Memorial

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages and accepting donations. The Library will include: 1. The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction. 2. The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything. 3. The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up. 4. The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in. 5. The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out. 6. The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find. 7. The National Debt Room, which is huge and has no ceiling. 8. The Tax Cut Room, with entry only to the wealthy. 9. The Economy Room, which is in the toilet. 10. The Iraq War Room. (After you complete your first visit, they make you go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth visit.) 11. The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shooting gallery. 12. The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty. 13. The Supreme Gift Shop, where you can buy an election. 14. The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators. 15. The Decider Room, complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws. The library will also include many famous quotes by George W.Bush: 1. 'The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.' 2. 'If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.' 3. 'Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.' 4. 'No senior citizen should ever have to choose between prescription drugs and medicine.' 5. 'I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change.' 6. 'One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.' 7. 'Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.' 8. 'I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.' 9. 'The future will be better tomorrow.' 10. 'We're going to have the best educated American people in the world..' 11. 'One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.' (during an education photo-op) 12. 'Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.' 13. 'We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.' 14. 'It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.' 15. 'I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.'...

VILLAGE IDIOTS - A Tale Told by Lies, Augmented by Obfuscation and Capped with Dissembling

"It's not a blank cheque."

Hahahaha...

Remember those words.

They come from Premier Gordon Campbell and they refer, of course, to the ramrod job he intends this weekend to change the Vancouver Charter to allow the City to borrow scads and scads of money to clean up the Olympic Village fiasco.

You should remember these words because in the coming years, as Vancouver sinks into the same habit as you and I have with our Visa cards, the City will become the King, Queen and Joker of Deficit Financing.

First of all, a change of this kind, a negative undertaking of this kind, is by current law, supposed to be put to public referendum.

But that's what governments do. When they don't like the rules, they change them.

As if you no longer appreciate your spouse and change the rules so a little arsenic in the corn flakes would no longer be considered homicide.

Opposition House Leader, Adrian Dix, has added that a no discussion vote in the Legislature today is a no go. He has declared this unacceptable and intends to push for a full argument.

Good luck with all of that, Adrian.

Note also that the wording of the suggested change to the City Charter calls for "unlimited borrowing powers."

Yes, be alarmed.

If you are not, you are as big a rube and sucker than the city council that signed us all in for this deal in the first place.

Financial writer, David Baines, writing in the Sun today echoes what I said here yesterday. He just says it better and in more detail.

Olympic village on shaky ground from start

City politicians and staff failed to ensure the project had sound financing from the outset

Dazzled by bigger numbers from the less solid Millenium, Council ignored good offers from two more accomplished players.

Meanwhile back at the optometrist, in the rose-colored glasses aisle, former Mayor Philip Owen is begging everyone to stop being so negative and realize what a joy this really is.

Thanks, Phil.

What can we do when the tab shows up on our property tax assessments? Or the new One Way Street Tax or Parking on a Residential Street for More than 12 Minutes Tax or whatever scam will be used to recover from this sinkhole?

Can we say, "Sorry. You voted for this in secret and we weren't consulted?"

Can we get Phil to pay for us?

Can we get a blank cheque from Gord?

The punch line is this.

You and I will pay for the Jamaican bobsled team to share marble counters for 10 days and for off-shore clients to pay the highest square-foot costs in history for condos they will occupy 3 days a year.

Nice.

Ignored Tragedies

This morning as I was reading the paper and finding between the Inauguration and the Miracle on the Hudson article after article about Gaza, Gaza and more Gaza, I found myself muttering about Zimbabwe.

Not that Gaza is nothing or unimportant or not horrible.

But why do we often not see focus on the 102 other hells on earth?

Therefore, I was surprised and pleased to see Bob Herbert, who usually writes on domestic issues, tackling this very subject in this morning's NY Times.

The piece is called "Zimbabwe Is Dying," and I encourage you to read it.

Then, we might ask ourselves how the UN and other ineffective busybodies have stood by and allowed Mugabe to rape and destroy his own country for the past - what, 37? - years.

Would that this truism were not so, but it is: Everything is political.

HUDSON LANDING - WOW!

In the good old days before 9-11 made such things impossible, I had the great good fortune to spend many, many hours in the cockpits of jetliners on long overseas flights.

I was consistently impressed with the pilots and engineers. To a man, they were very, very smart, funny, interested in practically everything, outspoken, straight ahead in their expression and steely calm and clear about what they were doing.

It is apparently a standing mantra amongst such people that long-haul jet flights can best be described as "20 seconds of sheer, white knuckle terror, followed by 10 hours of excruciating boredom, followed by 20 seconds of sheer, white knuckle terror."

If that wasn't clear, what they are saying is that modern jet travel consists of the major scares of take-off and landing, interrupted by the numbing many hours of auto-pilot and checking that you are successfully flying from designated and assigned point A to B to C and pretty much through the alphabet.

What US Airways Captain Sully Sullenberger managed to do landing that bird in the Hudson without a single fatality is exactly what one would expect of a guy like him -flying since he was 17 and a consultant on risk management and safety - yet, we can join the chorus around the world in safely calling him a hero.

Just plain WOW!

Important Addition to the 60% Solution

It is not only the 'permission to borrow' aspect that troubles me. It is the Robertson-proposed, Campbell-only-too-happy-to-oblige, skirting of the referendum process that is the most dangerous.

The former Local Government Act required a municipality to hold a referendum of the people, if it intended to commit its taxpayers to a financial liability which exceeded a certain dollar amount (which varied according to a formula set out in the Act), or which went beyond a period of five years. That requirement was repeated in the Vancouver Charter.

When Campbell and Co. ascended to the throne in 2001, one of the first things they did was bring in the Lidstone lawyers to amend the Act into what is now the Community Charter.

One of the most significant changes in the wording of the Act, morphed the referendum requirement into the almost impossible to achieve, counter-petition process. A C-P is tantamount to negative billing, and requires a petitioner to gather the names of people who were entitled to vote in the previous election. Who can do that in a hot real estate market? Although referenda can still be held, what local council will use it, if people are likely to vote down a council initiative?

In summary then -- while borrowing $450-875 million will be tough on voters in the City of Vancouver, an anti-democratic precedent will be set for every citizen in BC.

Campbell and Co. are sure selective about the precedents they set, are they not?

Elizabeth James

THE 60% SOLUTION, CITY HALL STYLE

While yet another high profile City Hall manager tied closely to the Olympic Village bites the dust, two crucial questions remain unanswered.

Hell, they remain, except for these pages, unasked.

1. Play the Blame Game all you want. Six of the 10 current City Councillors were there at all the in-camera meetings that created this mess. Anton, Cadman, Chow, Louie, Deal and Stevenson have yet to tell us very much about how it all began and how they voted.

Today, the Vancouver Sun delves into this issue in a nice piece by Jeff Lee, in which we see Raymond Louie playing a little fast and loose with the history books - not to mention the accounting books.

2. When the extraordinary meeting of the Provincial Legislature convenes this weekend to draft a Ready-Mix Law allowing the Vancouver Charter to borrow at will, does this signal the beginning of the new era of regular deficit financing?

They all claim this is a "one-time" affair, but that's what governments throughout history have always claimed about new taxes and levies.

This little "crisis" will go down as an elaborate excuse to change city hall financing and permanently diminish the city's credit rating.

Finally, Wall Financial is delaying or perhaps suspending its own construction plans for a four tower project across the street from the Village.

Wasn't Wall the other bidder for the Village in the first place, and a bidder with a much more solid and accomplished track record than the stumbling Millenium?

Didn't City Hall choose Millenium because it offered $20 Million more than Wall?

If Bruno Wall is saying this may not be the most prudent time to build, we, the taxpayers, should be good and truly scared.

ZAP! You're a Victim of the New Policy

It is good news that the RCMP watchdog will begin investigations into 10 deaths involving Mounties and tasers.

I suppose.

But try this.

A friend advises me that the other day on Beach Avenue he observed a little drama in amazement.

Several police cars converged quickly to apprehend a young man walking down the street.

The telling detail was this.

They had their tasers drawn and ready.

Question:

Is now standard police practice?

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad president said the fighting showed Israel's continued existence in the region is "not feasible."

SHOOT THE MESSENGER, or, How Lo Can They Go?

In Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People," one man with an unhappy message is isolated by the community.

In Steven Spielberg's "Jaws," the same message is played out in cartoon fashion with nobody at a resort wanting to hear about a dangerous shark. Bad for business, don't you know?

In Vancouver, at 12th & Cambie, when the Chief Financial Officer raises a number of questions about a large and costly development project, she is told, "Resign or be fired."

Not much new in the world.

Gary Mason continuing his first-rate coverage of the Olympic Village fiasco got his hands on the damning memo that reveals just how political City Hall really can be.

"The financial viability of the developer of the Olympic athletes village, the future of the city's credit rating, the increased risk to taxpayers and soaring construction costs were among the many concerns the city's former chief financial officer had months ago about the project, The Globe and Mail has learned.

In an extraordinary memo Estelle Lo sent to then-city-manager Judy Rogers in October, 2008, the since-departed CFO outlined a string of worries she had about the project - many of which have since been validated.

A couple of weeks after sending the memo, Ms. Lo was approached by Ms. Rogers and given an ultimatum: resign or be fired. Ms. Lo would resign with a one-year severance package, and Ms. Rogers would be removed on Dec. 12, 2008, by newly elected Mayor Gregor Robertson."

Globe writers Ian Bailey & Justine Hunter further report that Mr. Campbell will convene the provincial legislature a bit early to have a vote on amending the City's charter so that it can borrow money to cover this sinkhole.

"Government lawyers are drafting amendments to the Vancouver Charter to allow the city to borrow the money."

Is my cynicism showing when I ask the following?

Amend the City Charter to borrow money?

Is this an elaborate pea-and-shell game to amend the Charter to borrow money for many things many times because we are broke or going broke or afraid of going broke?

Is this the not-so-cleverly disguised license to institutionalize deficit financing to Vancouver?

Lack of Governance Kills

CELLPHONE TECHNOLOGY

Lost man called 911 four times before dying in sub-zero conditions

This story in this morning's Globe & Mail is a tragedy, but it is also about malfeasance.

Not that anyone in office cares much, but the role of governments is governance.

The CRTC blithely hands out licences to print money by granting cellular phone companies the right to sell their devilish little toys, but what do they ask of these hucksters in the way of social responsibility?

Nothing, apparently.

Now we are being told, the cell corps have until 2011 to ramp up their 911 capabilities.

Nice.

Today's story is hardly unique. This has been a growing file of deaths over recent weeks due to police and emergency teams being unable to track callers.

This should have been written into the original green lights, and now that the government has been woken from their slumber by the press - the Globe, in particular - the remedies should be fast-tracked.

The remedies are not the deepest rocket science and 3 months to comply would be more appropriate.

Excellent Comment on BCTF, Testing, Fraser Institute et al

David,

You probably have more background on the role that the Fraser Institute has played in this ongoing dispute, but my quick look at their website today was informative. I'd be interested to know what their relationship is with the BC government and how it is that the FI gets the results of the provincial testing and is able to publish those results with the cooperation of the local press? Surefire way to get those educators riled up. Made me wonder if the FI has ever met with the BCTF to discuss their concerns about educational standards?

Of course there's nothing wrong with evaluating learning in all its forms and it happens in schools all the time. My wife and I happen to be raising a granddaughter who is in elementary school. My observation is that kids are learning more now than our generation ever did. And they are being evaluated frequently enough that we are aware of her strengths and weaknesses. And by taking the opportunity to chat with her teachers as we have, we are able to work cooperatively on improvements in her performance. I doubt that our experience is that unusual. Unless mutual respect is as dead as the proverbial dodo bird.

I'm a retired educator but my unsolicited advice to the teaching profession is to avoid even the appearance of a bunker mentality around evaluation and learning outcomes. This will not satisfy your "customers". My apologies if framing it that way is distasteful to any educators, but that orientation would be one that many parents would understand and appreciate.

Most working parents are subjected to increasing stresses in the workplace and it's a parental duty and obligation to help prepare children for an increasingly stressful world. Do educators need to develop more effective ways of explaining, and if need be improving, their instructional and evaluative methods? If the teachers are right that the current approach isn't "broke", then does it at least need "fixing"? Insisting on maintaining the status quo may have serious consequences.

In my opinion, the Fraser Institute's interest in publicizing test results may be the tip of an iceberg called promoting charter schools, a conclusion that's hard not to arrive at after reading the summary of their "independent" research reports on their website. The FI is quite forthright in acknowledging their "market economics" orientation. I would have thought that recent economic events would have made us a tad more cautious about jumping on that bandwagon again, particularly when educational reforms may be the agenda. Private or charter schools may fulfill a need for some families, but if they were to be expanded at the expense of the public school system, be careful what you wish for as most Grannies used to say.

Finally, if publishing educational test results is so benign, let's go the whole nine yards and evaluate the medical profession next. Got to do something about spiralling health costs, don't we? Let's get our friendly government to authorize patient evaluations of family doctors and publish the results in the Sun. Where's the possible harm in that?

DC

THE SILENT SIX

In the Olympic Village debacle and fallout, little mention has been made of the unavoidable fact that six of the current 10 Councillors (Anton, Cadman, Chow, Louie, Deal and Stevenson) were all at the table when this cow-plop was originally conceived and signed.

What's the mystery? Where's the information?

Here's what we're looking at, kids.

A group of elected officials, none of whom has ever sold batteries or run a cafe, get in bed with not one but two large business groups (Millenium and Fortress) and, of course, sell the farm. They know not what they do and they understandably get their clocks cleaned. They get taken, hosed and bagged by men in suits who are falling over backwards, biting off the ends of their Upman cigars, coughing in their martinis, laughing until the sickness comes.

All of which would be mildly amusing or good for a short SNL sketch were it not for the tiny detail that this is public money these rubes have signed away. Your money and my money, earned by working every day, and paid in the hundreds of thousands of taxes we face - property, sales, tires, gas and so on...

Now, the City is begging the Premier to write a new law that will allow Vancouver to borrow - what? - half a billion dollars in the worst economy in 50 years to cover its sorry ass.

The Prime Minister has said, "No Mas."

The Premier is mute.

But Standard & Poor is speaking. They say the City's credit rating is "on watch," as in, "watch out, suckers."

Now, new Council member Geoff Meggs is saying that if the City's credit rating is in fact downgraded it should be called the Sam Sullivan Legacy.

That's fine.

It's true that Crazy Sam was too busy with his personal obsessions, like organizing private foundations to give drug addicts pills, to attend to anything as mundane as CITY BUSINESS.

BUT.

As I said at the beginning of this post, 6 of the current 10 Councillors, honorable men and women all, were PRESENT AND VOTING at the execution.

What do they have to tell us?

When will they admit their roles in what is shaping up to the worst mismanagement ever enacted on this city by a sitting council in history?

If voters had known the true scope of this pile of poo before November, would any of these 6 have been re-elected?

I now officially name them.

THE SILENT SIX.

First to speak get's a lollipop.

(The foto, by the way, is called "Welcome to Frozenville, a Town Without Equipment.")

SETTING A GOOD EXAMPLE

Isn't it just a fine example when even the local school board can't play by the rules?

The BC Ministry of Education requires public schools to administer the Foundation Skills Assessment tests for children in Grades 4 and 7.

The rogue BC Teachers' federation hate these things or any other benchmark that might indicate how their union members are performing.

Two of the Vancouver School Board members are former executives with the BCTF.

Now, the School Board itself is bucking the tests.

The strategy is interesting.

The Board will administer the tests...but, it is also sending out notices to parents advising them on how they can keep their kids at home to not participate.

What words spring to mind?

Cheesy? Sick? Playing politics with kids and with public money? You don't have money for band practice, but you have money for "strike" notices?

Out here in the real world, people are being tested in a thousand ways every day. You're going to "protect" kids from this awful and unfair demand?

You're going to send kids to the Olympics to cheer on tough competition and "testing," bu god forbid the same kids should write a math or English test.

This is politics - and bad politics at that - disguised as concern for child welfare.

CUTTING OFF BOOZE IS AN EASY CALL

The entire staff and executive of a Muskoka golf club north of Toronto have been charged with criminal responsibility in the deaths of three young people.

As well they should.

Not only did they serve 31 drinks to one of the party in a few hours, but more importantly, the only way to get in and out of the golf club is by car.

How did these idiots expect these lovely patrons to get home?

Last summer, we were invited to a party on the Sunshine Coast. We were given detailed instructions on how to get to the obscure property. Finally, we were advised that we should bring our own booze. Pot wasn't mentioned, but given who the people were and the location, Mary Jane was a given.

We smiled warmly and promptly scratched that fun time off our calendar.

Everyone is responsible. Or should be.

None of us live in a glass bubble. We all know about the laws and about the dangers of drunk driving. We are no longer 17.

If you can't be in the business of serving booze with some vague civic sense, move to shoe repair.

FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS

Tom Christensen will not be running again in the May provincial election.

This is good news for all of British Columbia, but especially for children.

Mr. Christensen has been for several years now the worst Minister of Children and Families we have ever seen. Which is saying a lot, since this file has been busier than an Olympic relay team.

We have asked him in these pages several times to resign. His incompetence and blindness in dealing with children at risk has been monumental.

He is also the seventh member of Gordon Campbell's cabinet to say, "Basta, baby! I've had enough."

The only sorry part of this news is that he plans to spend more time with his own children and family.

Perhpas he's better with children and families hands-on than from behind a big desk.

FASCINATING, AMAZING DEBATE

America, The Beautiful

One week from today, Barack Obama will, in an inauguration ceremony watched in person by more than a million and on TV and the Internet many, many millions, become the 44th President of the United States of America.

When we look even for a moment at the nation and the world which he will inherit, one might call him courageous or mad or egotistic or any of a hundred handles in between.

He will face three wars in the Middle East - Iraq, Afghanistan and the deadly, intractable, ages-old, religion-fueled Arab-Israeli conflict.

He will face a Pakistan and India, both nuclear-armed, staring at one another and rattling the silverware.

Almost 50 million men, women and especially children of his fellow country souls are without medical insurance. If that isn't a measure of poverty, what is?

The auto makers are bankrupt and stunned and wandering in circles unsure if their next loaf of bread comes from electric vehicles or better SUV's.

The banks, loan companies, investment firms and other money players are staggered and beaten and crying for help. (Here in Canada, both Canwest Global and Corus Entertainment, two media giants, are on the financial rocks. Canwest has shrunken to a penny stock in spite of earnings and profits and is in imminent danger of collapse. And Corus is devalued to half its trading value of a year ago.)

Unemployment is at its highest levels in America, and education in so many public schools at its lowest.

Equally challenging is the fact that speaking of American lustre isn't even remotely possible when so many people in so many countries around the world suspect America of the worst crimes and blame America first before anyone for what the Irish used to call "the troubles."

I grew up adoring America.

I loved and worshipped the USA.

Like many of you, the novels I read, the movies I watched and the music to which I danced and sang all came from New York and Los Angeles and the Deep South.

Many people still think that I am not only a Yankee, but a New Yorker. Not true, of course. I was born in Ottawa and grew up in Winnipeg. I have lived here in Vancouver for almost 45 years now.

But I still remember vividly almost every detail of the ONE DAY I spent in New York City when I was 19 and on my way to Europe on a huge Italian ocean liner.

Most of my travels in the US have been on the West Coast and to the usual Snow Bird sunshine hideouts. My last trip about a year and a half ago was to San Fransisco for a few days.

I no longer love the USA or worship it. Part of that comes with age. But much of it comes with seeing a world that I don't like as much and a world that I sometimes fear.

Make no mistake. I don't hate America or anything remotely close to it. I just don't want to visit as often as used to. Still...I must see Chicago and Boston soon...

So, Barack Obama will now preside, as much as any President does or can, over an enormous and enormously complicated sovereign state that is in upheaval, that is turning and twisting towards something new.

He seems to be a man of extraordinary optimism and good will.

He will not turn the Big Wheel to the Promised Land overnight. He will not be the Second Coming of the Messiah.

But, he may help and he may inspire and he may be judicious.

We cannot hope for much more.

In these hopes, we wish him all possible good fortune.

Another Comment that Warrants a Posting of its Own

I can't remember whether I made this comment on this blog before, but in case I haven't I will repeat it.

I was in a Palliative Care workshop where we were learning about the worldwide epidemic of HIV/AIDS. We were shown a map of the world and the incidence of HIV/AIDS shown, per capita, in varying colours, darker colours meaning higher reported cases.

I was curious as to why certain countries had higher incidents, even though they shared similar cultures, religions, behavioral morals, etc. I asked the facilitator.

She advised that this question had been asked a lot. All variables were considered and one thing remained constant...

The countries with the larger gap between the rich and the poor had higher incidences of HIV/AIDS.

The US has more cases than Canada. Canada has more cases than most North European countries.

Gordon Campbell's policies of keeping education in the realm of the wealthier members of society is not just a matter of education .... extrapolated, it becomes of matter of public health.

The same argument applied to his short sighted, cruel minimum wage of $8.00 per hour.

These laws and policies continue to widen the gap between rich and poor. The poor will continue to become more vulnerable - even to the point of their health.

These are sick, sick policies.

Linda Yuill

The High Cost of Exercise

John Young is a Victoria school trustee.

He has successfully sued his own school board and the Ministry of Education over the charging of extra fees in the public-school system.

Now Young is plotting a Charter of Rights challenge that he hopes will lead to a country-wide ban on supplemental school fees, from kindergarten through Grade 12.

"I can prove that the requirement of a fee to take a course is discriminatory against children who don't have the money to pay," said the 87-year-old former high-school principal, who began his crusade to abolish school fees more than a decade ago.

Twice in the past year, I have praised him lavishly in these pages. I think he is a great role model for citizenship. (I cannot seem to find a "search" function on my blog, so I cannot quickly reference these posts for you.) NOTE: One of our commenters has magically figured out that my previous postings on Mr. Young can be found here and here. Many thanks!

Let me praise Mr. Young again.

What he is saying repeatedly and successfully in these law suits is that children should not have to pay for art supplies,banjos, and soccer balls at public schools. And he is right.

The only problem is that the provincial government's reaction to Young's successful rulings is to change the law!

The province amended its legislation to allow for surcharges on things such as band instruments, trades programs and specialty sports and arts "academies."

"The result is fees of more than $100 a month are being charged for soccer and hockey programs," said Mr. Young, now in his sixth term as a school trustee.

"It's true these academies are permitted under the act, but they violate the principle that all educational programs must be provided free of charge."

Frustrated by the province's "end-around" response to the first two decisions, Mr. Young has decided to launch a third challenge based on non-discrimination provisions contained in Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"If it proves to be discrimination, this could apply all across Canada," he said.

Let's look at this struggle from another angle.

The Premier of the Province of British Columbia is Gordon Campbell.

Mr. Campbell is investing billions in roads, condos, security, advertising (Don't get me started on using Donald Sutherland for 2010 ads! They couldn't choose any one of thousands of great voices for one tenth the price?) and lord knows what else to celebrate athleticism. Or so the official, teary-eyed, patriotic story goes.

But the same Campbell who will move mountains to provide a place for 10 days of skiing, will change the law so that he doesn't have to pay for kids' sports equipment in schools.

Question: Are all young boys and girls who are gifted at sports also rich? Do they all come from families for whom extra fees are no hardship?

We are prepared, or we are getting prepared, as a society to invest in high octane training schools for tennis players and swimmers and skiers (provided of course that they fall in the politically significant jurisdictions and we can be there for the ribbon cutting foto op).

But we not only will not provide the $30 or $180 dollars for school kids to be involved in sports (and the arts and cooking), but we are so loathe to do so, that when the courts order us to, we change the law!

Aside from fitting snugly in to the category of penny-wise, pound-foolish, this shows us once again the cheesy priorities of the Premier.

Insight in Gaza

Several friends sent this along and I thought it deserved posting.

General Lewis MacKenzie on Gaza

I first served in the Gaza Strip in 1963, seven years after Lester Pearson's diplomatic stick-handling led to the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force, the UN's first peacekeeping force. I served there for two years, living with more than 1,000 other Canadian soldiers in Camp Rafah, just inside Gaza. I returned to the region eight years later, this time to Cairo and Ismailia as part of Canadian support for UN ceasefire protocols after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. I have returned to the region many times during the past decade.

In my opinion, the Israeli-Hamas conflict is the only one in the world where there is no hope whatsoever of the participants resolving the key issues on their own, by any means. Hamas makes no secret that, aided and abetted by Iran, it is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Any idea of a ceasefire in the current fighting leading to a change in Hamas's dedication to Israel's elimination is naive to the extreme. Any cessation of hostilities, no matter how temporary, will be used by Hamas to enhance its weapons arsenal in preparation for the next round of terrorist attacks against its neighbour.

On their own, Israel and Hamas are doomed to a perpetual state of war no matter how much international diplomatic horsepower is applied to resolving the conflict. But there is a solution that the world has been adroitly avoiding for 40 years.

Israel deserves security. Its population is prepared to live in peace with its neighbours providing they aren't dedicated to its extermination. If Israel deals with the threat from Hamas on its own, the situation will not improve over the long term - Hamas will simply resuscitate itself and carry on with its terrorist actions against Israel. The UN Security Council needs to show some rare backbone and authorize a strong UN force under the UN Charter's Chapter 7, which authorizes the use of deadly force as necessary, and deploy it within the Gaza Strip, taking on the responsibility to provide the security to which Israel is entitled. The force would need to be strong enough to interdict weapons smuggling by sea, land (including by tunnel) and air from outside sources, to eliminate rocket attacks on Israel, to stop suicide bombers through use of border controls and, most important, to be strong enough militarily to take on Hamas if need be. The oft-expressed idea of putting international monitors into the Gaza Strip to control smuggling and the firing of rockets is ludicrous: Hamas would run rings around any unarmed outsiders whose only mandate was to "observe and report." Such monitors wouldn't even qualify as yet another Band-Aid solution.

Israel would not like this solution. It is extremely suspicious of the UN, which has all too often demonstrated anti-Semitic policies and statements thanks to the fact that most member states sympathize with such attitudes. Israel did not recognize the UNEF from 1956 to its withdrawal in 1967. In fact, when we had to drive through Israel to get some of our supplies in Lebanon, we were not allowed to get out of our vehicles while inside Israel.

The UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, has been accused by Israel - with some justification - of anti-Israel bias. Nevertheless, with a UN force deployed across the border from Israel and capable of providing the security desired by its citizens, the Israelis would soon see the benefits.

The UN has maintained a peacekeeping force in Cyprus since 1964. There has been no fighting between the Greek and Turk Cypriots for the past 34 years. The peacekeepers are now popular tourist attractions. When you arrive on the south coast of Cyprus, you can sign up for a bus tour of Nicosia, where you can observe the peacekeepers executing their boring duty in sentry boxes first manned by Canadian soldiers some 38 years ago. If you are polite, they will let you have your picture taken with them.

The UN Security Council and member states should be ashamed. While UN resources are providing peacekeepers in a country safer than most of our major cities, just across the Mediterranean, scores of innocent Palestinians are being killed because a terrorist organization with the stated aim of ridding the world of Jews is permitted to sacrifice its own people without protest or intervention by the international community.