Smitty

I hope flame fans were watching the Oiler's game last night; now that's how you blow a lead and squeak out 2 points! Smitty

Din, the other "precautions" are the common sense we've been inundated for years, do they don 't lend weight to your opinion. Both "sides" of the argument advocate a common sense approach to avoiding infection. Secondly, I stand by what I said. If that's what it took to get you to explain yourself, it served a good purpose. Thanks for your explanation and clarifications. Its not about your obsession with media hype and our "closed" minds, its about weighing what intelligent, informed people are saying. That's the basis for the original question. Something as serious as a pandemic, and infectious disease is too important to discuss on the level of "let me pit my uniformed opinion versus your uniformed opinion". It was perfectly justifiable to put your opinions to the test. Anyways, you provided the basis of why you are not getting the vaccine, and that is appreciated. You haven't convinced me, but at least I can move forward in investigating whether your claims are true or not. As far as I've gotten along in this issue, it appears there is more consensus amongst knowledgeable people that would support getting the vaccine. Smitty

Din: There has to be a measure of responsibility if you are going to post something like this. Let's leave aside your Orwellian paranoia for a second. Where you coming from on your advice on the vitamin D and B12? Do you have a medical degree? Are you an expert? Can you cite a professional, vetted source for this advice? Have you long experience in a natural, homeopathy approach? What is the sound basis for this advice? If you have no expertise, then don't offer it on an internet board. H1N1 is serious issue, that should be treated as such, whether you think the gov't is engaged in fear mongering or not. The premise of this thread was the author was trying to sort through confusing information. You can't seriously expect people to measure your advice against those of the medical community as if they're equal. What qualifies you to provide advice counter to the majority of the medical community? Telling people to "just" get some vitamins, is the very pinnacle of irresponsibility, unless there are sound reasons for this advice. If you have sound reasons for this advice, than lets hear them. If you are a reasonable person, I'm sure you won't mind sharing why those 2 particular vitamins (why not vitamin C for instance; lots of people chug those...) are the "catch all" to avoid this illness. Smitty

I'm getting my skates and stick ready, cause I'm pretty sure there's a shinny game about to start in hell. Cause, you know, it just froze over. Just being a PITA, Brian. Smitty

You kidding Maxwell?! Actually, I'm on your side. Its just, I haven't done my daily workout yet, and figured my arms might get some exercise by stirring pots... Smitty

Couple of professionals weighing in: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinio...article1339120/ Smitty

GENTLEMEN! START. YOUR. ENGINES! Can't wait for the first reply about the BC fisheries and tourism largely dependent on targeting saltwater fish in river systems, preparing to, you know,...spawn. Also, global warming is a hoax and is propagated by the myopic tree huggers (right S.Leader?) Smitty P.S. Please, folks, let's make this thread at LEAST 3 pages before it gets locked.

I'll say this in light of the upcoming Olympics; I'm glad to see Bobby Lu pick up his game. Hopefully he'll shut out every country if he's Canada's #1. Two games in two nights, one of which was a roster of 20 skaters, last night a defencman took shifts on the wing, a team ravaged by concussions and flu, and given the Oilers schedule over the next week or so, I'll be happy if we're batting 500. Smitty

Well, I attended to on Saturday and I did make notes, and I'll prepare them at some point. Right now I have a little bit more pressing things on my radar, like a career switch. But BRB and Dutchie hit a lot of the main points, essentially it boils down to the following: 1) Needs to be some level of concrete support by the angling public and the guiding industry before the gov't is gonna get hot and bothered. 2) From an angling standpoint, there are principles to stand on and support, but they are in direct tension with enforcement and $ issues being diverted by much more pressing issues. 3) It was left that the guides themselves will have to spearhead an initiative to figure out legitimate reasons to move forward on this issue from their perspective, and whether that would include the preliminary step/idea of having a voluntary professional associations that will set minimum standards that business's can associate themselves with. Sorta/kinda like BBB for guides, and those wishing to add credibility to their business from a safety and liability standpoint can voluntarily do so. Also, a time-line of one year was introduced for this idea. It was a real eye-opener for me; clearly and obviously this nowhere as cut and dry as, say, when Barry Mitchell wrote his letter 12 years ago imploring something be done about the Eastern Slopes before entire watersheds collapsed. Right now, personally, I am in favor of guides pursuing option #3 in terms of their own voluntary professional association. I'd like to say I come right out and support licensing, but the practical reality is that implementing unsupported regulatory frameworks may divert time, energy, effort, and dollars in something, that frankly is not a huge issue. I see more people here complaining about random camping, and general enforcement of existing sportfishing regulations. At some point when I collect my notes together, I'll post a note and leave my email and send a word doc to anyone interested. Mike "Smitty" Smith

Reh: Math teacher. As long as I can get my point across to kids that 2+2=5, what difference does it make between your, and you're? Only thing drives me nuts is losing vs loosing. Thankfully, the Oilers this year have not had too much loosing... Smitty P.S. Oh, and for a math teacher, considering my volume of posts here, couple of mistakes ain't bad. But if you've flunked me, well, not much I can do about that...

Reh: Yeah, you're team beat us; a team ravaged by the flu and injuries. Anyways, we would have won...except for the blatantly biased reffing. Smitty

Sun: Working on that very thing. Mike

Reh: Not going to "jump" on you at all. Just saying numbers don't tell the story. No comment on whether you thought they were good calls/bad calls? So the 2 refs - say Jim and Bob - got together and conversation took place: Bob: "Well, the home team's down 3 goals. We gotta do something here..." Jim: "Just got off the phone with Gary Bettman (concealed earbud wireless transmitter to cell phone). They've crunched the numbers, based on pp%, pk%, the color of Quinn's suit, temperature of Mike Comrie's fever. Looks like we'll need at least 6 penalties". Bob: "You want to start, or should I?" Jim: "I'll do it. You did most of the heavy lifting last night when we @#$%^# the Flames. For a moment, I didn't think the Flames would lose. Whew!" 2 minutes later.... Jim: "HEY! HUSELIUS! 2 MINUTES FOR BEING AN EX-FLAME! SIT YOUR ASS DOWN!" End of the game: Bob: "Once again, the boys at head office were right. It did take 6 penalties. Looks like that operation to surgically replace Penner's hands with Mike Bossy's is working well" Jim: "Yeah, no kidding. 5 points. And Hemsky, I wasn't counting on him pulling his head from his rear end. Anyways, good ending to a bad start." Bob: "So what's are next game?" Jim: "Edmonton vs Calgary. Bettman hasn't decided whose supposed to win, so for now, we'll call it fair" Bob: -gasp- "Seriously! Are you sure??? I'm not sure I remember or am capable of that. We better pull the tapes from the pre-lockout, pre-conspiracy days". Jim: "No worries, I got this game when Gretzky was playing for St. Louis and they faced off against the Avalance. Since I hate both Gretzky and Roy, I had to call the game very fair. Best reffed game ever..." Smitty

NO KIDDING! Still concerned about the lack of team defence. Seem to be allowing a lot of goals. Course, if we can average 4 to 5 goals in scoring, the higher GA will matter less. But I am not completely sold on Bulin. But I am definitely warming up. Smitty

Brian: Ty Conklin stole the cup from us that year. If I see credible evidence the refs were out to get us for that series too, well hell, I just might need to take up drinking...regularly. We should take up a collection and pay a virtual assistant in India somewhere to test the validity of your assumptions. Or, it could it be, the Flames are just a freakin' dirty team? (KIDDING!) Smitty

I'd love to, but its an impossible bet, due to 1st person bias. Who would decide the refs are giving Edmonton legitimate versus illegitimate penalties. But I'll do you one better; I think its pretty reasonable to assume that refs, being human, do engage in "even up" calls. Not necessarily related to whichever team has the lead, but when they've blown a call against one team, there does "seem" to be tendency to call a cheesy penalty against the other team, to 'even' things up. My point is, that Brian is moaning about this vast conspiracy against the Flames, where one specific team is targeted. Totally different. So what I'd like to see him do is develop a stand-up routine suitable for the comedy network. Its one thing to say the reffing is bad versus its bad targeted towards one team. My arm will be rubber if you want to convince me reffing is bad. But that's my point; its so consistently bad against all teams, it really is a non-factor in deciding games. The refs don't put the puck in the net, players do. I will say there was one time I deeply suspected a conspiracy in a hockey game involving refs; Olympic Women's final, Salt Lake, 2002. I think at one point there were 13 penalties in a row called against us. It was an outrage. Smitty

Reh(why do you have such a hard name to remember to spell?): Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. Undoubtedly its easier for me to be a little more objective because I am sitting in Edmonton. That's why I am trying to keep things simple in asking basic questions; I don't want this to delve (though it seems unavoidable, and I'm fascinated to find out how much this is brought up Saturday) into "their jurisdiction peed in our pool, and now turnabout is fair play". All I am trying to do is ascertain what is reasonable. It would seem reasonable to me the previous suggestions that the licensing process is kept as simple as possible, and leave FMP's and limiting guides for another day. If one (and I am leaning this way) were to simply base their position on the principle of "I'm in favor of licensing because its reasonable to have some minimal standards / regulations in place for any commercial activity, much less a commercial activity targeted at profiting off a public resource that is recreational in nature" then it would seem to me we have point, a square one, a base in which to proceed. So for me, a lot fo this question is based on this principle and what is reasonable expectation of the guiding industry. Right now it is a free for all, unregulated, unmonitored, and to me, that spells trouble. But that comment is based a lot on gut, and less on empirical data, unless you think its valid to make a comparison to other service industries that have nothing to do with angling, and make a stand on what constitutes sound business practices and their attendant regulatory framework. Make sense? Yes? No? Smitty

Look, is the above points by Clive and Harps not valid though. Forget the the emotionalism of "lets get them"; its not about revenge, and while I can only speak for myself, I'm way over the EKoot.MP. So Dave, I'm just asking the question here. Do you not see (primarily) that the regulation and licensing of non-resident guides as part of this issue? I'm not talking about rod day allocation, just the basics of the basics. Surely if we regulate AB resident guides, there must be, by de facto, some form of regulating non-resident guides? I understand this a grade one question. Clive underscores the issue quite well, that there are economic considerations to account for. ---- Leaving that, the answer is obviously this is about the fish. That's why my mind isn't totally made up, because I struggle seeing how to connect all the dots between creating a bureaucracy and protecting the fish. --- Are Harps points valid in terms of getting Employment and Immigration involved? Does the SRD's budget have to fund this entirely? More questions... Smitty

Well, I don't chuck, just troll. Since I use a fly rod, fly reel, fly line, and I wind 2 turns of hackle in front of the rapala, I know I must be flyfishing still. But I also pinch the barbs! x2 Smitty

Well if, there is an opportunity to contribute at the meeting, I will raise the point about communication. But I'm given a limited amount of time, there may be other points on the pro/con side that may take priority, and precedence over the complaint of poor communication. I also say this in support of what Neil and Canadenis is saying: As Dave informs us, the genesis of this meeting stems from an FRT meeting, surely which we've all had an opportunities to attend. In other words, staying in the loop - on any issue - shouldn't that require some pro-active initiative of any stakeholder to keep themselves up to date? One thing about the AB gov't: they were one of the first regional governments to embrace internet, technology, and having information available to the public via the internet. Perhaps a website can be started, articulating this issue, if the communication is so poor. We become so dependent -for better or worse- on the mainstream media to keep us in the loop, problem is, the vast majority of column space is devoted to health, education, and economy. So I think it behooves us to do a little of our own digging. Brian, I think you're being totally unrealistic if you actually expect a phone call. Would the gov't do that on more "important" issues? I think not. Folks, its a democracy, and sometimes it sucks. Sometimes the "suckiness" is directly correlated to your direct participation - or lack of it. Anyways, having been one of the worst offenders, I will now try to do a little small part in representing the views of this board. I know Dave J. well enough to trust that he can articulate these views coherently, but its obviously good to have a perspective of just the angling public too. Smitty

Aren't you a journalist Neil? Then no, I won't give you a break. If you have different numbers, articulate them. If you think the costs will be more, or less, than say so. But I suspect you don't have a clue, so its just as easy to poke a stick at someone else. At least Dave has the guts to recognize is numbers are arbitrary. Smitty

FYI, I seem to be one of a handful of FFC members that lives in Edmonton. I will attend the meeting, and try to bring a summary of the Pros and Cons you guys have brought forth. Any other points I should bring to the table? Smitty

I remember coming to Calgary for a flyfishing conclave years back, and Dave Hughes was there. He said he refused to use beads on his nymphs - thought it was a form of cheating or something. Hydro, that "evolution" you spoke of; nothing to do with us flyfishers existing on a higher moral plane, it may be that flyfishing is more stimulating, more challenging, and, at the same time, more fun. Yeah, I'm with Rickr and B. Mitchell on this one; we've got better things to do than to judge another person's legal method of fishing. But some elitists have an addiction to self-congratulatory ego gratification. What can you do? Smitty

And of course, no one complains more about sh***y reffing than insecure flames fans. You guys should have your own website solely dedicated to cataloguing the bad calls. You could have a database, and dissect each one, and then you could present it as evidence as a vast, masterful conspiracy against the Flames! Smitty

Not a fan of the skyline (or font)...but I'm from DEdmonton. Smitty P.S. I liked Brian's idea the best...about simple and can be recognizable from a distance. Skyline clutters things from a distance (...but I'm from DEdmonton, so take my opinion for what its worth).