The Secrets Of Vancouver BC, Canada

All This At $10 A Pack

Smokers have it bad all around in Vancouver. First, it’s a small fortune for cigarettes. Then, following the letter of the law, you should be smoking in the middle of the road.

There’s little patience for smokers as demonstrated in this video. The anti-smoking Nazi goes after a guy who’s smoking outside of a spot where they smoke pot without interruption.

You need to be 6 meters from a doorway to smoke… or, oddly enough, inside the Amsterdam Cafe.

If you really want to smoke, you’ll be safer taking in the Vansterdam Pot Tour

From the good’ ol days…

CBC Taxpayer Abuse

The CBC is losing advertising revenue quickly and will be heading to the trough… story here.

Now is the time for the government to force the CBC into accountability – they could use a page from the Democrat’s bailout of the auto makers and banks.

1) No bonuses for executives – CBC execs are public servants. Kill the million dollar bonus.

2) Deal with the unions. CBC employs 10,200 people paying out $771,074,000 in salaries and benefits. This means that the average payout per employee at the CBC is $75,595. Cut the salaries by at least 10% and freeze hiring.

3) Show a plan of profitability (or a year-by-year reduction of government cash). If you’re selling ads against the other networks, you should at least level the playing field.

4) Provide programming that produces ratings in the top 30 Canadian shows – and the only show CBC has that anyone watches – HNC – doesn’t count. (Actually HNC could probably be sold for a small fortune)

Better yet, Harper should tell them to go to hell… wait until their party gets back in power.

Let’s have a referendum on the CBC – decide if they are even relevant anymore. CTV and Global seem to be getting all the viewers.

I say lets split the billion we give to the CBC and award it in proportion to the ratings of Canadian networks we watch.

Seem fair?

More on the CBC taxpayer abuse story here..

And the BCB is looking to playing games with the government.

Plus – an ad that needs to run:

photo credit: Graham Ballantyne

Saturday Night Video

Best Jumbotron video ever…

Be honest – you’ve always wanted to do this.

Bonus:

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

On Thursday we had another “gang related” accident – a guy somehow fell off a 4th floor balcony.

It was the apartment of Daniel Lovric – a guy that has had more than a few run-ins with the law.

Vancouver Sun: Daniel Lovric, the resident of the apartment in the 400-block of Westview Street, is “well known to police agencies in the [Lower Mainland],” Thiessen said.

Last month, Lovric, 26, had five gun charges against him stayed, according to court records. Those included: unauthorized possession of firearm, occupying a vehicle in which there is firearm, possession of a prohibited/restricted firearm with ammunition, defacing a firearm serial number and careless use of a firearm.

The Vancouver Sun has learned that Lovric is associated with one man wounded during a wild shootout at Richmond’s Dover Park in January 2007.

Lovric was also charged Dec. 12, 2008 with breaching conditions, but that charge was stayed Jan. 23 — the same day the firearms charges laid in January 2008 were dropped.

His associate, Sahand Askari, was one of three men shot during the Dover Park battle of 2007, during which more than 150 rounds from automatic weapons were fired in a popular neighbourhood green space by at least six suspects who had gathered. No one was ever charged, though police traced some of the guns back to a company with a licence to rent guns as movie props.

A suspect in the Dover Park case, Matin Pouyan was targeted in a Kitsilano shooting Feb. 8. He survived despite being hit six times in the parking lot of a Marketplace IGA about 11 p.m. that night — just as the store was closing.

Pouyan pleaded guilty to a gun charge in September 2007 after being caught with a gun in a car two weeks after the Dover Park incident.

So the gun laws we have in Canada that our judges refuse to enforce, haven’t slowed down these creeps at all. Why doesn’t it translate into jail time? Why do our judges continue to grant bail and drop charges?

You could make the case that our court system is aiding and abetting gang activity.

Right now our police Chief  is pushing for a “30 strikes and you’re out” law. Vancouver police are currently monitoring 379 chronic offenders, including 27 “super chronics.” The top 25 per cent have more than 54 convictions and the top 10 per cent more than 77. Six offenders have more than 100 convictions.

You’d think that after 5 or 10 convictions, maybe even 20,  you’d at least get a visit to jail.

You can thank Liberal Restorative Justice for the current situation we face in Vancouver.

photo credit: I am I.A.M.

The Winter Olympics Just Got More Expensive

Vancouver’s credit status drops to lowest recorded level

Globe and Mail: A prominent credit-rating agency has downgraded Vancouver’s credit status to its lowest level since the firm started assessing the city in 1994.

DBRS said the one notch dip in the city’s rating from AA (high) to AA was a direct result of its decision to begin borrowing money to bail out the beleaguered, billion-dollar Olympic Village project.

Downward pressure on Vancouver’s new rating could continue for another 12 to 18 months, the agency added.

The city has already coughed up more than $450-million and is currently negotiating with Canadian banks to provide as much as another $400-million or so to finish the development in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

A report released yesterday by Moody’s predicted that the city’s debt will increase to about 120 per cent of operating revenue during the next two years because of financial obligations to the Olympic Village development.

Add in the billion dollar security oversight, and we’re now into some real trouble.

The games are projected to cost over $6 Billion now. Say hello to higher property taxes for years to come.

The National Post has a great article on the cost of the games here.

photo credit: TravisTruman

Saturday Funny – Ad Of The Week

This should catch on in BC, where we spend more than any other province.

Acorn Moves To Breaking And Entering

The Obama Voter’s mooching is now moving to a new level. Acorn has turned to outright thuggery, and is now breaking into foreclosed homes.

The video of Bertha Lewis, Executive Director of the New York Acorn branch demonstrates how irrational these folks are.

Acorn, and the democrats that enable them, are at the root of the home crisis.

Encouraging  break and enter tactics is their next product, as forcing banks into giving mortgages is no longer an option.

This will come back to bite them, hopefully forcing them out of existence.

More at Flopping Aces

That Other Tiger Woods Guy

Thankfully the real Great One is returning. And not a moment too soon.

I think it’s awesome,” Kenny Perry said Wednesday. “The economy is down. We need something to boost us up.”

Woods downplayed his role as “a stimulus package” for golf.

“This was the time to get back and play again.”

Woods, who is scheduled to play Australian Brendan Jones on Wednesday, cited not only recovery from knee surgery but also family concerns for the timing of his return.

I wanted to make sure the family was all good,” he said while admitting he might have come back earlier if not for the birth Feb. 8 of Charlie Axel Woods, the second child for him and wife Elin.

Welcome back Tiger…

photo credit: stevenjude

Is The Declining Pot Market Behind The Killings?

Twelve shootings in 16 days in Vancouver:

Darryl Plecas, a criminology professor at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C., said the increase in shootings can be linked to the drug market’s very own recession.

“The drug market exploded up until a couple of years ago, which explains why all of a sudden we had so many gangs, so many people wanting to get in on the action,” Plecas said.

But in the last couple of years that drug market has shrunk, he said.

“So if you have more people vying for the same market share, then we should expect there’s going to be turf wars going on.”

On Tuesday, federal Solicitor General Peter Van Loan labelled Metro Vancouver the country’s gang capital.

Plecas said that’s not surprising.

“This is where the grows (marijuana growing operations) started. You can’t have 20,000 plus grows and not have some fallout,” he said.

Robert Gordon, director of the criminology department at Simon Fraser University, said Metro Vancouver’s geographical location plays a major role in organized crime activity.

“We’ve evolved into one of the more lucrative marijuana production regions in North America,” he said. “Some of that has to do with climate but a lot of it has to do with simply our position on the coast and in particular, being in close proximity to the U.S. border.”

He said the marijuana industry has flourished in the Metro Vancouver area.

Gordon said the illegal drug trade in the region was destabilized when police cracked down on one particular group located in the Fraser Valley.

“That would have created a vacuum in the industry,” he said. “There may be manoeuvring going on to grab market share.”

This should give ammo to the argument on legalizing marijuana…

It might be time to let the professional gangs handle the sales – The BC Liquor Control Board.

photo credit: splifr