Well, This is Good for Tourism, huh, Gordie?

"Gang shootings plague Vancouver police, officials" -AP

As it seems so very important that the Americans know all about us, its no doubt good to see the AP and Seattle PI are paying close attention to the gang warfare blazing on the streets of Metro Vancouver these days.

"Another spasm of gang violence in the metropolitan area has residents worrying once again whether the city is becoming a free-fire zone.
On Friday afternoon, two gunmen pumped multiple rounds from what Royal Canadian Mounted Police say were prohibited firearms into a pickup truck outside a supermarket at a suburban mall in Langley as shoppers were getting their weekend groceries."

Yup, just what the doctor ordered for tourism, which has, after all, been booming in recent years.
Yeah, right.

"Police also have warned that rivals are gunning for the three Bacon brothers, who are out on bail while facing firearms and drug charges. Jamie Bacon escaped an attempted hit while driving in Abbotsford last month."

But none of this would justify keeping them locked up of course, just ask the judges who sprung them. Just ask Gordie Campbell's Attorney General - Wally Awful.
Who the hell are these judges who let these three specimens out to live amongst us?
Why don't we see their faces, why don't we know their names?
Why don't we get a vote on whether they keep their jobs?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_canada_vancouver_gangs.html

For Gordie Campbell - Some Free Advice

And free advice is always worth the price.

Now, its become clear recently that, despite Himself's clear belief, the Gordie Campbell Crew may just have their work cut out for them to beat Carole the Nice and Co. in the next election.
And so, since nothing says "uppity peasant" like presuming to advise King Gordie, allow me:
Step one must be replacing his current miserable excuse for an Attorney General with someone who is, unlike Wally Awful, not so far out to lunch he's picnicking on Pluto.

Anyone who heard Wally's sputtering attempt at defending his pals on the bench Friday on CKNW's The World Today with Jon McComb must by now understand what some of us have maintained since his appointment:

As a judge, Wally was part of the problem for so long there's not a chance in hell he could be part of the solution.

Clearly, Wally is of the school that holds the answer to crime is warm and fuzzy hugs and umpteenth chances, you know, all that good stuff that got us into the mess we're in now. Reminds one of Einstein's Scientific Definition of Insanity: to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

Now, that's not to say I find Wally a complete waste of air, he's really quite amusing in his woolly-headed way. To hear Wally charge his critics with being "irresponsible" is, after all, the height of unintended comedy. Boffo laffs, in his way, is Ol' Wall.

Hey, Wally, twiddling your thumbs while gangsters spray bullets in shopping mall parking lots is irresponsible. Presiding over a system in which judges grant anyone and everyone bail while handing down ridiculously light sentences and doing bugger all about it is irresponsible. A system that allows the Bacon brothers and their ilk to roam free is irresponsible. Sitting on a report on sentencing we all know is going to reflect badly (to put it mildly) on your buddies in the judiciary is irresponsible.

You may have noticed that Wally's standard line of bovine excrement inevitably kicks off with a nice, pompous "the public needs to understand..." - why Wally and his high-minded friends are so much more enlightened than us rabble about crime and punishment, how its all Ottawa's fault, how, really, in the end, really nothing can or should be done. And as long as Wally's in charge, nothing will be done.

Well, what Wally needs to understand is that even with that ol' ethnic block vote thang, he can get his sorry ass blasted out the door if the voters decide they've had enuff. We can only hope.

In the meantime, he should be gone from cabinet.

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