Step Right UP!

A local radio station has been buying ads in the Sun of late.

This is what they claim:

Talk that matters to you.

A station that captivates your interests.

A station that makes you more interesting.

Hahahaha...

I didn't know that listening to a radio station could make me more interesting.

I didn't even know that one of my life goals was to be more interesting.

To whom?

The guys with whom I play bridge once a month?

This particular radio station, under the same steely-eyed management for years, has had a 1.5 share for decades. That means that 1.5% of the local audience of interesting people are listening. That's not enough to visit Tim's.

The world is completely mad, I tell you, and no where more so than in the wonderful topsy-turvy house of mirrors called Media.

J.J. McColl

I was so sorry to learn today of the passing of J.J. McColl.

She was a wonderful, writer and broadcaster and a warm and loving friend.

Brilliant Satire

Do yourself a really, really BIG favour and watch the first ten minutes of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show here.

President Bush's speech on the financial crisis is very similar to his speech on Iraq five years ago.

In fact, as Stewart and his staff put the two videos side by side, you see the full impact of the lying snake who has been the President of the United Staes of America for eight years.

The Unbearable Lightness of Bulbs

Political correctness under a new light.

Last week I stopped in at London Drugs to buy a 40 watt bulb.

They had none.

Or should I say, they had none that I could recognize as familiar.

Rather, there was a ready supply of the new twisty, twirly thingamajigs that are supposed to burn for a millennium or two. So I bought a 2-pack.

Took the creepy thing home, put one in the wall sconce above the watercolor in the hallway downstairs and behold - ugliness on display!

A light that pauses before it comes on and then glares a sheering hospital corridor brightness that changes your home into an institution.

The twisty, twirly that I put in one of my living room lamps burned out last month, long before it claimed it would.

"Bull," say I.

Whose cousin owns these godawful things? Does the Premier's uncle own the franchise.

I went into the Home Hardware on Salt Spring Island earlier this week and bought me a gross of the Old Familiars and smuggled them back on an unsuspecting BC Ferries crew.

Well, they'll never see the light, will they?

My new old bulb's casting a lovely soft glow above my painting again.

No doubt I am minutes away from the Invasion of the Correct Lighting Commitat.

Send chocolate and a saw.

Behind Door Three

Mike Howell, staff writer has given us an excellent front cover piece in this Wednesday's edition of The Vancouver Courier.

Our good friend, Victor, has exactly the same reaction to a key element of this story. The foto says it all.

But here is Victor's take:

"If you want to know everything that's wrong with Canadian politics,
please look at page four of today's Courier. There is a picture of a
bus load of Punjabi women being delivered to vote in the Vision
Vancouver nomination meeting. Sadly, the bus is a school bus, an
ironic image speaking volumes.

The greatest disrespect that can be shown immigrants is to use them as
ballot box cattle. This is a technique mastered by the Liberals over
the last 40 years but it is sickening to actually see it documented.

Please spare me the bullshit about participation in the democratic
process. Remember the Punjabi women who died in the crash of that farm
workers bus a while back. Police who interviewed other women working
at the farm reported that they could not recite their addresses and
phone numbers. In either language.

The women that Vision Vancouver herded to the meeting were undoubtedly
on a par. An ethical reporter would have interviewed them on the
aspects of Vision policy that they supported. But that would have been
deemed culturally insensitive. So we pretend and preen in or
multicultural delusions. Disgusting."

There were many reasons that I gave for not running for office. Perhaps I didn't mention or emphasize enough this kind of appalling nonsense passing for democratic process.

Armed

97 of 100 Americans has a gub.

31 of 100 Canajuns have a gub.

I'm not feeling smug and safer.

No Country for Real Men

My mind is made up.

You will never convince me that Gordon Campbell's carbon tax has ANY merit.

Tell me that transit will be seriously improved to the point where I can safely and efficiently catch a conveyance and I'll leave the little put-put in the garage.

Tell me that SUV's will be outlawed.

Tell me that every polluting industry will be ordered by law to cut emissions by 25%.

Tell me I can buy an electric car that is allowed to run on the streets of Vancouver.

But the carbon tax scam is ALL smoke and mirrors.

And this latest back-tread by the Preem to accommodate local municipalities is simply more pea-and-shell game.

Do not take this nonsense seriously. Do not pay it heed.

This is exactly the same silver bullet "thinking" that brought you the Community Court and safe injection sites and on into the night...

Messenger

What is the scariest thing about The Bailout?

The fact that George W. Bush is the point man.

Because now we should believe him?

I defy anyone to really understand this atrocious mess, other than in the obvious generalities - greed, venality, corruption, dereg, greed, did I mention greed?

But having the Worst President in History 'splainin' stuff to the 'merican people...?

When will it be safe to watch the TV again?

Proof

A 23-year-old Abbotsford resident was hit at 1 a.m while talking on her cell phone and sitting on the train tracks near the pier at the 15000 block of Marine Drive in White Rock.

Hahahahaha...

Last week, a woman came within inches of taking out my son and I as we attempted to cross a street. The woman barrelled at top speed through a traffic circle while texting.

There is no question that somewhere out there is a Higher Power.

How else to explain the survival of the endless list of effing eejits who cross the street in the middle of the block with their backs turned to oncoming traffic?

The cyclists who don't wear helmets but listen to tunes whilst maneuvering busy streets, when but a few feet away are perfectly good and safe bike paths?

The only people in the known civilized world - Vancouverites - who drive left around traffic circles because it suits them?

The geniuses who sit on train tracks, listening to their MP3's and live to tell the tale?

The Lord is merciful.

Or a really, really Big Joker...

Adios...for a day or two

On Monday morning, I will be heading into the woods for a few days.

I'll be reading....books! Remember those?

The news will have to survive without my take.

See you all on Thursday morning.

Wallace Craig exposes the Meddling

"Set in a sterile and disused pre-trial jail behind the Criminal Court at 222 Main Street, the DCC will be a revolving-door court for drug addicts, a finger-in-the-dyke experiment that lacks the critical support of detoxification and residential treatment premises."

This is the second paragraph is what is perhaps Justice Wallace Craig's best piece ever in the North Shore News.

Read it and understand that the community court is a good idea, amateurishly executed.

Joyful Noise

Pop the Corks!

"Celebrate?"

What are you doing today to celebrate Insite's fifth anniversary?

Take a junkie to brunch.

Break into a Lexus.

Drag a political candidate screaming through the DTES back alleys.

Light up with Elizabeth May.

SEx, Lies & Injection Sites

HERE IS RAW POLITICS.

TOTAL SPIN AND FABRICATIONS.

WHAT IS WORSE IS THAT

ITS AUTHORS ACTUALLY

BELIEVE WHAT THEY ARE SAYING.

THE TRUTH IS THAT

THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT THIS

DISASTER THAT "WORKS."

AND DEMONIZING THE PRIME MINISTER WON'T CHANGE THAT.



Vancouver's supervised injection site celebrates fifth anniversary

Cheryl Chan The Province

Sunday, September 21, 2008

When Insite, North America's first supervised drug-injection site marks its fifth anniversary in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Sunday, the celebration will be tempered with disappointment.

Despite research that shows Insite works, the federal government has refused to support it, say members of PHS Community Services, which runs the facility along with Vancouver Coastal Health.

"Old arguments against Insite just don't stand up against real research," executive director Liz Evans told The Province. "It's time to accept that supervised-injection sites are a necessary part of the comprehensive plan needed to seriously address drug addiction." "It's time for Stephen Harper to listen to the evidence and put public health before politics," said Mark Townsend, Evans' partner and a fellow PHS executive.

Insite has been the subject of more than 30 peer-reviewed studies and several government-commissioned reports that show it has a positive impact in the community, has taken more than a million injections off city streets, has intervened in more than 850 overdoses, has reduced transmission of HIV and hepatitis C and does not attract new drug users. Townsend said it is "disappointing" to be constantly fighting the battle against Ottawa, despite support from the municipal and provincial governments and nearly 80 per cent of doctors in the Canadian Medical Association. "The sad part of it is, there's lots more to do," said Townsend. "We've opened detox beds, we're trying to establish therapeutic [services] with horse therapy. We run a dental clinic and a medical clinic, but our time gets sucked up trying to keep [Insite] on the table." In addition to Insite, PHS Community Services also operates Onsite's 12 detox beds, several transitional beds for patients waiting to get into a long-term treatment facility and a raft of other services in the Downtown Eastside. PHS has assets of $12 million and revenues of almost $11 million a year. Insite, which sees about 600 to 1,100 users daily, has operated in the Downtown Eastside since 2003 under an exemption from the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The permit had already been extended twice when in May, the B.C. Supreme Court granted it a constitutional exemption. The federal government is appealing the decision, with the case scheduled to be heard in April 2009. Meanwhile, federal candidates on the campaign trail have offered words of support. The Liberals have promised to renew Insite's federal licence as part of their made-in-B.C. platform. Green Party leader Elizabeth May has also pledged support. Townsend said it shouldn't matter who is in power. "We don't see it as a political issue," he said. "No matter who's in power, you need to know a health issue like this isn't politically interfered with." Invited speakers at tomorrow's news conference include Dr. Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, and Prof. Neil Boyd of Simon Fraser University.

Journals from the Past

I don't know what I did to deserve this largess.

I must have renewed my telephone or cable subscription. Something.

Now I am receiving in the mail each week Maclean's magazine.

I can understand a document like this in 1957.

But today?

It is chocker-block full of earnest good work.

And utterly unreadable.

I think this "gift" has a finite time line. I expect it to move on to one of my unsuspecting neighbours in a few weeks.

Oy Vey!

The Bailout

The bailout.

One Trillion Dollars.

Socialism.

Capitalism.

Nice cocktail.

The illusion of American Capitalism and it's revulsion with the very word "socialism" is exposed.

Necessary? The world markets might collapse.

Hideous? You and I won't get bailed out of our puny mistakes in judgement.

You tell me. This is a huge subject requiring days of discussion and enquiry.

Good luck to us all.

Leadership & Hospitality - BC's Finest

The news that a museum in sunny downtown enlightened Prince Rupert has barred an American visitor and his motorized wheelchair is way beyond appalling.

The museum has its excuses and reasons and they are all shoddy beyond understanding.

Please tell me these ghouls will be fired.

Please let us citizens of BC fly this fellow back and give him a personal tour of the museum and fotos of the previous administration in jail or living on the streets.

What were they thinking?

I have been looking in vain for over a week now for lawn signs advising me of whom my NDP candidate might be.

They must have all gone up in smoke.

Turns out he's the second pothead the party has had to ditch.

Nice. Thorough. Thoughtful.

This is the best we can do?

All the Honorable Gentlemen

"You have feces and urine and blood on walls, you have garbage that piles up, you have mattresses, people are living there," said Greater Victoria board of education trustee Peg Orcherton.She said discarded needles at Victoria high school are also a big concern. Orcherton said the problem has existed since she was first elected six years ago, but was never as bad as it is now."

Story about Victoria schools in this morning's Sun.

The raging success of Harm Seduction continues at a steady pace.