Yup Again

Thanks Brad.

Thank You Brad Wall

Saskatchewan premier, cabinet take wage freeze

"Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall says he and his cabinet ministers are taking a wage freeze to help address revenue challenges brought about by slumping oil prices.

Wall says the wage freeze also applies to senior government officials and other non-unionized executives, such as Crown corporation and health region employees.

He says the move is for one year and is expected to save $15 million."

Premier answers; ‘Where did all the money go?’

"“The answer’s clear,” Wall asserted by phone on Friday, pulling no punches in criticizing Broten’s assessment of his government’s performance.

“We’ve paid off the debt by $3 billion, we’ve invested $6 billion in infrastructure since 2007 -- that is double what the NDP invested in their same period of time in office,” Wall noted.

“We have cut the income tax by historic levels -- the same with education property tax.”

Pausing from his list, Wall noted; “We’re looking forward to this debate, if Mr. Broten wants to ask the question.”

One of Broten’s go-to points in recent months has been his criticism that more front line service workers are required in the province’s health-care system.

Wall says it’s a confusing argument, given the Sask. Party has increased front line health-care workers by almost 2,600 since taking power in 2007."

Sure Is Nice...

...to see Saskatchewan booming:

Mother of 6 happy to now call Saskatchewan home

Saskatchewan's population grew by 20,056 in 2013.

• 65% of that growth came from people from other countries;

• 28% came from natural growth (births minus deaths);

• 7% came from other parts of Canada 

And it's only going to get better:

Saskatchewan's economy expected to rebound in 2015: RBC Economics

Thank you, Brad Wall!!

Thank You, Brad Wall

Moving Saskatchewan Forward

Again, Thank You Brad Wall

Thank You Brad Wall!!!

The State of the Province in One Word

Saskatchewan supports the Energy East Pipeline

...for not being the NDP!!!

Round Up

Shawn Atleo was a different type of National Chief, and that’s what led to his ouster

This could be the beginning of the end of the Indian Industry, and not a moment too soon.


Police pile onto tractor as farmer helps track suspects through muddy field

"Four RCMP members hitched a ride on a farmer’s tractor Friday afternoon as they tracked down three suspects through a wet and muddy field near Briercrest, Sask."

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"The suspects, without transportation to leave the town, were now somewhere in the area on foot, police said.

A canine unit and neighbouring police detachments were called to assist the tracking efforts. Word spread among residents to keep an eye out for the three suspects and to alert police of sightings.

Several residents assisted police by searching grid roads in their pickup trucks. Others canvassed wet and boggy areas with quads and one resident, a pilot, took to the air to search."

Lots of fun.

New views about Neanderthal Man:


Neanderthals not incompetent dimwits: study

"That is the message a pair of researchers have delivered after analyzing archaeological evidence detailing the capabilities of Neanderthals, our closest extinct human relatives, compared to the early modern humans who first crossed their path about 40,000 years ago."

Gap Between Neanderthals and Us Narrows, But Does Not Close

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Tsunamis

It's Happening Everywhere!!!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Cities scrambling to deal with water main breaks

"Saskatchewan's three largest cities are hoping this year's unprecedented amount of water main breaks doesn't become the norm.

Since Jan. 1, City of Regina crews had repaired a record-setting 180 line breaks. The previous record was 163, set at the end of March 1979.

"We have no control over the weather," said John Ullrich, Regina's manager of water and sewer construction.

"A lot of times weather goes in cycles. If you look at 35 years ago, we went through a similar situation."

As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 55 running leaks throughout Regina."

[---]

"As of Tuesday, Saskatoon had 170 water main breaks since Jan. 1 with a wait time of three to six days for repairs.

Saskatoon's water lines range from brand new to nearly 100 years old."

[---]

"Workers in Prince Albert have been working 16-hour days to repair the 34 water line breaks and 70 frozen service connection lines.

Colin Innes, director of public works, said the city usually sees 15 frozen service connection lines. They're the lines that connect the building to the street water main.

"For the people who have a frozen service connection, because there are just so many of them, it's taking us a lot longer to be able to get to them," Innes said.

Some P.A. residents are waiting up to a week to have their water restored."

And, of course, it's snowing out.

Woot! Woot! Woot!

Saskatchewan's population reaches all-time high

"According to new figures from Statistics Canada Saskatchewan's population increased by more than 20,000 people in 2013.

The current population stands at about 1,117,503 people, a rise which Premier Brad Wall said shows the province is on the right track."

[---]

"Saskatchewan had the second highest growth rate out of the 10 Canadian provinces, with Alberta topping the list.

Saskatchewan and Alberta were also the only two provinces to have more people moving into the province than out in 2013, with every other province having the opposite. (Emphasis mine.)

More than 13,000 of the new Saskatchewan residents were people who moved here from other countries. Almost 1,400 people moved here from other provinces. There was a natural increase of 5,580 people which is the total of births minus deaths in the province in 2013."

There's a down side, though. Sask.Job vacancy rate second highest among provinces

"Saskatchewan has the second highest job vacancy rate among the provinces, while the ratio of unemployed people to job vacancies is the second lowest in Canada.

Statistics Canada says Saskatchewan had 8,300 job vacancies in the three-month average ending in December 2013.

The ratio of unemployed people to job vacancies in the province was 2.4, up from 1.8 a year earlier, as the number of vacancies fell faster than the number of unemployed people.

Nationally, there were 6.3 unemployed people for every job vacancy, up from 5.7 in December 2012."

Oh Crap!!

I just looked up the long term forecast for Saskatchewan for March. I wish I hadn't. Here's what's in store:

1st-3rd. Storm center over Prairies brings blizzard danger

4th-7th. Another storm brings rapid changes in temperatures, precipitation.

12th-15th. Rain, snow covers large areas of Rockies, Prairies

16th-19th. Early spring storm over Saskatchewan brings heavy snow.

24th-27th. Storm moves east from Alberta-Saskatchewan bringing snow to Manitoba, points east.

28th-31st. Mixed clouds, sun.

In some sadistic sort of way, I suppose that means "In like a lion. Out like a lamb."

And April ain't much better.  Bah. Humbug. I'm sick of winter!!

Latest From The Global Warming File

Cold makes for "worst Christmas season ever" at ski hill

I so wanted some of that global warming, but once again it seems Saskatchewan is not part of the globe.

Ooookay...

...knuckledraggerland has shaken off (or should that be peeled off?) some of its prudishness:

Peeling on the Prairies: Stripping now legal in Sask. bars

I think I can hear some bones rattling. Must be Tommy Douglas rolling in his grave.

Good For You...

UPDATE: And to top it all off, there's news this morning that Saskatchewan's population has reached a record 1,100,000. Wow!  See what can happen when you kick the socialists out?  We have a ways to go to best Alberta, though.
   =========Original Post Starts Here=========

...Regina

Although I had no skin in this game, I was watching, reading, listening, and generally shaking my head in disbelief.

What really pissed me off, was the advertizing spots produced by CUPE, against the private-public partner ship.   (No vested interest there, of course.) They were littered with stale old lefty-speak about the evils of private enterprise.

Not only that but they featured people that did not even live in Regina, and who, to the best of my knowledge have never lived in Regina, including one from my home town.

I suspect (hope) that means our two major cities are no longer swayed by brain-dead leftardish ideology and their sleazy tactics. Being university towns, they have traditionally been dominated by left wing zealotry. Perhaps that is finally dead. (Fingers crossed. Knocking on wood.)

How 'Bout Them...

...Riders?

I'm not much of a professional sports fan, unless a significant team gets in the finals, and by "significant" I mean a Canadian team in the NHL or the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the CFL.

Earlier in the CFL season this year, it seemed the Riders could be headed for the Grey Cup (or is it Gray? Don't know. Don't care.)

Anywho, I was wondering what the Riders would do this year to screw up in the dieing minutes of the big game. The 13th man would be a hard act to follow.

Well, now I have my answer. They're not even going to bother with the Grey Cup:

Another Roughrider charged with aggravated assault after bar fight

Ooogah! Ooogah! Ooogah! Ooo! Gah! Gah! GO R
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                                                                                THUMP!

How 'bout...

...we hook up their homes to the wind generated power?


Wind proponents want to sell power to City of Saskatoon

Forelorn Hope In Next Year Country

Can NDP end MP drought in Sask.?

"The federal NDP is wrapping up its summer caucus retreat in Saskatoon today.

Official Opposition leader Tom Mulcair told Saskatoon Morning his party is focusing on winning seats in Saskatchewan in the 2015 federal election.

Even though Saskatchewan is the birthplace of the CCF/NDP, the party has not won a seat federally since 2000.

With new electoral boundary maps that have been redrawn to include urban ridings, Mulcair and the NDP believe they have a better chance of making inroads in the province."

Mulcair runs into a Wall in Sask

"Of course, federal politicians are supposed to be optimistic when they make their occasional forays into the hinterlands where they enjoy little or no support.

So one certainly expected federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair to accentuate the positive during his "return to Saskatchewan roots" summer retreat, where he has waxed on about how much this province means to his party.

And with the demise under boundary reorganization of what Mulcair described as Saskatchewan's "rurban" seats, it's quite possible that his party can win a seat or two or three in the 2015 vote. Heaven knows that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau hasn't exactly inspired the kind of confidence in this province that will deliver the Grits much more than Ralph Goodale's perennial Wascana seat.

But it's beyond optimism for the NDP to win five Saskatchewan seats, as the Ottawa pundits seem to be thinking, or a majority of the province's 14 ridings as Mulcair boldly predicted Monday. Making such a prediction is to venture into the realm of fantasy and New Democratic folklore that thinks of Saskatchewan as an NDP province or that it really has ever been fertile territory for the federal party. As cabinet minister Gerry Ritz put it Monday, "Mr. Mulcair is probably making use of some of Justin Trudeau's decriminalized marijuana." The good news for the NDP is that the new federal boundaries offer a chance to show that Saskatchewan isn't necessarily homogeneously Conservative. The NDP's best chance is the new Regina Lewvan seat, which is similar to the former Regina West seat that Les Benjamin held for years. Regina lawyer Noah Evanchuk, a previous candidate in Palliser, is likely to win the party's nomination and the NDP will put substantial resources into the riding.

The party also has a good chance in Saskatoon West, although the persistence of former candidate Nettie Wiebe in seeking the nomination may not be as helpful as one thinks, given that she may be well past her best-before date as a political commodity. Rumour has it the party aggressively pursued two-time provincial NDP leadership candidate Ryan Meili, but that Meili's always limited interest in politics waned with Wiebe's expression of interest in the nomination."

Hope not. One Liberal is bad enough.

But if they do, it will be in our cities. Funny how the CCF/NDP began as an agrarian movement, but is now almost exclusively a city phenomenon. Hope the good folks of Regina and Saskatoon shut them out and shut them up. However, look for the areas around the universities, and the North, to go NDP. Those are the only places left were the Dippers have any stalwarts. Common sense prevails every where else.

Returning To The Graveyard

There is some animal, I don't remember which, which is said to return the the place of its birth to die. That's what this reminds me of:

New Democrat MPs return to Saskatchewan roots to plot parliamentary strategy

Faster, please.

Hmmmm!

And I thought it was just southern Saskatchewan that had that problem:

Equipment problem blamed for power outage

We have power outages nearly every day. Often they are only for a few seconds, but it's enough to make all the electric clocks go blink, blink, blink, blink.

I even had a long term battle with Sask Power recently that involved several phone calls and letters to them and several choice words exchanged between us. I even got Premier Wall involved and he even replied and thanked me. And I WON!!

You Go, Brad Wall!!

SASKATCHEWAN EXPORTS TO ASIA SOAR

"Business for Saskatchewan exporters rose 4.3 per cent in the first six months of 2013, generating more than $17.5 billion in sales and putting the province on pace to surpass its annual export record, set in 2012."

Picking up where we left off....a century ago.

"Oil and gas continued to be the biggest export for Saskatchewan, producing $6.3 billion in sales during the first six months of the year. Potash exports came in second at $3.4 billion, while wheat exports were third at $1.7 billion."

[---]

"Total exports from Saskatchewan account for around 70 per cent of the province’s gross domestic product (GDP). Saskatchewan is the fourth largest exporter among the provinces."

Welcome Manitoba!!