Says Who? The Drug Drek Continues

The National Post has a major, front page story today headlined "Tories to Shun Safe Drug Sites."



Almost everything in the details of this article is either flat wrong or wrong-headed.



First, the paper reports that the federal government will now allocate a new $64 Million over two years for treatment, enforcement and prevention. As Harm reduction is not mentioned, everyone and his dog who has been sucking at the harm reduction tit for the last umpteen years is freaking out. One such fool who works in HIV-AIDS cries, "There is is no money for harm reduction, which is quite ominous..."



Well, it's not ominous at all. First, there are already millions of dollars allocated for harm reduction and that waste will continue. Second, harm reduction is ALL that has been funded until now, so stop your whining. And third, harm reduction has accomplished nothing other than more harm.



Then it is reported that drug treatment could get $32 Million, including money for research aimed at treating crystal meth addicts.



There are two things wrong with this little gem. First, $32 Million for treatment - when there has been ZERO money for treatment for 30 years is a pea in the pissoir. It is just short of next to the shadow of a whisper of nothing. Second, we don't need to spend more money on research on any addictions. We have had all the answers staring us in the face for 50 years or more now. All we need is the courage and then political will to get to work. And third, money assigned for treatment should go, oddly enough - wouldn't you think? - to treatment not to research, which is not treatment it is research.



Finally, the article claims that we already spend in Canada $385 Million a year on treatment, prevention and harm reduction. THIS IS NOT SO. If we spend that money, where may I ask are the BEDS??? Where are all the treatment centres that families are quickly turning to in desperation? Where?



This subject is maddening for all the lies, stupidity, misinformation, opinionation based on intellectual masturbation and claims made by people who have accomplished nothing in terms of saving lives, but much in building handsome little empires funded by tax dollars.

T-t-t-timing is ever, everything...

Just a question...why is the National Post running excerpts from a book by Conrad Black about Richard Nixon? Why now? To cash in on Mr. Blacks' current notoriety, as h stands before a Chicago court and the world press?

Can we call this tacky? Can we say we don't care to read the stuff?

Counter Intelligence

The fact that the Anti-Poverty Committee are goons is not up for debate.

They debase the idea of protest by adding the elements of violence, destruction and personal attacks. And they discredit those of us who have been immune to or against the hysteria of good cheer for the Olympics from the beginning. Many thousands of British Columbians could care less about this expenditure of almost $2 Billion and the secrecy in which the spending is shrouded. Many of us would rather put tax money to work on health, schools, roads, police. But we aren't smashing fax machines or stalking private citizens to their homes.

What makes the APC interesting - while still disgusting and counterproductive - is that they are like you and me and most of this juvenile, adolescent culture we call Canada.

This is the only city in the world where drivers either don't understand or willfully ignore traffic circles - even police cars! If a building has a NO PARKING sign painted on its side, you can bet a fleet of middle-aged rebels will be stationed below it. People regularly walk across red lights and expect drivers to be ware of them. Fifty year old men and women wear "distressed" jeans - the only thing about them, being how distressed we are to have to bear witness to this embarrassment. The Pirate Syndrome, a new category of psychological disturbance that I have invented, was in full flight again at the end of this moribund hockey season, school teachers and bank clerks aflutter with the flapping of their Canucks flags against the side windows of their Toyota Camrys. Yeah, Yeah, Johnny Reb. Yawn...

The APC are hooligans and bums looking for a brawl. A shame, because there is much to protest about this bread and circuses fiasco called 2010. But pouring water on the secretary's blackberry won't cut it. The APC is the best PR campaign the Vanoc could hope for.

The King And I - Shall We Dance

And speaking of little lost treasures...here is the voice of Seattle's Marni Nixon, who also sang for Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady," and Natalie Wood in "West Side Story,' so seamlessly in each case that one never suspected it wasn't Deborah Kerr or Audrey or Natalie singing. I saw Yul Brynner do this role on stage here in Vancouver, when he was suffering from cancer. You would never know it. He was beyond magnificent.

Gordon Macrae

Here's one of the great songs sung by one of the great singers. NO accident that he was the star of both "Oklahoma" and "Carousel" from which this song is taken.