Fine Them

Kim Bolan raised some interesting points about the Vancouver riot. She recounted how the rioters that were caught vandalizing things and assaulting people at the beginning of the Olympics basically got off with all but one of the charges being dropped. No wonder they came back to do it again.

The other point she raised was about how the current judicial system is in such a crisis having laid off all those sheriffs which has resulted in trial delays and adjournments. Convicting rioters would be expensive and the current system is out of money. Or is it?

Let's think about it for one minute. Gordon Campbell and Stephen Harper know how dead set against the HST the citizens of BC really are. They are spending a huge amount of tax dollars on dishonest adds trying to get us to vote in favor of raising taxes.

Laying off the sheriffs and putting the judicial system in a manufactured crisis was a publicity stunt. OK Gordon Campbell isn't there any more but all his former cabinet members are. All his MLAs that unilaterally drove ahead with the HST contrary to pubic opinion are there. Christy Clark is just a poster girl to resell it like Kim Campbell tried to resell Brian Mulroney's GST.

I don't believe there is a huge budget shortfall. These are the same people that closed Riverview and closed seniors homes while they gave themselves two huge pay raises and the very gold plated pension Campbell campaigned against when he was initially elected. They are inherently dishonest.

And just for the record, the HST is very much the Harper Sales tax. Harper was the one that bribed Gordon Campbell to push it through in BC. All the CONservative MP's towed the party line by voting in favour of it. Donna Cadmen said she opposed it but ducked the vote because she wasn't allowed to vote against it.

Kim Bolan suggested that since the system is so over budget, we should drop all the vandalism and theft charges and just proceed with the violent charges so we don't run out of money. Hold the door. The system isn't out of money and setting cars on fire, breaking store windows and looting businesses are violent crimes. Rioters getting in fist fights with each other is a natural consequence. We cannot drop charges against people who set cars on fire and loot businesses.

The answer is simple. Fine them. Fine them like you would for a parking ticket. If they want to, they can fight the parking ticket but they don't get a free lawyer to do so. If they don't pay the fine they don't get their car insurance renewed. It's that simple. This would save a ton of money and might actually pay for itself in fines. Not only that it would be easy to enforce. If a thousand people broke windows and stole things a thousand people could get tickets for vandalism and it would be totally manageable to enforce.

As one poster pointed out, dropping the charges against those caught on camera setting cars on fire, vandalizing and looting businesses will only see the problem increase dramatically. Issuing City fines for rioting like parking tickets would actually work. It's no different that red light cameras. You don't have to get a search warrant to find stolen property. That is way too costly and time consuming. If they are caught on camera looting and vandalizing then fine them. However, I do agree that the villains caught ganging up and assaulting the heros that were defendign persons and property should be criminally charged to the full extent of the law.

HST Dishonesty

The amount of money the government is spending on HST advertising is shameful. Everyone knows that adding a 10% tax to something that was not previously taxed is a tax increase. The government wouldn't be spending that much money on advertising trying to trick us into keeping the HST if it wasn't a tax increase. Yet not only are the adds clearly biased, they are also clearly dishonest.

The HST is not 10% it is 12%. They claim that some time in the future they will reduce it to 10%. Yet once it's in there is absolutely nothing stopping them from keeping it at 12% or increasing it after they dropped to 10% for a few months.

Then the adds come out with the most outrageous statement in recorded history. Paid actors saying "I have no reason to believe they won't drop it to 10% like they promised." If that is not the most absurd thing I have ever heard, I don't know what is. Just because they lied to us consistently about everything else, that doesn't mean they will keep lying to us about dropping the HST.

Harper lied about not taxing income trusts. He's already forming a long list of proven lies. Gordon Campbell lied when he was elected on the promise to oppose the MLA gold plated pension. Forget recall. We need to hold politicians criminally responsible for breach of contract when they consistently break their election promises. Letting a politician get away with lying is no different than letting an anarchist get away with setting a car on fire. They are the same thing. Both are wrong and we need to hold both parties accountable.

They lied when they said the adds wouldn't be biased. Why wouldn't they lie about dropping the HST? Regardless, the amount of tax dollars they are spending on HST advertising is a scandal, a scam and a sham. They would send out a bogus survey asking us how we want to spend the increased revenue from the HST if it wasn't increased revenue. I tell ya one place I don't want them to spend the increased revenue. On more prisons for nonviolent crime like possession of pot. Or for enforcing a non patriot act that removes our civil liberties.

Important Lessons from the Vancouver Riot

I think the first simple but important lesson we have all learned from the Vancouver riot is that the police need locking gas caps. We all do. Locking gas caps has become as important fundamental crime prevention tool as the steering wheel club.

Who would have thought it was that easy to set a car on fire. These idiots weren't using petrol bombs, they were just stuffing rags in the gas tanks and lighting them. Locking gas caps would be a simple but important deterrent.

The other good thing we learned is that bragging about that kind of stupidity will see your friends turn you in which is wonderful. Setting cars on fire, vandalizing and looting businesses is stealing from us. Nothing to brag about. Reporting those idiots is automatic.

The next step is to enforce fines and civil damages for theft or vandalism. That's an important step. If you're caught trashing something in a riot, you will be forced to pay monetary fines and damages. And if you're an employable anarchist who is out there to crush social peace while you scab off the system and live off welfare, you just got cut off and disqualified yourself for social assistance. Bye bye. Welfare is an important safety net for the down trodden, but not for those employable men who abuse the system.

The other good thing we learned is that if something bad like that happens, the public can volunteer to help clean and rebuild. Something that would take much longer and be much more expensive without volunteers. Smurfs rock.

Bikers and Nazi's

I never really clued in to the association of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs and Nazi enthusiasts. The general public pretty much views anyone who displays a swastika as an extremist and a drama queen looking for attention. Young kids trying to go for the shock value. Wayne Kellestine liked Nazi symbols and confederate flags. He even danced a jig and sang the German anthem when he murdered the Shedden Eight.

Mom Boucher and Salvatore Cazzetta formed their own white supremest biker gang called the SS. Mom Boucher went on to join the Hells Angels while Salvatore Cazzettan went on to form the Rock Machine. The SS were Hitler's Storm troopers that were symbolically represented in George Lucas's Star Wars saga.



I'm kind of surprised at the Rock Machine's affinity for Nazism and the SS. On their facebook group they posted a picture of someone wearing Rock Machine colours with a SS license plate. The SS symbol isn't nearly as notorious as the swastika but it clearly represents the same thing. In fact a gumbie on the Rock Machine facebook group even used a profile picture of him wearing one of those girlie Halloween masks and a baseball cap with the SS logo on it.

Hitler invaded France. It's hard for me to understand how anyone especially anyone of French heritage would wear the symbol of the country that invaded them. It's rather bizarre.

Don't get me wrong. Germans are wonderful people. Their history and culture is much more than Adolf Hitler. Yet Hitler conned the Germans. At the time, no one really knew for sure what was happening to the Jews. First it was segregation. Then they started disappearing not to be heard from. People began to wonder but by then it was too late. What could they do? The gestapo were ruthless.

The point is, we can't blame all Germans for Hitler. Yet anyone who wears a swastika or an SS symbol now, have no excuse. They are knowingly perpetuating racism and intolerance. That is what we fought to oppose. Wearing those symbols now mocks the sacrifices our forefathers made on our behalf.

Yet the Hells Angels have even taken it one step further. They used to use the SS lightening bolt symbol on their Filthy Few patch. Until they replaced it with a skull with devil horns and the number 666. I kid you not. Grown men bragging about the number 666. Now that is really dumb. I really don't think that's something an Irish Catholic or a French Catholic would do.

Even more bizarre is the Hells Angels association with Nazi symbols and white supremacists on one hand and their exploitation of Greg Wooley on the other. They never did let Greg join the Hells Angels but they did let him join the Rock Machine so he could lead a Hells Angels puppet club called the Syndicate and the Crack Down Posse who supplied the Montreal crips with cocaine. So here we have white supremacists, exploiting someone of African ancestry and poisoning the black community in Montreal and getting rich off it. No wonder the other Haitian brothers were upset with them.

Small man syndrome

The Vancouver riots were very disappointing. Small losers empowered by the mob thirsting for their five minutes of fame. Yet times are changing and mob rule just isn't cool any more. People are ratting out their friends and making fun of them for being jerks which is a good sign.

Take Stephane Gillet. From the outside he looks like a really nice guy. You'd never know that by looking at his criminal history. He has this huge chip on his shoulder. He wants people to think he's deranged so he commits deranged acts of drug related violence. Even against women and children. Oh his fan denies that but even the French version of the article admitted he kidnapped a woman and children at gun point. The English paper just got that event mixed up with one of the many other violent acts in his criminal history.

Ya see he doesn't want you to think he's a nice guy so he overcompensates by doing bizarre acts of violence and the new leadership of the Rock Machine is goating him on. What a shame. There's nothing noble in a drug war. No one wants to bring that back. No one in Quebec or Vancouver. The public won't stand for it any more.

Even the Australian Waffler from the Rock Machine down under can't change the fact that the Rock Machine in Australia can't get along with anyone. They can't even get along with the Rebels. They can't get along with the Hells Angels. They broke off from the Bandidios after the Bandidio massacre in Ontario. They even kicked out their new National President and totally trash him who has since joined Vagos so they've burned that bridge too. So who can they get along with? Only the trained monkeys who kiss their ass and groom their frail ego. That is sad, very sad.

Drug wars are not noble. They are just about money and greed not honour or brotherhood. They betray their own for the almighty dollar. The good news is that people can see through them and don't think that kind of off the hook violence is cool so they are using social media to report them to the police. Welcome to the new world.

Making money from misery in Surrey

The Surrey Now ran a bizarre full page article about rogue recovery houses that prey on the addicted in Surrey. I know the Front Room is basically a drug house but that's a shelter not a recovery house. It is unwise to put a homeless shelter beside a needle exchange then give them in and out privileges all night. They don't even get in and out privileges at the Dell. As a result the Front Room is just a Provincially funded drug house where the staff are regularily abused. The Front room shelter and the needle exchange share the same civic address: 10667 135A Street, Surrey.

The recovery house scams are shocking. "There's good money in recovery houses; 10 clients will gross the operator nearly $6,000 a month and those who exploit their clients by providing substandard accommodation and meals can realize a tidy profit."

Corey is a 22-year-old recovering crack addict who lives in one of Robinson's recovery houses. He's been wrestling with substance abuse of one kind or another since he was seven. He spent four weeks in a recovery house run by an organization that has at least five houses in Surrey.

"They got $560 a month from me and it was pretty much just a meal a day and a bed to sleep in. I wasn't put on any restrictions and I was allowed to keep my phone," Corey said. He said within the first week of his residence there, he and the house monitor - the person in charge of the place - were on their way to a recovery meeting.

"While we were out, the monitor bought some crack. Both of us were using crack. After a while, I figured there wasn't much point being there."

Steve Burke and Charlie Morton both live in Whalley and both have bad recovery houses in their area. They claim the majority of recovery houses have more residents than the rules allow, are poorly managed, and are nothing more than money-making enterprises that take advantage of people who have fallen on bad times.

"We have more compassion for a dying seal on a beach than we have for human beings in our city. It's not right. I think the province is misappropriating our tax money, supposedly to help these people, and they're not doing anything."

Burke agreed. He said profit is the prime motive for most recovery house operators. "You can't make a profit with just six people in that house. You've got to have more people there - a lot more."

City hall can only regulate zoning and land use; it has no direct control over the recovery process itself. Nobody knows for sure just how many drug and alcohol recovery houses are operating in Surrey. Some estimates run as high as 200, but Surrey's mayor thinks the actual number is smaller.

"From what I understand, there are about 130 here in our city," Mayor Dianne Watts told the Now. However many there are, the vast majority of the recovery houses in Surrey - about 90 per cent of them - are not subject to provincial regulation and inspection and that's a problem. It's a problem for the city, for police, but most of all, it's a problem for their residents, addicts trying to get clean and sober.

The situation dates from December 2001 when the government of former premier Gordon Campbell changed the rules governing recovery houses. The Liberals amended the Community Care Facility Act to create a new class of facility called supportive recovery residences that are not required to have a provincial licence to operate.

In order to qualify as a supportive recovery residence, operators are required to provide "a safe and drug-free environment" for recovering addicts, but cannot "provide most or all of the services" required of licenced houses. The changes essentially created a class of boarding house for those addicted to alcohol and drugs.

In many cases, what it created was a network of flophouses where people trying to overcome addiction are exploited by unscrupulous operators who take clients' welfare cheques, but deliver little in the way of support or supervision.

The Morning After

"When evil men and women burn and bomb, good men and women must build and bind." Martin Luther King. Turns out the morning after the riot the volunteers are coming out to help clean up the mess and board up the broken windows. Three cheers. All the volunteers at the Olympics made that event a huge success.

Vancouver riot clean up brings locals and non-locals together. Facebook group aims to id rioters. "Prosecute the thugs." Vancouver Police Want Your Riot Video and Photos. Report them.

Anarchists on Crack

Handing out free crack pipes in east van isn't good enough for them. Now these fruit loop anarchists have to go and destroy a hockey game for a good city. Smash the Anarchists who steal from us. Report them and incarcerate them.

In Belfast the black flag didn't represent anarchy. It represented an objection to a social injustice. They would line the streets with black flags during an IRA funeral. They would wave a black flag when the Orange men would hold their parades of intolerance through Catholic areas of Belfast. Now the Anarchists want to crush social peace. These anarchists are the social injustice. Crush them.

The Stanley Cup Loss

Yes losing the Stanley cup in game seven was a disappointment. Even though that loss was completely overshadowed by the shameful after game riots, something should be said about the game.

Hat's off to Tim Thomas. He was a consistent champion. After getting our asses kicked so badly in Boston we hardly deserved to win the cup. Even though it was a long time waiting.

Historically, Vancouver has never really had a great hockey team. That's what made this year so special. Dealing with loss respectfully is an attribute of a die hard Canuck fan. It's irritating to see band waggon jumpers, jump onto the band waggon at the last minute when things are going well, then be the first to jump off the band waggon as soon as things go wrong.

Being a true Canuck fan means supporting your team in victory and in defeat. The Grizzles rarely won a game but we loved having them because we all wanted to see the big names from the NBA visit. Let's face it, we suck at basketball. In fact we suck at baseball and soccer too but who cares about baseball. That ranks right up there with curling and golf. OK Tiger Woods made golf interesting but without Tiger golf is pretty boring. Soccer is interesting so we still support the Whitecaps even though we never make the World Cup.

Hockey is the only thing Canada is good at. Well certainly not the only thing but the only professional sport. Yet the violence on and off the ice needs to stop. It is just a game. The on the ice violence in hockey is becoming like the WWF. Wrestlers have to keep outdoing themselves with more and more dangerous stunts until someone really gets hurt. That's not what it all about. Defending yourself is one thing but being a bully is another.

So I'm not going to burn my Canucks jersey. I'm going to still wear it with pride even though a whole bunch of lawless losers have stained it. My response it to find pictures of people committing unlawful acts of violence that night and identify and report them to the police. After all, this is our city and no huckleberry hillbilly is going to destroy it. Not if we have anything to say about it.

Lawless Losers

Well something needs to be said. The vast majority of Vancovuerites were outraged and ashamed of the childish idiots who seized the opportunity of the mob and rioted in Vancouver last night. That's the good news. Although it was more than a few troublemakers, the vast majority of the people from here were outraged.

As a result we saw a change in the response by the public. The public were not cheering on the idiots who turned over cars, set them on fire and vandalized stores. The vast majority were taking their pictures and reporting them to the police. This is a good trend.

One person on facebook bragged about all the things they did that night on their facebook status. One of that person's disgusted friends took a screen clip of that childish boast and posted it on a wall for the police to see. This is the social change we need to embrace to prevent being held hostage by a mob of lawless losers. Report them to the police.

When they burn a car or vandalize a store they are stealing from us. They're not just stealing from the owner of the car they set on fire. That hillbilly act raises insurance rates for all of us so in so doing they are stealing from all of us and as a result we as a people need to report that crime not hide it.

When these hillbillies break into a store or a bank and vandalize and loot it, they are stealing from all of us because the price of goods is raised to offset that loss. When they riot and vandalize things the increase policing costs us tax dollars so all that huckleberry hillbilly conduct costs us money. Do you think we are going to protect you now? Not likely. If you have pictures of people committing unlawful acts that night, submit them to the police. If you can identify anyone who was seen committing unlawful acts after the game last night, report them. That is your duty. The rats are the ones who were running around stealing from us. Only rats steal.

I will add that the vast majority of the idiots we saw causing problems last night were white trash. That is nothing to brag about. There were similar problems during the G-8 insanity in Toronto. A lot of people had a legitimate right to voice their concern and object to the extravagant waste of money on Harper's fake lake and fake promise of fiscal responsibility.

Yet the first day of the G-8 in Toronto saw many hillbillies from out of town come in and start rioting and looting. Like kids in a candy store they get all excited about the power trip from a mob and revel in their five minutes of fame compensating for their small man syndrome. We saw one real man on youtube do the right thing.

Yet the next day the police overcompensated and started beating random people who had signs instead of targeting the people they saw committing acts of vandalism. It's really not brain surgery. If you see someone throwing a rock in a store window or setting a car on fire, then you can give that person the boots and arrest him. You don't kick the cat and rob our precious civil liberties by giving random people the boots for exercising their democratic right to free speech.

In London England, they use to have a problem with football hooligans. Thugs who would exploit the mob and cause trouble. In response the police would stand shoulder to shoulder and confine the trouble makers to an area. Then they would send in the Calvary. Police on horseback that would charge in and beat the shit out of the violent thugs with truncheons. That's what I'm talking about. If you see them committing violent unlawful acts, deal with it.

There's nothing worse then seeing a line of riot police getting taunted by a handful of idiots embowered by the mob who throw things at them. When the police see a handful of idiots step away from the crowd to assault the police, that is when the line of riot police pick up their shield and baton and charge forward, past the handful of violent stragglers then reform a new line holding off the mob with the violent stragglers caught behind their line. That's when the police on their side beat the living shit out of the violent stragglers now caught behind their new line. That is Sparta.

When the police are caught on video beating an innocent person like Rodney King, the public are outraged. Yet people are equally outraged when idiots loot, vandalize and set cars on fire. If the public sees a violent idiot commit unlawful acts during the riot, then they see the police attack him with a truncheon, then the public cheer. It really is that simple. If you see him committing a violent crime, take him down. If he is standing there with a sign claiming his charter right, leave him alone.

Several months ago I spoke with someone visiting here from Chicago. He talked about the Chicago riots. He said he lived in the suburbs at the time and they were worried the riots would come out to the suburbs and damage their homes and property. He said they all had guns and took to the street and said if you bring that violence here, we will shoot you dead. We can argue about gun control until the cows come home. Those neighbours bringing out their long guns and standing shoulder to shoulder against the mob during the Chicago riots contained them and prevented the riots from spreading like a wild fire into the suburbs. All I know is if that kind of violence comes into my neighbourhood, my neighbours and I are not going to stand by and watch.