JULIE LONDON with an assist from RUDOLPH VALENTINO

GUNFIGHT AT THE NOT OK CORRAL

The dictatorship, the one-man show known as the Provincial Government rode high to the rescue yesterday.

Gordon Campbell, a.k.a. the Lone Stranger, announced new initiatives on two important fronts.

In the first case, no money is attached to the plan, which means it doesn't actually exist.

In the second, the money and the plan are too meagre to be taken seriously.

Both are pre-election burps.

Second case first: $600 Million for two new hospitals up-Island at Campbell River and Comox.

$600 Million? What are they, Quonset huts?

If this is such a good idea why are all the doctors and citizens in the area disgusted with it?

Why now?

But we know the answer to that one.

First Big Idea:

Elliott Mess, the Premier of the Province, is going postal, pulling out all the firearms and vowing to rid our streets and IGA parking lots of criminal gubfire. (Woody Allen's great early comedy, "Take the Money and Run," gave us that classic line, "Does this note say, "I have a gub?"")

Right.

And all of this will happen without any new dollars being spent.

And all of this will happen without what all of us know must happen sooner than later - the creation of a Metro Police Force that covers the Lower Mainland.

All of this will happen by moving two beat cops from traffic to gangs?

And all of this announcement is without the presence of our two official law enforcement boobs, W. Opaque and John van Donkey.

Gordo the Great to the rescue.

Of course, we are all immensely relieved and grateful.

Following this post is a duplicate of Bill Tieleman's call for the resignation of Wally, the Fish, taken, with his blessing, from Bill's blog.

There's no question that DodgeBall City needs a new sheriff in town, one with bullets in his guns.

But is it any of the Current Pretenders?

(By the way...servers at Tim Horton's are no longer asking if you want double cream and sugar. Now it's simply, "Will that be shooting or non-shooting?")

JOIN THE OUST WALLY MOVEMENT

Where's Wally? Attorney-General Wally Oppal

given 30 days to take action on gang violence in Metro Vancouver or face call to resign

Bill Tieleman’s 24 Hours Column

Tuesday February 10, 2009

Stop the gangs

By BILL TIELEMAN


People need to know our streets are safe.

- B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal, Feb. 4, 2009

Gangsters killed Kevin LeClair with submachine gun fire and riddled cars with stray shots in a Langley IGA store parking lot Friday in broad daylight.

Raphael Baldini, linked to B.C.'s worst gang massacre, was shot dead in Surrey's crowded Guildford Mall parking lot last Tuesday at 5 p.m.

Breanna Kinnear was shot to death in a car in Coquitlam the same day.

Last Monday, James Erickson was gunned down in a Whalley apartment.

And on Jan. 27, Andrew Cilliers was shot to death in his driveway in Surrey.

Yesterday, a 28-year-old was shot several times in an IGA parking lot at Broadway and Arbutus.

There is a murderous gang war raging in Metro Vancouver, the public is at grave risk and where's Wally?

Does the B.C. government's Attorney-General actually think our streets are safe?

People are being shot to death in public places by criminals acting with complete impunity.

Citizens are at risk - why isn't more being done by Oppal and the B.C. government?

What will it take - because already too many innocent victims have died.

That's why Steve Brown has given Oppal an ultimatum: Do something to end the violence within 30 days or he will campaign for the Attorney-General's firing.

Brown has been deeply scarred by violence.

His brother-in-law Ed Schellenberg was servicing a fireplace in a Surrey apartment when gangsters arrived and shot him execution-style, along with four occupants who were involved in the drug trade and another innocent victim - young Chris Mohan, a neighbour who accidentally happened on the scene.

Ironically, Baldini rented the apartment Schellenberg died in. Now he's dead too and the killers remain free.

"I've lost my patience with Wally Oppal," Brown told me Saturday when he publicly gave Oppal 30 days to find a solution or else.

"If Wally Oppal can't find a way to stop the gang slayings and the murder of innocent victims who are in their way, then he should resign as Attorney-General or be fired by Premier Gordon Campbell," Brown said.

Brown is furious that gangsters facing serious charges are let out on bail and commit more violent crimes.

"We're demanding answers - why are all these criminals running loose?" he said.

I agree. It's time for British Columbians to tell Oppal that the lack of action to make our streets safe again for citizens is totally unacceptable.

You can send that message to the B.C. Liberal government by joining my new Facebook protest group:

Where's Wally? BC Attorney-General Oppal has 30 days to end gang violence.

Just go to www.facebook.com and type in Wally Oppal in the Search box to get there - or click on the Where's Wally? link above.

If you aren't on Facebook, you can easily join.

But please - send a message today: Help stop the killing now.

.

ALFRED E. NEWMAN, A-G

In another stroke of genius and high civic responsibility, W. Opaque, continuing his masquerade as the Attorney-General, has put the blame for gang violence sharply on the shoulders of thee and me.

Apparently, according to Mr. Daily Quote, we are not reporting enough crime and we are not telling everything we really know.

And, besides, what me worry?

According to Mr. I've Got an Answer for Everything, the statistics compiled by some academics in eastern Canada reveal that we actually live in a crime-free Eden.

Each new day, W.O. brings new sunshine to cut through the gloom and flurries.

Excuse me, while I don my flak jacket to head over to the IGA for some lettuce.

Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll also find some RHUBARB!

HOW MUCH OF A MUCHNE$$ IS TOO MUCH?

Whether you are an NDP supporter or not, the online petition called "End the Secrecy on Olympic Spending" is worth a look.

You can not only add your name to a long list, but add your thoughts.

Today's headlines include more revelations about the true costs of security for the Games.

And here's a suggestion for all the powers that be.

You know all those military and para-military folk who are going to be circling about in their hornets and hawks and other WMD?

Maybe they could arrive early and stick around afterwards to do something about the Little Chicago in the Twenties that we've got going here.

A helicopter visit or two might just keep our IGA's safe for grocery shoppers.

AD CAMPAIGN

Federal regulators in America allow the advertising of prescription drugs on television.

This is a bad idea for public policy.

It is a good idea for people who hold shares in Big Pharma and for Comedy.

Take "Abilify," please.

Which, let's admit up front, sounds remarkable like "vilify."

Here's the essential Abilify message:

"Hey Stupid, Desperate Person! If your anti-depressant isn't enough...take a second anti-depressant as well!"

Not much different from saying, "If banging your head into a cement wall doesn't hurt enough, try banging your head into a cement wall and then dropping a piano on your head."

Then, bringing up the rear...

"Levitra" is a poison from the viagra, cialis family.

Here's the message that you get for this elixir on TV:

"Levitra is great...unless you get an erection that won't go away after 4 hours, and by the way, you could turn blind and deaf using this crap. But, hey, you'll be a man again, Arthur!"

HOW DARE YOU SPEND MORE THAN ME!

Renters at Risk.

Boy, they really sound like enemies of the Public Good, don't they?

Well, according to Gordon Campbell's Bill 42, which limits spending on political advertising in the days leading up to an election, that''s what this terrifying West End group is.

If they register on time and if they spend more than they are allowed to promoting their frightening cause, they will be fined 10 times the amount over the limit that they spend.

Mr. Campbell with his Taxation Without Representation decisions like the All New All Expensive Port Mann Bridge and the Dig a Tunnel, Destroy Local Business Cambie Line and now this little piece of skulduggery has shown us that his knowledge and understanding of the basic tenets of democracy are somewhat limited.

Perhaps, yes, here's an idea.

When square heads are elected, perhaps they might be required to attend Democracy School, where they are required to study and pass exams (which the BCTF can protest), just to make sure they have some of the simple concepts under their rapidly increasing belts.

Then, just before the sitting of the House, rare as that may be, they could take a little refresher course.

Yes.

PURE DOPE

Want to hear the sound of tax dollars being sucked out of the economy for no good purpose?

Sure you do.

Try this.

The CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Foundation is looking for a couple of high level employees. The Foundation is the fund-raising arm of the similarly named "teaching and research hospital," the largest in Canada, located of course in Toronto. It is the result of the marriage of the former Clarke Institute and the Addiction Research Foundation.

Here's how the career ad in today's papers describes the institution.

"pioneering redevelopment vision to transform the face of addiction and mental health treatment..."

Hahahahahahahahahaha...

Oh, Lord, save us from these people.

Not one addict, renewed, cleaned up, sober, walking tall have we ever witnessed because of the work of this august body.

They are largely pseudo-social scientists who publish arcane papers and long enlightening lists of statistical light bulbs, like how many people in Newfoundland took up cigarette smoking again since the new administration arrived.

This monument to political obfuscation (We have to study the problem before we can set policy.) costs many millions of dollars a year.

If all of that money or even a small portion of it were dedicated to treatment, our addiction problems would be considerably relieved.

But you see that would require that we admit two Inconvenient Truths:

1) We have as a goal for addicts, alcoholics and others a clean and sober life with self-respect at the core.

2) We recognize that the best recovery programs are those like AA, which cost very little money and large investments of time and effort by people who care and people who KNOW THE TERRITORY.

Of course, those Truths are Inconvenient precisely because there are few ribbon cuttings for politicians and few desk jobs for academic cyphers.

Figge This

While the world economy continues to slide precipitously down The Great Rabbit Hole (possibly of all time) and Vancouver replenishes its reputation as Crime City and the Bishop announces he'll take some time to re-examine the evidence of the Holocaust...while all that and so much more is bringing joy to our hearts on a regular basis...

think on this:

Jennifer Figge, a 56 year old American woman is blithely swimming the Atlantic.

There's the picture, here's the story.

Read it, marvel, say "Jennifer rocks!" and have a kick-back Sunday...

MEAN STREETS

Yesterday's blog entry, "Six," about how effective all our agencies are in fighting crime, received some excellent comments and I encourage you to read them.

Then, check out Vancouver Sun writer Kim Bolan's blog on this topic.

Today the Province is one big crime sheet. Take downs by hordes of swarming cops, more on the Langley mall shoot-out, 2 young people killed by a hit-and-run idiot near Granville Island.

What used to be another cheesy Hollywood movie being filmed on our streets is now the real deal. Lucky us.

What did the day Sergeant used to say every morning on "Hill Street Blues?" Something like, "Careful out there..."

Clown School

The City of Vancouver has cancelled the so-called "Ambassadors" plan for private security guards downtown.

They were right to do so.

Fund the police to patrol on foot.

If the Board of Trade or the Downtown Business Association wants to pay for these Keystone Cops, they are free waste to their own money.

Victor on the Hypocrisy of the BCTF

In its ideological war with Gordon Campbell, the BC Teachers'
Federation enters a politically incorrect killing field with its
campaign against standard testing. One of the Fed's arguments is that
standardized testing is an elitist assault on ESL (English as a Second
Language) students. In other words, white kids can handle it but our
brown, yellow, black, red whatever kids can't.

Oh really?

Mark the following on your calendar for June. When the BC scholarships
are announced for the brightest kids in BC, 90 per cent of those
smiling photos of winners in your local paper will be Asian kids. Yep.
The same ones who are traumatized by testing.

The same nonsense is at play in the Fed's argument about testing being
discriminatory to kids in the lower economic rungs of BC society.
Listen up, oh fatass teachers, The most miserable enclaves of urban
poverty in BC before World War 2 were our Chinatowns. Kids lived in
fetid rooms above their parents tiny grocery stores and laundries.They
helped out after doing their homework and they too scored at the top
of their classes. These same poor kids became captains of industry and
chancellors of universities . They were kindred spirits with the
Jewish kids in Hell's Kitchen,New York, who, 80 years ago helped their
Yiddish speaking father sell apples on a push cart and went on to
create wealth and opportunity for millions of Americans.

So, Fatbutters, don't hang your terror of personal accountability on
the backs of kids who may stumble in English or look different. Don't
insult them by making them foot soldiers in your war of lethargy. They
will go on to thrive in competitive careers while you cower in
protected mediocrity.

My Sicilian grandfather(were he here), my Chinese wife and I consider
you to be a sad joke.

SIX

There have been six murders in Metro Vancouver this week.

Let's see now.

We have a Solicitor-General. We have an Attorney-General. We have a Mayor and Council. We have the Vancouver Police Department, the RCMP, the Coordinated Unit of Something and the Integrated Task Force of Something Else.

We have social workers, outreach workers, community developers, family counsellors, group therapists and Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners, many of whom are Irish and Ukrainian.

We have school counsellors and Grief Counsellors, but no Good Grief! specialists.

We have drug court and we have native court.

We have parole and probation and healing circles and victim assistance and victim compensation.

My favorite recurring phrase in the reports of all this violence is "known to the police," as in, "We knew this scuzzbag dopehead criminal piece of dirt was doing all this dreadful stuff, but we just didn't really have the evidence or the case to bust his sorry ass before he started spraying auto-fire all over a shopping mall at noon."

What we don't have is the collective will to say, "No."

That just wouldn't be nice.

DR. STRANGELOVE

Last night I watched from beginning to end, Stanley Kubrick's singular, brilliant, stand-alone one-of-a-kind dark comedy, "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

Below you can watch Peter Sellers in two of the three roles he played in this masterwork, American President Merkin Muffley and Dr. Strangelove. As the President, he has on one side of him the great Canadian actor, Jack Creley, and on the other George C. Scott.

The closing line of the scene, and the movie, is hysterically bleakly funny and no matter how many times you see it, it surprises.

To see Sellers' third role as Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, you will have to rent the movie.

Then you will have the astonishing delight of watching Sterling Hayden as the completely insane Brigadier general Jack D. Ripper, obsessed with "the Ruskies taking control of our precious bodily fluids," or Keenan Wynn warning Sellers that if he is wrong he "will have to answer to the Coca-Cola Company!"

If you watch closely, you can also see the great James Earl Jones, he with the stentorian CNN voice, in a role almost without words.

This is a movie with lines like, "Gentleman, please! You cannot fight in the War Room!"

What a mad merry prankster Kubrick was.

What a great movie this is.

THE PLAN

And furthermore

Yesterday, I wrote about the "new" 10-lane $3 + Billion Port Mann Bridge plan from The Highwayman, Kevin "Don't Ask Me Anything" Falcon.

Pelalusa asked me if my views on such projects have changed and what I propose.

Here are my answers.

No, my views haven't changed.

If there is a legitimate project to be built, get on with it and build it. Stop mucking about for 20 years while the costs escalate.

If it is a legitimate role for the government and taxpayers, then pay for it.

BUT stop selling this P-3 bull that pretends that the government will save millions of dollars, when the net result is inevitably that the taxpayers will in fact be on the hook for millions more than were ever advertised.

When governments sign deals with men in suits, you and I pay. Governments are voted out of office, men in suits prosper and taxpayers pay.

As for the Port Mann Bridge specifically, $1.75 billion was already assigned for a twinning of the bridge.

To clear than plan off the table and replace it with no public discussion or consultation or referendum with a $3Billion (read $5-6 Billion in reality) tear down and replace plan is completely a NO GO.

This is a clear case of TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.

SICK The cure is sicker than the sickness

Yet another country has fallen to the heroin give-away scam. This is a horrible human rights violation. These addicts deserve legitimate treatment to help them get well. Instead, the Danish government is taking the easy way out and supplying them with drugs.

---

Dose of reality fuels new initiatives to help addicts

Long-term addicts to get two free doses of heroin a day in a Danish scheme that could be replicated across the UK Danish drug users will inject heroin in clinics under doctors' supervision.

State-funded heroin is becoming a reality in Denmark, the latest in a small, but growing, number of European countries – including the UK – concerned with improving drug users' quality of life and reducing criminality.

Since 1 January, hundreds of drug addicts in the Nordic country have the right to receive two free doses of heroin a day, paid for by their health system. The offer is only for adult, long-term users for whom substitutes such as methadone and subutex have not worked.

"The aim is to improve their state of health, help them avoid committing crimes and stabilise their lives," explains Dr Anne Mette Doms at the Danish Board of Health, which supervises the project. "Quitting altogether is not a realistic option for most of these patients. For them, this will be a chronic treatment, as if you were treating a chronic disease." Addicts will need to attend one of five specialist drug clinics across the country, where they will inject diamorphine – pharmaceutical-grade heroin – under doctors' supervision. The drug will not be available on prescription so as to avoid resale on the street.

Danish authorities are in the process of setting up the clinics, registering the doctors who will work there, and finding out which drug companies they will source the heroin from. The £7.2m project is expected to be up and running by March.

The initiative was adopted by overwhelming consensus in February 2008, after all but one of the parties represented at the Danish parliament voted in favour of the policy – the only one against it was a tiny far-left party that did not oppose the project per se, but the way it was funded. Among those in favour was the far-right Danish People's Party, a movement not usually known for its progressive views: at the last general election in 2007, it described some Danish Muslims as benefit-scroungers and fifth columnists who threatened Danish democracy.

Some might think this initiative is not surprising in a country with a historical tradition of progressive, social democratic policies. But, just as in the UK, the drug debate has been bruising in Denmark. And unlike in Britain, where heroin is available on the NHS for some cancer patients, heroin as a palliative is completely forbidden in the Nordic country.

"Five years ago I decided I would not participate in yet another debate on drugs," recalls Preben Brandt, the chairman of the Council for Socially Marginalised People and an advocate of the policy. "It was too emotional, with different groups being very aggressive."

"The counter-argument was always 'you kill people by giving heroin' or 'with this initiative, you are telling people that taking heroin is OK'," he says. "It is very difficult to have a rational debate when you are arguing against beliefs."

The turning point came when results became available from experiments trialling the policy in other European countries, including Switzerland and the Netherlands. "The politicians became convinced that it could help those with the most severe drug problems," says Mads Uffe Pedersen, the head of the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research at the University of Aarhus. "You could not argue against the (positive) findings." "The debate became more practical," agrees Brandt. "It was about what policies worked and which ones did not. It was no longer about morality."

Attitudes towards drugs addicts improved too. "Drug addicts in Denmark are less stigmatised," says Brandt. "They are no longer perceived as criminals who are a danger to society. They're seen as patients who have a disease they need help with. The new scapegoats in Denmark are the foreigners."

Could a similar initiative be possible in the UK? It's actually happening already, with three schemes taking place in Brighton, Darlington and south London, where long-term heroin users can inject drugs under medical supervision at specialised clinics. Early results indicate that the scheme has cut crimes and stopped street sales.

Crimes committed by the addicts involved in the scheme dropped from about 40 to six a month after six months of treatment, Professor John Strang, the head of the National Addiction Centre at the Maudsley hospital, told the Independent newspaper. A third of addicts stopped using street heroin and the number of occasions when the rest used it dropped from every day to four or five times a month, on average.

It remains to be seen whether UK politicians will expand the policy nationwide, especially if they fear a possible backlash from voters. But if British voters are similar to their European cousins, this would not be an issue. Last November, Swiss voters approved the scheme overwhelmingly, with 68% supporting the plan. And there has been no popular backlash in Denmark, following the adoption of the policy by parliament.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk 5^th Feb.2009

The Curious Case of BENJAMIN BUFFOON, Part Deux

Bishop ordered to recant Holocaust denial

Vatican acts to deal with global storm over Pope's effort to rehabilitate Richard Williamson

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined the outcry for some good common sense on this matter.

But let us pause for a moment and consider the Good Bishop and his life.

Food, clothing, lodging accounted for.

Never has to worry about a mortgage or a spat with the little woman/partner/significant other.

What is that creamy old saying?

"Idle hands are the devil's workshop?" Something like that.

So here you have this deeply insecure schmok who has rushed to the embrace of an immense pre-built structure called The Church.

Having no real matters to worry about, no real problems to solve and learn from, he can pass away the sunlit days with dreamy conjecture.

How evil are those Jews anyway?

Who really believes there were ovens and gas chambers? Come on! Really?

Which deacon should I bless this afternoon?

Did I miss matins again? Oh, my.

To truly help this sorry soul The Holy Father should do this.

Send the man away from the walls of the Church. Order him to a life of ordinary toil amongst the peasants and journeymen and kings of the realm.

Ask him to report back in, in say, 20 years.

Play bridge with your new Jewish friends.

Dance at a potlach. Bake bread, dig a ditch, solve a logarithm.

But mostly, be quiet.

Then, in 10, 000 words or less, tell us what you have learned.

We can hardly wait.

GET OFF THE RESERVE, BROTHER

"We have 350 families on a wait list for more housing. And we just don't have the money to build 350 houses."

This is the voice of Band Councillor Edward Starr of the Sandy Bay, Manitoba Indian reserve.

It is part of another dreadful story about death and fire and suicide and alcoholism and drug addiction on reserves.

But, for me, the crucial signal comes in this phrase, "We have 350 families on a wait list..."

Why? For what and for whom are you waiting?

The Great White Father to build you a house?

He hasn't built me a house.

I had to toil in the filthy corrupt marketplace to find the lucre to pay the down payment to sign for the long-term mortgage to buy my little postage stamp of independent home ownership.

Messy, I know.

Not ideal, for sure.

Not much room to swing a dog or cat or go fishing.

But that's life in the Big Smoke.

What most self-respecting people do is they study and work hard to get a house for their families. Reason being, so far we haven't noticed too many people just being given houses by anybody.

I appreciate that what I am suggesting here is way more than politically incorrect. It's darn near treason.

I am suggesting that the reserve system couldn't be more sick.

No one questions the dreadful, racist, exterminating, exclusionary policies and behaviours of several generations of white colonial rule in Canada.

All true. All shameful.

But please note.

Ethnics groups of every color, stripe and origin live and work in "the mainstream" while vividly maintaining their Irish Chinese Hindu Jewish Muslim Korean Russian roots and traditions.

The Indian Reserve was a bad idea 150 years ago and its a bad idea today.

It is a financial, moral, psychological sinkhole from which very little good can emerge.

End it.

Join the fray. Celebrate new strengths and old traditions right here on Canada Street.

Yah, I know. These are awful, incendiary ideas.

So be it.

Waiting for Godot will never be the answer.

$aving Fa$e

On Thursday, January 29th, wrote in this space about Gordon Campbell's favorite delusion, the vaunted beauty of the P-3 arrangement. (PPP Yourself)

We learn to day that The Highwayman himself, Kevin Falcon, has decided that Twinning the Port Mann Bridge is out ($1.75 Billion) and tearing the existing bridge down and Building a New One is in.

Cost $3.3 Billion.

Said.

Today.

Come on.

The new PPP Miracle on the Fraser isn't scheduled to open until 2013.

Which means, realistically the true and final cost will be more like $6 Billion.

As this nifty little plan will be written into law, it doesn't really matter whom we elect on May 12th, the fix is in. We, the citizens of this province, will be on the hook for this outrageous malfeasance of duty for decades to come.

This incompetence and dereliction of duty makes the Fast Ferries Fiasco into Playtime, by comparison.

For true insight into how disastrous and predictable this Port Mann Mess really is read Andre Picard's excellent story in today's Globe.

In this PPP, taxpayers are the ones who paid

A report by the Ontario Auditor General on the Brampton Civic Hospital project shows the pitfalls of this kind of financing

The article chronicles the usual trumpeting by a government of a public-private partnership, followed by the inevitable collapse on the part of the private consortium, followed quickly by the bail-out by the government left holding the bag.

Can you say, "Olympic Village" Boys & Girls?

Punch line to these horror stories? Moral?

Build civic projects with civic money and quit the bull.