dickhead Comes to Vancouver . . . .

dickhead cheney came to The Vancouver Club tonight to promote his book.

Of course I participated to see Vancouverites welcome him in style.

To the best of my knowledge, he signed no autographs for the crowd outside the facility . . . .

CRACK SHACK or MANSION?

Crack shack or mansion? In Vancouver, it can be hard to tell. Test your perception of reality at Crack Shack or Mansion?

"No HST" Rally in Vancouver . . . .

Today was the initial rally in BC for those opposing the HST or Harmonized Sales Tax. There were about 15 rallies taking place today across the province and I attended the Vancouver affair held outside the new convention centre.

Premier gordo campbell and his LINO* party has seen fit to initiate this program next year in the province without having the integrity to advise the voters prior to his re-election in May of this year.

Good job, gordo.

If your're not familiar with the program, you can check the chief economist of TD Bank's review here and here. Here is an anti-HST site of interest, also.

All in all, it was a beautiful day for a protest rally and the organizers put the Vancouver attendance at between 4 - 5,000. It will be interesting to see the MSM's estimates.

One of the great things about this gathering was the "harmony" of opposing viewpoints. Political parties from the Communist Party to the Libertarian Party, and organizations representing senior citizens and students.

I guess gordo has unified something in BC, anyway.

Opposition.

Beautiful day for a protest rally

The crowd

Typical sign

Bill Vander Zalm, former Socred premier

Carole James, NDP Leader

Vicki Huntington, Independent MLA

Our West End MLA, Spencer Herbert

Ellen Woodsworth, COPE City Councillor

Chris Delaney, Deputy Leader, BC Conservatives

My favourite sign:

Don't ya' just love it ? ? ? ?

* Liberal in name only

UPDATE on gordo's popularity.

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

"Blood-spattered streets littered with shell casings and corpses"

A line from the British Independent. Are they talking about Mumbai or Baghdad, or someplace faraway?

No.

It is a British media view of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Vancouver is the battlefield in a war between myriad drug gangs, which include Hell's Angels, Big Circle Boys, United Nations, Red Scorpions, Independent Soldiers and the 14K Triad. Guns – often machineguns – are fired almost daily.

Welcome, all you Brits, to the home of the 2010 Winter Olympics! Pay no attention to the bloodbath over in the corner. Just keep focussing on those five rings... and keep your head down.

More at CuriosityCat.

Vancouver Centre Results Disappointing for Moi . . . .

Well, you probably were aware that I was doing some campaign volunteering for our local Vancouver Centre NDP candidate, Michael Byers. Unfortunately, my efforts and the efforts of a strong crew of volunteers weren't enough to unseat Hedy Fry from her 15 year grasp on our riding. Hey, at least the con candidate, aka, Lorne "Freak Out at the Queer Debate" didn't make it in! The Tyee has the results here. (This link marks my initial goal of only linking to independent news sources when available. We need to reduce the corporate media's influence whenever we can.)

On a lighter note, Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" did a short recap of our recent federal election. Pay particular attention to his characterization of the Canadian conservative party.

Enjoy . . . .





(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Damn . . . .

David Eby lost by 17 votes his bid to run for Vancouver city council on the Vision slate. There is a re-count scheduled.

An advocate for the Downtown Eastside's homeless for years, his contribution to city council operations would have been a welcome change.

His blog post on the results is here.

fabula's take is here.


A class act to the end . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Vancouver's Immigrants . . . .

In today's Vancouver Sun there was a full-page article on the most recent immigrants to Metro Vancouver during the 2001 - 2006 period according to Statistics Canada.*

I found it interesting that the 6th and 7th place countries of origin had an exact tie of 6,385 immigrants from each. The countries: The United States and Iran.

There's a story there somewhere . . . .


*(And the next time this is done, "drf" and yours truly will be included!)