What a lovely, lovely man...

From CP Story (my emphasis):

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader issued a worldwide call Thursday for Muslims to rise up in a holy war against Israel and join the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza until Islam reigns from "Spain to Iraq."

In the message broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, said that al-Qaida now views "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."

...

"It is a jihad (holy war) for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails . . . from Spain to Iraq," al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere."
...

He said Arab governments were accomplices to Israel. "My fellow Muslims, it is obvious that Arab and Islamic governments are not only impotent but also complicit . . . and you are alone on the battlefield. Rely on God and fight your enemies . . . make yourselves martyrs."

Do we ALWAYS have to ask Government to do it for us?

Last week’s WorkSafeBC random study of over 366 gas stations found “significant” levels of non-compliance with safety regulations.

The inspections were held in response to the terrible dragging death of a young man named Grant DePatie last March. Grant had been working overnight at an Esso station when he tried to stop two teens who had filled their tank with $12.30 of gas – and decided not to pay.

Now Mr. DePatie, Grant’s father, is on a mission to ensure that gas stations that don’t implement “pay before you pump” rules are put out of business.

He argues that the 200 “gas and dash” events over the past year in Surrey alone are reason enough to bring in the rules.

Gas stations are supposed to have a safety plan that includes rules about what to do in these kinds of situations. These are there to ensure attendants don’t chase after people who don’t pay. Instead, they should call the police.

We all know that all the rules in the world are only as good as the training provided to employees. WorkSafeBC found that employees have not been getting the right types of training. WorkSafeBC, with premiums provided by BC’s employers, is working on developing new standards.

Probably the easiest way to prevent “gas and dashes” is to institute a “pay at the pump” policy.

But does the government have to legislate this or should it be an industry-led initiative?

It is in the best interest of gas stations to do this on their own, to prevent gasoline losses. As gas prices keep creeping higher, the cost of the stolen gas must start to add up.

When politicians are feeling the heat from a grieving father and special interest groups, it is a quick fix to make a new law. But in this case, the rules exist and a law would serve political rather than practical needs.

Do we really need a separate set of laws saying we can’t peel out of a gas station at two am with our tanks full of stolen gas? What else do we need a law for - that we can’t steal plums from a fruit stand between midnight and four am?

The BC Federation of Labour seems to have grabbed Grant’s death to drive their own agenda, which is strange because few, if any, stations are unionized. But whether their ultimate goal is unionization of station employees or something more political, they don’t seem to mind slapping more and more rules onto gas station employers to meet their end game.

Gas sellers really do need to step up to the plate and institute industry standards on overnight payment and WorkSafeBC should continue their programs educating employers and employees about what is safe conduct and what is not.

Because if stations don’t bring forward industry standards about night-time fill-ups, we are just going to see another round of rules and regulations gathering dust on a book shelf until the next tragedy.

Guest Host Gig

I will be guest hosting on CKNW for the next two weekends, filling in for a vacationing Sean Leslie. The Sataurday show runs from 4-6pm and the one on Sunday airs from 3-6pm.

There will be a call-in segment or two, so please phone up and discuss the issues that matter to you (or even just some kind words on my first gig!)

Best,
Erin

Saving the Rare and Vanishing American Liberal

(A friend forwarded this to me - I have no idea of authorship)

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration.

The unflinching arrogance of the Bush Administration is prompting the exodus among liberal citizens, who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists, and Unitarians crossing their fields at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted, and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and
some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. I didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay."

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border, and leave them to fend for themselves.

"A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions,"an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload withouta drop of drinking water. They did have a pleasant little Napa cabernet,though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing reeducation camps in which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR.

Liberals have turned to sometimes-ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen
passengers. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?"

In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals, a source close to Cheney said. "We're going to have some Peter, Paul & Mary concerts. And we might put some endangered species on postage stamps. The president is determined to reach out."

Gassing Faint Hope

It is pretty hard for most Canadians to feel like protecting a guy like Clifford Olsen’s right to walk on the same earth as the mothers and fathers of the children he killed.

In 1980 and 1981, Olsen went on a sick one-man killing spree across BC. Over nine months, the self-proclaimed “Beast of BC” murdered at least 11 children, between the ages of nine and eighteen.

He killed them with hammers, or strangled them, or stabbed them with knives.

He was finally apprehended as he was closing in on two young teenage girls. They survived the encounter as the RCMP chased him to the ground.

At the time of his arrest near Long Beach on Vancouver Island, only three of the children’s bodies had been found.

What followed was a sick, but probably necessary, deal with the devil. Olsen revealed the locations of the bodies and details about the killings in exchange for $100,000 per child payable to his family.

He relished the limelight of his notoriety.

The judge, Harry McKay, said at the time of his sentencing, “I don’t have the words to describe the enormity of your crimes and the heartbreak and anguish you have caused so many people. No punishment a civilized country could give you could come close to being adequate….You should never be granted parole for the remainder of your day. It would be foolhardy to let you at large.”

He was sentenced to life in prison.

It should have been, frankly, the last we heard of this worm.

But this is Canada and in 1987 he was granted leave to appeal for parole under the “faint hope clause” or Section 745 of the Criminal Code. Designed to provide truly rehabilitated men and women an opportunity for early release, it was never meant to be used by a sick and vicious man to gain even more attention for himself.

Now, after serving twenty-five years (or two years for each child he killed) the Canadian justice system will reward him for his horrific actions by allowing him to apply for parole every two years.

And he will - what else does he have to do with his time?

Conservative Justice Minister, Vic Toews, is looking at options to summarily dismiss gratuitous parole applications. Hopefully that’ll happen before the next Olson circus in 2008. Beyond the financial cost to the system, there is the emotional turmoil faced by the families of the murdered children.

Remarkably, there are people who oppose this change – who feel each and every criminal, regardless of their crime or their conduct, deserve a chance to try and re-enter normal society.

Hopefully, these, like those at the John Howard Society, are the minority.

Because when Olson was asked in the 1980s, what he would do if he got out again, he answered, “I’d take up where I left off.”

And that should be enough to keep him in a dark, dark place for the rest of his pathetic life.

Francis Drake

By way of Kevin Dixon, the Rector at St. Mary's:

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves.
When our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little.
When we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord.

Prayers for Carole James

Today news broke that Carole James has a treatable form of uterine cancer. My thoughts and prayers are with her for a rapid recovery.

Kick for Touch

After four long sessions in city council chamber, hearing the boosters and the opponents of the proposed Whitecaps soccer stadium on the downtown waterfront, Vancouver Council decided to kick the ball down the field, so to speak.

The unanimous decision to, well, to make a decision later could be viewed by both sides as a victory of sorts.

But just because the Whitecaps made it through the preliminaries is no guarantee that they’ll make it to the finals – just ask Portuguese soccer team how that works.

There are significant – and perhaps overwhelming – issues facing the stadium proposal. Although Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot owns the six acre parcel, the site cannot be re-zoned from industrial use without an exhaustive 24 month process.

And that is the least of the challenges facing the project.

Others include site access for fans, the need to acquire additional property from the Vancouver Port Authority and requirements to ensure safety with the proposed above the tracks location.

Raymond Louie moved that the City work with the Whitecaps to examine other sites, including False Creek Flats or BC Place.

Of course, the big hitch for those locations is that the Whitecaps don’t actually own them.

Larry Beasely, the land-use guru at City Hall, indicated that he felt the stadium would need to move further north if it was going to fit into the downtown waterfront landscape.

Of course, with all these strikes against them, it would be easy to count the ‘Caps out.

That would be very foolish.

If anything, these guys have proven that they can fight the good fight. They have, after all, kept professional soccer alive in hockey-obsessed Vancouver since the previous heyday of the sport.

And in the nine months since the project was first brought before the City, the Whitecaps have developed strong community support for the concept. In a wonderful kismet way, all the attention on the World Cup in the lead up to the Council meetings only helped their cause.

On the surface of it, they have a great project. Who wouldn’t want to see a beautiful, open-air stadium right at the waterfront, close to transit and all those new downtown residents?

Think “Bard on the Beach” for the sporty set.

But it will be in the devilish details that the project will fail or succeed.

The city staff report states that the concept needs to be re-visited in “some fundamental ways” if it is going to work at all.

These include dealing with inadequate street frontage and road infrastructure which may require more financial resources than the Whitecaps are willing to front.

Round one may be over for the Whitecaps but the fight for the waterfront is just getting started.


As seen today in 24 hours

These dastardly acts were perpetrated by the enemies of humanity - Lashkar spokesman

When will it stop?

CKNW Tonight (980 AM)

With Mike Smyth at 8pm. Talking about labour peace under the Liberals. And other stuff.

Teachers and Piss

So much has happened in the past week, it was hard to choose a column topic.

First of all, kudos are due to the BC Public Employees Association, the Province and the BCTF for coming to an agreement on the teacher’s contract.

The teachers received 16% over five years and a bigger $4000 signing bonus, as well as additional preparation time. The settlement was fair to teachers and in-line with the other public sector settlements.

Since 1993 when province-wide bargaining began, there hasn’t been a negotiated teacher’s agreement. This historic deal provides parents a guaranteed five years without teacher job action.

There were many who said it couldn’t happen and that the two sides were just too far apart. I was among them. I am happy to be proven wrong.

On a less pleasurable note, this week was also marked by the deplorable behaviour by drunken louts in Ottawa on Canada Day.

For some reason, it would have been more bearable if these idiots were urinating on the National War Memorial out of some misguided protest against the Canadian military. At least it would have served a purpose of sorts.

But they weren’t.

They were intoxicated and boorish. I wonder what their mothers said when they saw their little darlings immortalized on the front pages of Canada’s newspapers?

These boys, the same ages as the ones whose deaths are remembered with the War Memorial, ought to be forced to spend their summer in the military. Maybe in Afghanistan, building schools and ducking potshots from the Taliban.

Or perhaps they should be sent to North Korea, to see what would freedoms they’d enjoy in that insane corner of the globe.

But they won’t be forced to face this kind of music.

They’ll be excused from their rotten display because young adults in our country are treated as babies – not as the grownups they should be by their mid-twenties.

The shock in the eyes of veterans interviewed about this debacle made my stomach clench. These old men shouldered their responsibilities and went off to fight.

Was it fun? No. Was it easy? No. But they did it because it was the right thing to do.

Police are still looking for these louts, who haven’t even had the courage to turn themselves into authorities.

At this point, a heart-felt apology and some suggested amends would be a good start to mending broken old hearts.

I remain deeply embarrassed by members of this generation who apparently care so little about our elders that they would desecrate such an important monument to their hard-fought battles.

I hope they get some guts, own up to their behaviour and reach out to the men whose sacrifice for freedom they forgot in their drunken Canada Day partying.

As seen today in 24 Hours