Give the Premier a (Moral) IQ test

The papers are full of 2010 news.

So much being spent on security. So many athletes doing such and such to prepare. Traffic nightmares to come.

Premier Gordon Campbell smiles at daily foto ops for the occasion.

The true measure of this government and its callous leadership, however, is to be found in this hideous story.

B.C. to deny services based on IQ

Policy based on lawsuit could put developmentally disabled adults as risk

Behind closed doors, Campbell and one of the worst and most incompetent ministers in B.C. history, Tom Christensen (Children & Families, lord help us), signed an order making an IQ of 70 or under the criterion for receiving social service help for the developmentally disabled.

Has there ever been a more petty, mean, detestable and indefensible action from a local government?

Campbell and his thugs are telling us regularly, usually with our own tax money, that we are living in a financial paradise, that all is great, that the economy is fabulous.

If this is true, why would you begrudge helping out a family who have a child with limited intellectual capacity?

That dreadful fool Christensen even said one month ago that doing this would be wrong.

Nice to see that he's right when he's wrong.

IQ tests are hardly reliable and scientific at the best of times. They are mere indicators, taken seriously by few.

This matter should not be complicated.

If a young man or young woman is, by any observable standard and by no means other than heredity and the roll of the dice, brought into this world significantly less able to deal with the usual challenges than most, we, as a filthy rich society, aught to help that soul survive.

This is arguing over pennies, while spending millions on frivolity and idiocy.

This is chizzling over pennies and people's difficult lives.

It is ugly in the extreme and it has Gordon Campbell's picture all over it.

Roger's a Wreck

Roger Federer, the number one tennis player in the world, is now a certifiable head case.

He is suffering from PTND, Post Traumatic Nadal Disorder, a rare condition brought on by the relentless onslaught over a period of several years of a young Spanish dynamo who gets into your head and acts like Kryptonite does on Superman.

It is said that Federer, who has been the second best clay court player in Paris for the last three years, lost his finals match to Nadal two years ago in the tunnel before they came out for the match. The apocryphal story has Nadal jumping up and down and freaking out Roger so badly that the game was over before they hit the court.

This year, Nadal didn't beat Fed in the Roland Garros finals; he crushed and demolished him, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0, in a match that was unwatchable for its profound level of embarrassment.

In last year's Wimbledon, Fed's fifth win in a row, he came within a hair of losing to Nadal.

In this year's final, won by Nadal in an epic, already legendary match, Nadal prevailed 9-7 in the fifth set and in the dark.

But Federer had already lost the match in the second set when he was up 3-0, then 4-1 and went into his famous cruise control, losing 4-6.

Cruise against Rafael Nadal. Nada, baby.

So yesterday it was hardly a surprise, if still horrifying to witness, that Roger Federer, with 12 Grand Slam titles, only two away from equalling Pete Sampras' record, came completely unglued in the second and third sets against number 23-ranked Gilles Simon of France. Fed lost 6-2, 5-7, 4-6, spraying forehands all over the York Centre park.

Worse, Mr. Classy evaporated to be replaced by Mr. Truculent, Senor Argumentative, and Monsieur Pouty.

Do you think Roger has been rattled by his loss at Wimbledon two weeks ago?

You bet.

Can he recover his cool and his forehand for Flushing Meadow a mere few days away?

Not likely.

If he pulls his fragile self together and wins in New York, it will be the biggest and best comeback I will have witnessed.

But I'm not putting my money on it.

I think Roger Federer needs a great coach, a ward full of psychologists, a long rest, and Tania Harding to start dating Rafa.