Paul Potts singing Opera

This is an extraordinary take. Such an entirely different sensibility form the American Idol franchise.
After seeing this, watch the finals.

White House on Call

Post 911, the Bush White House made up their own rules on "investigation," often leaving due process and the Consitution battered on the roadside.

Today, the Justice Department and Dick Cheney;s office have been on their wiretapping efforts. This, shades of Nixon story, is a must read.

Knock, Knock, Mayor Lowe-Down

Con Sumption be done about all these drug sites?

The hopelessly inadequate mayor of Victoria, Alan Lowe, wants to spend $1.2 million of Canadian Health money each year on "Consumption" drug sites for those poor, sorry-assed dope fiends.

Has he ever considered...wait for it...TREATMENT????

I'm sure there is a clinic somewhere in the world - perhaps Switzerland - that can cure him of this bad thinking and make him a better mayor.

Yes, come to think of it, now. There's one in Basel, where they give you a pill that, every time you think of giving addicts more drugs, you throw up on your Guccis.

Mission Impossible 4,000

Retiring British Prime Minister (How's that for a moniker?) Tony Blair has a new assignment.

His new title is something like "Super Dooper Peace Envoy."

His mission? End the Middle East Madness. Find peace between Israel and the Arabs.

God's speed, Tony.

Harrumph!

The story in today's paper about the couple from the nudist colony on the Island is all well and good. But was it really necessary in a family paper to go on about erections and members?

I am in shock.

Edith Piaf - La Vie En Rose

The new film, similarly titled, is a mixed blessing. In many ways, the most traditional of movie bio-pics, so much a cousin of The Jolson Story and Funny Girl, it is nevertheless powerful and moving. The performance of marion Cotillard as Piaf is quite astonishing. The music tracks are all Piaf.

Dope Pusher Docs

While every category of doctor profits handsomely and obscenely from gifts from Pharmaceutical Companies, no one can hold a candle to psychiatrists.

These ghouls are pure, straight ahead drug pushers.

Parents, exhausted and baffled by the behaviour of their children, turn to these "helpers" in desperation, only to be turned on to the Chemical Nation.

Read this piece in this morning's NY Times for some of the gorier details.

You tell me the difference between these wealthy, powerful and respected creeps and the Vancouver street pushers shown in the photo above.

The Guest Blogger Enters the Apse

Hi Mensch:

I always thought God has a sense of humour. After all, if She is the epitome of all that precious, how can humour not be included? There is even a clue to my theory in the Book of Job, where God tells His/Her only joke. Job is kvetching about the flaws of this life whereby evil is rewarded with luxury while good men perish. God says to Job " Where were you when I made the world?" That's a joke, courtesy of God. In today's vernacular, She/He would have said " So, Mr. Genius, what else did I get wrong while designing the universe?"

Which leads me to the Anglican same sex debate. We have these earnest theologians debating about what God would tolerate. God must be laughing. Like any of them know?

My wish. I wish churches would shut up. The only organs that churches should talk about have 88 keys and are great for playing Bach. And the gays should quit asking. Just show up with a marriage licence and stare the Minister down. He'll cave. It's a business. They need sales to survive.

This politicization of marriage is a wrong strategy. It seems that what once was " The love that dare not speak its name" is now "The love that won't shut the fuck up". Marriage should not be approached like a Indian blockade of a railroad. It tends to reduce public support for the cause. Anyway, enough blather. My central point is that God, who created all organs( Yamaha and dangly types), only gets involved if one of us uses our organ to intentionally do harm to the innocent. In that event, I believe God pushes the down button when we die.

Other than that I believe if we can use our funny little organs to bring love, care and gentleness to another willing, knowledgeable soul, God will smile. Actually, God will laugh.

After all, as the great David Niven said when a streaker graced the Oscars; " Such a great fuss over such a little thing".

Go with God.

Le Boulavardier

Too Busy to Care

Many of us don't like living by rules imposed on high. Often, we are right.

And just as often we are ignoring the basic selfishness, greed and stupidity of man.

The Campbell government in its haste to cut through red tape - an admirable enough goal, if done judiciously, and this was not - decided in 2004 to downgrade safety regulations in the workplace to "guidelines." As if every employer has the welfare of his employees uppermost in mind when he begins each day. NOT!

The result has been tragic and predictable: deaths and injuries in the workplace, especially the forests, have climbed dramatically.

Look, we live in an adolescent culture that can't even agree to use traffic circles properly. I've seen police cars, trucks and private cars turning LEFT around traffic circles dozens of times. Here, that is. I've never see that in England or Italy.

As the Sun reported this morning, regulations are "prescriptive," guidelines are "interpretive."

Let's get these safety regs back on the books and stop allowing money hungry employers to "interpret" safety and kill our workers.

By some bizarre coincidence, this issue was dramatized by the case of a young female gas station attendant being sexually assaulted last night because the recommended new regulations have not yet been put in place.

You want to cut through the red tape, Gord? Get these regulations, old and new, on the books today.

Taliban Sam

The Mayor supports the Taliban.

But he is not alone. So do the last two Mayors, Owen and Campbell.

How do I figure this? I'll tell you.

It has been clear and obvious for some time now (and reported in today's CanWest papers) that it is heroin money that buys terrorists' bullets.

Now the 3 Mayors and all the other destructive deluded fools who want to keep giving dope fiends their dope (rather than helping them quit) are saying let's keep The Heroin Trade alive. In fact, let's make it government policy.

It's the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Or, in this tragic case, The Law of Short-Sighted, Wrong-Footed Nitwits Who Wouldn't Know Real Compassion if They Fell in a Vat of It.

Patented Sam

Everything The Nutty Mayor does is coldly calculated.

Hiding behind his little boy cover story, Sullivan is the most premeditated of men.

Thus, when he claims that he was just trying to protect the phrase "ecodensity" by registering it in his own name, he is being disingenuous at best, lying at worst.

It has taken the opposition Vision party an entire week to emerge from their endless hibernation and challenge this patently self-serving action on the part of Sullivan.

It is simple and clear. if the Mayor had truly wanted to save "ecodensity" for the City, he would have sent one of his many minions to the City Manager to take care of it. Instead, he went to an outside legal firm and applied on his own behalf in his own name. Sullivan has a long history of registering patents and he knows exactly what he is doing.

Too bad the other painted faces and rubber noses at 12th and Cambie don't.

Will that be 10D?

Remember Eaton's?

Remember Woodwards?

I'm a son and grandson of retailers and it's in my blood. I'm always fascinated by stories from the street.

Here's a great one about one of the most famous shoe brands in the world - making a healthy comeback.

The Age of Migration

Immigration problems are as ubiquitous as ants. They exist worldwide.

Here is a telling article in this morning's NY Times.

As we struggle with identical issues here in Canada and in the USA, it is instructive to read about "The Age of Migration."

RUNNING ON EMPTY - Mobile Safe sites

Do we have a "mobile" cardiac unit (other than your basic ambulance) operating in BC?

Do we have "mobile" osteoporosis, arthritis, cancer, emphysema, depression, erectile dysfunction units screeching through the streets? Are they going so fast I haven;t noticed them? Do they only run at night?

I ask these questions in light of the fact that the mayor of Victoria, that bastion of Social Enlightenment, wants the federal government to approve 3 new "safe injection" sites, one of which will be "mobile."

In other words, kids, some horribly mistaken volunteers and social workers will be in a Honda minivan, dashing to help a poor, deprived addict of his right to a clean needle and a clean place to get high. What is worse is that these poor fuckers (I mean the social workers and volunteers) will actually believe that they are doing something good and useful, when, in fact, they will be killers and enablers and no different form the pushers.

How did we get so far down this dark, confused path? When did we abandon the idea of HOPE?

The Selfish, Secretive Mayor

Only those who don't truly know and understand the vengeful teenager who is known as Sam Sullivan are "puzzled" that The Nutty Mayor is trying to patent the word "ecodensity" for himself.

Sullivan holds about 50 patents for one thing or another. He has been applying for and registering patents by the score in the "disability" field for many years now.

Unlike my good friend and neighbour, Jim Foort, who has done more for prosthetics and amputees than almost anyone else alive these days, and who has NEVER taken out a patent for himself, Mayor Sam has always been all about Sam.

No mayor in living memory has operated so privately and so outside the boundaries of City Hall as Sullivan.

He is basically a new fiefdom, The County of Sam.

May we all survive it.

My New Diet

Please join me in a revolutionary new diet plan.

My friend Michael and I invented it.

It's called "FAT CREDITS."

How it works is this: I am paying a family in Pakistan to not eat for me.

One robust friend who has leaped (well, more like lumbered) onto the bandwagon, says that he is now paying 3 families in an un-named South American country to not eat for him.

Our good friend, Nelson Skalbania, is looking into the possibilities of an early stock offering.

AIR INDIA "ANNIVERSARY"

Twenty-two years later, what do we have? What do we know?

The failure of the justice system to close this case compounds the tragedy into an ongoing disgrace and horrow show.

One can barely imagine the tortuous pain being endured by family members directly affected. But, as Canadians, outraged by this disaster and its never-ending costs, we can be justifiably sad and angry on their and our behalf.

Blah, Blah, Blah: 10 to 1

Talk Radio in America is All (to the) Right.

The numbers tell the story.

Tolerance and Offense: The Western Dilemma

Women covered from head to toe are a)an expression of religious freedom; b)an ourageous throwback to barabric days?

Read this story in today's NY Times about daily life in London and try to solve this Gordian knot.

Remember Right & Wrong?

June 21, 2007

No more crack kits for Nanaimo

By CP

NANAIMO, B.C. -- The Vancouver Island Health Authority says threats against community health nurses in Nanaimo have forced suspension of a controversial harm reduction program.
Health Authority CEO Howard Waldner says residents were harassing nurses who were handing out "safer crack kits."

Waldner says distribution of the kits has been paused while the health authority meets with municipal officials in Nanaimo.

More than 200 of the kits, which contain a crack pipe and other information, have been handed out in the Vancouver Island city, despite concern about the program raised by Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan.

He called distribution of the kits "immoral" when he learned of the program in late May.

But Waldner defended the program, saying it is a widely accepted strategy to reduce infection rates among addicts.

And what about washing the drunks' shot glasses for them? And cleaning up the children for the perverts? And hand washing the Hondas for the car thieves?

We must do everything we can to aid and abet stupidity and self-destruction.

The Nanaimo mayor is completely right when he calls the handing out of "safe" crack kits immoral. It is so sick.