Our Urban Idiots Series Continues

Some people seem to go around thinking
"Its not an offleash park for anyone else but ...

The Religion of Peace - Islington Division

Police are searching four properties in the metro London area after arsonists struck an Islington publisher.


It would appear some misguided souls, unaware of the inner, spiritual nature of jihad, instead take Koranic passages such as:

Muhammad is Allah's Apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another. Q48:29

and

Giving insult to Islam and its Prophet is more grievous than bloodshed Q2:189

to mean they should attack everyone who has anything to do with The Jewel Of Medina, a 'racy romance novel' in Associated Content's term, which tells the story of good old (really quite old at this point) prophet Mo and his six year old bride (you read that correctly), Aisha.
A charming tale, I'm sure (pass the sick bag, Ethel).


"Telegraph.co.uk

North London terror arrests linked to publication of Muslim book

Four people have been arrested in London over an alleged terror attack which may be linked to the publishing of a controversial book.

The arrests are thought to be linked to a fire at a property in Islington, north London, which is used as the home and office of publisher Martin Rynja.

His company, Gibson Square, recently agreed to publish a controversial novel about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride, entitled The Jewel of the Medina. The blaze, which led to people being evacuated from the house, may have been started by a petrol bomb pushed through the letter box. ..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3091777/North-London-terror-arrests-linked-to-publication-of-Muslim-book.html

Our Time To Shine

Shine up your gelt, BC. Our part of 2010 is to pay and keep out of the way.

Remember when we were first getting conned into ponying up for this olympic boondoggle?
It was going to be BC's "time to shine".
Montreal had their turn.
Calgary had theirs.
Now it could be our turn to not only get in on all the good, clean, drug-free fun and profit (oh yes, profit, so good for the economy) but really show ourselves off to the world.

So, let me see:
The Irishman in charge just loves the Inuit logo the lady from Mexico came up with as do the lady from toronto who's producing the tv, the Aussie who's doing the ceremonies, the little girl from ontario and the ice fisherpersons she was "singing" (allegedly) to ....
Dig the pattern emerging?
BC has been elbowed aside at what was supposed to be our party.

Furlong no sooner got stuck in than we began getting fed this "all of canerduh's games" guff.

Unlike Calgary.
Sure as hell unlike Montreal.
So, what's different this time?

Oh, right, we have a Premier, Gordie Campbell, who is ottawa's lickspittle regardless of what political stripe their government wears. From pine beetles to the Fraser trap to the RAV, no wait, let's call it the canerduh line, Gordie never misses a chance to suck up and sell BC out.
Almost forgot for a moment there.

Frank Zappa on the Mike Douglas Show

November 1976

A Look Ahead With Christy

"12:25 and time for a look ahead to the big show with Christy. Madam?"

"Well, Gord, today of course we'll be all over the federal election campaign. We'll be talking to some farmers in rural southern Ontario who are saying that Stephen Harper is some sort of witch or warlock or whatever you'd call it, they say his last campaign stop in their area their crops withered, their cows began giving sour milk, the whole 9 yards, so that sounds interesting.

Then we'll be looking at Liberal leader Stephane Dion. We're gonna have his auntie on the line long distance, through a translator of course, and we'll see what we can dig up there.

Then Gord we'll talk to a man, Mike, no that's Mark, Mark Marrissen, he runs something called Burrard Communications, but we're not going to talk to him about that, no we're going to get his views on the federal election as a local small business person.

And then, Gord as if all that wasn't enough, I'll be speaking with a client, I mean a spokesperson for Translink ..."

Bill, Barry and Jer

No, no, there is absolutely no truth to those horrible rumors (and don't we just wonder where they got started?) that these guys have cut a new cover of Papa Was A Rollin' Stone to be played at Obama rallies as Barry hits the stage.
But, looking at those shiny happy faces, one can't help but wonder if we're looking into the future at President Obama flanked by two of his Cabinet Secretaries. Can't you just imagine the possibilities? Talk about change.
And its not as far fetched as you might at first imagine.
Although Barry and his people don't mention it (typical undue modesty I suppose) it turns out Barry does possess some executive experience after all.
And, it turns out, Bomber Bill Ayers was a significant hand up the ladder for Barry in acquiring it, as Stanley Kurtz details in the Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html#printMode

One good turn deserves another, friends help friends along, right?

10,000 Syrian Commandos Heading For Lebanon

Syrian deployment on Lebanese border: Commandos on right; positions on hill, trucks below.


"Damascus is pressing forward with its plan to occupy Greater Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city and port, DEBKAfile's military sources report. To this end, 10,000 Syrian commando troops have massed at Abboudieh on the Lebanese border ready to follow an advance force which occupied seven villages around the northern city earlier this month, as first disclosed by DEBKAfile on Sept. 20"


The next step in Lebanon's disintegration features, no big surprise, the Syrians, who have been prominent among those bedeviling Lebanon for decades now.

"... Syrian occupation of northern Lebanon will make profound inroads on the strategic position of the United States and Israel in this part of the Middle East, yet Washington and Jerusalem are turning a blind eye."

Perhaps Washingtom and Israel figure Syrian occupation of the area is preferable to the alternative.
True, from a certain point of view, all of Lebanon descending into chaos and serving as yet another battlefield for the Sunnis, Shiites, Wahhabis and all the other sects of the Religion of Peace to occupy themselves killing each other and leave the rest of us alone isn't a particularly unwelcome development.
However, this would be too near to Israel, meaning there's a far better chance of Lebanon turning into another Afghanistan, with infidel troops (under NATO, the UN, or who have you) soiling holy Muslim soil in a valiant fight to quell all that and drag the population into the 21st century etc, etc ...
Watch for this to get far worse.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5605

NDP Vow To Get Tough On Crime

The trouble is, the NDP have had opportunities in the past to get tough on crime and, well, passed on them.
Remember Bill C-275 introduced in the Commons November 15, 2004?
Sure you do, Carley’s Law. Yeah, that one, getting tough on drunken drivers. Here's Burnaby-Douglas NDP MP Bill Siksay explaining in an email why he and his party voted against Carley’s Law.:

"Dear Mr. In North Burnaby

Thank you for your recent message regarding Bill C-275.

I did not vote for this bill because I was concerned that it removed the concept of criminal intent from consideration in cases where someone may have left the scene of the accident for innocent reasons. I also have difficulty with mandatory minimum sentences. I believe that there is good reason to allow judges to exercise discretion when sentencing by taking into consideration the particular circumstances of the case. I am also not convinced, from my understanding of the experience of those jurisdictions that have mandatory minimum sentence, that they have been effective in ensuring convictions or in deterring or preventing the crimes to which they are attached. There is also mixed opinion here in Canada as to whether a further extension of mandatory sentences in the area of impaired driving will have the desired effect.

I have attached a copy of the speech made by the NDP's Justice Critic, Joe Comartin, MP, on this bill. Mr. Comartin goes into greater detail on some of the concerns we had with the bill.

It was not easy to vote against this bill given the horrible consequences to far too many Canadians of drunk driving. But I do believe that I did so for very serious reasons.

Thank you for taking the time to contact me on this important issue.

Sincerely yours,
Bill Siksay, MP
Burnaby-Douglas"

Can't you just see Cactus Jack Layton and Buffalo Bill Siksay ridin' into town, roundin' up all the ornery, no-good varmints and packin' 'em off to the hoosegow?
No?
Me neither.

Genesis - 1999 remake of The Carpet Crawlers

Rare reunion of Peter, Tony, Mike, Steve and Phil.

Goodbye To Yankee Stadium

Objectively, its true, the place was kind of a dump, the washrooms beyond nasty, sure, sure, all that. There was, however, such a sense of history about Yankee Stadium, so many welcome, no, treasured ghosts, who, as the locals might say, gave a fat rat's crap?
To watch a game at Yankee Stadium, at least for a lifelong fan making the pilgrimage from the other coast, was like a religious experience, the moments for the ages crowding the memory ("right there is where Lou Gehrig declared himself 'the luckiest man on the face of the Earth' and there...") the game itself rather less of the whole experience than in just any old ballpark.
Although I haven't seen it yet, I'm told the new stadium is a beauty, but it'll be a long, long time before the experience could come close to that of The House That Ruth Built.

You've Heard of a Yellow Dog Riding

Well, how about a whole city?
Seems like the NDP in disguise "Burnaby Citizens' Association" (yeah, right) could put up Bozo or Satan and the voters in The People's Happy Democratic Republic of Burnaby would duly elect him. Watch for the same old same old this time round as well.
How long, Lord, how long?

Community Court a Joke That Isn't Funny

Without detox and treatment available right away; without meaningful sentences for those who choose the other way, the new "Community Court" in Vancouver is just another empty pr exercise from the misguided nincompoops who brought us "harm reduction".
Read all about it (and weep) in an essential piece by Justice Wallace Craig in the North Shore News.:

"Here we go again, skipping down the harm-reduction lane with a Downtown Community Court, opened for business on Sept. 10. ...
Chief Judge Stansfield, Judge Thomas Gove and Attorney General Wallace Oppal have been rhapsodizing over this so-called community court, promoting it as a silver bullet that will purge the Downtown Eastside of drug addiction and criminality. ...
when you sift through the preaching of Oppal and Gove, you are left with nothing more than an adventure in harm reduction, and once again the unspeakable: let victims be damned.

Wily addicts will manipulate the DCC: too many of them idling along on methadone mixed with other drugs; most of them accustomed to endless access to syringes; some of them enjoying the comfort of enablement at Insite; and all of them absolutely certain that they will not receive a significant stint in jail for their parasitical thievery and thuggery. ...

On Sept. 9, Oppal and Gove were interviewed on CKNW by Bill Good. When Good said, "We don't have the services to make this court work," Oppal countered with a lame response that there will be a lot more housing, but said nothing about insufficient detox and residential treatment facilities. Gove waxed on about his belief in individual "problem solving," yet he admitted that "it'll take us a few years" to do what New York did. ...

With one judge working five days a week, the Downtown Community Court will not reduce the menace of addict-driven criminality raging unchecked around the Downtown Eastside.

It is first and last a pot-bound court in an old jail building, fiddling along while the Downtown Eastside burns. ..."
http://www.canada.com/northshorenews/news/viewpoint/story.html?id=57efeb00-8950-4a30-8bae-4fd8b70fbae1&p=1

The "Westerner" Hahahahahah .....!!!!!!!

Let me see, Harpo was born and raised in Toronto. That would make him an Upper Canadian.
And yet, even people of seemingly reasonable intelligence, like Montreal-born columnists Norman Spector and Barbara Yaffe refer to Harpo as a "westerner" as he is apparently perceived as such in both the Canadas.
Putting aside the argument that there really is no such thing as a "westerner", Harpo doesn't qualify anyway.
Now, its one thing when people in the Canadas see him as such, they cultivate an ignorance of we colonials, so that's typical, but when people in the colonies, such as BC, do and see him therefore as perhaps yet another prairie-bred "hope to save Canada" that's just plain ridiculous. Fortunately, this seems a shrinking minority.
So in the interests of furthering such shrinkage if I might, and since I do get tired of repeating myself (honestly, I do), allow me to dig into the archives from August 2005 and present, by request yet:

The Folly of the "New Reformers"

What part of "futile" do some people not understand?


"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness…. when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it…. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in whom instinct has learned nothing from experience."
Santayana, George - The Life of Reason, vol. 1, chapter 12, p. 284 (1905).


There are at least three parties on BC's political landscape today who are peddling variations on the by now all-too-familiar and discredited platform of "renewing federalism".
One has to wonder whether some people have been on another planet for at least the last 35 years, or if they are simply too attached to Canada through some misplaced sentimentality, not unlike someone in an abusive relationship, who figures "they'll change' and "we can work it out", contrary to all evidence and experience.
The Progressives were going to work it out in the 1920s. They wound up instead being thoroughly Ottawashed, their left wing absorbed into the CCF, and the rest becoming a hood ornament on the Conservative Party, an incongruous prefix (“Forward-Backward Party”?), their populist roots and dreams of reform forgotten.

Undaunted, Manning and his Reform “hordes” stormed Canada’s western gate in the 80’s only to wind up just as Ottawashed as their Progressive forerunners had been.

Their mutant/hybrid offspring, the current Conservatives, are so far along the well-worn path by now, that one of their first actions upon Harper becoming Leader was to email their members west of the Lakehead to “help me (Harper, the purported author) build support in the province of Quebec” by urging all their family and friends there to vote Conservative. No mention of going to bat for, oh, say, a Triple E Senate or such, no, let’s woo Quebec.
Wooing Ontario has, of course, also proven a tough task indeed.
Not that it matters to BC anyway, since the Conservatives, especially once they replace Harper with someone untainted by having lived west of the Lakehead, will be Mulroney’s PCs all over again.

Despite any precedent however, here come groups like the BC Independence Party “This does not necessarily mean independence from Canada”
Then, why call it that? Why not the Empty Threat Party?

RefedBC
“an altered relationship between the bureaucracy in Ottawa on the one hand and the provinces on the other hand, and especially the province of British Columbia. RefedBC will make two fundamental changes to the rules of the outdated Canadian "confederation". These changes will adjust the balance of power between Ottawa and BC, and will free this province to achieve its huge potential. All without the need for BC to leave the "confederation".”
I wonder where they got their magic wand.

And The Emerged Democracy Party of British Columbia whose leader, Tony Luck, “was involved with the Federal Reform Party in its fledgling years.” and should know better already.

All make a point of holding separation out as an option as if it were something new, but in BC’s case at least, its been there since day one, when we were at best reluctant, and at worst, “railroaded”. Hmm, railroad?

It was mainstream enough in the thirties for this to appear in the Vancouver Sun:
“…If we are forced to it by Eastern Canada, we can separate and pay our own way and go it alone;
… There must be a more equitable sharing among Canadians of things Canadian, or else this province must look about in self- defense to find ways and means to federate these parts into a DOMINION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA."


It was mainstream enough for Don Braid and Sydney Sharpe to publish Breakup : why the West feels left out of Canada in 1990.

It was mainstream enough during the“Fat Pat” Uprising of the late ‘90s.

And its certainly mainstream enough today.

“An exclusive Western Standard poll shows more than a third of westerners are thinking of separating from Canada.

Kevin Steel August 22, 2005”

So, while a Rafe Mair backpedals, a Link Byfield stalls, and this party and that come out of the woodwork intent on 'saving Canada' somehow this time, those who have learned the lessons of history by now, need to tell them to lead, follow, or get out of the way.
And with the Clarity Act in place, a party or parties to pilot BC to independence is far less important anyway than grassroots support for a referendum and a citizens assembly to begin work on designing an independent BC.

http://members.shaw.ca/davidinnorthburnaby/TheFollyoftheNewReformers.htm

America notices the lengthening shadows?

"Neither presidential candidate has convinced a majority of voters that they know how to handle the country's growing economic crisis, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey."

Will they be able to? Or could it be many Americans are realizing neither Barry nor Mister Fries can do anything about the end of America's turn at being the big dog?

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/mccain_obama_yet_to_convince_voters_on_economic_crisis

Fumbling Towards Mediocrity

It all starts at the top.
When Dave Nonis got gassed, Aquilini told anyone who'd listen they were going to replace him with someone experienced, someone who was "a proven winner".
Didn't happen.
Gillis, neither a proven winner nor, heaven knows, experienced, then came right out of the chute and told all 29 other GMs the Canucks had no prospects anyone would trade anyone of value for.
Great move, Rook.
Nowadays, of course, Gillis is all excited to see how the great young guys the Canucks have are gonna look this year.
Sure, Mike.
Over the summer, the self-styled "bold moves" man found himself unable to make trades, a situation his being on a number of GMs' shitlists from the previous movie in which he played Sharkie the Agent certainly hasn't helped. No sweat, he'd sign free agents.
When lo and behold, he finds himself unable to attract any prime free agents (Wellwood and Demitra represent 7 more points last year combined than Naslund and Morrison. Big whoop.), we start hearing all this about trading with teams that are over the cap.
Watch for that not to pan out either.
Now we're told he had to have a sitdown with the Sedins because he 'needs to look at guys and see how fit they are, and try to gauge their level of commitment.' Excuse me, did we not all just hear Mats Sundin tell the whole world he hasn't skated since March and 'hasn't really worked out much', which could mean he's done bugger all?
Yet Gillis is quite happy to leave $20 million over two years on the table for Fat Mats the Swedish Hamlet. Some policy, some plan.
No, there won't be much to cheer about in Canuckland this season, but we will hear a lot more excuses. We've already heard plenty, of course, although when Nonis was turfed, Aquilini was very clear there would be no more excuses.
Then, of course, like I said, it all starts at the top.

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

R.I.P. Richard Wright

Does It Really Matter? Part II

Not as far as I'm concerned. Either of these characters will screw BC just as hard and deep as any of their predecessors did.
Muldoon, Turdeau, the drunken old crook MacDonald ... it doesn't matter the stripe or what sort of BS they toss our way during elections (think "frigates").
That is to say they will adopt policies that will continue building support in BC for independence, just as their predecessors did.
Either way, time, as the song says, is on my side.
Yes, it is.

Tom Jones and Jeff Beck - Be-Bop-A-Lula

Does It Really Matter?

Let's see, a breathtaking annual balance of trade deficit, the ongoing disaster of the subprime mortgage mess (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Bros., now rumblings about Merrill Lynch), the looming personal credit crunch (all those run up credit cards turned into "debt consolidation loans" so everyone could run up their cards some more) ...
The last couple of decades, as America's relative wealth in the world has diminished, they've maintained something like their accustomed standard of living by means of borrowing.
What's a President to do?
Tell Americans they must do without cheap consumer goods from Asia, no more flat screen LCD tvs cheap from China, that they'll gear up their own industries behind tariff walls a la Smoot Hawley? A tough sell, especially as it was a disaster last time.

Stretched thin by Iraq and their outposts worldwide, they're following the time-honored pattern of building an empire economically, and losing it militarily. The 21st century has already seen the US have to abandon the two war policy (being prepared to fight two major wars at the same time) ...
What's a President to do?
Tell Americans they must reintroduce the draft and accept a larger role for the "military-industrial complex"? Can you say "political suicide"?

No, I figure America's on the downside and sliding fast.
What's a President to do?
Not much to improve things, I'd say.

That said, I'm rooting for Obama. I figure he'll be even funnier than Jimmy Carter, lottsa yucks.

The Blogger is Back

Well, its been gratifying (and a bit of a surprise) to hear from those of you who actually drop round here and have wondered where I've been.
An old friend asked me to come out of semi-retirement for a project and so I have been incredibly busy and neglecting my blog.
That's all done now and so I'm back to blogging. Oh and enjoying my new acquisition (pictured above) from some of the proceeds. My neighbors are happy too, as, unlike my old "Ringo" kit, I can play these ones at night with headphones.