A WORK IN PROGRESS - soon I will perfect this technology and I can do video monologues here each morning...

PUBLIC SAFETY

With yet another dreadful assault on a bus driver, Transclunk has been busy wringing its little paws in public.

Get serious.

Drivers should be entirely protected inside plexiglass cover and have nothing - repeat nothing - to do with the maniacs who get on their vehicles. The sole focus of drivers should be driving.

Security guards should be on every - repeat every - bus.

Passengers should be able to "enjoy" the safety and security of a ride unmarred by drunken craziness.

This will cost money.

So be it.

Try collecting fares on your Skytrain, dimwits.

24

Mobina Jaffer has many firsts to her name.

First East Indian, first Muslim and first African appointed to the Canadian Senate.

Now, she has added a new distinction.

She can't add.

When not lolling about in the highly productive Red Chamber, Jaffer has been representing a Catholic order in some troublesome lawsuits they've been fighting over child abuse in residential schools.

Only problem is the Law Society, who will normally put up with almost anything to protect their own members, is investigating Jaffer and her son for billing improprieties.

Among the other tell-tale signs that not all was kosher in the lawyer's charges was this choice item:

Charges made for more hours than there are in a day.

Of course, so much of what we do in life is based on our belief systems.

Who knows? Maybe Jaffer subscribes to ideas that claim there are infinite numbers of hours in a day. Thus, her defense could reasonably be Freedom of Religion.

Yes, that's it.

I've got it now.

Case closed.

THE NEWS COMES HOME

My son coaches football.

He does this for no money. He does it because he loves the game and he loves working with the kids.

Now, he tells me that the famous Gaming money cuts from Victoria have directly impacted his team and their entire league.

B.C.'s community football teams feel budget cut

Last Updated: Sunday, September 13, 2009 | 4:39 PM PT Comments35Recommend15

CBC News

Community football associations are the latest group to complain about funding cutbacks from the British Columbia government.

Several teams have come forward to say their gaming grants were thousands of dollars less than they expected.

The province has already announced cuts to education, arts, literacy and health care as it tries to deal with a $2.8-billion deficit.

The Vancouver Trojans, an East Vancouver community football team, say they're getting significantly less than the $83,000 they were promised in July.

"I can imagine cutbacks … times are lean, it's a recession, you gotta cut back," said Trojans president Kerry Mann. "But do you gotta cut back from $83,000 to $15,000? That's $70,000. Well, where's that gonna come from?"

Mann said the news means the team's future is uncertain: "The first thought that comes to mind is, we can't even finish the season. We can't even afford to rent another bus."

Bob Watson, the Trojans' coach, said the province should have let teams know months ago they would be getting much less money than in previous years.

"It's right up there with the HST [harmonized sales tax]. They threw it in there, nobody anticipated it. When I voted for Gordon Campbell and the Liberals in the last election, they didn't mention any of these things. It's a little bit underhanded, I believe," Watson said.

The B.C. Community Football Association told CBC News it knows of several other football clubs complaining about cuts to their grants.

No one from the Ministry of Housing and Social Development was available for comment on the weekend.

* * *

When I sked my son if that meant the end of the season which just began, his answer was this:

Hi Dad,

I think we will finish our season. Some of the volunteer executives paid for new equipment and uniforms on their credit cards because they had to be ordered in time for the start of the season, and the Govt had already promised the funds to our organization. A couple of them are in for $15,000.00 or so, each.

OK. Rich Coleman.

Explain this to those boys and their families.

And let's get Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid over to the park to show the tight ends and wide receivers and inside tackles how to shift their joyful energies to dancing in the streets.

PROSTITUTION WARS

The Salvation Army wants to protect some women from harm.

They will open a 10-bed facility for some prostitutes who would urgently like to leave the so-called business.

Sound reasonable? Sound laudatory?

Not if you are the Pivot Legal Society.

Pivot wants to legalize prostitution and therefore sees any gesture towards "helping" hookers as a statement that the sex trade is bad and that just isn't nice, is it? Pivot argues that the Sally Ann demonizes prostitution. The Pivot plan is to legalize all aspects of hooking which they believe will make life safe for what they insist on calling "sex workers."

Declaration.

I spent 10 years working with drug addicted prostitutes.

I never met one who liked being a hooker. I never met one who believed in having a safe life as a hooker.

Every woman I met wanted to end the cycle and get out of "the life."

Many did.

The Sally Ann should be congratulated and thanked for this initiative.

Pivot is the poster child for woolen-headed wishful non-thinking.

When someone wants to provide 10 beds of shelter for the preyed upon, they should shut up.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"There is nothing to suggest that Mr. Kinsella played a key role in the sale."

This from Madame Justice Elizabeth Bennett, as she retires from the BC Rail case.

Don't worry. The defense can still call for Kinsella's documents if they can turn up some new evidence. Hmmmm...

Meanwhile, what a lovely cup of tea certain of our "leaders" must be having today.

Careful, boys, you may choke on the cookies from laughing so hard.

PEOPLE SKILLS

So you write little musings to yourself about life and death and the next thing you know the police acting like the Gestapo burst into your home, beat you up and drag you off screaming to the psych ward.

TV movie of the week?

Maybe next week, but for the moment this is a true and horrifying story from Toronto.

Read Christie Blatchford's column and lock the doors.

THE FRONT PAGE

It is not often that the front page gives us three chewable morsels, but today is just such a day:

1. That heat-seeking missile known as Jack "I have no idea" Layton is delighting in the spotlight as he and Iggy Pop strive for The Election That No Person in This Country Wants. Read John Ibbitson's column dissecting the idiocy that substitutes for political discourse these days in Canerda.

2. The Canadian military and the Canadian embassy are giving up on their Great Firecracker Scheme. Thank God for small mercies.

In case you missed it, some genius decided that Americans weren't appreciating enough our wonderful efforts in Afghanistan. The way to get their attention, genius surmised, was to build a fake Afghan village in the backyard of the Canucklehead embassy in Washington, D.C. and, using Hollywood pyrotechnics, blow the things up with much gusto and noise.

It has taken Defense Minister Peter McKay to rush to the rescue of these fools and point out that blowing things up and causing smoke and noise a few blocks from the White House just days after September 11th is not exactly the swiftest of all possible party plans.

Perhaps you think I am making up all of this. Read, read.

3. Snivel serpents at Transpo Can have now spent close to $11 Million on nothing.

Yes, that's right.

They are billing many fun expenses on a project that doesn't exist, even if the expenses have nothing to do with the imaginary project. Proximity will do. If your meal was anywhere within 500 kilometres of what might some day become the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, then hey, Helen, claim away!

The only problem with this little Monopoly game is that the dollars spent are...yes, real Canadian Tax dollars that you and I have earned and shelled over to these miscreants.

Will any ever be prosecuted?

DOUBT!

REBELLION

Part of the process of individuation is making choices that distinguish us from our parents and families.

The banker can pretty much expect his son to become a rock drummer.

But little Jeffrey Bronfman has taken this notion to comically new heights.

In a story that could easily have been, or might yet become, a Hollywood script, we find JB, a Jew and the son of the largest whiskey sellers in history now running a "religion" in the wilds of New Mexico that is part Christianity, part psychedelic tea and zero consumption of alcohol.

Hahahahaha...

Really, you can't write material like this.

But, if for no other reason than to prove that your jaw is still working this morning (It will drop as you read.), you should try consuming this little fable.

BETTY BUCKLEY - THE ORIGINAL & THE BEST

SILENCE IS GOLDEN, RICH

It's a classic case of Blaming the Victim.

The BC Government screwed up and screwed thousands of people in the act.

First, Victoria promised 100's of arts and community groups, like Little League Baseball for chrissake, dollars from Lotto and Bingo revenues.

So, promise in hand, these innocents went out and ordered the printer to print the tickets or iron the costumes or blow up the balloons.

Next thing they know, Victoria says, "A Big Ooopsie, we're not actually giving you the money after all."

Leaving Soccer Moms holding the proverbial bag.

BUT...

The media coverage of this insult is so extensive and soooo baaaad that Victoria has to back-peddle and find the money and hand it over anyway like they promised to do in the first place.

Can you say, 'MISMANAGE,' Boys and Girls?

Then...

Not content to just leave enough alone and let the dust settle and let hounds like me move on to the next day's outrage, Rich "I've Never Been Wrong About Anything in My Life, So there" Coleman, who happens to be - lord save us - the Housing Minister (make that the Hosing Minister) adds fuel to the fire with this little gem.

Non-profit and charity groups aren't entitled to guaranteed money from B.C.'s lottery revenues and old agreements to funnel cash from bingos and casinos to community organizations are no longer valid, Housing Minister Rich Coleman said Thursday.

Oh. I see.

Because the community groups had this irrational expectation that you would actually follow through on your original promises, they are now dressed up and put on parade as THE GREAT ENTITLED PEOPLE.

Yes, let's all through the old vegetables at the freaks.

Or...

Better yet, try to remember this kind of September when promises were hollow with nothing to follow...follow, follow, follow....

JUDGES NEED REALITY THERAPY

The Bench continues to totally not get it.

The creep shown herein had 44 convictions dating back 20 years and that was in 1995.

Of course, he's added to his honor roll considerably since then, mostly by supplying street boys and girls with drugs so he could have sex with them.

Nice.

But here comes da judge.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Josephson found that while Neale met the legal definition of a dangerous offender, the judge decided to use his discretion and designate Neale a long-term offender.

"I come to that conclusion as I am satisfied that his age on release together with the options available under the long-term offender provisions are sufficient to reduce the risk that Mr. Neale poses to the community to an acceptable level," the judge concluded.

The good and learned judge's reluctance to declare this thorough miscreant a dangerous offender demonstrates the judge's total disconnect from reality.

What medications is he on?

Read the story and ask yourself what further proof does the judge need that this sorry excuse for a human being is in fact the poster boy for dangerous offenders.

MJ IN BUCHAREST

I caught about a half hour of a concert video of Michael Jackson in Bucharest last night.

My goodness, whatever else Jackson may or may not have been, he was for sure one helluva freaked out insanely sublimely talented performer.

My all-time Show Biz Hero is Fred Astaire, bar none and that includes Marlon.

BUT…

Jackson could dance like nobody’s business.

So precise, so demanding of himself, so exact.

Thrilling in every breath and every step, and every break and pause and freeze.

Wow!

Way too much has been made about his death and dying.

But I tell you, his Life and his Art were truly something else.

SCARY GOOD

EVER BEST

BEST EVER

ARTS FUNDING EXAMINED

There was a rally at the Art gallery yesterday to support the arts and decry arts funding cuts by the current provincial government.

As rallies go, I can't say if this was a success or wonderful or mediocre. I don't attend rallies so I have no means of comparison.

I thought that too many of the speakers chosen were the wrong people and that they were too self-involved. I left after about ten minutes to do some art research of my own. Later in the day, I was told that the speakers got better as the even moved along.

Here's what I would say about the funding cuts to the arts:

1. Life without music is one long dental appointment.

2. Politicians and other officials believe at core that art is a frivolity, some added-on feature to life.

Wrong again, boys.

Since time began, right after roasting the mastodon on the fire, people have been painting on the cave walls, dancing round the flame and sitting and telling stories. Later, they wrote the stories down...in the dirt, on a stone or a hide. Then, they got on to designing better caves.

Art is central to the human experience. It is everywhere. In the clothes we wear and the cars we drive.

It is not an add-on or a frivolity.

Right after air, food, water and social contact, there is art.

3. Which Mayor or Premier in the last 40 years have you ever seen at the opening night of the opera or the ballet or a play or the opening of an art gallery or exhibit?

Answer none.

I have been attending such silliness for 40 years and I have known all of these mayors and preems and I cannot recall on one occasion seeing one of them.

Last year, I ran into Gordon Campbell at the Fifth Avenue when he was seeing Slumdog Millionaire. Whoo-ee.

If our so-called Leaders show no interest in The Arts, why should we be surprised that there is no money.

You want money? Get those neanderthals out of their box seats at the Canucks brawl and introduce them to something with real kick.

President Obama

Here are a few of the things President Obama had to say last night in his address to Congress about Health Care.

Referring to a woman with breast cancer who was denied help because she forgot to declare that she had a "pre-existing condition" - to wit, acne,

"That is heart-breaking, it is wrong and it shouldn't happen in the United States of America."

"Now is the season for action. Now is the time to deliver health care."

"In the USA, no one should go broke because they get sick."

"It is time to give every American what we (in government) give ourselves."

His speech was, as usual, powerful and inspirational.

At the end, he spoke of the American Character.

To witness the pettiness of the scowling,laughing derisive Republicans was sad and disgusting.

Getting Serious...a little late

Roger Walsh has been given a life sentence to prison. He is 57.

He is a multiple repeat dangerous drunk driver.

When he killed a woman who was in her wheelchair and celebrating her birthday by getting some fresh air with her dog beside her, Walsh was given his 19th drunk-driving conviction.

As the Globe editorial clearly and correctly argues, the crime is that this horrible fool was allowed to be on the streets for years when all of the evidence screamed otherwise.

We need many more such convictions and sentences and we need them much earlier and more often.

I don't care if the prisons are filled with these sick bastards. Better there than on my street.

Broadcast

Bill Good is being given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Websters this year.

Hahahaha...