Sunday, March 16, 2008

Jonathan Baker Explains what to do when The Chips are Down


"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape being consigned to the ranks of the insane" -- Marcus Aurelius



Last Monday Vancouver used its full legal might to prosecute a student who threw a single potato chip at a friend. A bylaw enforcement officer saw it happen and the lad was charged with littering. The Law Department prosecuted and the young man plead guilty. The JP fined him ten dollars.



Co-coincidentally this all happened on the 150th anniversary of the invention of the Potato chip. George Crum, employed as a chef at an elegant resort in New York decided to rile an annoying guest by producing fries that were too thin and crisp to skewer with a fork. The rest is history.



March 10 was also the day that New York Governor Elliott Spitzer was forced out of office. FBI wiretaps revealed he had been purchasing the services of a high priced hooker.



Meanwhile, back in Vancouver, Ken Dobell, our most accomplished lobbyist, plead guilty to engaging in his employment without completing a required form. (He did not know he had to.) More, to be pitied then censured, he was required by the Court to write an essay about lobbying,
It was in New York, however, that Mr. Dobell's profession sort of received its comeuppance. On Wednesday, in the home state of the potato chip, a reporter bluntly asked Spitzer's successor, Governor Patterson if he ever patronized a prostitute.



"Only the lobbyists," he replied.



Then on Thursday it turned out that while Gov Spitzer had been brought to his knees, first by the hooker and then by the FBI, the hooker became an overnight sensation to more than the Governor. She is to be featured in a juried publication, Hustler Magazine! Her songs are the number one down load on the Internet.



For some people things just work out fine.




Regards,Jonathan




PS - I should have fit in the bank robber who was let off by the same judge who handled Dobell's case but I was already over the 200 word limit.

Justice Wallace Craig is Bummed Out


BRING BACK VAGRANCY OFFENCES
Wallace Craig - March 12, 2008 - North Shore News
LET’S go back to a real measure of punishment based on the facts of each crime.
Misplaced compassion overturns the purpose of justice. That’s what happened in the case of Darcy Lance Jones; a 20-year career vagrant “subsisting on the dole, panhandling and petty crime to support a drug habit involving marijuana, crack cocaine and heroin.”
On August 1, 2007 Jones capped his version of citizenship by venomously attacking and robbing 81-year-old retired doctor Peter Collins in Vancouver’s Holy Rosary Cathedral. On Feb. 28, the Vancouver Sun reported the measure of punishment meted out to Jones: a pretend jail sentence of two years less a day – house arrest – to be followed by three years probation. No steel bars, just words on paper.
The headline “Judge flays society in sentencing homeless robber” got my dander up. Did Judge William Kitchen somehow have two victims in mind?: One real victim, the other an imaginary one. Jones, who cleverly waited out the proceedings for six months to gain first consideration in the judge’s mind; and Collins, a kindly, old, law-abiding citizen who was effectively transformed from a victim of violence into a sacrificial lamb in order to enable a convenient rehabilitation of his ne’er do well attacker.
Shakespeare had it right; we’ve got it wrong. His sage words in Measure for Measure are the essence of common sense.
“We must not make a scarecrow of the law
Setting it up to (frighten) the birds of prey
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.”
If Shakespeare could visit our streets today he would come face to face with wandering 16th Century fearless vagrants. And he would shrug and say “You weak and foolish people; so long as predators have nothing to fear there will be no peace in your homes and byways.”
Judge Kitchen noted that “Two generations ago, there were almost no street people in Vancouver. If a person slept or begged on the street, the police would intervene. … Today in Vancouver there are perhaps thousands living on the streets and in the parks. They sleep everywhere – even in the doorways of the courthouse and police station. …Society created this situation. Law abiding citizens condone it and it has become the expectation of those like Darcy Jones. In fact it is more than an expectation; it is viewed as an entitlement.”
The judge is wrong! Society didn’t create the mess we’re in. Vancouver’s mess began in 1972, born of the democratic vanities and conceit of our federal government and the philosophies of Trudeau and his still-born Just Society.
Some history: After we became a nation in 1867 it took our national government until 1892 to formulate a uniform criminal law. The first version of the Criminal Code of Canada contained 12 situations in which a “loose, idle or disorderly person or vagrant” might be arrested and upon conviction subjected to a maximum fine of $50 or imprisonment not exceeding six months with or without hard labour.
At first, the offence of vagrancy was directed at being a vagrant. In 1954, the Code was amended to make vagrancy the doing of any prohibited act. Vagrancy offences were reduced to five, three of which dealt with street disorder and were quickly dubbed Vag A, B and C.
“Every one commits vagrancy who
a) Not having any apparent means of support is found wandering abroad or trespassing and does not, when required, justify his presence in the place where he is found;
b) Begs from door to door or in a public place;
c) Being a common prostitute … is found in a public place and does not, when required, give a good account of herself.”
The combined effect of the offences of mischief and vagrancy made it possible for police to control disorder on our streets.
Thirty-six years ago vagrancy A, B and C were repealed – altruism prevailing over realism – and disorder took to the streets with gusto. Once the shackle of vagrancy C was removed, an endless stream of vulnerable young girls made street prostitution a rat race presided over by sociopathic johns, pimps and drug pushers.
It was immediate and horrific – unshackled vagrant prostitutes became prey. Worst of all some began to disappear. One by one they vanished to become the 65 missing women of Vancouver’s Skid Road. Yet as each girl disappeared another girl arrived and took her place.
If the vagrancy sections had remained in the Criminal Code and been enforced, I am certain that the serial holocaust murder of our most vulnerable of young girls would not have occurred.
Wake up you parliamentarians! Restore vagrancy offences! Give police the means to bring order to our streets.wallace-gilby-craig@shaw.ca – www.realjustice.ca.

SUNDAY PROVINCE COLUMN


Mayor Sam's time is up

David Berner
The Province
Sunday, March 16, 2008


A recent survey posted on my blog -- with the results in parentheses -- reads as follows: The Nutty Mayor has done a magnificent job and deserves re-election by acclamation (2); is the worst mayor in Vancouver history (40); has been OK, but nothing special (10); lives in a world not known to other reasonable people (14); is entirely self-serving (14); is a prince among princes (4); should wear a red jacket and be a downtown ambassador (4); has the NPA by the balls (4); is my favorite politician of all time -- I get out in a few days (5); and other (4).


The "other" category includes three votes for "is mixed, with cashews," and one submission of "I would have to be declared criminally insane to vote for him again."


At a charity event this winter, a banker leaned over to me, as the mayor was addressing the multitudes, and said, "You know, when he was elected, I was very proud of our city. But it didn't take me long to realize that it's all about Sam."


Yes, it's all about Sam.


Take the mountain climbing. No mention of the 19 people who carried him to the summits.


Take all the answers he has to the drug problems, answers that almost nobody will endorse except those paid out of private funds.


Take the $10 million he claims the feds are giving him for his wacky drug ideas, a claim for which there is no reliable evidence on this Earth.


Take his fumbling attempt to first patent the name "eco-density," and then deny that he was doing exactly that.


Take the disastrous public relations mess in attempting to communicate the idea of "eco-density" to a wary public, which has now declared it "echo-duncity."


Take the hundreds of thousands of dollars he has raised, ostensibly under the NPA flag, only to use on . . . you guessed it, himself.


Take my mayor, please.


Not to worry.


Horses of various stripes are already chomping at the bit.


Peter Ladner has forced the mayor and his party, the NPA, to return ever so reluctantly to democracy and actually have an openly contested nomination, instead of the coronation they were assuming would pass unnoticed.


NDP MLA Gregor Robertson, Vision City Councillor Raymond Louie, and NPA Parks Commissioner Alan De Genova have already stepped into the fray.


Which brings us to Senator Flip-Flop, former mayor Larry Campbell, who has supported Louie, Carole Taylor and now Alan De Genova in quick order. Why do some people have written on their foreheads, "I must be a kingmaker?" Isn't it enough to enjoy the pension and the opportunity to be quiet for a change?


Ladner, Robertson or Louie would all make perfectly capable and inoffensive mayors in the mould of Philip Owen -- reliable, dignified to a degree and reasonable managers of the till.


Beats the heck out of what we've got now.



© The Vancouver Province 2008

The Crime File


1) How do you get a conditional sentence for 2 bank robberies? In Canada? In Vancouver?


This fool walked into 2 banks on West 10th Avenue and demanded $10,000.


I live near those banks. I shop next to those banks and I deal with those banks.


I want a bank robber in my 'hood to get a conditional sentence???


I don't think so.


I want his sorry, ignorant ass thrown deep, deep deep in to jail.


His lawyer said the man was desperate to provide food for his fiance.


Remember "work?" Remember, "Excuse me, Mr. Cafe Owner, please let me wash your dishes and bus your tables. I am desperate for food and work."


Puleeeeezze...



2) The Axe Man wants an appeal of his much-applauded 9 1/2 year sentence. Now this is chutzpah.


He clobbers a boy in the head with an axe, leaving the boy a quadriplegic for life, and he thinks being raised to adult court and being given 9 1/2 years is a bit much.


Try that in a few other countries.


I hope this appeal fails miserably.

WINTER SOLDIER


For the completely OTHER view of the disasterous Iraq "war," please look at this video and article in the Real News:




This was contributed to us by regular blog commentator, Murdock.


Believe me, you owe it to yourselves to see this.

Barry J on Drugs, Legal and Otherwise


Hey David,

Big pharma and depression solutions is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg with the big publicly traded pharma companies.

The drugs they produce have more side effects, on average, than any good they could possibly do.

As for harm reduction, I say follow the money trail, yup, it leads right to big drugs companies. If they can legalize drugs for addicts and keep them wired they have an extremely lucrative revenue stream. Problem is Joe/Jill taxpayer will have to foot the bill cause the junkies will be all to stoned to do anything productive.

Every harm reduction conference has a major drug company sponsor, places like the Dr. Peter Center for Aids gets huge grants because all the doctors there have been trained to chant the harm reduction mantra.
Even the schools where doctors get their training are heavily influenced with sponsorhip by big pharma and the doctors that come out of them dance to the tune of their harm reduction masters, merely salesmen for the big drug companies.

Guys like Campbell, Owen and Sullivan have been duped. Why because the money that is behind this from guys like billionaire George Soros etc. makes for a never ending barrage of one sided b.s. and harm reduction is merely a cover for drug legalization. Could you imagine 15 years ago having a free government sponsored heroin program in Canada, probably not. My point is they are relentless in the quest to normalize drug use and then legalization will be easier ofr us to swallow.

The sad part is problems related to alcohol and tobacco cost more for tax payers than all the illegal drugs combined. Why because stuff like heroin and coke aren't legal yet, if they ever are young kids whose young minds are very impressionable will be more inclined to use these drugs and addiction rates will skyrocket.

I studied history on this subject and every case in recorded history where drugs were legalized addiction rates soared.

Hopefully one day those in power will see it for what it really is, I doubt it though.

Barry Joneson