With all due respect, Constable Chow, shut the fuck up

Yesterday afternoon members of the Anti-Poverty Committee staged a mock "eviction" of double-dipping BC Liberal/VANOC lackey Ken Dobell at his plush downtown Vancouver office. "These are not protesters, these are not activists, they are criminals and that's how they're going to be treated." said Vancouver Police Department Constable David Chow.

Let's go to the replay: APC members posed as floral delivery staff to gain access to the offices of our corporate overlords. How does that differ from a VPD officer posing as a 24 Hours reporter to gain access to APC leader David Cunningham? The protestors harassed and intimidated the poor suckers stupid enough to be wage slaves for B.C.'s capitalist junta, but the VPD gets away with ongoing harrassment and intimidation of the APC, and the Downtown Eastside residents they're speaking up for.

Actually, this page should stop calling the APC protestors and start calling them heroes. B.C.'s labour movement (and our party of choice, the NDP) has failed badly in living up to the motto "An injury to one is an injury to all" when it comes to a Winter Olympics with almost as many fascist overtones as the 1936 Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. They had a lot of closed door meetings, police misconduct, and people disappearing for that one too.

And for those of you media lapdogs scoring at home: it's the Anti-POVERTY Committee. Quit trying to shove the real issues aside with the term "Anti-Olympics". Most people, including this page, like the Olympics, but everybody really hates poverty, so it's obvious what the game is when you refuse to use "Anti-Poverty" in the headline. You know what really pisses this page off? The Ken Dobells and Gordon Campbells of the world using the 2010 Olympics to inflict even more poverty on the most helpless and disenfranchised in our community.

Laidlaw: Leave the driving alone

The Greyhound strike in Western Canada enters its second week, and this page is in full support of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1374.

To date, most of the bitching from the great unwashed has centered around Greyhound Canada's head office in Calgary, where would-be passengers were angry that the strike started before the Victoria Day long weekend, and claims that there was no notice of a strike. For those of you scoring at home ( or in Calgary), Greyhound, like other "home teams" Canada Safeway, Westjet, and the Oilpatch, have a lifetime free pass from the local media in Calgary. Seldom is heard a discouraging word, which meant travellers couldn't make their way home from the range.

ATU members hit the picket lines because they're trying to stop the "Americanization" of Greyhound Canada under the ownership of the Laidlaw corporation. While this page bristles at using "Americanization" as a negative, there is something seriously wrong with the bulk of passenger bus service in Canada being placed in the hands of a company best known for school buses.

A ride to school and back home is one thing: being forced to stop in Abbotsford on every eastbound trip, having seat reservations inexplicably cancelled, being woken up on overnight trips because of arguments with drivers over trips being routed through Kelowna that were scheduled through Kamloops at the time of boarding, and repeated mechanical breakdowns are a few other things. If that's what ATU 1374 means by "Americanization", then hand this page Old Glory and a book of matches.

This page hopes the union can pressure Laidlaw from running Greyhound on the cheap, and make taking the bus a realistic, environmentally friendly, and relaxing option for travellers once again.

My - atus

This page is at the hospital for the next couple of days, and then taking a little break. New episodes should resume May 22.

If the jackboot fits...

Earlier this week, Russians celebrated the 62nd anniversary of their victory in the Great Patriotic War, known to most readers of this page as World War II. At the festivities, Russian President Vladimir Putin likened the United States under the Bush Administration to Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.

This page finds Putin's criticism somewhat of a surprise. Up until that point, I thought that the Russian President was a big fan of secret police forces, ethnic cleansing, choking journalistic freedom, and military adventurism. However, in calling the American kettle black, Russia's pot may be closer to the truth than we care to admit.

His cross to Blair

Tony Blair is stepping down as Great Britain's Prime Minister.

This page was never a big fan of Blair's "Third Way" approach to governing, and much of his legacy will be sullied by his misplaced trust in the Bush Administration, shipping young Britons to the killing fields of Afghanistan and Iraq, which precipitated the London bomb attacks of July 7, 2005. However, Blair can point to a handful of successes such as increasing funding to the National Health Service and instituting the U.K.'s first-ever minimum wage.

The Prime Minister appears to have come up with his own English translation of the familiar Chinese curse, which now reads "May you leave in interesting times." Peace and Devolution in Northern Ireland, the rising challenge of the Scottish National Party, and a Europe where the ideological fault lines are shifting, the latest tremor being the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in France.

As for this page, Blair's defining moment was selling out the Liverpool Dockworkers, proving conclusively that his "New Labour" government had nothing to do with real Labour. Here's hoping his successor sees it differently.

VANOC skates around the truth

After months of closed door meetings, Vancouver's Olympic organizers (VANOC) released an alleged business plan yesterday (which for those of you scoring home, has not been independently audited). VANOC claims that their $1.63 billion budget, with a contingency of $100 million, is balanced. Before anyone lines up to give them a medal, this page would like to remind readers that shooting fish in a barrel is not an Olympic event (yet).

Breaking down VANOC's report (which again, has not been independently audited), it becomes clear that under this arrangement, Glen Clark could have balanced this budget (editors note: court ordered bone tossed to BC Lieberal revisionist pukes). The 2010 Olympics are in a North American time zone, which means a television windfall bigger than last winter in Stanley Park. Most of the major venues (BC Place, GM Place, Pacific Coliseum) are already built, saving on skyrocketing construction costs. This page isn't going to credit VANOC for being frugal when they don't actually have to pay for much of anything.

Nor am I going to let slide that most Olympic-related spending isn't even in their "business plan"(which once more, has not been independently audited AND is exempt from the British Columbia Freedom of Information Act). The costs of imposing martial law...er...Olympic Security are delegated to the RCMP. The upgrades to the Sea to Sky Highway and the Canada Line have been painted with a glorious shade of BC Lieberal bullsh*t that neither project counts as Olympic spending, despite the fact that both projects absolutely must be completed by 2010. The City of Richmond broke their municipal piggy bank to steal the proposed speedskating oval from Simon Fraser University. That leaves SFU without the classroom space they were going to use the building for after the Games, and Richmond taxpayers are stuck with a sinkhole full of slushy kindling after anything over 1.5 on the Richter scale.

Vancouver is also left without the social housing that Olympic organizers promised in 2003, which in hindsight, was only to sucker many of the 65% of Vancouver voters who endorsed the 2010 bid, including admittedly, this page. I would have liked to see an Olympics that worked for the community instead of taking advantage of the community. I would have liked to have seen a real surplus we could have used on things more important than funding sports programs for the self-indulgent spoiled brats of the upper-middle class (the current target of VANOC's proposed surplus). VANOC's report says that their current Olympic path won't make Vancouver any worse, but there's certainly nothing in it that will make Vancouver better.

CBC - Can we Boycott this Crap?

For slandering three members of the BC Ferry and Marine Workers Union, this page is calling on his readers to boycott the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

For those of you scoring at home, the Transport Canada inquiry into last year's sinking of the Queen of the North at Hartley Bay has not concluded. The three crew members were fired on the basis of allegations made by BC Ferries during the employer's own inquiry. On the advice of their lawyers, the three crew members did not testify at this inquiry. A Kangaroo Court is one thing, but when the Kangaroos are out to bust your union, it's another.

For all the op-ed screaming done by the Vaughn Palmers, Michael Smyths, and Gary Masons of their ink-stained Liberal fifth column, the crew members are still innocent until proven guilty. However, the nation's public broadcaster went too far in their website article: "three crew members who were responsible for navigation and steering the night the Queen of the North sank along B.C.'s north coast last year."

Not "alledgedly responsbile", or "possibly responsible", it's "WERE" responsible. And for the syncophantic right-wing hair splitters out there, the use of the word "responsible" denotes liability on the part of the crew, why doesn't the CBC report use the term "assigned to navigation and steering" or any other less loaded and biased term than saying "who were responsible"?

If British Columbians don't stand up BC Ferries vandalizing of due process, it means that our maritime transportation safety will rest in the hands of a private, unaccountable corporation rather than the lawful federal institutions chartered to keep us safe. If we don't stand up to the hanging judges at the CBC, then anyone of us is automatically condemned after a workplace accident our employers want to cover up. Jackie Millar and the BCFMWU are certainly right to grieve the verdict of BC Ferries' hung jury. They would also be right to leave every ferry in the fleet at the dock until Ferries' CEO David Hahn defers to the Transportation Safety Board and issues an apology.

This page understands that local travellers may not be able to avoid BC Ferries, but we can certainly avoid the media outlets who take the tarnished word of BC Ferries as the gospel truth.

Ayez peur, ayez tres peur...

By a margin of 53.06% to 46.94%, Nicolas Sarkozy and his Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UPM) won the Presidency of France yesterday over Socialist Candidate Segolene Royal.

To sum up the reaction of this page in one word: merdre. For all the inclusive rhetoric in Sarkozy's victory speech, his politics amount to little more than Front National Leger or Le Petit LePen. While TV5's coverage was somewhat more muted, the talking heads across the channel at the BBC could hardly contain their glee that both pillars of the European Union, Germany and France, are in the hands of free-market ideologues committed to smashing the welfare state and won't go out of their way to embarrass the Bush Administration the way their predecessors did.

The theme of the day was Sarkozy's program would create some unhappiness, but French society would play along. By "unhappiness", the pundits mean that workers, students, immigrants and other visible minorities will be disenfranchised and made to pay for the inflated sense of "crisis" which has permeated France over the past couple of years. "French society" means French corporations like Sodexho, who will now get to practice their special brand of exploitation (see: front-line health care workers, British Columbia) at home.

Cut taxes and slash vital programs, attack the Unions, and when all else fails, blame the Muslims: it's the same idiotic Bush & Blair movie again, but this time with subtitles.

Of course they suck, it's Nickelback

When this page moved to Vancouver seven years ago, one of the things I greatly enjoyed was being able to hear new, original rock music again. CFOX and the long-defunct XFM duked it out for an audience that had grown weary of their parents classic rock, and had a few years to wait before they could shuffling their own playlists inside their Ipods and MP3 players.

At that point, the highlight of local music scene was the rivalry between Coquitlam's Matthew Good Band and Alberta expatriates Nickelback. I saw both acts in concert and bought their albums. In this page's opinion, Matthew Good wrote some the most haunting, thought-provoking, Gen-X anthems this side of Douglas Coupland, kind of a more articulate Kurt Cobain. On the other hand, Nickelback's music was an insipid porridge of redneck arena-rock cliches and rock star posturing.

Which brings us to the obvious question of "where are they now?" Well, Nickelback now seem to be aware of how much they suck, since Chad Kroeger just happens to be around bar fights when somebody says so. Meanwhile, Matthew Good, who saw rock as a means to say something important rather than self-promotion, still has something to say.

Raise This

The B.C. Lieberal caucus has endorsed an independent panel's recommendation of a 29% pay raise for MLA's and a 53% pay raise for Premier Gordon Campbell.

Campbell says the proposed raises, which were immediately rejected by the New Democrats, are necessary to "attract good people to public life". This page is very concerned: for just over $100,000 a year, B.C. taxpayers currently have a Premier who slashed vital public services, tore up collective agreements, picked unnecessary fights with First Nations, lied to the Hospital Employees Union, was convicted of drunk driving in Hawaii, stuffed the 2010 Olympics with more pork than overtime at the sausage factory, and may yet be guilty of endorsing the double-dealing and political dirty tricks described so far in the Basi-Virk trial. If this is the Premier's idea of "good people", we should all be scared of what $65,000 a year more is going to buy British Columbia.

It's bad enough for public sector workers to watch the Lieberals oinking at the trough after settling for "generous" settlements last year (which averaged about 2% per year after the zero, zero, and zero of Campbell's first term). It's even worse for working people in the private sector who haven't seen any real wage increases, despite B.C's overheated and overhyped economic performance.

$22,000 by 45 Lieberal MLA's, plus $65,000 for the Premier equals a Million Dollar Shovel that hopefully these self-serving bastards can finally bury themselves with.

...and how was your May Day?

A few years ago, the British Columbia Teachers Federation joined the B.C. Federation of Labour. One would have thought that the teachers union would have learned something about Solidarity, or at the least, Free Collective Bargaining. Unfortunately, the BCTF's treatment of their support staff, members of the Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union (CEP Local 464) proves the time-honoured, shopworn maxim of "Those who can't do, teach."

After fighting with the B.C. Lieberals for most of this decade for the right to communicate with students and parents about the decline of public education, this page is disgusted that the teachers would turn around and go to the BC Labour Relations Board to get an injunction against CEP to prevent the support staff from picketing their convention. The teachers certainly wanted the help of other unions when they went on strike in 2005, but appear to have no qualms with attacking other unions, including the one who represents their own staff. Perhaps its time for the teachers to sit down with other staff-baiting unions like the Canadian Auto Workers and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees and establish a Federation of Labour Unions Served by Hypocrisy, or FLUSH.

BCTF apologists will tell you that the teachers union actions do not reflect most of their membership. At rabble.ca, this page (a.k.a. ursa minor) is being chastised for not knowing what the teachers are really like. Here's what I do know: when the dust settled, the BCTF seemed to have no problem with teachers who had crossed picket lines and jumped in front of TV cameras to bitch at their fellow teachers for being unprofessional and hating children. Will any teachers jump in front of a camera to call down their leadership for defying union principles and hating their staff?

License to Shill

After returning from a weekend in Seattle, this page has started to notice a few vehicles around my neighbourhood with ICBC's new Olympic commemorative license plates. If local motorists aren't already beaming with pride (or driven to distraction) by all the Canucks car flags these days, the new plates will also let them bask in someone else's reflected glory.

It's too bad the plates have to include the arrogant and insipid slogan, "The Best Place on Earth" (tm) . Sensible people would think that the best place on earth wouldn't have armies of homeless people, backed up emergency rooms, abysmal public transit, toxic fish farms and forests of raw logs being shipped elsewhere, but Gordon Campbell and the BC Lieberals aren't sensible people. This page did notice that some license plate frames will cover "The Best Place on Earth", so check with your local auto supply store.

What's worse is that the all the money raised for the Olympic license plates will go to the Olympics. While the 2010 sinkhole can use all the money it can get, bear in mind that fees for regular license plates go to ICBC's driver training and traffic safety programs. Gordon Campbell can claim that the new plates isn't another public subsidy for the Olympics, but if everybody wants a 2010 Olympics/Best Place on Earth license plate, who picks up the shortfall for ICBC to fund its core mandates?

The regular license plates read "Beautiful British Columbia", which gives the impression that this is a nice place to visit, or for us lucky few, reside. The new plates give the impression that a two-week sporting event has turned us into a bunch of pricks. If you're driving with the new plates in Washington, Alberta, or anywhere else outside the reach of our government's propaganda machine, consider yourself warned.

The Wonders of Tomorrow

With Revenue Canada's deadline to file income tax returns approaching on Monday, many working Canadians are thinking about their money. Meanwhile, students across the country look forward to graduation. There are a lot of people thinking about the future, and a couple of moves just made by Federal and Provincial Governments has this page strongly encouraging readers to think carefully.

Yesterday Federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn announced that all incandescent light bulbs in Canada will be replaced with fluorescent bulbs by 2012. Fluorescent bulbs consume less energy, but will they be more cost-effective for Canadian consumers? The answer is: all the fluorescent bulbs in the world won't help you save on your hydro bills if deregulation and privatization of public power continues at its blindingly arrogant pace. The economic benefit equals the environmental benefit of power profiteers generating the electricity for these bulbs from coal-fired plants and ripping up a sensitive river ecosystem.

Also yesterday, Attorney General Wally Oppal introduced legislation to end Mandatory Retirement in British Columbia, with other provinces likely to follow suit. Does this mean that would-be senior citizens will be able to supplement their pension incomes with a little part-time work? Wait...what pension incomes? As long as Corporate Canada continues the war on Defined Benefit Pension Plans, we'll be smilin' and wavin' down at the Wal-Mart until someone has to scrape us off the floor.

If this the kind of crap we're going to have put up with over the next few years, imagine how the people on Planet Goldilocks will react when we export even worse ideas to them in the distant future.

Happy Servitude!

Today marks Administrative Professionals Day in the United States and Canada. Formerly known as 'Secretaries Day', this "holiday" provides corporations (and their public sector collaborators) a much-needed break from abusing their employees, making them work unpaid overtime, cutting their benefits and pensions, and lobbying for tax cuts to take money out of government programs their staff might need, like health care or public education for their kids. Sometimes treating the underlings to an expense account write-off lunch or a cheap bouquet of flowers is a welcome change from beating them into submission.

Another "perk" that large employers give office workers is to send us on 'retreats'. This page recalls one retreat that a former employer "rewarded" me and my co-workers with: several hundred of us from similar institutions were herded into a hotel ballroom, fed some kind of diseased rubber chicken, and lectured to about the importance of "doing more with less" and "taking responsibility for own wellness". A few days later, as part of the Klein government's austerity program, many of us were served with "position abolishment" notices and escorted off campus by security guards.

Seriously, this page hasn't felt the love since. The only card I can be bothered to look at today is my union card.

Finally...

"Hey, Bobby Lou! Did ya hear the allegations in the Basi Virk trial yesterday?!

"Sure did, Trev! It's about time the public heard what kind of underhanded crap the Liberals have been pulling for the past few years! Say....who's the idiot up in the skybox bawling in his martini?"

Stop the presses...please!

An 11th - hour deal between Pacific Press and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union means that subscribers to the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province won't have to go without their daily dose of advertorial right-wing cheerleading until at least the Rapturolympic year of 2010.

Meanwhile, the Globe & Mail unveiled its new look this morning, which, other than the addition of the soft-news "Globe Life" section and shoving more typeface onto less paper , the Globe hasn't changed that much. However, the advertising copy will probably change noticeably once the sales department rakes in some fat new accounts from optometrists across the country.

Quebecor/Sun Media is locking out 140 of its staff at Le Journal de Quebec which means that for the duration, this page is calling on his readers to boycott the Sun newspapers and 24 Hours. I realize that there is some subtlety to boycotting a newspaper that they're giving you for free, but if you really need your Bill Tielman fix, he is on this page's blogroll.

No, you're the one who's "Ugly"

If anyone saw Gary Mason's column in the Globe & Mail yesterday, it's easy to see why the B.C. Liberals are up 17 points on the NDP after this week's Ispos-Reid poll: the Goebbels-like precision with which B.C.'s corporate media continues to manipulate the truth to appease the profiteering, anti-human agenda of the B.C. Liberal government.

Aside from the usual Liberal cheerleading that Mason parrots in declaring Carole James the "Ugly Betty" of B.C. Politics, the former jockrider cites the "startling" illustration of NDP MLAs agreeing with the lawyers for the two BC Ferry & Marine Workers Union members who advised their clients against participating in B.C. Ferries' internal coverup...er...investigation of the Queen of the North sinking. If there was one thing that this page learned under the first five years of Campbellism, it's that everyone in this province has a right to be treated fairly, unless you happen to be a unionized public employee.

This statement by Mason amounts to little more than a SMEAR by omission. First of all, since when does any elected official (or for that matter, any newspaper columnist) tell anyone to REJECT the advice of their own lawyer? If that was an acceptable practice, Robert Pickton would be deaf now as a result of people screaming at him to plead guilty. Secondly, and more importantly, why does Mason leave out the fact that the crew members and their union have, in fact, actively participated in the only investigation that counts, the Transport Canada Investigation? The Transport Canada investigation is going to take a little longer, but it isn't going to be exempt from vital accountability legislation like the privatized BC Ferry Corporation is.

Michael Smyth at the Province and Vaughn Palmer at the Vancouver Sun threw similar tantrums at the BCFMWU and the NDP a few weeks ago. Wow, is there anything better to pump up the government than linking the opposition to one of the worst tragedies in B.C.'s marine history? It wouldn't surprise me that someone on the CanWest or Globe editorial boards is trying really hard right now to find a link between the NDP and the Virginia Tech shootings.

It disgusts me that these sickening subhuman syncophants are regarded as the gospel truth by much of the unsuspecting public. For any real democracy to emerge in British Columbia, these idiotic lying scumbags need to be shut up once and for all.

The gravity of the situation

What goes up....

Must come down...

Does the Sunshine Breakfast come with a body cavity search?

Tourism Victoria has been putting up billboards in downtown Vancouver inviting us city folk to spend some quality time in B.C.'s capitol city. The signs feature the slogan "No Passport Required". Those words may change the minds of some local travellers who would otherwise be heading to Washington or Oregon, but if BC Ferries CEO David Hahn has his way, everybody's favourite boatride to Vancouver Island will be more of a hassle than the traffic jam at the border.

Hahn, another southern-fried pinhead who doesn't have to be sold on the "benefits" of deep integration with America's War on Terror (tm), wants random checks on vehicles and passengers boarding BC Ferries, with those checks being ramped up at "increased threat levels" - which will make it an orange, purple, or teal delay of 3 hours for the next sailing to Swartz Bay.

It may not take a passport for this page to go to Victoria, but this page makes regular trips to Seattle without being searched and harassed either. I'm not seeing a difference.

Just shut up

This page was at the bank yesterday as the TV overlooking the lineup showed coverage of the shootings at Virginia Tech University. The response from the cellphone yapping GQ wannabe in front of me was "I wonder what that Green Party guy who got fired has to say about it".

For those of you scoring at home, my reaction is still being formulated - for all the safewalk programs, amber alerts and taking our shoes off at the airport, we just can't guarantee that someone is going to kill us.

As for Kevin Potvin - I've read enough issues of the Republic of East Vancouver to know that despite being acclaimed he was never going to be the Greens' candidate in Kingsway. Let this be a lesson for anyone who still thinks the Greens are a member-driven, let alone "left-leaning" party.

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut

It is a sad day for this page in learning of the passing of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. He was 84.

This page was turned on to Vonnegut's work over two decades ago by my good friend and fellow traveller Don at Revolutionary Moderation. Novels like Breakfast of Champions and short stories like Harrison Bergeron helped us to develop our critical thinking and our sense of humour by filtering American life through the filter of his extraordinary imagination, leaving what sifted through as the truth.

This page contends that if you scratch a Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, or Michael Moore, a little Vonnegut rubs off. Kurt Vonnegut was the 20th century's answer to Mark Twain, and the 21st century will be hard pressed to answer him.

If a puck drops in the forest...

The Stanley Cup playoffs begin today, and a multitude of pundits and prognosticators are weighing in with their predictions. Here are mine:

-Someone will claim that scheduling Canadian-based teams to play on weekend afternoons to accommodate NBC telecasts is an affront to national sovereignty, but will watch the game anyway.

-Female followers of the Calgary Flames will have to be treated for (over) exposure due to a chilly spring along the 'Red Mile'.

-Any player leaving the arena on crutches or in a wheelchair will be reported by the team's medical staff as sustaining a 'lower body injury'.

-No one will see 'The National'.

-Someone will insist on telling this page how boring baseball is compared to hockey, at which point I'll promise to give him back his Ritalin if he shuts up and goes away.

-The Sedin twins will be revealed as a single Swedish hockey player getting two pay cheques. The Vancouver Canucks will make subsequent end runs around the salary cap by signing the Kariya triplets and the Crosby sextuplets.

-The Army will run more TV spots during the games than Sony Pictures does for 'Spider-Man 3'

-Sidney Crosby will walk on water...after it's been frozen, on skinny metal runners...

-Don Cherry will say something controversial, which astounds this page given he hasn't actually said anything new for years.

-Toronto Maple Leaf fans will commemorate the 40th anniversary of their team's last Stanley Cup championship by watching their hockey neighbours, the Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings, play each other in the Finals.

El Orso Regressa

This page has returned from Semana Santa en Puerto Vallarta with a few rhetorical snapshots from a week in Mexico:

-For a country where La Policia ride in the back of a pickup with automatic weapons, Mexico doesn't feel like a police state in the same way Canada and the U.S. do these days. On our return flight, the luggage screener asked me if I would prefer to carry my bottle of tequila on the plane. A flammable and potentially sharp object? The Mexicans must be doing something right, since 9/11, they've had as many airline terror incidents as Canada and the U.S., where we have to shove our trial-size toothpastes into ziploc bags and take off our shoes.

-Semana Santa is a great time to see Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico as opposed to Puerto Vallarta, a division of the American tourism and hospitality industry. Easter in Mexico is a cross between Spring Break and Thanksgiving - everybody takes gets on a bus or fills up their car and hits the road. Carreta 200 was lined with vehicles and people making their way to and from the beach. While this page and Walnut Boat stayed at a hotel which doubled as a timeshare, we spent most our time out and about, mixing it up with locals & nationals from Viejo Vallarta to the town of El Tuito in the Sierra Madre.

-Puerto Vallarta needs to rein in the omnipresent timeshare salespeople who are starting to disturb people's vacations. The tactic that seriously pisses off this page is setting up "Tourist Information" kiosks which direct you to a 'special presentation' where you will receive a 'free gift'... Some tactics to ward off these vultures: tell them you're a travel agent, tell them you don't have a credit card, or act like you don't speak English or Spanish. Qu'est-ce que c'est , "Time... share"? Pardon monsieur...are you coming on to me?

-Unlike their overprogrammed, overparented counterparts in Canada and the United States, Mexican children are allowed to be children. Many of this page's entertaining moments in Puerto Vallarta were watching kids chase each other round, splash around at Playa Los Muertos, or just kicking el futbol with each other. The parents also play with their kids, which I think makes them far more credible figures to relate to than American parents who come off to their kids like dictatorial wanna-be hipster ATM machines.

-Vanilla is a real flavour, not the abscence of flavour. If you're tired of sushi, try out cevice, preferably on a tostada with a little auguacante. Of the four major brands of beer noticed by this page, Pacifico had the most robust flavour. Tecate and Modelo tasted much like American brands (in fact, Modelo appears to be Budweiser trading on a Mexican name), and nothing says Gringo Turista Estupido like opening a Corona.

-Mexicans like beisbol and lucha libre, but nothing compares to futbol. In Jalisco, nothing compares to Chivas. This page made the mistake of asking the locals if they were following Chivas' American branch plant team, Chivas USA of Major League Soccer. Putting the words 'Chivas' and 'USA' together creates a spitting action, since the real Chivas (Chivas Verdad) which plays in Guadalajara (about 4 hours from Puerto Vallarta) only signs Mexican players.

There are photos, but this page is unwilling to subject them to people who don't know what I look like after extended exposure to mariscos, cerveza, and sol.

Estoy fuera de aquí.

This page is on his way to Mexico with Walnut Boat.

For those of you scoring at home, this is my first visit to Mexico. Not so long ago under Vincente Fox and the much more southern exposed Bush White House, it appeared that Mexico was about to nudge Canada out of the position as Uncle Sam's favorito.

However, after Iraq, the leftward tilting of Latin America's politics (including a near victory for the left in Mexico) and the incessant bellowing of Lou Dobbs, Mexico's centre-right regime under Felipe Calderon seems to be taking un paso detras from deep integration, at the same time Stephen Harper is shoving Canada towards it. For all the post - 9/11 security hysteria at most of the world's airports, this page looks forward to disembarking in a country where searches are conducted on the honour system and a passport is optional. While the religious right continues to wreak havoc on the Constitution and steal Americans' human rights, Mexico is slowly but surely making progress on gay rights and a woman's right to choose, despite being the bedrock of Catholicism in the Americas.

Regular episodes return April 10. Adios paha ahora!

Don't touch that dial

The CRTC is conducting a review of what should constitute basic cable television service in Canada. For those of you scoring at home, this page already weighed in on this issue when Angus Reid called me last week: seriously, does anyone consider this page as part of the "media" and ineligible to answer poll questions? At present, eight cable channels are fighting to remain on basic cable while three are looking to join the basic cable party. What's unclear is whether or not the losers will be moved to the programming of "extended" basic cable, or the digital tier where cable networks go to die. Among the potential cuts:

CBC Newsworld - Putting Newsworld on the block is a disgusting outright sop to private broadcasters, particularly Bell/Globemedia, whose CTV Newsnet can run unopposed.

YTV - YTV fills a valuable programming niche in providing shows that tweens, teens, and older types like this page in search of an anime fix will actually find entertaining, as opposed to the pablum Disney cooks up for Family Channel.

MuchMusic - Bell Globemedia bought MTV Canada from Craig Broadcasting, then they bought the CHUM/CITY menagerie, including MuchMusic. Is anyone surprised Much is on the block? MuchMusic still shows music videos. MTV has 'reality' shows which make you wish your remote had a 'flush' button.

Vision TV - God, no: and I can't tell if the pun is intended! A national, accessible, multifaith TV network is easily important enough to be left on basic cable. Polls consistently show that most Canadians believe in some kind of God. Vision broadcasts the word of some kind of God, or Gods, so why not give the people what they want?

The Weather Network - There's a few things I like about the Weather Network, mainly that they branched out a little into being 'The Environment Network'. What I can't stand is when they go to commercial, they pull the local temperature & forecast 'bug' (the little graphic), so I can't see what it's like out just before heading out the door. For those of you scoring at home, I can't explain, but looking out the window doesn't work in my specific locale. I need this channel.

Many of the new channels looking get on basic cable repeat existing programming mandates: is a national Metis network necessary when it could find a home on APTN? Doesn't a National Broadcast Reading Service do the same thing as Voiceprint (available via SAP) does? What does the CANAL multicultural channel offer that local multicultural access channels (or in Vancouver, Channel M) don't already?

What the CRTC needs to realize is that Canadians have a largely democratic view of basic cable. They expect basic channels to have majority appeal, with established space where minority and special inter views can be heard. If the CRTC wants to establish a basic cable tier that reflects a democratic, populist, egalitarian sensibility, consider pulling bourgeois hobby channels like Home & Garden Television, The Food Network, and the infernal combustion engine that is Speed Network. The one question the CRTC should also ask is that if the basic cable tier is so valuable, why do American network affiliates get guaranteed spots for the sole purpose of letting Canadian private broadcasters simulcast popular American shows and take in twice the ad money?

B-Line to tragedy

This page never ceases to be amazed how quickly Vancouver has devolved into a police state in the time I've lived here. Translink will be placing armed officers on Coast Mountain Bus Company's 99 B-Line route, the busiest transit route in Greater Vancouver. While 241 assaults were made against bus drivers last year, just how many of those warrant gunning down the perpetrator? Most assaults occur when brown-nosing drivers take it upon themselves to enforce Translink's extortionary fares, when their union has made it clear to them on more than one occasion that it's not their job.

The 99 B-Line deployment is an accidental shooting waiting to happen. The route stretches from Broadway/Commercial Drive Station to the University of British Columbia campus, with most of the city's major health care facilities at VGH in the middle. Sooner or later, a student activist, maybe with the Bus Riders Union, a psychiatric outpatient, or just somebody who's having a really bad day is going to get on the overcrowded bus and cross an overstressed bus driver.

This situation plays itself out just about every day in this city and is usually resolved without much trouble. Now you have men with guns involved.

Le fin de la revolution tranquille

It's election day in Quebec, and while the polls foretell a minority government with the Union Nationale...er....Action Democratique de Quebec holding the balance of power, it's more than apparent that such a result means all of Quebec loses.

Perhaps it was reading too many plays by Michel Tremblay or watching Gilles Duceppe take his opponents to school in the leaders debates, but this page has always empathized with the Sovereigntist cause. Canadians, particularly in the Alberta where I was born and raised, like to believe that Quebec should conduct herself like any other province. Such a sentiment might find a hearing with this page if Quebec hadn't been treated like English Canada's colony from the Plains of Abraham to 1976. Andre Bosclair's comment about service at Eaton's only being in English? He wasn't making that up.

Things started to change around the 1960's when Jean Lesage declared that Quebecers would be "Maitres chez nous" (Masters in our own house) and started creating institutional counterweights to the power of Anglophone capitalists and their sycophants in the Catholic Church. The Quiet Revolution turned up the volume when Rene Levesque and the Parti Quebecois won the 1976 election: for the first time Quebeckers could talk about building thier own nation without fear of being sent to prison like some of them were in October of 1970.

The psychodramatic carousel of accords and referrenda that followed has nothing to do with the fact that over the past few decades, Quebec has been building a nation relatively free of old world influence. It was under Levesque that Quebec took control of its immigration policy, and to the chagrin of "pur laine" Quebecois, declared that a "Quebecker is a Quebecker is a Quebecker", whether they hailed from Mont-Blanc or Morocco.

Unfortunately, the carousel ride has made some Quebeckers a little too dizzy to remember that tradition of tolerance, and are rallying to the anti-immigrant xenophobia of Mario Dumont and the ADQ. There is something seriously wrong when a culture that historically portrays itself as a victimized minority turns around and victimizes another minority, ie. Muslim immigrants. Standing up for the stupidity in Herouxville while pursuing a Stephen Harper - friendly economic platform makes Dumont into something of a Petit Duplessis. Lysiane Gagnon can claim in today's Globe & Mail that Quebec's progressiveness was aways "a myth", but compared to Mike Harris, Ralph Klein, or Gordon Campbell, that myth defaults to the truth.

Here's hoping that strategic voting and vote splitting condemns those furthest on the right (the Liberals & the ADQ) to watching a surprise PQ majority that will have everyone (including a would-be unhappy Stephen Harper) screaming for proportional representation.

Passports? We don't need no stinking passports!

Washington's State Legislature has poked the first hole in the Bush Administration's ongoing efforts to choke America's borders. By approving an enhanced driver's license and obtaining assurances that neighbrouing British Columbia will follow suit, it appears that at least one checkpoint between Canada and the United States may operate at level something close to business as usual.

For those of you scoring at home, there has only been one reported terrorist incident at the B.C. - Washington border, when the Millenium Bomber was captured in Port Angeles. Most border problems have been the result of police chases in Washington ending up at the unarmed (and very quickly unmanned) Canadian checkpoints, or smuggling, which ranges from the petty to building your very own drug tunnel under the border.

Homeland Security's insistence on passports, and the Harper Conservatives' acquiescence of passports, fails to reflect the shared commerce and culture between people in Washington and B.C. Many Point Roberts residents work in Vancouver. Quick Shuttle takes air travellers looking for cheap flights from the Lower Mainland to Sea-Tac airport daily. Seattle Mariners' games are broadcast on local TV and radio stations around B.C. during the summer. This page has spent a few delightful hours over beers with members of the Pacific Northwest Labour History Association who hail from B.C., Washington, and Oregon. Having spent over half a decade in this part of North America, this page feels more at home in Seattle or Portland than I do in Calgary or Edmonton.

The enhanced Driver's License is a step in the right direction. The next step is for Homeland Security to remember why it's the longest undefended border in the world

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With Liberals like Joe, who needs Tories?

Thunder Bay MP Joe Comuzzi has been expelled from the Liberal caucus for supporting the Conservative budget introduced in the House of Commons on Monday. For those of you scoring at home, Comuzzi was supporting a budget that Liberals would have had no problems supporting until Stephane Dion told them not to. Budget 2007 has a stench porky enough to send Paul Martin on the first steamship out of town.

The falling out with the Liberals actually started well before the budget, when they were still in power and Commuzi resigned over same-sex marriage legislation. Like a number of Liberal MPs, Commuzi has doesn't grasp that as a "Liberal" MP, one has to toe the line on liberal issues like equal marriage. If Mr. Dion wants a caucus of real Liberals, the next step may be to ask Tom Wappel and his troglodyte ilk what they thought of the budget.

I thought Skytrain ran on an elevated track, not the Napoleonic Code...

Translink has been recently campaigning against the re-selling of transit fares. This page grudgingly concedes the rationale behind this campaign, but would like to point out that ideally, all public transit should be directly subsidized though tax revenues. Every UBC student has to pay for a U-Pass, but because every student pays it's only $22 a month. Imagine the price and the level of service if a that kind of funding was available across the Lower Mainland.

Dictating that passengers buy their fares from authorized sources only makes sense in that the money goes directly back into the transit system. However, this page takes exception to Translink's prohibition against giving away fares. Possession of my bus transfer or SkyTrain ticket being 9/10 of the law, who has the right to tell me what to do with it when I'm done with it? If somebody convinces me that they desperately need a ride somewhere, why should Translink stop me from helping that person out? Assuming that I'm giving a ticket to someone for resale equals an assumption of my guilt and the guilt of the person I give the ticket to.

The last time this page checked, Canada's legal system still ran on the pretext of being innocent until proven guilty. Translink may need to protect their revenues, but in doing so they must respect the rights of the people using the system, including those who may not be able to afford to, and those who want to help them on their way.

This is only a test. If this were a real election...

Over at RevMod, Don is rightfully poking at Elizabeth May's foibles for running against Peter McKay in Central Nova. However, Don loses this page when he remarks "I'm no friend of the Green Party. I think the last thing the left in this country needs is to split their vote". Although it appears that yesterday's Federal Budget will pass with numbers somewhere around 175 - 132 thanks to the support of Bloc Quebecois, this page feels its important for all like-minded correspondents to be making accurate commentary.

I'm only going to say this once (I hope) so that all of us are on the same page: The Green Party is not a left wing party. A left wing party does not believe that solutions to the problems of the environment will be found in the markets. The leader of a left wing party does not fudge on issues like a woman's right to choose. A left wing party does not have a significant portion of its membership at odds with the Labour movement. A left wing party does not court Garth Turner to represent them in the House of Commons.

If there's going to be any vote-splitting, it's because the corporate media (who are only comfortable backing the Liberals or Conservatives) will repeat the charade of a leftist Green Party. Six years ago, British Columbians were duped into thinking that the Greens were left - leaning and could possibly replaced the wrongly vilified New Democrats. This falsehood perpetuated itself even though the Green's leader, Adrienne Carr, trumpeted her ability to "trust business to do the right thing" and screamed at striking bus drivers and nurses to "get back to work". The subsequent vote-splitting cost the province its Official Opposition in the Legislature, allowing Gordon Campbell to freely swing a tax-cutting axe at valued public institutions and what remained of B.C.'s social safety net.

I can let Don's comments go if he promises to re-read his Marx and stand me a Flying Frog (assuming Brewsters is still open) the next time I'm in Edmonton (sometime this summer). For everyone else, let's be careful out there: the next trip to the polls will be tighter than the hairpiece on Stephie Wonder's head, so read the labels carefully, and be careful when applying them.

Toys 'R' Screwing Us

The Vancouver Police Department has decided that after recent anti-Olympics demonstrations and seeing their request for more officers shortchanged at City Hall, they need something that will make them look like they mean business. Of course, nothing says 'we mean business' than their very own tank.

This page recalls being in Calgary during the 2000 World Petroleum Congress. I remember three things about that week: there was another summit going on somewhere back east which severely cut into the ranks of the demonstrators, A restaurant owner on the Stephen Avenue Mall called me a "f**kicing socialist" and told me to go back to Vancouver (I went "back" to Vancouver when I moved here four months later), and the Calgary Police Service bought their own tank for the occasion. The Calgary Police never actually used the tank at any of the protests, they just put it on the front page of the Calgary Herald to scare the small handful of protesters in town that week.

The VPD wants their new toy (or a set of them) in time for 2010. Their tank, or "armoured rescue vehicle" as they're calling it, is to be used against heavily armed suspects. What heavily armed suspects? This page questions the mortal threat to Vancouver police officers when it seems more suspects have been dying in police custody over the past few years than police officers. Of course, one can't spell "armed suspect" without the letters APC -

It's not about protection, it's about intimidation.

Inevitably, the VPD will need to come up with an excuse for their overpriced hardware, in the same way Calgary police used their HAWC I helicopter to entertain school children and harass the gay stroll in Stanley Park (there's a Stanley Park in southwest Calgary, it even has a pool and a tennis court like the real Stanley Park). The reactionaries and hotheads will drool at the VPD's shiny new toys, and the rest of us who don't relish living in a police state will die inside a little more.

Pat Martin needs goggles

To stop Stephen Harper and the CPC from putting down roots as a government, Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin is advocating "an informal coalition" between New Democrats and left-leaning Liberals.

For those of you scoring at home, Pat Martin is not a suck-up, sell-out sack-o-sh*t like Bob Rae or Ujjal Dosanjh. He was one of the strongest voices for C-257, which would have prohibited the use of scabs during strikes at federally-regulated workplaces (Dosanjh and the rest of the Liberals voted against it). Martin also authoured the Workers First bill, which put employees ahead of creditors or investors when the remains of failed companies are divvied up. When Pat Martin talks about a coalition, he's either seen the NDP take one too many punches at the polls or he's that scared of Stephen Harper. That other Martin, Paul Jr., wasn't scared in 2005 when he equated a Conservative victory to the end of civilization, he just liked the fear-mongering because it helped him steal NDP votes .

Martin says he'd rather "stick pins in my eyes" than work with the Liberals, but this page has the impression that someone must have done something similar already. If the Member for Winnipeg Centre was able to see clearly, he would notice that there are no left-leaning Liberals. Anything resembling a left wing was purged when Paul Martin was anointed as their saviour, and for all the hot air and good intentions wrapped in a green scarf, it's not like Stephane Dion is going to stand up to Bay Street, the banks, the multinationals, or Alberta's oilpatch either.

If anyone's noticed since the change of leaders, people like Sheila Copps still won't be seen anywhere near the Liberals, so it doesn't make much sense that New Democrats should be anywhere near them either.

Flagging Dissent

On Monday night the Olympic flag returned to City Hall in a ceremony marking the three-year countdown to the Parlympic Games. The event was attended by dozens of police officers, hundreds of protesters, and a few representatives of the general public. Those not in uniform who attended were treated to random illegal searches and be corralled into holding pens to watch the proceedings, whether or not they were supporters or opponents of the upcoming Winter Games.

For those of you scoring at home, John Furlong and the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) are as street-smart as Kevin Falcon's Hummer, and probably as thick. Rather than showing some initiative and trying to meet with environmental, aboriginal, and anti-poverty groups, Furlong waves them off as an annoyance and lectures at them through a local media which is more than happy to comply. If Furlong had the stem cells to pick up the phone and ask these people what they want, at least VANOC could distance themselves a little from the corporate-controlled, right-wing elected dictatorship at every level of government. Here's a hint for Mr. Furlong: start thinking out loud about how Vancouver allocating its Olympic Legacy (read: Sullivan Slush) Fun for social housing wouldn't be such a bad idea.

VANOC also appears to have no idea that these kind of events are supposed to be fun, not pleasing one's political masters. If you're so upset about protesters drowning out a children's choir, maybe you should be booking louder musical acts: one can't throw a rock without hitting a decent up-and-coming band in this town. That might bring the kids out, and people might have some fun. Ever think about free hot dogs, face painting for the kids, that kind of thing? By the way, people hate Sam Sullivan, Gordon Campbell, and David Emerson, why can't you invite speakers that the crowd might like? How about someone like Trevor Linden, who competed at the 1998 Games in Nagano? If more 'regular' people turned out, the presence of police and protesters wouldn't seem so heavy..

VANOC wants the Games to be popular, but refuses to take any kind of a populist stance. Everything they do is poisoned by their Point Grey/West Vancouver elitist venom. The public knows this, which is why they're tuning out the Olympic countdown as it disintegrates into a screaming match between the disenfranchised and the sneering corporate oligarchy that runs this province.

Ethanol: the alternative fuel for those who say there is no alternative

Last week President Bush celebrated the signing of an ethanol agreement with Brazil. The deal establishes the sharing of ethanol-producing technologies between the two countries, but falls far short of opening the U.S. market to Brazilian ethanol. For those of you scoring at home, American ethanol is made from corn, while the Brazilian product can be made from sugar cane which distills far more efficiently than corn does.

If anyone believes that the Bush Administration's promotion of ethanol proves they're starting to pay attention on the global warming front, turn off Fox News, put away your NASCAR toys, and pay attention. Among the growing number of fossil fuel alternatives, ethanol isn't the panacea its promoters make it out to be. The current technology the Brazilians signed on for is a choice between using crops for food or using them for fuel. Wow. What an age we live in.

This agreement is an echo of what's happened in Iraq, except that instead of energy policy masquerading as foreign policy, this is foreign policy masquerading as environmental policy. Bush would not be concerned about Brazil's dependence on foreign oil if that oil was coming from somewhere besides Venezuela, since Rethuglicans have pencilled in Hugo Chavez to replace Kim Jong-Il (or the recently-erased Saddam Hussein) in the Axis of Evil. It's not the wealth that makes Chavez evil to American Imperialists, it's the fact that he's willing to share the wealth and run over the Washington Consensus in the process.

This page contends that food is for eating, not for driving. If it's a choice between a bag of tortilla chips or a ride home, hand me the chips and I'll walk, thanks.

"Surprise" Quiz

Of the following events which took place last week, which did you find the least surprising?

a) 78 year old Betty Krawczyk's 10 month prison sentence for her part in the Olympic-related protests at Eagleridge Bluffs, just prior to the arrival of the International Olympic Committee inspection team in Vancouver?

b) Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon's announcement that Translink would be overhauled with an unelected Board of Directors and a 'Council of Mayors' from Pemberton to Hope (further drowning out transit dependent Vancouver & Burnaby), just days after Translink had announced that ridership would have to double by 2020 in order to avoid a regional transportation crisis?

c) The Basi - Virk trial still hasn't started yet, and only one local daily bothers to report on the legal maneuvering to stop a trial which could shatter the BC Liberals, and their federal counterparts?

d) Among Sam Sullivan's buzzword-tainted pet projects passed by his NPA majority on Vancouver City Council, (Eco-Density, Project Civil City and the Olympic Legacy Fund) none of them have allocated funding for social housing?

Nice pom poms, Gary

The only thing worse than a crappy sportswriter is a crappy sportswriter who actually thinks he can write the news. Former Vancouver Sun jocksniffer Gary Mason has been a political writer at the Globe and Mail for some time now, but disingenuous pandering like today's "Abbott refreshingly candid about private health care" (BC Edition, Page S3) proves that Mason may have changed his game, but he's still not that good at it.

Mason repeatedly treats the BC Liberals like the "home team", believing that he gets better access if he puts the hard questions away. His piece on the BC Health Minister's love of health care profiteering reads like the sycophantic post-game tete a tetes he used to have with Markus Naslund . In fact, Mason allows the minister to claim that the 2004 strike by members of the Hospital Employees Union was a positive in that it allowed the Health Ministry to experiment with contracting out a number of surgeries.

If Mason were an actual journalist, he would have pointed out that the Liberals started the whole mess when Gordon Campbell ripped up HEU's collective agreement (which he explicitly promised not to four years earlier), rammed Bill 29 through the Legislature (which would have, among other abuses, forced HEU members who were fired under the same legislation to rebate their salaries), and almost pushed BC into a General Strike. Intimidation does not equal innovation, but tell that to someone who made his living sucking up to the likes of Donald Brashear and Todd Bertuzzi.

Mason parrots the Minister's harrumph that too much emotion resides within the debate about the fate of B.C.'s health care system. Unfortunately, Abbott and Mason don't apply the same argument every time Carole Taylor whines hysterically that Health Care is taking up an increasing share of the province's budget, and soon there will be nothing left. Health Care does take up a bigger piece of the pie, but only because the pie shrinks every time the Liberals forgo vital revenue in order to dish out tax cuts to their rich friends. Never let the facts get in the way of a good fear-mongering.

There are good sportswriters at the Globe and Mail, particularly Stephen Brunt and Eric Duhatschek. Don't count Mason among them, because even the die-hard fans need a little objectivity.

Survey sez...

This weeks Mustel Group poll indicates that the BC Liberals second honeymoon with the electorate is long over.

After bribing public sector union members, greenwashing their lack of coherent transportation policy, and handing out tax cuts like they so many cheap plastic 2010 Olympic label pins, the Liberals have dropped 8 points over the last seven months. Meanwhile, the NDP holds steady at 38%, which may give pause to the hard-left activists pushing the panic button over Carole James' low-key, slow burning approach to leading the party.

The biggest gain is for the Green Party, which once again proves the power of the right political brand. It's unlikely that that support will translate into MLAs on election day two years from now, but with even Stephen Harper wanting to be recognized as "green" one would think the Greens could at least be beating the BC Marijuana Party at T-shirt sales...

Flagrant Foul

In an article this week, Seattle Times sportswriter Steve Kelley points out that two members of the Seattle Supersonics ownership group, Aubrey McClendon and Tom Ward, have had no problems putting huge money where their homophobia is. Like principal owner Clay Bennet (who negotiated the deal with Starbucks' big barrista Howard Schultz), McClendon and Ward hail from Oklahoma City, a place where groups like "Americans United to Preserve Marriage" have no problem attracting fans. Seattle, however, is a different kettle of smoked salmon - in the aftermath of the 2004 election, the flagship weekly The Stranger advocated Seattle joining other Blue State metropoli in seceding from the Union.

The problem for McClendon and Ward is that the Sonics are trying to attract fans to Seattle's Key Arena, and state legislators towards handing over $300 million for a new arena in suburban Renton. These same legislators tend to be Democrats, and stiffen at the sight of big money Red State intolerance. It probably doesn't help that these new Sonics owners also gave generously to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004.

The National Basketball Association itself is somewhat conflicted when it comes to issues of tolerance and diversity. The league didn't officially recognize John Amaechi's coming out, but they did tell Tim Hardaway to stay away from Las Vegas during last month's All-Star Game. A major factor in the survival of the WNBA has been the support of the Lesbian community in a number of key markets, including Seattle. If the Sonics do relocate to Oklahoma City as many have speculated, it's highly unlike that their sister team, the Seattle Storm, will be coming along.

Which brings this page to what this might be really about. Kelley's piece may really be a planned leak to help drive Olympia and King County taxpayers further from supporting a new arena, making it all the more easy for Bennett and his troglodyte associates to pack up the hardwood and go home to Oklahoma with a shiny new major league sports franchise (the area's first) in tow. Just prior to the news about McClendon and Ward's investments in intolerance, Bennett made it clear that his group would by no means be responsible for cost overruns on the new Renton arena. In order to allow relocation, the NBA needs proof that the Sonics owners have done everything they could in Seattle, and so far, they've done everything they could...to turn Seattle off of the Sonics.