WRONG WAY CORRIGAN RIDES AGAIN

I've been thinking about the recently announced fare hikes for Transclunk.

And I'm also thinking about everybody's favorite hobby horse these days ' "sustainability." Or is it just - Stain-ability?

So how does Malcolm Brodie, who has never ridden a bus in his life, reconcile the larger issue of trying to get more cars off the road and more riders in public transit with raising the fares?

Answer: He doesn't. Malcolm isn't much of a thinker.

Shouldn't we be LOWERING THE FARES?

No Consequences

A woman calls 911 and tells the police officer that her nephew has slashed his wrists.

The police officer doesn't take this very seriously. His partner makes dark jokes.

The ambulance arrives after ONE HOUR. The man dies.

The delaying officer is suspended for THREE DAYS without pay. Huh?

The other fool has to write an essay!!!

Are we a serious community?

Here's another exapmple of this magificent baritone bringing new life to Rogers and Hammerstein.

How to Handle a Woman

Terfel is one of the greatest voices of our generation. He is most often singing opera, but he has proven again and agin that he is a master of the Broadway show tune. Here's the Richard Burton/King's song from Camelot.

Dope Fiends Shoot Dope. Now what?

The Courier reports today that the enormous scam known as The Vancouver Agreement has just spent $2Million renovating slum rooms above the Insite disaster for a program being called Onsite.

It is here that hundreds of helping social workers and other misguided fools will get addicts "involved in a withdrawal discussion."

Are you listening to the language?

Do you know how many addicts I could house and clean up on$2Million PLUS $350,00 operating costs per year?

This is how far off the mark these well-meaning, meddling destructive people are:

You don't talk to addicts about "withdrawal." You talk about football and music and children and the lawn and study and the Canucks and bridge and love and you LIVE these things during the 24-48 hours that so-called "withdrawal" takes place.

The drug withdrawal is the tiniest issue in the challenge of moving on. It's everything else.

How can you get to the everything else, when you haven't even thought about it yet?

I'm going to have to stop writing about this subject soon because what the Good People" are doing is making me crazy.

Wasting The Court's Time

Penny Paul, Brian Butters. Penny Paul, Brian Butters.

Pardon my outright discrimination, but the very names tell of the frivolousness and lack of substance in the case. So sue me.

"The case" is the one in which the women at a private golf club feel slighted that they can't go into the men's bar. They then wasted the public's time and money by seeking redress (so to speak) at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal and ultimately the Supreme Court of Canada. These are privileged rich people taking up the court's (read, yours and mine) time and tax dollars with selfish irrelevant idiocy.

The Supreme Court threw them out the door. NEXT!

Bravo. Bravissimo.

The Supreme Court said it didn't have the time or patience for this. And the Court was right.

Now, in complete contrast to this disgusting immaturity, read the story and the not one, but two, editorials in the NY Times on a Supreme Court decision yesterday in Washington that is about race and schooling and segregation and federal law vs. local law. Now, that's a serious and worthy issue.

Who's On First?

The Sponsorship Scandal has netted 4 jail sentences. Three ad executives and one bureaucrat have been sent to jail and fines several million dollars. Yesterday, Jean Lafleur was given 42 months.

All the men stole public money from your pockets and mine by false billings and other deceits.

All of this happened under the watch of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.

And yet...

Messrs. C and P will never be prosecuted...

And millions of dopey Canadians can hardly wait to anoint another Liberal government,

Paul Potts singing Opera

This is an extraordinary take. Such an entirely different sensibility form the American Idol franchise.
After seeing this, watch the finals.

White House on Call

Post 911, the Bush White House made up their own rules on "investigation," often leaving due process and the Consitution battered on the roadside.

Today, the Justice Department and Dick Cheney;s office have been on their wiretapping efforts. This, shades of Nixon story, is a must read.

Knock, Knock, Mayor Lowe-Down

Con Sumption be done about all these drug sites?

The hopelessly inadequate mayor of Victoria, Alan Lowe, wants to spend $1.2 million of Canadian Health money each year on "Consumption" drug sites for those poor, sorry-assed dope fiends.

Has he ever considered...wait for it...TREATMENT????

I'm sure there is a clinic somewhere in the world - perhaps Switzerland - that can cure him of this bad thinking and make him a better mayor.

Yes, come to think of it, now. There's one in Basel, where they give you a pill that, every time you think of giving addicts more drugs, you throw up on your Guccis.

Mission Impossible 4,000

Retiring British Prime Minister (How's that for a moniker?) Tony Blair has a new assignment.

His new title is something like "Super Dooper Peace Envoy."

His mission? End the Middle East Madness. Find peace between Israel and the Arabs.

God's speed, Tony.

Harrumph!

The story in today's paper about the couple from the nudist colony on the Island is all well and good. But was it really necessary in a family paper to go on about erections and members?

I am in shock.

Edith Piaf - La Vie En Rose

The new film, similarly titled, is a mixed blessing. In many ways, the most traditional of movie bio-pics, so much a cousin of The Jolson Story and Funny Girl, it is nevertheless powerful and moving. The performance of marion Cotillard as Piaf is quite astonishing. The music tracks are all Piaf.

Dope Pusher Docs

While every category of doctor profits handsomely and obscenely from gifts from Pharmaceutical Companies, no one can hold a candle to psychiatrists.

These ghouls are pure, straight ahead drug pushers.

Parents, exhausted and baffled by the behaviour of their children, turn to these "helpers" in desperation, only to be turned on to the Chemical Nation.

Read this piece in this morning's NY Times for some of the gorier details.

You tell me the difference between these wealthy, powerful and respected creeps and the Vancouver street pushers shown in the photo above.

The Guest Blogger Enters the Apse

Hi Mensch:

I always thought God has a sense of humour. After all, if She is the epitome of all that precious, how can humour not be included? There is even a clue to my theory in the Book of Job, where God tells His/Her only joke. Job is kvetching about the flaws of this life whereby evil is rewarded with luxury while good men perish. God says to Job " Where were you when I made the world?" That's a joke, courtesy of God. In today's vernacular, She/He would have said " So, Mr. Genius, what else did I get wrong while designing the universe?"

Which leads me to the Anglican same sex debate. We have these earnest theologians debating about what God would tolerate. God must be laughing. Like any of them know?

My wish. I wish churches would shut up. The only organs that churches should talk about have 88 keys and are great for playing Bach. And the gays should quit asking. Just show up with a marriage licence and stare the Minister down. He'll cave. It's a business. They need sales to survive.

This politicization of marriage is a wrong strategy. It seems that what once was " The love that dare not speak its name" is now "The love that won't shut the fuck up". Marriage should not be approached like a Indian blockade of a railroad. It tends to reduce public support for the cause. Anyway, enough blather. My central point is that God, who created all organs( Yamaha and dangly types), only gets involved if one of us uses our organ to intentionally do harm to the innocent. In that event, I believe God pushes the down button when we die.

Other than that I believe if we can use our funny little organs to bring love, care and gentleness to another willing, knowledgeable soul, God will smile. Actually, God will laugh.

After all, as the great David Niven said when a streaker graced the Oscars; " Such a great fuss over such a little thing".

Go with God.

Le Boulavardier

Too Busy to Care

Many of us don't like living by rules imposed on high. Often, we are right.

And just as often we are ignoring the basic selfishness, greed and stupidity of man.

The Campbell government in its haste to cut through red tape - an admirable enough goal, if done judiciously, and this was not - decided in 2004 to downgrade safety regulations in the workplace to "guidelines." As if every employer has the welfare of his employees uppermost in mind when he begins each day. NOT!

The result has been tragic and predictable: deaths and injuries in the workplace, especially the forests, have climbed dramatically.

Look, we live in an adolescent culture that can't even agree to use traffic circles properly. I've seen police cars, trucks and private cars turning LEFT around traffic circles dozens of times. Here, that is. I've never see that in England or Italy.

As the Sun reported this morning, regulations are "prescriptive," guidelines are "interpretive."

Let's get these safety regs back on the books and stop allowing money hungry employers to "interpret" safety and kill our workers.

By some bizarre coincidence, this issue was dramatized by the case of a young female gas station attendant being sexually assaulted last night because the recommended new regulations have not yet been put in place.

You want to cut through the red tape, Gord? Get these regulations, old and new, on the books today.

Taliban Sam

The Mayor supports the Taliban.

But he is not alone. So do the last two Mayors, Owen and Campbell.

How do I figure this? I'll tell you.

It has been clear and obvious for some time now (and reported in today's CanWest papers) that it is heroin money that buys terrorists' bullets.

Now the 3 Mayors and all the other destructive deluded fools who want to keep giving dope fiends their dope (rather than helping them quit) are saying let's keep The Heroin Trade alive. In fact, let's make it government policy.

It's the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Or, in this tragic case, The Law of Short-Sighted, Wrong-Footed Nitwits Who Wouldn't Know Real Compassion if They Fell in a Vat of It.

Patented Sam

Everything The Nutty Mayor does is coldly calculated.

Hiding behind his little boy cover story, Sullivan is the most premeditated of men.

Thus, when he claims that he was just trying to protect the phrase "ecodensity" by registering it in his own name, he is being disingenuous at best, lying at worst.

It has taken the opposition Vision party an entire week to emerge from their endless hibernation and challenge this patently self-serving action on the part of Sullivan.

It is simple and clear. if the Mayor had truly wanted to save "ecodensity" for the City, he would have sent one of his many minions to the City Manager to take care of it. Instead, he went to an outside legal firm and applied on his own behalf in his own name. Sullivan has a long history of registering patents and he knows exactly what he is doing.

Too bad the other painted faces and rubber noses at 12th and Cambie don't.

Will that be 10D?

Remember Eaton's?

Remember Woodwards?

I'm a son and grandson of retailers and it's in my blood. I'm always fascinated by stories from the street.

Here's a great one about one of the most famous shoe brands in the world - making a healthy comeback.

The Age of Migration

Immigration problems are as ubiquitous as ants. They exist worldwide.

Here is a telling article in this morning's NY Times.

As we struggle with identical issues here in Canada and in the USA, it is instructive to read about "The Age of Migration."