the funding pot

More good news! The "Make Pot Legal" referendum failed in California. The BC economy is saved. Now that the bottom isn't going to fall out of the market, I can reconsider growing marijuana as a fund raiser for volunteer fire departments after all.

I'm still kidding, by the way. Not that it wouldn't make a lot of money for volunteer fire departments, at least until we got caught. It pumps billions of dollars each year into BC alone. Speaking of pot and firefighters, I'm sure you've seen this clip, but just in case you haven't . . .




And speaking of firefighter funding, the federal government provided $125,000 in emergency management funding to the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. Stephen Harper must have read my nasty remarks about government indifference toward the fire service, and now I suppose he expects a pat on the back and a vote at election time. $125,000 is a lot of money . . . except that when you split it between the 5000 fire departments in Canada it works out to $25 per department. That's about a quarter tank of diesel fuel for one of my trucks, but I guess it's a start. But still no pat on the back.

In spite of all that, I'm sure the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs will put the money to good use. Some of them are volunteer fire chiefs after all, and used to making do with crumbs. And this could be the tip of the funding iceberg that is bound to crash into the Titanic ship of government apathy someday. And then we can all sit down to have a piece of pie in the sky. And still no pat on the back for Stephen Harper.

Side note: I know icebergs don't crash into ships. Ships crash into icebergs. But you have to admit, it at least sounded like a cool analogy.

Paul Combs has a new cartoon up now. You'd think a small volunteer department like Upsala would be exempt from paperwork headaches, but it ain't so. Just look at my desk next time you drop in for a visit.

You'd also think that 5000 Canadian fire chiefs diligently doing their paperwork would keep the pulp industry booming. But that ain't so either. At least not in this part of the country. And with people moving to find jobs, and mills shut down, the marijuana industry looks more attractive all the time.

I'm just kidding.