The Olympics are so rigid, so far up their own flewbarbs, so out-of-step that women ski jumpers have had to resort to a law suit to achieve their goal of being allowed to compete in 2010.
They accuse VANOC of violating their Charter rights.
They are exactly correct.
VANOC claims this is all on the hands of the IOC and that if it granted women the equal opportunity to participate, that the IOC would never award another games to Canada.
They are exactly wrong.
In addition to being morally bankrupt.
If they led the way and allowed women to participate as they should, the IOC would simply be embarrassed into continuing the trend world-wide.
I mean, really...sometimes you wake up and think it's 1843.
YVR Airport Services Ltd. is a local success story.
At last count, 18 airports in seven countries under its management.
But the tale of its latest setback is an indicator of just how tight money is world-wide, even for what looks like sure-fire investments.
A landmark $2.5-billion (U.S.) deal to privatize Chicago's Midway Airport has collapsed after a consortium of Citigroup Inc., C Manulife Financial Corp.'s MFC John Hancock arm and Vancouver's YVR Airport Services Ltd. couldn't find investors to fund the acquisition.
That paragon of virtue and clarity and love for all mankind, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is scheduled to highlight the plenary address at a UN conference on Racism in Switzerland.
The Iranian President's speech is set for Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The man has publicly called many, many times for the destruction of Israel.
The good folks at the UN, or at least, their schedulers, must have a very deep sense of humour.
Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Britain, the United States and Italy are among the countries who have politely excused themselves from this dark comedy.
Must be time for another Kelly Ellard- Reena Virk trial.
Nice to know our prosecution teams and our juries and judges are all doing such a fine job.
Here's the really good part.
If the Supreme Court orders a new trail, guess who gets to decide if we should proceed or let Ellard, already convicted a few dozen times (I exaggerate!), plead guilty to something of a lesser charge, like crossing a bridge without a license?
That's right.
The man posing as the Attorney-General, that famed holder of all the high gold standards of justice in this province - the transparent one, Monseigneur Opaque.
Below are four paragraphs taken from Gary Mason's column on BC politics published in yesterday's Globe & Mail. I can only add please read the entire piece. Esepcially the part about Patrick Kinsella's business partner being granted a gaming license. It is simply one of the best things written recently about the tenuous state of what passes for democracy in this logging camp.
The very sight of simple-minded geeks happily spending their Saturday afternoons nailing up Gordon Campbell signs on their auto-sprinklered lawns makes me sick. What's worse is that the fools smile at us as we pass. Soon we turn to each other and say, "Those sticks will be good for peas or green beans in a few weeks."
Friends of government, friends of the Premier, people who have played pivotal behind-the-scenes roles with the governing Liberal party can do all manner of lobbyist-like work and not have to tell a soul.
Beyond that, Mr. Kinsella has done consulting work for a dizzying number of private companies, work which has put him in touch with government officials. Yet he has never registered with the provincial registrar of lobbyists because, he says, his work doesn't meet the legal definition of lobbying. Yet, he appears to be doing exactly the same type of work that most registered lobbyists are doing.
When the provincial registrar of lobbyists attempted to investigate Mr. Kinsella's activities, the Liberal insider refused to co-operate. And that was the end of that.
The Liberals have been promising over the last few years to toughen up the province's lobbyist laws but nothing has happened. It would appear they're in no hurry to upset friends making millions in the lobbying business.
For years, I would have to write that a transit project linking downtown Vancouver, Richmond and the airport would cost $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion.
I knew that the figure had been lowballed. But I didn't have a choice because TransLink repeatedly used this $1.5-billion to $1.7-billion figure in news releases concerning what was then known as the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver line. It's now called the Canada Line.
Five years ago, the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's also suggested there was "cost overrun potential" on the the $1.5-billion to $1.7-billion RAV line.
“The RAV project is a large, lengthy, and ambitious undertaking with cost overrun potential given the long-term and technologically complex nature of the construction project,” Standard & Poor’s stated.
Of course, the costs did go up. Now, the public is being quoted a $2-billion figure for a project that was expected to be built with a bored tunnel that would result in minimal intrusion on local merchants.
The $2-billion line includes 16 stations. The original $1.5-billion to $1.7-billion line was going to include 17 stations.
Of course, higher costs contributed to a decision to go instead with a cut-and-cover tunnel, which obstructed traffic and contributed to the bankruptcies of several businesses on Cambie Street.
So what does the B.C. Liberal platform say about the Canada Line?
Francis Bula has written a first-rate piece on the front page of the local edition of this morning's Globe.
In it, she chronicles the endless escalating costs of the famous Olympic Village. Read the full story for the numbers and weep. The final total cost will easily exceed a Billion dollars. The City of Vancouver is increasingly on the hook and pegging more and more of its limited resources on this one horse.
Of course, the officials, like City Councillors Louie and Meggs, insist alles iz gut and all will work out ïn the fullness of time."
Hey, Ray and Gregg...in the fullness of time, I will be a Hollywood movie star, my next-door neighbour will win the Nobel for particle physics and and the guy at the fish store won't start a conversation with "How about those Canucks!"
The irony of this story is that it sits on the page in the print edition smack up against The Culprit.
There he is waving from the window of a helicopter on his way to his re-election - Gordo, the Great.
The man who has brought you the $Billion housing project that is bankrupting the City of Vancouver.
Oh what rich comedy if he lost the election (He won't.) and had to sit out The Big Party.
Officers used reasonable force, police expert tells taser inquiry
Sergeant Brad Fawcett of the Vancouver police said because the officers believed Mr. Dziekanski was about to attack them or someone else with a stapler, they had reasonable grounds to use the stun gun.
HAHAHAHAHAHA....
To laugh is to cry is to spit is to throw up our hands in hopeless disgust...
My passion for NFL football has waned in recent years.
My enthusiasm for CFL football evaporated shortly after BC Place opened.
Now, John Madden is retiring from the broadcast booth (NBC Sunday Night Football) and his likely replacement will be the entirely limp Chris Collingsworth.
Over and out.
Maybe if Tom Brady comes back and leads the Patriots to another Super Bowl win...
Global TV and CTV want the federal government to buy many, many ads on their failing rural TV stations.
No.
These feudal empires have behaved like cretins for decades, showing little or no interest in the communities they claim to serve and treating all their employees other than the executive suite like chattels.
This article is about the United Arab Emirates (UAE) specifically Dubai. Several Vancouver planners, including former chief planner Larry Beasley, preen about bringing their sustainability credentials to the UAE. Well, it would appear some things are not being "sustained" in Dubai and the rest of the UAE. Things like human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, workers' rights. Does Larry Beasley include any of these things in his definition of sustainability?
Or what about his sycophantic friends in Vancouver's development industry? They went so far as to name a condo after him ( which isn't selling by the way). That would be like a brothel owner in Nevada naming a whorehouse after Nevada's Secretary of Health. Do the development goniffs include basic human rights in their definition of sustainability?
This article should have run in the Vancouver Sun with some hard questions for Snivelly ( sorry, Beasley) and the developers. But we don't do that sort of thing here.
This is, of course, exactly what I have thought of Dubai since we first started looking at that obscene hotel shaped like a billowing sail. When I began to read about Tiger and Roger Federer playing their respective games in this oil-driven sewer, I was shocked and disgusted. Couldn't they see what madness they were supporting?
David, the issue of gay marriage is low on my priority list. It was made legal here in Canada and hasn't directly affected my life at all. And I wholeheartedly believe that gay couples should have all the same benefits, etc. of heterosexual couples.
But if I were given the choice to vote on it, I would vote 'No' for gay marriage. If you or your readers think this makes me a bigot then c'est la vie.
I heard someone recently suggest that all liberal democratic societies have a built-in self-destruction mechanism. Years ago I would have thought this to be nonsense but now I wonder if the concept of unlimited rights for everyone and a determination to never discriminate against anyone in any way is taking us down a very slippery slope.
Let me pose some questions to you, which I hope you will take the time to think about carefully before responding to.
1. Do you believe, in the interest of non-discrimination, that a man should be able to have any number of wives?
2. Do you believe, in the interest of non-discrimination, that an adult child should be able to marry their mother or father?
3. Do you believe, in the interest of non-discrimination, that a brother and sister should be able to marry each other?
4. Do you believe, in the interest of non-discrimination, that a 6'2" tall man, who states that he believes he's a woman, should be able to wear a dress & makeup and stand in the girls bathroom at a local school or swimming centre?
5. Do you believe, in the interest of non-discrimination, that the concept of separating boys and girls into different sports leagues is completely outdated?
I'm most interested in your answers. Please note that if you don't agree with all of these initiatives that more than a few people would call you a bigot and believe you to be absolutely wrong.
Dear Robert,
I don’t for a second believe that your opinions on this wildly divisive topic make you a bigot. I believe simply that we see the issue differently and that we disagree. How boring life would be if we all agreed about everything. This must be why neither of us is rushing to buy a townhouse in a “Del Webb Community.”
As for the five questions…
1)Keep in mind that at Passover – and this still is Passover – there are only four questions.
2)I don’t accept that any or all of those questions is germane to the subject of gay marriage.
Each of those questions is, in itself, mildly interesting, and might pass a few dull minutes under a summer sun at the beach, but to me they are stand alone issues unreflective of the discussion of gay marriage.
I cannot for the life of me see how Bob and Joe getting married or Gwen and Cathy getting married will have any possible deleterious effect on their immediate geography. I agree with the Iowa court decision that there is no constitutionally sufficient justification for the exclusion of such marriages.
I see no relation whatsoever between gay marriage and the union of people with their parents, siblings or favorite pets.
I think to suggest that some similarity exists, Robert, is to be uncharacteristically cruel (I do not know you to be such.) or unreasonable (I don’t know you to be such.)
Further, I hold no special holy status on the word “marriage,” just as I hold no special holy status on any other words, like “pineapple” or “hub” or “succulent.”
Language may or may not be God-given, according to your beliefs and world views, but for me, human life, God-given or otherwise, is a matter of free wills and it is we flesh and blood folk who have written these words and declared that they mean one thing or another.
At a time, the universe spun in submission around the glorious earth, the world was flat and all brown people were savages. Women had no business in the voting booth or boardrooms and visionaries were heretics whose evil could only be burned out of them, preferably in the village square.
Marriage is a human idea.
For a very long time, “until death do us part,” meant a few years. People died of an impacted wisdom tooth, in childbirth or run through by a sabre all before they celebrated their mid-twenties.
With the actuarial longevities projected today, the same phrase is a hideous condemnation to the torture of sixty or more years. Few would want it. Few could stand it. Few survive it.
Handing over this idea and this word – marriage – to a tiny handful of people who wish to spend their remaining days and nights together for solace, companionship, love and good cooking seems to me perfectly reasonable.
Did you know that the Police Chiefs of this country are beholden to the Taser manufacturers?
And therefore, we cannot believe a single word the police chiefs ever say about tasers.
Did you know that?
I didn't until I read the editorial in this morning's Globe, which reveals the gift of $75,000 from Taser International to Canadian Police Chiefs' Association.
Of course, the Chiefs have declared no concerns at all about the use of Tasers, in spite of the 20 deaths in less than five years.
