OPAQUE, AGAIN

We all knew that Wally was the worst possible choice to oversee an investigation into why it took the police so long to begin looking for the killer(s) of missing women in the DTES.

And he has proven us right again.

He phones the AG - who has since had the good sense to resign - and leaves a blathering chatty message full of personal opinions and random brain farts.

Now he takes to his favorite resource - open mikes and sound bites, the always available tools for the true public drama queen in us all - to seize the front pages.

Please, Wally.

Leave the deaths of women to the grown-ups.

Go quietly into this good night.

I am sure that there is a fishing lodge or ceramics shop on Saturna or Gabriola that needs a nice friendly new landlord.

BEANS, AND THEIR COUNTERS

Bogie said it best in a certain movie set in North Africa.

"What happens with the HST doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this world."

Killing this offensive tax may or may not be fiscally imprudent. What do I am know? I am poor and stupid.

But, when all the accountants have gone back to the front nine and the snickering, chortling and gagging have drifted off into the fog, here is what we will remember.

An arrogant, out-of-touch Premier - his name was Gordon Campbell - made a colossal balls-up of introducing a new piece of legislation. You'd think he would have learned something after all those years in public life. But no. Like Napoleon driving into the snows of Russia, Campbell simply threw this affront to the masses. A pox on their ignorant houses. Take this, ye specks of dust!

Christy, who thinks she is so clever by a half, ran head first right into the oldest trap in the book: Be the next guy after the big mess. Get covered in someone else's goo.

Yes, the old tax may not be the greatest thing since the cell phone.

But for the suffering crowds, it is a huge and laughable pie in the face for those untouchable captains of government and industry.

WHY HE'S LEAVING

Barry Penner announced yesterday that he is resigning his post as BC Attorney General.

He wants to spend more time with his wife and daughter.

Fair enough.

He is heading to the women in his life. This is understandable.

But it is hardly the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Ask the other women in his life - his sister and his cousin and his aunt. (I don't rightly know if Mr. Penner has a sister, but if he did, I'd ask her and she'd tell me more than this public performance.)

What is much closer to the whole story and much more interesting is that Penner is running away from one woman inparticular.

Her name is Christy Clark and, at least for the next little while, she is the Premier of the province.

No doubt Mr. Penner is now officially part of the swelling legions of citizens who have come to see Premier Cark with a bit more clarity.

Delightful, charming, a fighter, an enthusiastic campaigner - yes, all that and more.

But she is not a policy maker or governor.

She hasn't a single idea with heft or depth or the possibility of living past the moment after it pops forth from her mouth.

One wonders if she even has or had at the outset a vision for what she wanted to accomplish in office or what she wanted the province to become under her tutelage.

No. She really just relished the race to the office and the trumphal moment of sitting in the big chair.

As a result, folks all around Ms. Clark are heading back to the sheep farms and goat teas.

At least the livestock don't pretend to offer anything more than wool and sour milk.

She will be gone from office within the year.

THE ROUNDUP

1. To see announcements in the press that health authorities are giving out crack pipe kits to addicts is merely sad and predictable.

This idiocy is, after all, just another part of the harm seductionist strategy to encourage the legalization of practically everything.

So, biz as usual.

But to see the Vancouver Sun editorial writers endorse this destructive sham is very discouraging indeed.

Distribution of crack kits is good policy

Their worst argument comes late in the piece:

"As we have seen with Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site, the project could ultimately result in more users seeking treatment."

This is the most spurious, devious and untrue spin by the quasi-scientists who support Insite.

The bald faced truth is that the little shooting gallery has turned over very few addicts to treatment, as anyone in the real treatment business will testify.

A friend of mine says that Vancouver Health is now helping hm with a personal problem.

He has been beating his wife regularly for years.

Now, in the interests of harm reduction, he is being given soft leather boxing gloves to wear at home so as to leave no marks.

2. Should public servants be held to a higher standard of behavior than the rest of us?

Should those who work in the areas of public safety be cognizant of behavior that help or hinders public safety?

The assistant fire chief in Esquimalt is a drunk driver.

Nice.

So he gets banned from driving for a while.

So his boss gives him a vacation.

Ze mind boggles.

3. The "Families First" Premier misses the Pride Parade and doesn't ensure that someone from the government or the party is there to represent either the government or the party.

This is not tragic or a slight or anything evil.

It is just flat stupid.

No planning. No thought.

If it doesn't spin, it's not our kin.