HUFF AND PUFF AND BLOW THE HOUSE DOWN

CBC just reported  rebuilding Fort McMurray will add $I.38 billion to Alberta 's economy nt t year. 

it will not be complete in that year. It will ramp up in 2017,18,19. 

Loss of production from the oil sands is considerably less. Almost negligible in the national GDP.

Oil sands productivity will also ramp up quickly when the fire burns out which it shows no signs of doing. 

In the current crisis only two industries are discussed. Oil sands production and  primarily the building industry. 

I don't expect it to mean much to Aurora Councillors and  Nimby friends, bound and determined to force the Province to re- grant  municipalities authority they are not willing to exercise.  

I only mention it to stress the importance of the building industry in any provincial economy. 

As well, nothing read in the "Summit" discussion to date hints awareness of the role in the business operation of an urban municipality.  The current Council obviously thinks it's all about fun and games. 

The latest issue  is a proposal to reduce traffic lanes to one in the block downtown to allow for 

patios where people can eat and drink and stare into the eyes of  drivers and passengers sitting alongside in stalled traffic. Maybe share a bite or two. Or throw buns at each other across the street. 

In the middle of the night,on Sunday, PBS aired an hour long conversation with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein ,hosted by an international reporter of the day when Richard Nixon was President. The event was in a press institute in Washington. 

Forty years later, Woodward and Bernstein  are still in shock and awe of what they heard on the Nixon tapes.

Vituperation, harm to political adversaries, the Vietnam war, the Watergate break-in.Throughout all, nary a word about what was good for the country. 

Nothing...Nil ...Nada ...Zilch...Zero ...not a squeak. 

Not from the President ,nor the men around him, was the good of the country ever a concern.

Decisions to keep the war going in Vietnam caused the deaths of twenty-four thousand American soldiers and untold numbers of Vietnamese men,women and children. 

It seems deaths of men, women and children of "the enemy" are not worth a head count. 

"Democracy is the worst system except for all the rest" is a quote attributed to Winston Churchill.

Or put another way, Democracy is little better than the rest.

Or another still, Democracy is only as good as individuals chosen in a given election. 

Populist is touted in the current presidential nomination race. As if it's valid.

All It means is repeating what the uneducated and uninformed, beloved if the belligerent billionaire, are thinking.  Or easier still in these modern times, reading social media comments  and bouncing them back like ping-pong balls. 

God help us...It's the millennium, another new word in the lexicon.

 "We want what we want. We will yell and scream and shout you down with obscenity and profanity and throw chairs at the podium,if we don't get it" 

It's hard to say which self-styled revolutionary, Sanders or Bully Boy Billionaire is taking lessons from which. 

It  certainly has nothing at all  to do with trust...security....or a justice for all. 

It  bears no resemblance to civility.