmentize that and – housing developments built close to wilderness areas increases the risk of losing life and property.



From my office window, I can see the blackened pines from the great fires of 2003 that gulped through the Interior, burning down houses in Kelowna, and Barriere and McClure. "We've been lucky this year, knock wood," the Kamloopsians say. "Oh ya, we're lucky to have a Fire Centre here."

Not to say there haven’t been any fires. A spark from the wheels of a train passing through town set a small fire in ditch near a Kamloops’ neighbourhood and it took days to snuff it completely.

The smoke is getting thicker as a write. New fires have started overnight – about 30 kilometers from the city. Whoop-whoop, whoop-whoop. I can hear the choppers, one after the other. Birddogs, the small planes that guide tankers to hotspots, zing zing overhead. The hum is constantly, the sound of one melding into the sound of the next.

Kamloops semi-arid geography is really quite spectacular – it feels mystical, the soft lines of Mount Paul and Mount Lolo make it feel serene and calm. The light looks almost Tuscan sometimes. Businesses and neighbourhoods have names like Sagebrush Security or Desert Gardens and Sun Rivers.

Officially, Kamloops is about one centimeter shy of being designated as a desert although this year, we might have made it into that category. Less than half the usually amount of rain has fallen. A two-hour thunderstorm a few a days produced not a single drop of rain. All that fell was lightning that sparked a few new fires.

The only thing in town hotter than the weather is a roaring debate over water meters. Kamloops homeowners don’t have them, they pay a flat rate for water use. If people didn’t water their yards like hell on the days the city allows them to, this would be one ‘Brown Town’ and probably even more prone to fires.

In fact, the people of Kamloops uses more water per capital than any other city in Canada. A lot of that water they probably drink. I personally have poured more water through my system than I can possibly explain since I fled Toronto for the sanity of my beloved Western Canada several in 2005.

Who knows if southern Ontario’s tornadoes, Atlantic Canada’s fierce storms and BC’s fires are due to global warming? Did the pine beetle problem go ignored too long, or have we interrupted Mother Nature’s ‘to do list’ by artificially controlling fires in too many places too often. Who can say? There used to be volcanoes and lava flowing through these valleys a few billion years ago. I can just tell you what it is like in the fire zone with a record number of days over 35 degrees, with the smell of smoke in the air and the threat of fire always in the back of your mind. That’s life in the hot zone, that’s Canada’s terra del fuego.

Brenda Craig is a freelance writer and former CBC TV National Reporter who now makes her home in Kamloops, British Columbia. www.brendacraig.ca

Beverly Ann Bullock

We Miss You Everyday, Everyday.

Amarillo By Morning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZlN9ZMgiR8

Note to Canadian Journalists

Interesting article in the New York Times today about Journalists snooping around for jobs with the Obama team, and in some cases succeeding. We have a similar situation, I would argue, in Canadian Journalism. Two of our three network anchors nightly sport order of canada pins, three nationally known journalists have been appointed to the Senate and when it comes to who gets to live at Rideau Hall, well it is simply a question of which TV Diva will be next. I argue it makes us look a little soft around the edges, maybe leads to slower pitches in those scrums and exclusive interviews with the PM. Which side are we on brothers and sisters, which side are we on?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/us/politics/03reporters.html?th&emc=th

US Airways Pilot said "Brace for Impact"

A US Airways Airbus A340 crashed landed into the chilly waters of New York's Hudson River today -- all 150 souls on board survived the accident in what can be only be described as a miracle. In only seconds the Pilots made razor sharp decisions, managing to avoid nearby buildings and made a floating crash-landing onto the water. In minutes there were rafts, passenger ferries, and marine rescue workers on the scene rescuing passengers as they poured out of the downed plane onto the windgs and stood helpless in the middle of the Hudson.

Consider this a metaphor for the strength of the American people and the apparently hopeless economic collapse that is currently pulling the world economy under water.
The Americans have the power of perseverance. It's a 'we never give in to adversity' nation built on deep reservoirs of passion and undeniable belief in the strength of the individual and a made of steel commitment to tomorrow.

If the Americans can pull people out alive from that disaster, surely can pull out of the economic disaster.

Public Relations Disaster

Where was the Communications Team? A well crafted communications strategy could have prevented this PR disaster. It will be difficult for the Big Three to unwind this message.

America Overcomes

He won. Obama won!
In 1965 in Alabama, less than one percent of blacks were registered voters. When they tried to register to vote in places like Selma,they were gassed,beaten,threatened even murdered. A black President 48 years later is nothing short of a miracle. Congratulations America.

Beam me up Wolf Blitzer

If you didn't see Wolf Blitzer 'beam' reporter Jessica Yellin from Chicago into the studio in New York you missed something amazing!! She appeared on the set as a shimmering holograph, appearing virtually, as you might say, no different that a real person. Ya sure there's been a man on the moon, I can make long distance calls from my computer and download video from UTube and all the rest. But, this was amazing. Yellin and Blitzer had a little chat while she visited the set and then shazam she was gone. It was actually a holographic representation of Yellin somehow transmitted and then reproduced in the studio. Like Wow -- It gives a whole new meaning to the term live hit.

President Obama

In ten days, Barack Obama will become the next President of the United States.
One can only imagine the emotional bedside meeting he recently had with his dying Grandmother as he stands on the edge of history.
His challenges will be considerable. Around the world, the Bush Doctrine (the hit 'em before you they hit you philosophy) has earned the US a reputation as an agressive, arrogant, greedy bully.
Obama has two wars to deal with and an economic debacle that began on Wall Street and has now spread to the entire globe. Outside the US, Obama is seen as hope for a more intelligent and kinder America.
Can he do it? Will Americans let him do it? Is he on track for a landslide victory on November 4th? Will the world be better off with Obama at the controls? Much depends on the American people themselves. If they want him to succeed, they will all have to look deep into their own behaviour and pattern of beliefs -- as Shakespeare wrote "the fault lies not in our stars,dear Brutus,but in ourselves."

Oh Stand, Stand By Me

I try to keep my blog on a professional level, but today I am going to depart, slightly from form.
Everyday, I wake up and check the markets. What's the Dow doing? What's the TSX doing, the Nasdaq? Whats happening in Europe? My heart soars with the rallies and sinks with the selloffs. I have been investing in the market since I was about 27. I grew up poor on 15th St. in Saskatoon -- I like to joke, we were so poor our street couldn't even afford a name. I have ridden out some scary times in market. I reported on market crash of October 87 from the floor of the TSX, before it was computerized and there were still traders on the floor--investors thought it was the end of the world. Sound familiar?
The last 6 weeks, like everyone,I have been watching my portfolio shrink -- make that shrivel!
The market is full of fear. Mutual fund redemptions are soaring. What is really happening is hedge funds are dumping their stocks and people who bought on margin are being forced to sell -- And the market is going to keep falling until those leveraged buyers are squeezed out of the market. A few other things have to happen too, and it will take at least two years to recover.
We've had at least a dozen 'market meltdowns' over the last 5 decades -- and every one was followed by a raging bull market. It's true.
Everytime the market goes through one of these, mutual fund redemptions soar, and as soon as it rebounds mutual fund sales climb. They sell low and buy high everytime.
Now, will it be the same this time? Will I be able to count on the market to rebound, will it Stand By Me again?? --- Here's Ben E. King

W -- The Movie

There is nothing new in Oliver Stone's story of the George W. Bush and his 8 years as President of the United States. But what Stone does is put a frame around the whole mess and hang it on the wall for us to consider. Bush Jr. will be regarded, without a doubt, as the worst President the United States has ever produced. Stone reveals Bush Jr. as an impulsive, irresponsible testoterone-case who strutts his way through life to mask his insecurity. His silver-spoon arrogance and access to privlege makes it difficult for him to learn from his errors. Above all, he just didn't work very hard at being President. He seemed to prefer watching football to reading briefing notes. In fact he put more effort into becoming President than he did to being President. His legacy, 2 wars and a historic economic mess that threatens the whole world.

Something I realized as I watched the movie last night. In real life, you really never see Barbara and George Bush with their son. Old George and Barbara may not want to hang with Jr. that much -- you know what I mean?

Whom The Gods Chose to Destroy, They First Drive Mad

I think we can all understand how battered and bruised is poor Mr. Dion these days. It must be crushing to see yourself as the man who lead the Party into the Valley of Death on October 14th. His decision to stay on as Party Leader is based on emotion, not logic. He's trying to put this thing right for his own private reasons, not for the good of the Party or protect the next leader from noxious attack ads. It is hard to imagine he will have the authority or credibility to lead the Liberal caucus through debates on the economy in the house or control Liberal MPs on the hill. One of his jobs is face the media daily and communicate the Party's direction and decisions. He will likely experience difficulty there too. As revered as Pierre Trudeau is, remember there was a time he too was considered a liability and Party President, Iona Campagnolo took Pierre out for lunch gave him the news that it was time for him to go. If they did that to Pierre, they will be bloody minded enough to do to it Dion. They gave him chance to commit harikari, and sadly he didn't accept. It is kind of like he is on Canadian Idol and the judges tell to stop, but he just keeps on singing louder and louder and louder and refusing to leave the stage.

That's Stornaway in the upper left, the official residence of the Leader of the Opposition.

They Forgot to Call Dion!

Liberals spent the whole weekend trying to figure out who would be the Interim Leader after Dion stepped down.
This morning, Dion announced he would be staying on until a new leader is elected at the next Party Convention! Looks like someone forgot to phone Dion and tell him he was leaving now. I am sure the party will be in touch with him soon, very soon. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were waiting for him in the parking lot outside the National Press Building after his newser today.
The word is that Dion rejected the advice of his team during the campaign and that is one of the things that ultimately lead to his stubble and fall. He spent the weekend 'secluded' at home. Maybe he didn't answer the phone eh?

Thomas Friedman

Thomas Friedman is one of my favorite Journalists and Authors. He is one of the few people I have heard making sense these days about the American economy. He's an op ed columnist for the New York Times and has written extensively about the global economy. (The World is Flat is a good start if you like to read what he has written.)

Everybody seems to think Barack Obama is going to the next President of the United States and he will the guy saddled with straightening out the mess. Talking about the US election and the economy recently Friedman suggested that the rallying cry of this election should be "Invent Baby, Invent". In other words, the US economy is in cardiact arrest. It needs to start creating wealth instead of living on borrowed money. It needs to be revitalized and rebuilt. It is time to stop saying crazy things like "the fundamentals are strong" ..or "the American worker is the most productive worker in the world". This is not true -- It is time to get to work and start developing new industries, new ideas and new wealth. Let's hope, that Obama knows that--or that someone tells him and tells him fast.

Who Dunnit?

There is a world of hurt out there --- and everyone is looking for villians -- was it the banks, was it government regulation, was it Wall Street? The answer is yes, yes and more yes.

Most of my work at the moment is for an American legal news website. I have interviewed dozens of lawyers who are currently filing lawsuits on behalf of Americans who have had their life savings wiped out by a financial debacle that never should have happened.

Here are some FACTS.

The Banks -- A verdict of 1.5 million dollars was recently leveled against the Wells Fargo bank after a woman was suckered into a mortgage she couldn't afford. Banking employees worked on COMMISSION -- They received $2000 for every mortgage someone signed. The mortgage salesperson inflated the woman's salary, savings and mislead her about the actual mortgage lending rate. No lawyers are required to participate in real estate deals in the US. The woman objected, saying the information was incorrect. "Don't worry, we can fix that later," Wells Fargo said. The woman never moved into the house because she knew she couldn't afford it. She ended up selling it a year later for 90,000 less than she paid for it. The bank didn't care if she defaulted because it was repackaging mortgages and selling them to other financial institutions, that then in turn sold them as Mortgage Backed Securities to other unsuspecting Americans.

What can we learn from this -- Bank employees should not work on Commission -- Lawyers should be involved in all US real estate transactions.
-- If you're the lender -- then you have to hold the mortgage, they can't be resold.

Wall Street--Yup. Their finger prints have been found on the gun. Your financial investment advisor has a legal responsibility to advise you properly. Instead, many sold high-risk investments to older Americans and told them they were as good as money the bank. A Florida lawyer recently described the case of an elderly woman whose nestegg has been so depleted she will be forced to move out of a very comfortable nursing home to a state nursing home.

Government -- I hear right wing commentators screaming that communists are
taking over the government. Oh my. Yes, it is true that the Clinton administration and the Bush administration encouraged home ownership. Nothing wrong with that, it is a sign of a healthy society. The problem is there was no regulation -- and they left the door open to unscrupulous lenders to qualify anyone for a mortgage. New government regulations are needed.

People -- An Arizona lawyer who specializes in bankruptcies (he is very busy) talked to me about his clients. Very, very few know the difference between a variable rate mortgage, a fixed rate mortgage or an interest only mortgage. There is no lawyer required to look over a mortgage before someone signs and as a result many people had no idea what they were doing.

Culture -- There is a strange notion that we all ought to have more than our parents had. We have forgotten how hard they worked to get where they are. So folks think that those stainless steel appliances and granite countertops are some kind of birth right. Many, many people simply reached beyond their means because they think it there for the taking. Wrong.

Greed -- We worship at the feet of the Gods of Consumerism. Enough is never all you need. We seem to want more and more --- and are willing to use credit to get it -- at any cost. What a price we are paying.

No Country For Old Liberals

We've heard not a single word from Liberal Leader Stephan Dion after delivering the party's worst election performance since Confederation--even the Green Party finished ahead of the Liberals in four BC ridings. You can hear the sound of nails being pounded into the scaffolding as it is readied for the noose to be slipped around the neck of Monsieur Dion. Certainly, Mr. Dion's unspectacular performance during the campaign was part of the Liberal Party's problem--his obvious inability to connect with Canadians or to communicate the economic benefits of his carbon tax.

But here's the deal. The Liberals have been a party in decline for decades. Pierre Trudeau lost the west years ago with surly epithets like "why should care about your wheatfields?". Remember that one? It is nothing short of a miracle that Ralph Goodale keeps winning in Regina. The party hasn't been able to count on votes in Quebec since 1984 and the Mulroney's years, quicky followed by the iron grip of the Block. And Ontario has been slowly slipping out the party's reach--losing seats to the Conservatives and this time to the NDP in northern ridings of the province.

Who dares to grab hold the helm on this sinking ship is in for an ocean of trouble.
It's time for the Liberals to "rethink baby, rethink."

Fuld Flailing

“Is it Fair?”

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking real money!

Reality TV fans tuned in today to watch the public flailing of Wall Street fat cat and CEO of now defunct Lehman Brothers. Between 2000 and 2008, Richard Fuld Jr. admitted to the House Committee in Washington took home $350 million and presided over a company that paid out millions and millions in bonuses to other executives who rode to work in helicopters. While many Americans are wondering how to hang on their homes and watching their 401K get the stuffing kicked out them, Fuld has two vacation homes, including a 14 million ocean front estate in Florida, a multimillion-dollar art collection.

“You did well, when your company did well and you did well when your company wasn’t doing well,” said House Committee Chairman Waxman. “You have lots of money and now your shareholders have nothing.”

Fuld was repeatedly asked and asked many ways if this was fair compensation?
He bobbed, weaved, dodged, and never really answered the Committee’s question about the touchy subject of executive compensation that so enrages people, especially these days.

The man who presided over the biggest bankruptcy in the history of the world told the Committee looks as exhausted as Lehman Brothers. He started out with the company in 1966 as a junior employee, did his business degree at night school and wound up as the CEO. If the ending of the story wasn’t such a nightmare, it would the very essence of the American dream.

Of course, for Fuld, who still managed to end up with a big bag of marbles, it is still a pretty good tale.

House Prices

Kamloops Real Estate: Time for a Reality Check

Okay enough everybody!

It is time for a reality check---stop watching those wacky TV shows where a couple of guys who don’t know a hammer from a garden hoe, buy a dump, paint a few rooms, hang a flat screen TV on the wall and then flip the place for twice what they paid for it.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s latest housing market report says, in so many words, the party is over and the bar is closed. Rising mortgage rates, cautious consumers, declining housing starts and increased supply of houses on the market is bringing real estate price increases back to earth.

According to CMHC, the double-digit growth in housing prices that British Columbia has experienced over the last four years will slow down return to a rate more inline with inflation. CMHC’s mortgage rate forecast calls for 5-year mortgage rates of 7.12 percent in 2008 and 7.42 per cent in 2009.

Add in a few other facts of life these days, like the high cost of gas and rising prices for food and you can bet your sweet petunias that home buyers find a half million dollar mortgage a little less enticing than they did a few years ago.

So what’s the situation in the ‘Loops?

Well, a few years ago, you could buy a decent property in a nice neighbourhood for $170 thousand. Barring an outbreak of Ebola virus in Kamloops, those days are most likely, gone, vanished, over forever.

“We are not going back to 2003 market prices,” says Louise (Ziggy) Morash from Remax Reality in Kamloops. Morash looks at the Kamloops region with the steely eye of someone who has been in the marketing and sales business for 20 years and watched the city grow like an Okanagan wildfire.

Prices have more than doubled in Kamloops since 2004. The upward movement in house prices nothing less than astounding. The average house price in Kamloops at the end of the first six months of 2008, according to CHMC statistics , was $392,753. That is a smoking red-hot increase of 18 per cent from $332,841 compared to the same period in 2007.

After what Morash describes as “some banner years” in the Kamloops market, things have definitely changed. “There used to a lot of multiple offers for almost anything that came on the market,” she says “Now houses can sit on the market for 30,60 even 90 days, but if they are priced right, they are selling.”

The Canada Mortgage Housing report says MLS sales are down about 50 per cent in the first half the year in Kamloops. That would make it one of the slowest real estate markets in B.C. at the moment.

However, Bob Gieselman, the president of the Kamloops Real Estate and District Association says you have to consider the big picture when evaluating current market conditions. “I think the market is leveling off, but you really have to consider what has been happening here since 2004 to really fairly evaluate the situation,” he says.

Gieselman is an agent with Royal LePage and been working the real estate business for 30 years. He’s seen the ups and he’s seen the downs in the Kamloops real estate market. “At the end of every cycle, the price always ends up higher than where it started.”

It’s true that the number of houses for sale in Kamloops has ballooned what you really have to look at the number of houses sold. “It is exactly the same as it was in 2004,” he says.

It may also be true that some people have rushed their homes onto the market because they are worried that house prices may retract. Despite the fact that CHMC says housing sales are slowing, and there is downward pressure on price increases, CMHC says house prices will continue rise. For the Kamloops market, it is predicting that the average home price in the city will be in the $400 thousand range.

As an agent, Morash feels that the market slow down is ‘a good thing’, as Martha Stewart would say. “I didn’t always feel comfortable working with people in the kind of crazy market we had. People felt rushed into buying houses that sometimes weren’t really what they wanted,” she says. “In the next few months, things will balance out and it will be a better experience for everyone.”

Sellers, used to seeing those 20 percent year-over-increases, in market values may need a little wakeup call after years of hearing about offers that routinely come in well over asking price. ““We are in a period of attitude adjustment in terms of the sellers,” says Louise Morash, “Sellers have to lower their expectations at little.”

And, buyers may have to have get a hold of themselves too. “We’ve seen people come in and make offers on properties $100 thousand or $150 thousand under asking price,” says Gieselman, “But that just isn’t the situation we are in at all.”

Remember those two guys, the house flippers, looking to make a year’s salary in 3 months by fluffing up houses, putting some fresh flowers in vase on the dining room table and filling the house with the smell of fresh cookies? Well, they could find that instead of making a bundle, they end up losing a bundle.