Stop that Train

Vancouver Mayor Sam (CUPEphobe) Sullivan wants Translink to extend the Millennium Skytrain line to UBC. With his re-election prospects darkening with each passing day, it says a lot about Sullivan's tenure as Mayor that he's hoping the light at the end of the tunnel is in fact, a train. For the record, this page wants rapid transit to UBC just as much as the mayor. In fact, given that I actually use public transit, I probably want it more. However, conducting an online survey to gauge public support for a Skytrain extension is like the audience applauding to save Tinkerbell: it makes everyone involved feel good about themselves, but it's totally disconnected from reality.

Let's stick a few pennies on Sullivan's manipulative track to re-election: First of all, the final destination for the SkyTrain extension, the UBC campus, is actually outside the City of Vancouver's jurisdiction, and the University has yet to weigh in on whether or not they'd be willing to chip in. The line would have to go over, around, or through Point Grey, the West Side's NIMBYist neighbourhood. Since the bait-and-switch Canada Line put Cambie Street merchants on the fast track to bankruptcy, it's doubtful that their Broadway counterparts would tolerate a similar fate. Meanwhile, the Northeast Corner would see plans for the Evergreen Line derailed for another at least another decade.

There may be a more pressing reason to hold back the Evergreen Line: doing so also holds back any real debate about what kind of technology should prevail in future transit expansion. The Evergreen line was going to use cost-effective Light Rail, similar to Portland's MAX, Seattle's Sound Transit Link, or Calgary's C-Train. Skytrain is routinely criticized by transit advocates as being little more than a rolling vacuum cleaner sucking capital out of the pockets of taxpayers and into Bombardier's corporate coffers. Ever wonder why Vancouver is the only transit system in North America that uses Skytrain?

Obviously, the Mayor doesn't, which is why he's pitching simplistic solutions to complex transportation and infrastructure problems. This page won't be clapping his hands.

Mike De Wrong on Affirmative Action

Mike De Jong is upset about the BC NDP's new targets for nominating women and visible minority candidates for the next election. Mr. De Jong's bloated epitaph is that setting aside a percentage of non-incumbent ridings for women and minorities amounts to "a typical NDP, big-labour approach to an issue, which is to tell people what to do." For those of you scoring at home, the NDP is setting aside 30 % of available ridings for women, and 10% for visible minorities. If every New Democrat MLA runs in 2009, that means that only the 46 Liberal-held ridings would be subject to this formula: do the math and it works out to 14 ridings for women and 5 for visible minorities. Is De Jong saying that BC shouldn't have 14 more women or 5 more members of a visible minority as MLAs?

A 'big-labour' approach? De Jong can't be anymore clueless and instead grasps at the familiar anti-worker slander of the right wing. The NDP doesn't give out bulk Union membership anymore - the number of delegates a Union gets is based on the number of individual memberships within that Union. As for 'tell people what to do', this policy was passed at last weekend's NDP convention by a substantial majority of delegates across BC, so who gives a rat's (besides the Globe & Mail) what De Jong and the Lieberals think?

Affirmative Action targets are a far more democratic and transparent attempt to bolster representation from equity-seeking groups in the legislature than the Lieberals' elitist practice of parachuting 'star' candidates into ridings. Women and minorities are more than welcome to seek a position on Gordon Campbell's team as long as they were a Supreme Court Justice, President of the CBC, or an Olympic Wrestling champion. Anyone else who's background isn't as upwardly mobile doesn't count with the Lieberals, so thank the NDP for at least trying to come up with some numbers of their own.

Lest We Remember

Remembrance Day is once again upon this country, and in the Stephen Harper era, the occasion is shifting from a solemn marking of military sacrifice to forced cheerleading for what this country suddenly stands for: shop till you drop tax cuts, state-sponsored murder, and viciously attacking anyone who doesn't think either is a good idea. It also galls this page that Remembrance Day is the exclusive property of the Royal Canadian Legion, an organization which has shown fellow veterans the door for following the 'wrong' religion or having the 'wrong' skin colour. The Legion will have my sympathy for being asked not to solicit in front of Home Depot when the Legion stops threatening to sue peace activists for distributing white poppies.

Like the Legion, Remembrance Day is an occasion that has not evolved and remains ignorant to the reality of what war is like today. The overwhelming majority of people killed in war after 1918 are innocent civilians, yet does anything happen in the official program to recognize that? Our corporate masters take out ads imploring us to 'remember' and 'support our troops', yet big business turned a blind eye to Hitler's slaughter of German Trade Unionists, Socialists, and Communists long before he set his despicable sights on the Jews. After all, the Fuhrer was just being a good capitalist, just like the butchers of Beijing who won a free pass after Tiannemen Square.

This page knows full well that whenever I question the military that knuckle-dragging rage-filled rebuttals will light up my inbox. I won't engage your wounded patridiotic manhood, you can wear your plastic poppies, stick out your chest and get all sentimental about 'glory' and 'honour' all you want. You can threaten and insult me, but I come from a family that saw the neighbours abducted, tortured, and executed because they didn't 'Support our Troops', sticks and stones, people. While you're at it, go pick on this guy: When Clay Macleod says that our way of life isn't worth protecting if all we have is war to protect it, he's absolutely right.

Remember when people used to say 'Never Again' on Remembrance Day?

CSI: Crazy Stockwell's Interruption

What would have been a routine crime scene investigation for Vancouver Police early this morning was disrupted by the political opportunism of one Stockwell Day, dinosaur hunter, jet-ski enthusiast, roller skater, and Minister of Public Safety. Day happened to be driving by the site of a Downtown Eastside stabbing incident and decided to make himself the star of his own little press conference, tubthumping the Tories' position to get tough on crime.

This begs the question, what was Stockwell Day doing driving around Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in the wee hours? Did he have a police scanner and looking for this kind of photo op? Was he lost? Was he looking to score a little rock? Is he a suspect trying to cover his tracks? The VPD would be wise to take this troublemaker in for questioning, and if not the police, at least the Opposition should be asking a few questions.

*note: this page will be on hiatus next week

Saskatchewan up against the Wall

Saskatchewan voters go to the polls today, and the most likely outcome is the dismissal of Lorne Calvert's NDP government for the right-wing antics of Brad Wall and his Saskatchewan Roughriders...er....Saskatchewan party. If you've seen their TV spots, you know it's easy to confuse to the two. This page felt quite annoyed in receiving a fundraising mailer from the federal party a couple of weeks ago, hot on the heels of Thomas Muclair's victory in the Outremont byelection. The envelope proclaimed that triumph and other relative breakthroughs in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, and here in British Columbia. Conspicuously absent was any mention of any victories in Saskatchewan, the birthplace of the CCF and the spiritual home of New Democrats.

Don't get me wrong, New Democrats have done some good things in recent years, but when a competent NDP government in Saskatchewan is a few hours away from being swept from office, and the party no longer has any MPs in the province that reveres Tommy Douglas, something is seriously wrong. In fact, this page has already seen the script for Lorne Calvert's ouster: Right-wing business coalition shakes off criminal past by attaching new label of convenience. Compliant corporate media badmouths NDP government despite sound management during economic struggles. Right-wingers peddle tax cuts, keep their cards close to their vests and accuse New Democrats of fear mongering. 'Time for a change' mantra saturates the airwaves with no questioning what the change will really mean.

It's disappointing to see history repeating itself in Saskatchewan. Is anyone else sick of the self-absorbed, tax cutting, 'it's your money', Let's cash out our collective prosperity and nation-building capacity so we can hop in our SUV's and drive to Wal-Mart to buy slave-labour made crap direction this country has been heading for the past few years?

If Saskatchewan's beloved Roughriders can bring home the Grey Cup this year as many are predicting, it will be the only comfort for Saskatchewan after Brad Wall and the SP use their fabricated mandate to smash Crown Corporations, attack Unions, ignore First Nations, and turn the province over to factory farms and big oil, who would love nothing better than another Tar Sands and their greasy little mitts on Saskatchewan's uranium deposits. Of course, the history of the past 16 years under Roy Romanow and Lorne Calvert will be rewritten to make it the bleakest period in the province's history.

Fortunately, there's nowhere in Saskatchewan that can only be accessed by ferry, so at the least Wall won't have that to rub in anyone's face.

I'm no 'Fun' anymore: Go Fun Yourself

Facebook's stupidest application: the Fun Wall. Remember how you used to get all that idiotic chain mail from your distant relatives and friends you don't talk to anymore? The racist ethnic jokes, the right-wing propaganda masquerading as patriotism and/or folk wisdom, the nauseatingly saccharine shout-outs to babies, puppies, true love and Jesus? Guess where they went?

The really annoying thing is people who relay Fun Wall posts - post it on your friend's profile, and it shows up on all of the Fun Wall's of the recipient's friends: viral and vile! I didn't even need to have Fun Wall installed, it installs automatically if I follow the e-mail link that tells me someone posted to my Fun Wall. The Fun Wall is easily my biggest annoyance with Facebook. That and still having to list my political views as 'other', rather than Socialist.

At least it's easy to delete applications, and it's free, unlike deleting CanWest Global and Bell Globemedia crap from my programmed TV channels that still show up on my cable bill.

Whistling on Death Row

Let's make no mistake: the 1982 execution-style murders of Harvey Mad Man and Thomas Running Rabbit by Ronald Smith of Red Deer Alberta are an atrocity. However, there's no difference between marching someone into the woods and murdering them and marching someone down death row and murdering them on behalf of the state. There's a reason why Canada does not have Capital Punishment, and in reversing Canada's long-standing policy of pleading for clemency in death row cases, the Harper government has either forgotten that reason, or they're willfully ignoring it.

Perhaps it's yet another cynical ploy to shore up the Tories reactionary base, perhaps it's an another attempt to show the Bush administration that Ottawa is willing to 'play ball', unlike the Liberals who criticized Bush when in 1999, as Governor of Texas, committed the state-sponsored murder of Canadian Stanley Faulder. Maybe our government just gets off on watching people get killed, which would explain a lot of other Conservative policies, like the occupation of Afghanistan and closing safe injection sites. Will somebody get these people a copy of Faces of Death so they can stop playing their dirty little political games with the lives of Canadians?

If our government doesn't stand up for Canada's disdain for state-sponsored murder, what other fundamentals of Canadian society will they refuse to stand up for next?

Your Tax Cuts at 'Work'

In another short sighted and pathetic effort to buy themselves a majority government, Stephen Harper's conservatives served up another round of high-test tax cuts, this time to the tune of about $60 billion. One would think that given Harper's obsession with optics, our fossil-fuel injected federal surplus would be going towards items that consistently top opinion polls, like debt reduction or increased spending on infrastructure, health care and education. Not in Little Stephie Wonder's ideologically-blinded universe: everything is all right (uptight!) as long as our money is buying our own votes and shiny new toys for the military.

In the Tory haste to buy us with our money, even NeoConservative articles of faith, like maximum security airports, are having to go cap in hand. For a government that follows the Project for a New American Century around like a lost puppy, its surprising that our airport security is being performed by indifferent low wage contract workers rather than dedicated public employees like the U.S. Transportation Safety Agency. If maintaining the post - 9/11 de rigeur police state at the runways can be left by Harper and his minions to go begging, imagine how long First Nations without safe drinking water on their reserves have to wait, or the homeless, or anything else that doesn't involve killing brown people and buying plasma TVs.

All the stupidity and moral depravity of the Bush Administration without having to leave our homes.

Public Transit executives hate Public Transit

Despite the fact that Metro Vancouver's transit system is stretched to the breaking point, Translink executives are unrepetant about six-figure claims for private vehicle expenses. This little band of self-entitled hypocrites bleats about needing 'flexibility' while at the same time wants to shove more Lower Mainlanders on to fewer buses, and make them pay through the nose for it. By insisting that they have the right to forgo interacting with the paying public and their own employees by using the trolleys, B-Lines, Skytrain and Seabus, The Translink Board is promoting the idea that public transit is great...for other people.

The biggest tell comes from CEO Patricia Jacobson, who will be putting your fare increase towards her shiny new Subaru Outback, when she says that people can't get everywhere they need to go in the Lower Mainland by transit. Excuse me, but isn't that the problem you're supposed to working to fix?

...and Translink wonders why I keep sending them back survey responses of 'not favourable at all'....

Seven Year Bitch

Today marks the seventh anniversary of this page officially taking residence in Vancouver. Given the dearth of trick-or-treaters in my budget-priced condo, I have time to reflect on the past seven years in "The Best Place on Earth" tm. First of all, it's not - Vancouver is a city that puts to rest the notion that there's a better place for you out there, because for every positive there's a negative lurking to cancel it out. Much is made about the beautiful ocean and mountain scenery, which is pleasant until one notices the traffic snarled in the middle of it because of a woefully misplaced sense of vehicle entitlement. A false sense of superiority is also fuelled by the Canwest-dominated local media, who regularly indoctrinate the locals to wage class warfare on the behalf of the elites against the homeless, union members, and anyone else who refuses to take a "Golden Decade" tm shower.

If Vancouver had a Facebook profile, it would be in a multitude of groups and have a lot of fun applications, but very few, if any friends. There's no sense of homegrown identity like an Edmonton or a Minneapolis, and we don't have a tangible product identity like Starbucks, Boeing, and Microsoft give Seattle - It's like we're still working through the aftershocks of the Hong Kong migration of the 1980's & 90's, the fascist electoral temper tantrum of 2001, and we're scared of more rumblings as 2010 approaches. The Liberal wars on unions and social housing have dashed any notion of people who work in Vancouver being able to afford living here, and driven any real sense of community to this city's underrated East Side.

We are a collection of NIMBYist old money neighbourhoods, politicized ethnic groups, indifferent urban hipsters, and hordes of background extras for B-movie shoots and oblivious cruise ship patrons. We go to hockey games to be seen rather than to see hockey. We treat the windblown trees in Stanley Park with the same concern as we do the beaten down homeless radiating from Oppenheimer Park to the Carnegie Centre. We complain about the insanity of the real estate market, and label garbagemen crazy and unrealistic when they try to bargain for a raise.

Is it worse than anyplace else? No, it just isn't any better, and accepting that makes it that much easy for this page to call Vancouver home.

Fun with numbers

Here's a little stick to beat the 'Believe BC', 'Best Place on Earth', 'Golden Decade' fools into submission: a quick and easy comparison of the 'atrocity' of the Fast Ferries to how the Liberals are screwing over taxpayers with the new Vancouver Convention Centre.

Estimated cost of Fast Ferries: $210 million
Final cost of Fast Ferries: $454 million
Cost overrun on Fast Ferries: $244 million*

Estimated cost of Vancouver Convention Centre: $495 million
Current cost of Vancouver Convention Centre: $883 million
Cost overrun on Vancouver Convention Centre: $388 million and counting

The difference between the NDP and the Liberals? The NDP was at least $144 million smarter than the Liberals are today. Oh, and unlike the slave labour, small business-killing P3 sinkhole that the RAV/Canada Line has become, the NDP's mass transit line was finished on time and under budget too.

*Not including the sale of the ferries to the Washington Marine Group by the Liberals in 2003 for $19.4 million, after Washington Marine had offered $60 million.

Who gives a grab bag...

A few items that grabbed this page's attention this week, like so many squirrels zipping by my living room window to tease my cat into slamming his head on the window frame before I can let him out....

Dumbledore is gay - This page still hasn't read any of the Harry Potter books, but I know enough about them that Dumbledore is also dead, and contrary to the mesmerized fans base of the J.K. Rowing tomes, a fictional character. I expect that being completely out of ideas, Rowling will sleep on a mattress filled with royalties and whenever she's starved for attention will drop juicy tidbits about other characters.

Islamofascism Awareness Week - Speaking of fictional creations, I can't tell if Anne Coulter simultaneously agitating for human rights for Muslim women while at the same time fantasizing about repealing the suffrage of American women is really funny or really creepy. This page encourages David Horowitz to keep giving her enough rope so that the fantasy of sensible Americans tired of Ms. Coulter's antics will finally come true.

The NFL in Toronto - The Buffalo Bills want to play a couple of games per season at Toronto's Rogers Centre, a stadium with capacity for about 55,000 people, and is still being paid by taxpayers. Ted Rogers and Paul Godfrey are salivating at the prospect of having the Bills relocate to Toronto after the Bills' octogenarian owner Ralph Wilson dies. The NFL prescribes a minimum seating capacity of 70,000, so unless the plan is to suspend fans from the stadium's retractable roof, a new stadium will need to built. Guess who gets stuck with the tab? Besides, REAL football arrived in Toronto this year, and it didn't seem to damage the CFL's Argonauts.

Alberta bound...and gagged

Anyone in Alberta who expected Premier Ed Stelmach to seriously address oil & gas royalty rates in his televised address walked out of their living rooms disappointed. This page is by no means surprised. One of the myriad reasons I abandoned Alberta almost a decade ago was the Conservative government's indentured servitude to Big Oil, and the crass manipulation of that dysfunctional relationship to suppress citizens' aspirations. Ralph Klein and his cronies would promise anything and everything to elect themselves to another stupefying majority, and after the votes were counted, the Tories would claim they couldn't follow through because somehow, energy royalties might drop.

Nothing has changed: the Oilpatch runs the government and the government is to scared to cross the oilpatch. Instead of abiding by a groundbreaking report issued by his government's own commission to substantially jack up the rates on the greasy thugs who have turned Northern Alberta into the surface of some inhospitable alien tar-sands world, Stelmach is spouting weasel worlds and sitting on his hands. Shame.

In the weeks since the report was released, Alberta's Petrocracy screamed bloody murder on the editorial pages, shipped their employees to the front door of the Legislature in Edmonton for phony rallies (complete with blue hardhats for boys & pink for girls), and threatened anyone who would listen about pulling up stakes and taking their noxious business elsewhere. B.C.'s Liberal government was quick off the mark to suggest that B.C. could simply hold the line undercut Alberta royalty rates, but does anyone seriously believe that the Petroterrorists would get the same free ride here if they tried to establish a Tar Sands sequel or worse, lobby for offshore drilling?

It disgusts this page that for all of Albertans' deluded mythology about Ottawa's attempts to 'steal' their prosperity through such initiatives as the National Energy Program or a Carbon Tax, they don't seem to have any problem with oil companies using a puppet regime in Edmonton to rob them blind. Albertans will simply re-elect the regime, take the economic, social, and environmental abuse from the greasy puppet masters, and meekly beg them not to go.

*Update @ 10/26 6:04 AM - That's a little better. Still a long way from Hugo Chavez, but a little more removed from Dick Cheney.

Scorching Arrogance

Residents of San Diego more than likely consider the wildfires burning around them and creating substantial property damage a tragedy. This page considers the real tragedy to be the arrogant, smug, and racist comparisons between San Diego coping with the fires to how New Orleans residents saw their lives destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. To quote a soldier on the scene who was also deployed in New Orleans after Katrina: "Here? There's no fear, no pushing, no fighting. Everybody is calm. It's just a completely different situation."

He's right - those people in New Orleans should have know better about being poor, black, and living in a city that's doesn't have major U.S. military installations or thousands of exploited illegal immigrants to do the heavy lifting. They also should have done something about not having an influential Republican demagogue as their Governor. FEMA rep. David Paulison says "Nobody does disasters better than California". Of course, California doesn't have to wait three days for the National Guard to show up.

Frank and Gordon can go f**k themselves

Tyee chieftan David Beers says that Vancouver Eats Its Young. This page has observed that it's not just Vancouver eating its young, the young in Vancouver are eating themselves. Earlier today, while sipping some jasmine tea at Pacific Centre to soothe my post-dental appointment nerves, I overheard a conversation between two 30-something managers (one with little man issues, the other being follically challenged) from a nearby telecommunications dealer (hint: it's the one with the spokesbeavers) which included such vicious pearls of wisdom as:

"We seriously need to put a scare into these people"

"I don't care what she thinks. I'd tell her if she tries that not to come into work again."

"We have to go in there in kick some ass."

The apparent crisis according to what I heard was that two of their staff wanted to take vacation days at the same time. Rather than investigate further as to why they needed the vacation time, try and negotiate a reasonable compromise, or read what the Employment Standards Act of British Columbia has to say, these two were obviously so strung out on their employer's corporate rhetoric about "competitiveness", they simply assumed that the best approach to dealing with their underlings was one of aggression and intimidation.

Hindsight being 20-20, the major reason why the B.C. Liberals, Vancouver Board of Trade, and their media toadies went Krystallnacht on the NDP in the late 1990s was probably because Mike Harcourt and Glen Clark had fixed the B.C. Labour Code enough so that young workers at places like McDonald's and Starbucks could organize unions and fight their way out of a dead end. Today, thanks to living in "The Best Place on Earth" (tm), young workers in B.C. are treated to a starvation minimum wage, an out-of-control cost of living, and deliberately dehumanizing and abusive work environments like the one the two bullies in the food court were trying to engineer.

For those of you scoring at home, people have a right to what's promised to them in their contract, and The Apprentice is just a TV show.

Greens pick new leader, still exist

Esquimalt City Councillor Jane Sterk is the new leader of the Green Party of British Columbia.

This page congratulates Ms. Sterk and expresses the hope that perhaps with new leadership, the Greens in BC will look to reclaim a balance of environmental stewardship and social responsibility, rather than the party's current organic fertilizer of union bashing, dominionist social policy, and sucking up to the Liberals, who share the Greens delusion that the invisible hand of the market will save the planet.

Revulsion with the Jim Harris/Elizabeth May/Adrienne Carr wing of the Greens aside, this page doesn't necessarily agree with Mark Hume when he talks about rank-and-file Greens switching to the NDP. I am not so partisan that I can't contend that a major reason for the NDP's substantial improvement on environmental policy is because a vocal Green party has emerged to challenge the NDP on environmental issues. Yes, vote-splitting from the Greens cost this province an Official Opposition in 2001 and a progressive government in 2005, but the Greens also made it possible for the NDP to show the likes of Dan Miller the door, and shove the IWA to the far corner of the party's convention hall, right next to the door.

The Green vs. NDP animosity is more than apparent from online discussion boards, but as my Sensei once told me, our enemies are often our greatest teachers.

Step away from the vehicle

VANOC wants Lower Mainland residents to get out of their cars during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

When it comes to transportation policy, this is the first thing that anyone connected to the Olympics had said that makes sense since Vancouver won the 2010 bid over four years ago. It's disgusting to see how the Olympic transportation plan was hijacked by developers and their Liberal government allies into an orgy of privatization and unnecessary highway construction. Originally, we were going to have passenger ferries sailing from downtown Vancouver to a transfer in Sqaumish where we would board a train to Whistler. Instead we end up with either a Sea-to-Sky freeway for the upper crust ski & snowboard set, or an apres-ski parking lot that will perpetually trigger demands for more lanes to be added..

Urging people not to drive during the Olympics is too little to late. If the powers that be could have wrapped it around their fuel-injected ideology a few years ago that driving is a privilege and not a right, Vancouver would have a public transportation infrastructure where VANOC wouldn't have to beg people to keep it in park.

Oh No! Stop me before I vote again!

Stephane Dion and his Liberal Party of Canada claim to believe that:

• Canadian troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2009.
• The Kyoto Accord is the most effective approach to reducing greenhouse gasses.
• Further reductions to the GST will destabilize key government revenues.
• Rehabilitation and prevention are the keys to preventing violent crime.

Apparently, these beliefs were some of the conditions the Liberals insisted that Stephen Harper and his Conservatives respect or else the Liberals would let Harper's government fall. One would think that as Leader of the Opposition, and being confronted with a Throne Speech that essentially spits in the face of those 'core' beliefs, Dion would seize the opportunity and actually oppose the Harper agenda by forcing an election. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way with the discredited shady oligarchy that is the Liberal Party of Canada. When Stephane Dion says "Canadians don't want an election", what he really means is "Liberals can't win an election". It's childish and gutless, particularly when polls show that Canadians side with the Liberals on their alleged 'core' issues.

Of course Canadians don't want an election - we don't want to pay our taxes, recycle, eat our vegetables or get a prostrate exam either, but we do these things because they're good for ourselves and good for the country. Is the Leader of the Opposition actually telling Canadians that we want to be denied the fundamental expression of our democracy because he can't control the results? Dion's surrender reveals the Liberal Party of Canada in all its manipulative, opportunistic 'glory'.

Note to Mr. Dion: stop obsessing about the results of the next election, there's about 15 million Canadians who will take care of that for you.

The Buck Stops Where?

Vision Vancouver is calling for an end to Corporate and Union donations to municipal election campaigns.

Why it should happen: Vancouverites already suffer through the stupidity of the 'at-large' system, which stifles individual and community participation in the democratic process. The only candidates that can run are those who can afford city-wide campaigns. That means NPA candidates sucking up to every real estate developer and potential contractor that crosses their greedy, deluded path.

Also, centre-left candidates from COPE and Vision Vancouver are not as indebted to so-called "Big Labour" as the media wants us to think - union members can tell which parties represent their interests without headquarters cutting a cheque. However, the $70,000 CUPE gave to Vision Vancouver in 2005 ended up being a deposit for the mean-spirited, anti-union revenge politics of Sam Sullivan the NPA, which culminated in three months on the picket line for Locals 15 and 1004. Three months and counting for Local 391.

Why it won't happen: Any changes to Vancouver's electoral statutes requires approval from Victoria. While the Opposition New Democrats only received token funding from the Labour Movement in the 2005 Provincial election, Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals would have been ground into an impoverished paste without the cash transfusions from their corporate pipeline. If Victoria bans institutional funding for municipal elections without imposing the same ban on themselves, the Liberals will be hard pressed to find enough 2010 - inspired 'Best Place on Earth' propaganda to fill that credibility gap.

Stick it

This page spent a three-day weekend out and about around the Lower Mainland, and something caught my attention. First of all, I'm reluctant to chip in on the furor surrounding placing 'Support our Troops' decals on emergency vehicles. My take on it is that really have no place on ambulances, given the number of Muslims from places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman who work as doctors in the hospitals where the ambulances inevitably end up. As for police squad cars, the police are most likely to identify the most with the military, so telling them not to have 'Support our Troops' decals is not going to go over well. Besides, the police have a lot of guns too.

However, 'Support our Troops' decals have no business going on unmarked police cars. How can it be an 'unmarked' police car if the car is marked with the same sticker as regular police cars? I saw a few police cars like that in Vancouver over the weekend, which would have been a nice tip if my recreational activities were somewhat less legitimate. Patriotism may be the last refuge of a scoundrel, but sometimes it can make it a little easier for the scoundrels to take refuge.

Standing 8-Count

This page is still somewhat shaken from the recent flurry of hate mail and vicious falling outs with family and friends as a result of my position on the Vancouver civic workers strike. As a result, my writing is more than likely going to be shaky as well, but let's stumble around until we find our feet and move on, shall we?

In response to Gary Mason's Globe & Mail column yesterday, I think somebody needs to tell him that 'polarization' isn't some kind of magnetic effect if one drives too far north (or south). The shrieking mock outrage and anti-union diatribes at the end of this strike are no different from the ones which littered open-line shows and letters to the editor at its beginning. It's the same overstimulated chimps throwing their same right-wing crap. As for his assertion about CUPE's political agenda that the union has a political agenda to restore the centre-left to power in Vancouver, it's not borne out by material fact. Vision and COPE councillors voted for the Foley recommendations, Locals 391 and 1004 either voted against or not enough in support to adopt those recommendations.

I think what has seriously pissed me off over the duration of this strike is the number of people who want to argue with me about it, yet are completely gutless about where they really stand. For all of you who try to qualify your hatred of union workers with such ass-covering rhetoric as "I'm not anti-union, but..." or "I'm not really right wing, but..." just say what you really mean or shut up. Why do I prefer Conservatives to Liberals? The Conservatives are bastards, but at least they're up front about it.

Anyway, I may need to warm up for a few days before returning to form, so stay tuned.

Lockdown

This page is on an emergency hiatus as a result of a series of harrasing and threatening e-mails I have been receiving with respect to my position on the Vancouver civic workers strike.

For those of you scoring at home: I don't have a problem with you bashing me on babble. I don't mind you bashing me in my comments section (at least until you whip out the 'babykiller' stamp). I do however, draw the line at people tracking me down and trying to confront through my e-mail account at work. My union, and my employer take that quite seriously.

At present the appropriate people are investigating. Hopefully, regular programming will resume soon.

Take your baton and...

Rather than admit that trying to stage concerts behind a picket line at the Orpheum was a bad idea, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is citing 'union intimidation' as its rationale for cancelling its upcoming shows. Either Bramwell Tovey and the VSO board are overreacting to a single isolated incident at last Saturday's Sarah Chang concert (which happened to involve a single CUPE Local 15 member) which has yet to be heard before the courts, or they really do believe that striking workers exercising their democratic right to picket their employer constitutes a 'threat'.

This page hopes that for a serious crescendo of blowback to the VSO's exercise in class warfare. Already some union members who regularly go to the symphony are telling the VSO that after being branded a 'threat', they will be taking their entertainment dollar elsewhere. Note to CUPE 2950 member Bill Pollard (who's interviewed in the linked story): I don't know how much you know about your own Local, but did you think of mentioning that the VSO could have moved their shows to the Chan Centre at UBC, where your own members work?

Cancelling the concerts only plays up to the West Side, NPA-voting, blue-haired season ticket base who are aghast about rubbing up against the ghastly hoi polloi who take their tickets and serve their drinks outside the Orpheum's front door. How dare they publicly state they have a right to their dignity and some of this province's apparent prosperity! It's not 'union intimidation', it's trying to intimidate the union by sucking up to their City Hall landlord and scapegoating CUPE in the media.

Maybe Mr. Pollard could join this page in taking out a restraining order against the VSO. At the least, the VSO should be barred from playing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, i.e. 'Solidarity Forever' or Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man again.

Short week

Busy, busy, busy - this page will return with a new episode on Thurday, October 4.

Gateway to Nasty

NDP Leader Carole James has come out against the Gateway Project...sort of.

James' position is that the most immediate and cost-effective way to relieve traffic congestion in the Lower Mainland is to immediately invest in a massive expansion of public transit. She doesn't completely rule out twinning the Port Mann Bridge someday, but that someday comes well after commuters have been treated to expanded bus networks and light rail service south of the Fraser River. James' stance on Gateway is an example of why a growing number of New Democrats, rightly or wrongly, want to dump her as their leader. Her position is populist, pragmatic, and astute. She's framed the issue in popular terms of the public wanting action now, and ruling out twinning the bridge altogether would have drawn the ire of Surrey's NDP MLAs. The problem is in our current era of Liberal big lie thug politics, this kind of moderation simply doesn't fly.

Since taking office in 2001, the Liberals have redefined the term 'good government' to mean how well they can appease their supporters (in the case of Gateway, the construction companies and auto dealers who bankroll the party) and manipulate the media to manufacture support for initiatives that their supporters can profit from at the expense of the public. It's not about logic or consensus cost-effectiveness, it's about winning and crushing your opponents.

The problem for James and the NDP is that being right isn't enough because British Columbians are conditioned to attack dog politics. James was handed a lot of credit for the party's electoral turnaround in 2005, but it wouldn't have happened without the tough-as-nails tag team of Joy MacPhail and Jenny Kwan in the Legislature. Frankly, James lets too much go. When Kevin Falcon says that James arguing against twinning the Port Mann "arguing directly contrary to the position that her government took.", something needs to be said about leaders having the wisdom to revisit important policy, and the fact that Glenn Clark is on Jimmy Pattison's payroll, not the NDP's.

Opposing Gateway presents a real opportunity for the NDP to articulate a sound alternative vision to the Liberals' record of tax cuts for the rich and public-private porkbarelling. Certainly, one needs a good grasp of the facts, but one also needs a good grasp around the neck of your opponents.

Move along, Barney

Stanley Park has had its share of adversity over the past few years: the murder of Aaron Webster, the senseless beating of Ji-Won Park, threats of forest fires, windstorms that devastated popular forest areas and put the Seawall out of commission, and the lack of park maintenance resulting from the ongoing civic strike. The Vancouver Parks Board (VPB) needs to address critical issues of safety and security in order to encourage Vancouverites to return to the park that was once the jewel in this city's crown. Unfortunately, the Park Board has their own ideas about how to bring people back: giant robot dinosaurs!

The VPB thinks this idea is so great that they tried to hide it from their own elected Commissioners. Instead of letting residents and visitors enjoy the natural splendor of forests, gardens, and views of Coal Harbour and English Bay, we will be expected to tolerate hoards of slack-jawed trailer trash tourists shelling out to drag their squealing progeny past mechanical behemoths in a cheezy effort to transform our city park into a theme park. This page shudders to think what's next. If an NPA majority is returned to Council after the next civic election, their Developer overlords may get to sink their teeth into Hastings Park after all, which at this rate, will put Playland somewhere next to the Causeway....

Mama's Boy?

This page extends his condolences to Premier Gordon Campbell for the passing of his mother, Peg Campbell, at the age of 82. As I know from experience, it's never easy to lose a parent at any age. However, the loss of a parent is poignant milestone in all of our lives, and gives pause for reflection. In fact the Premier may want to reflect a little harder on the memory of his mother raising him and his three siblings on a school secretary's salary after his father succumbed to alcoholism and suicide. I don't think he's learned a thing from that experience.

This page has made it clear on a few occasions that the Gordon Campbell is a man who has some serious issues and has no business acting as Premier of British Columbia. It's highly disturbing to invoke his mother's struggles to raise her children as rational for his Liberal government's reckless 25% tax cut shortly after taking office in 2001:

"I always ask myself, when government takes money out of your paycheque would Peg Campbell say 'thank you very much' for taking that money?' I can't remember my mom ever waking up the day after getting her paycheque and saying I've just got too much here to spend on the kids."

Campbell's 25% tax cut in 2001 went across the board, creating significant savings only for the wealthy in B.C., and at the same time decimated the province's revenue base. This 'structural deficit' laid the groundwork for an expansion of user fees and increased MSP premiums, the elimination of vital social programs, and the Liberals' unforgivable tearing up of legally binding collective agreements. Mr. Premier, it's one thing when the government takes money out of a paycheque, it's another thing to take away someone's paycheque altogether: that's why the Supreme Court called you on it. As for the Liberals war on welfare, did it ever occur to the Premier that the experience of his mother is what motivated governments to cast the social safety net that he and his corporate right-wing ilk are bent on tearing apart?

It is sad to the point of pitiful to hear the Premier use his personal grief to score political and ideological points. I can extend my sympathies to him and his family for their loss, but every day this page sympathizes with the people and communities who are forced to put up with the most arrogant Provincial government in Canadian history.

UVIC Students Society holds off Military Offensive

Student politics at B.C. Universities never cease to bemuse this page. It's always a marginal handful of idealistic go-getters who run for actually run for office, and are subsequently ignored by an apathetic student population. When a students union or society use whatever mandate has been left lying around for them to make an actual, honest, courageous decision, the hitherto oblivious backpack horde screams bloody murder and yelps for heads to roll.

Such is the case with the University of Victoria Students Society banning the Canadian Armed Forces from an upcoming career fair at their Student Union Building. According to President Tracey Ho, the Student Society executive believes that recruiters are less than upfront about the 'psychological, emotional, and physical impact' that Armed Forces personnel face when approaching potential recruits. This page can't confirm that point specifically, but I do know that at the Forces' pavilion at last month's Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver, I had a very difficult getting any of troops to mention the word 'Afghanistan'. By the way, the souvenir 'Support Our Troops' dog tags you passed out at taxpayers' expense were a nice touch.

Nonetheless, the good little boys and girls at UVIC who vote Conservative like their mommies and daddies feel so upset by their ELECTED representatives that they're passing around a petition to have the entire Student Society Executive removed from office. Unlike the Student Society elections where candidates debated the issues in hostile obscurity, the wannabe chickenhawks are aided and abetted by such champions of free speech as the Globe and Mail's Gary Mason, who described the Society's decision as "an insult to the intelligence" of UVIC's student body.

Wrong. The real insult, added to injury, is exposing students, who are facing academic and financial pressures far more crushing than any class before them, to recruiters hungry for fresh meat to grind on the Kandahar killing fields. Any UVIC student who is that gung-ho to serve is more than welcome (and intelligent enough) to report to 827 Fort Street in Victoria from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Noon to 4:00 on Saturdays. A career fair isn't about 'getting both sides of the story', it's about getting a job. Do the upset UVIC students think it would have been better if the Forces were invited and their efforts ended up getting disrupted by demonstrating peace activists?

This is what happens when you don't pay attention to who's running for office, and you don't vote. If you can't be bothered to exercise your democratic freedoms, suck it up and don't cry to the media about how the army can't come to your school to tell you about how they're 'protecting' your freedoms.

Get off the stage

Last weekend, this page had the pleasure, and misfortune of attending the 'Best of the Fest' performance at the Vancouver Comedy Festival. I usually enjoy stand-up comedy, so Walnut Boat and I opted for this variety platter on the premise that if any of the comics sucked that hard, they wouldn't be on stage that much.

The 'comedian' who was on at the end of the first half of the show should be glad I didn't quite catch his name, and I was sitting in the balcony. It was a relatively weak evening as most of the talent delivered material for a suburban, comfortable upper middle class who likes things the way they are, annoying for someone like me who comes from the George Carlin/Chris Rock school of invective. This 'comedian' who I did hear is a writer for Rick Mercer's weekly suck-up session on the CBC, went, in this page's opinion, a little too far.

Had this page been sitting anywhere near this 'comedian' when he sniped that he would "rather give money to support the troops than to those idiots on the sidewalks with their cardboard resumes", rest assured, he would not have finished his five minutes. The usual West Side fascists and Fraser Valley troglodytes laughed and applauded, but the rest of us managed an outraged glaring silence that had this fool retreating into weak camping anecdotes. Some of us still remember the words of a former Vancouver Mayor who opened his election campaign with the words "No one is disposable". Had I been seething a little less to come up with a decent heckle, it would have been "If I wanted bullsh*t right wing commentary, I would have picked up the National Post!"

Unfortunately, that wouldn't have worked either - as part of CanWest Global's sponsorship of the festival, they were giving out free copies of the Post in the lobby during the intermission. Jingoism and homeless bashing may be in vogue again, but they sure as hell aren't funny.

Let's No Shopping!!

To follow up on yesterday's musings about the Canadian dollars parity with its U.S. counterpart, this page has seen a number of media outlets over the past 48 hours acting as cheerleaders for the Bellingham (WA) Chamber of Commerce. Reporters who would otherwise be covering picket lines or police incidents are gleefully pulling their best Bob Barker...er...Drew Carey impression in telling us how Right the Price is.

The problem for this page, is that the cheerleaders are all waving the same pom-poms, as if my material needs and wants are identical to who they perceive as their audience. Here's a graphic from today's Globe and Mail which lists a comparison of 'key' items (I assume that outside of Vancouver, it would be jeans instead of yoga pants). After going through this list, I'm convinced that the best way to save money in these days of dollar parity is not to buy anything.

Why would I buy an IPod Nano? IPods have a typical lifespan of six months and Apple doesn't deserve a cent from me for their efforts in marginalizing the open source MP3 format. I still contend that the Harry Potter books are more about branding than actual literature, so I can give them a pass. Yoga Pants? Sorry dude, my metrosexuality stops at the man purse, damn it. Starbucks coffee? Coffee is a commodity I need BEFORE leaving my house, and I can grande brew it myself, thank you. As for a litre of gasoline and a Chevy Impala to put it in, what the hell do people think it was that got the U.S. in trouble to the point where Canada's dollar equals theirs? Could it be, I don't know, slaughtering Iraqis and their own troops for a steady supply of gas to put in their Chevy Impalas?

If one uses the advice of this page, your total savings by not shopping for the Globe's featured items in the U.S. would come to $28,455.25 US. If you just stay home and not go shopping, that goes up to $35,944.54. It's that easy.

Dollar Up, Sky Down

The Canadian Dollar has achieved parity with the U.S. Dollar.

For this page, that news is not so bad in the short or long term. I have a getaway planned for Mount Baker, WA next week, which will also include a stop at Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham. A good portion of my retirement savings are in bonds and treasury bills rather than the stock market, so the ascending loonie puts my senior self a little closer to buying name brand dolphin-friendly tuna rather than the iffy store label variety. It's the time in between that has this page more than a little nervous. Unlike our petroleum soaked, carbon farting Alberta neighbours throwing all their eggs at the gas pump, British Columbia has a patchwork of key industries, from Forestry to Films, all of which have prospered with a lower dollar. Now that the odds are 1 to 1, all bets are off.

Given the catastrophic failure of the Project for a New American Century from Baghdad to the Bayou, it's not like the braintrust in Victoria could have failed to see this day coming. However, Gordon Campbell and the Liberals, after all their alarmist screaming about a phony 'structural' deficit left behind by the previous NDP administration, continue to throw good money after bad ideas like the Gateway Project, renovating the Sea to Sky Highway for Whistler's wealthy, treaties with First Nations that won't stand up in court, the expanding roster of failed public-private partnerships, and the repetitive propaganda reel of their "The Best Place on Earth" Campaign.

After an extended period of dollar parity and the bills from the 2010 Olympics crush B.C.'s tax base, the rabid dogs of the right will be screaming for heads to roll. Not Campbell's head or those of his comfortable cronies, but rather those heads attached to working people struggling to get by, whose only 'crime' is that they work at a union job in the public sector. 2010 may be on its way, but the clouds are gathering for a perfect storm that could bring back 1983 as well.

Jackson Pollock had perspective too.

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon says that BC Ferries passengers need perspective on the corporation's recently 25% fare hike. Truth be told, this page needs some kind of 'perspective' any time Kevin Falcon opens his mouth, because whatever he's trying to pass off as sound transportation policy is always some indecipherable mishmash of right wing ideology and good ol' fashioned pork-barrelling.

It was Kevin Falcon who told us that building a mass transit system down Cambie Street would be more cost effective than building one through the already existing Arbutus rail corridor. It was Kevin Falcon who claimed that shoving more private vehicles on to a twinned Port Mann Bridge and Highway 1 in order to gridlock the streets of Vancouver would somehow reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Now it's Kevin Falcon who claims that British Columbians should be happy to pay a lot more to ride ferries that his government refused to tender to local shipyards, are managed by his myopic union-busting sycophant David Hahn, and were christened with such asinine names as Coastal Celebration. Whether its on the roads, rails, or waters of B.C., every deluded megaproject and ripoff from the desk of the Transportation Minister makes any B.C. taxpayer with any real perspective die a little more inside.

Jack can't win

Much reading of the tea leaves this morning after Thomas Muclair's victory for the NDP in the Outremont byelection: Are the Liberals finished as the federalist choice in Quebec? Did Michael Ignatieff's people sabotage Jocelyn Coulon's candidacy? Will Stephane Dion resign? The only matter that the talking heads in the national media appear to have resolved is that Muclair's victory is not a breakthrough for the NDP in Quebec.

This dismissal appears based on the facts that the New Democrats ran a popular candidate in a riding where they had a wedge issue (ie. the Afghanistan mission), and Jack Layton, who polls consistently well among party leaders in Quebec, visited Outremont several times. Why can't this successful formula be repeated elsewhere in Quebec where there are popular candidates and defining wedge issues? If you believe the Globe & Mail, the National Post, et al, it's because it's the NDP.

"The NDP can't win" is a political myth that hopefully will one day evaporate. If the myth that the Liberals are a progressive party of the left is demolished, then that day will come a lot sooner.

A Shutout worth breaking

Tomorrow morning the most desired real estate in Vancouver goes on sale. The property is less than 4 sq. feet and can only be acquired for lease periods of less than 3 hours. Of course, this page is referring to single-game tickets for the Vancouver Cancuks 2007-08 season.

The seating capacity at General Motors Place is about 18,000, and the Canucks season ticket base (most of which is corporations padding expense accounts and writing it off) is about 17,000, which makes Canucks tickets the perfect metaphor for living in Vancouver. The wealthy, the well-connected, the lucky, and those who bought at the right time get to be part of the action. The rest of us are consigned to seeing it on TV at home - if we're fortunate enough to have a home.

Once upon a time, this page used to go to quite a few NHL games in Calgary, largely due to the fact that the Calgary Flames expanded the seating capacity of the Olympic Saddledome from 17,000 to 20,000 seats. The extra seats were about $10 a game. In this day and age NHL teams would rather just raise prices beyond what real people can afford rather than increase capacity. That may be fine for hockey tickets, but it's not for housing: someone needs to blow the whistle on governments and influential developers who use the same strategy.

He's invoking the Charter of WHAT?

By refusing to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Canada's 'New Government' (tm) proves that they are in fact, the same gang of small-minded racist reactionaries of the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance. The only new element in the Conservative's flipping the bird to the aspirations of Canada's First Nations (and Aboriginal Peoples throughout the world) is that they are wrapping themselves in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to do it. Hey, this page is as shocked as you are, but unfortunately, Chuck Strahl has figured out how to use the Charter as a cynical political tool to advance the Tories toward a majority government.

Voting against a non-binding resolution because of Charter considerations and that it 'lacks clear guidance for implementation' is either psychotic or sinister reasoning, unless one is trying to sway voters in the suburbs and exburbs of Quebec and Ontario's 905 region that Stephen Harper won't stand another Oka or Caledonia. The Prime Minister claims Canada shouldn't 'vote for things on the basis of political correctness; we should actually vote on the basis of what's in the document'. Nothing in the resolution overrides the authority of the Canadian government, and nothing in the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which was rejected by Alberta's caveman regime voided the rights of parents to discipline their children.

In both cases, all Conservatives had to do was vote for the damn non-binding thing and let someone feel better about themselves. If they can't even do that, why should anyone trust them with making any decisions that involve actual governing?

37 posts, and I'm half as good as he is.

Over at the affiliate site to this page, Revolutionary Moderation, Don is celebrating his 1,000 post. As regular readers will recall, this page started blogging as vacation filler for RevMod whenever Don wandered off to the Cayman Islands to watch for hurricanes, put back cheap rum and check on his secret bank accounts.

An occasion such as this proves futurists right when they talk about an increasing pace of change. When Don started his blog in 2002, he was one of the few, the proud, well, as proud as CB radio enthusiasts or bulletin board operators were in their day. As I was more involved in writing for various union newsletters at the time, I kind of smiled and nodded at Don and his musings while listening to my $275 MP3 player with 30 MB of memory.

Five years later, everybody has their own blog or page on a social network site, and I have a gig worth of tunes for $50. Where does the time go? Fortunately, some things haven't changed: neither Don or I really care if Britney Spears let herself go.

9/11 plus 6: Canada's lucky near-miss

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This page will dispense with any snapshots of where I was or what I was doing at the time when a sizable portion of Manhattan real estate was reduced to ashes, not I will entertain any conspiracy theories, which if you're scoring at home, ring closer to the truth for this page than the official story. Instead, today I reflect on the path this country could have taken if we had accepted the emotionally overheated advice of the conservative punditry at that time.

The op-ed pages and talk shows during that September of 2001 were a hyperventilating attempt at vindication for Canada's right wing. The trauma radiating from the attacks like so much toxic dust from the World Trade Center suppressed the voices opposed to corporate globalization which had started making serious noise at the WTO meetings in Seattle two years earlier. There was no alternative to Pax Americana, Canada 'had' to sign on to the U.S. missile defence plan, Canada 'had' to establish a common security perimeter, Canada 'had' to adopt the American dollar.

Imagine if Jean Chretien and his government of the day had accepted the bucolic mantra that "There is no Alternative". The men and women of our armed forces would have been cut down on the killing fields of Afghanistan and Iraq. The economic security of our social programs would have been surrendered to meet the persistent, conflicting, and nonsensical demands of the Police State. The Canadian economy would have been shattered as the Bush Administration's abject crashed the U.S. Dollar against the Euro, a trade deficit with China, and America's own cannibalistic credit industry.

It has been said that tragedy plus time equals comedy. I don't think that can ever be said about 9/11, but Canadians should consider themselves fortunate that in the aftermath of that tragedy, we were spared a comedy of errors even greater than the one we live through today.

Harper's Veiled Attack on Democracy

Just in time for the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Prime Minister Stephen Harper throws a tantrum at Elections Canada for trying address the democratic rights of Muslim women in Canada. Although this page is disappointed with Elections Canada's lack of consultation with the Muslim community, the policy appears reasonable: women who wear a burka or a niqab to the polls will be asked to removed it. If they decline to do so, they will either need to produce two pieces of ID, or one piece of ID and a personal voucher. For the approximately 200,000 Muslims in Quebec who might be voting in Federal byelections in Quebec next Monday, this policy that so infuriates the Prime Minister covers about 50 of them.

Of course, targeting a small minority within a minority would never be used in Quebec as cynical political strategy, just ask Maurice...er...Mario Dumont and his Union Nation...er...Action Democratique. In Quebec's recent Provincial election, Dumont almost rode a similar controversy all the way to the Premier's office. As Quebec holds the keys to a federal majority government, it's not surprising to see a Conservative Prime Minister playing the Islamaphobic race card for all its worth.

The disturbing and malevolent piece within Harper's reaction is the fact that he is ready to go after Elections Canada and force a confrontation with a respected, non-partisan government agency. The Prime Minister claims that it's Parliament that should be making the laws, but this page says that Parliament is supposed to make laws that respect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, no matter how much the governing Conservatives dislike it. When the Tories passed Bill C-31, they passed what amounted to little more than Republican exercises in voter suppression and breaching privacy. Compared to the binners, bottle collectors, and squeegee jockeys of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, who are denied their rightful franchise for lack of a fixed address, Muslim Women in Quebec have it easy in trying to cast a vote.

Is Canadian society going to collapse because a few dozen women who aren't likely to participate in the electoral process, let alone leave their homes, might go the polls wearing a veil? Or is it more likely to collapse because opportunistic governments scapegoat these women to dismantle the very process that elected them?

Why do they call it "News" Radio?

B.C.'s "News Leader", CKNW radio, is touting a leaked memo from CUPE Local 15 to striking City of Vancouver workers as proof that the union is "cracking down" on its members.

In case you haven't noticed, the frequent use of quotation marks by this page are to point out statements that fall outside the boundaries of common sense or the truth. For example, CKNW is not B.C.'s news leader, CKNW is the leader in collecting and recirculating the fascist vomit of its rabid barking dog audience. Any radio station with a Charles Adler and Christy Clark on the payroll is not a station committed to actual journalism.

Is CUPE "cracking down" on its members? As someone who has been on a number of picket lines in Alberta and British Columbia, this page can report with absolute certainty that the instructions outlined in the memo are as standard picket line protocol as it would be for CUPE to tell its members to wear picket signs reading "On Strike". How stupid do CKNW and the other media outlets stumping for Sam Sullivan and the NPA seriously think the public is? Are we supposed to believe that refraining from physically restraining people or writing letters to the editor are secretive, belligerent tactics forced on CUPE members by their leadership?

The real story is that this strike has entered its seventh week without a violent incident, save those fabricated by City Hall. What the Union is doing in reminding members about picket line protocols is helping them prepare for what now appears is going to be an even longer haul, as the City and their media allies ramp up the potshots, push polls, and puke on the call-in shows, rather than actually negotiate an agreement.

Weapons of Mass Dysfunction

An oil-rich regime with an historic axe to grind against the Canadian government, and known to repeatedly fall under the influence of charismatic religious fundamentalists is making noises about establishing its own nuclear program.

So.....when are we marching on Edmonton?

The beat goes on

This page is disappointed, but not surprised that over the Labour Day weekend, City of Vancouver officials rejected an offer from striking CUPE civic workers. The lack of surprise comes from an understanding of the history of Vancouver's so-called "Non-Partisan" Association which currently controls City Council. The NPA was established in 1937 because Vancouver's capitalist elite, shaken by labour unrest radiating from the Depression, lived in irrational terror of a Bolshevik coup at City Hall. This belligerent anti-union alliance of Liberals and Conservatives ruled Vancouver for decades, and would later be aped by W.A.C. Bennet and Social Credit across the Province.

In our day and age, the NPA stands for little more than winning at all costs and keeping the CCF/NDP/COPE out of power. It's pretty much the same right-wing, "don't blink", "no cut and run" bullying bullsh*t that powers the Bush Administration in Washington, Stephen Harper's government in Ottawa, and the regime of Gordon Campbell, a former NPA mayor, in Victoria. At 12th and Cambie, it's meant having to put up with a Mayor who won't come clean about stealing the 2002 election from Vision Vancouver's Jim Green by using the phony shadow candidacy of James Green. Sam Sullivan has been recorded in a documentary about himself talking about how much he loves stepping on his opponents' throats, and when CUPE hit the picket lines, he made a point of telling the public he had better things to do than deal with the strike. If there is any major North American being run by a criminal organization lead by a sociopath, I think this page may be pretty close to being there.

After 47 days, this strike has appeared to come down to two issues: Contracting out and Whistleblower protection. In the case of contracting out: CUPE wants an agreement with the city that their members won't be replaced by private contractors in the run-up to, during, or after the Olympics. The City has a similar arrangement with the Pacific National Exhibition, they don't go firing the high school kids from CUPE 1004 who worked at Playland all summer during the Fair at the end of August and replace them with out-of-town carnies. If it works for the Fair, why can't it work for the Olympics? Is it because the Olympics, unlike the Fair, is supposed to be the biggest showcase for right-wing capitalism (masquerading as public-private partnerships)since the Berlin games of 1936?

As for Whistleblower protection, it's a no-brainer for any person with an understanding of the term 'ethics', but it's completely natural that an NPA-controlled City Hall would be against it. Withholding that protection keeps it easy for the NPA to fire city staff and bust their unions, who will now be working at full capacity next year to drive the NPA out of office. Keeping a lid on whatever corruption is taking place also makes it easier to focus the public's attention on such non-issues as the "rift" between COPE and Vision Vancouver, despite the fact that both centre-left parties are on speaking terms, and cooperate during and outside of elections.

At this point, this page sees this thing ending like this: Sam Sullivan will beg for Gordon Campbell to step in, the BC Fed will shut down Vancouver for a day or two in order to pressure the City into a deal, or some combination of the two. Stay tuned for the staggering conclusion.

Spartikus - thanks for the info. I was thinking of something else in relation to 1925.