Passing Tax

Cambie Street all over again.

In his rush to win over the leather saddle crowd, the Green Mayor has basically destroyed a long-standing Vancouver business...ironically enough, a green business.

Wim Van der Zalm has been operating a very large and very good plant store on Hornby Street just below Pacific for a great many years now.

The store has done quite well thank you very much.

That is, until the famous Burrard Street Bike Lane Waste-of-Time-and-Money.

Now, you cannot make a right turn off Pacific and down the hill to Beach Avenue.

Which means that Wim's store no longer has traffic.

Which means he's going broke at this location and will probably have to close.

Did Gregor make allowances for this destruction of local business?

Is he compensating Van der Zalm?

Has he ever heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences?

No, no, and no.

One little mom-and-pop shop is merely collateral damage in the war of political correctness and pedal power.

Roll on, Big Wheel.

Attack

Political cartoonists are journalists.

They comment on the passing scene, often with greater force and clarity than all the writers combined.

To see a cartoonist being marked for murder is sickening, but that is exactly what happened last night in Copenhagen.

It is sickening because such an assault strikes directly at the core of democratic freedoms.

The cartoonist, a 75-year old man, hid with his grandson in a "safe room," and the police arrived and shot the assailant several times. The man is In custody and in hospital.

Kurt Westergaard was targeted because of his images of the Prophet Mohammed.