The Year of the Snake

Somehow the year of the snake doesn’t seem quite as dramatic as the year of the Dragon, yet I don’t think the snake has the same negative associations in the Chinese culture that it does in the Western culture. When we think of a snake, we think of a lying, back stabbing snake in the grass. Kinda like most of our politicians. However in the Chinese tradition a snake represents wisdom and good luck. Happy lunar New Year. Let’s hope it’s a good one. The Spring Festival parade in Vancouver is next Suday. It's their 40th year. Next up: Lantern festival and cherry blossoms. Gong Ho Fat Choy.

Cranbrook murder goes to trial

*OK this is a pretty confusing case. I'm going to have to do some more work on it.* John Garry Shanks becomes police informant. Well this guy looks like a real winner. Here we have a drug dealer in Cranbrook with an extensive criminal record and he’s the one that becomes the police agent. Go figure.

This case is the tragic story of a double murder in Cranbrook where they murdered the wrong people who rented the home after the rival drug dealer they were trying to kill moved out. It is of course tied to the Hells Angels. One of the accused Chad Munroe, was an associate of Mission Hells Angel Jason Arkinstall. The investigation is referred to as E-Portamento.

The accused were involved in the drug trade in Cranbrook. The object (of the murder) was to control the drug trade in the East Kootenays. The target was a rival drug dealer named Doug Mahon who had been charged with shooting Hells Angel associate Chad Munroe back in 2009. The trial is scheduled to continue Thursday.

Kelowna Pinheads relocate near school

After abandoning their fruit stand, the Kingpin Crew have relocated near an elementary school in Kelowna. That is not good. Perhaps they plan on using the kids as human shields against the next car bomb. Maybe they want to corner the market on stolen bicycles and lunch money. That sounds more like their mentality. Who knows what those clowns are up to.

When someone said they relocated to Mission I thought they meant here on the coast beside Abbotsford. Turns out Mission Springs is in Kelowna. So they’re still polluting the lovely Okanagan with their toxic waste.

If they were involved with Johnny Newcome’s stolen car ring, then they are a criminal organization. Surely the City can nail them on bylaw infractions since businesses need a license to operate and criminal organizations in residential areas would clearly be a zoning violation.

Speaking of Johnny Newcome’s stolen car ring tied to the Hells angels, prosecutors have slapped another 12 theft-related charges against him for possession of more stolen property including a stolen Harley. Rats, That is what they are. Stolen cars, boats and motorcycles. Low life rats.

MLA wants ineffective GVRD scrapped

I was reading through the archives of the May 6 1977 Vancouver Sun and came across an interesting article about the GVRD written thirty five years ago. It reads: “Delta MLA Walter Davidson has asked Municipal Affairs Minister Hugh Curtis to disband the Greater Vancouver Regional district as it is presently constituted.

In an open letter to the minister, the Socred MLA calls the GVRD a costly bureaucratic and ineffective organization. As taxpayers, we can no longer afford the stupidity and extravagance of financing an organization which refuses to accept even it’s basic common objectives.

The Socred MLA says Curtis should disband the present regional district and in keeping with it’s party’s commitment return to local government that authority which has been the traditional responsibility of local government.

The Delta MLA says petty politics have destroyed both the effectiveness and the credibility of the GVRD. In another letter, this one to GVRD chairman Major Jack Campbell of Port Coquitlam Davidson asks how massive expenditures of public funds on an organization like the GVRD can be justified.

Ironically enough, thirty five years later we have an editorial in the Vancouver Province expressive concerns about the GVRD now known as Metro Vancouver after their insane proposal to start a regional sales tax to fund their extravagance. Perhaps we should have acted on Walter Davidson’s’ letter thirty five years ago.

Normally decentralization of power is a good thing. Yet duplication, bureaucracy and extravagance are not. If a local mayor wants to create a municipal sales tax in their city, just watch how far that gets them. What we need is fiscal responsibility not reckless spending and insider trading.

To live and die in LA

On blog reader sent in this picture and story about how the LAPD opened fired on a car driven by two innocent women delivering papers just because they thought it looked like a car of a wanted felon. They didn't even match the plate number. There’s a whole series of problems here. Shoot first ask questions later is a violation of the constitutional right to a fair trial, as well as the protection from arbitrary searches and seizures. I don’t think they actually wrote in protection from arbitrarily getting shot by the police in the constitution, but the intent is clearly there.

“Two women who were delivering newspapers in Torrance, Calif., early Thursday were shot by jittery Los Angeles police officers who mistakenly thought cop-hunting fugitive Christopher Dorner might be in their vehicle, NBCLosAngeles.com reported. One was shot once and the other twice; both were expected to survive.”



“Less than a half-hour later, cops fired on another vehicle in Torrance, just two blocks away from the first scene, NBCLosAngeles.com reported. No one was injured in that vehicle, which was similar to Dorner's truck, police said.”

Clearly police are somewhat tense because they are looking for a former LAPD officer who has gone nuts and started killing people in revenge for being fired. It’s like the old stereotype of a disgruntled postal worker coming back to work to shoot his coworkers after he was fired. You’re angry about getting fired so now you’re shooting people. How is that supposed to get your job back?

In this case the former officer claims he was unjustly fired and wants to clear his name. If he was unjustly fired then that injustice can be addressed through the courts or public activism. Killing innocent people will not clear his name. It will just destroy his name even if he was initially fired unlawfully. Especially when he targets the family of former coworkers. There is nothing good or noble about that. It is the murder of innocent people. If a coworker did something wrong, murdering their family members is worse.

So we have two problems. An armed and dangerous nutbar on the loose and a past history of police corruption within the LAPD. Which in turn opens Pandora’s box. The Rodney king beating on video was but one example. We currently have an ombudsman of sorts in our new police watchdog organization who claims he has past history of dealing with police corruption in LA. The Mike Rupert case is another that comes to mind.

The blog reader who sent the story in has their own account of dealing with police corruption there. It’s a complicated problem that isn’t going to be properly addressed let alone resolved in one blog post. In Canada our problems seem small in comparison. Here we have police that will give someone the boots or flee the scene of a drunk driving charge. Which happened yet again recently in Durham.

Here in Canada we have a lot of police officers getting drunk driving charges. So much so it is clear that over all the police in Canada have a drinking problem. Which is why they should not have bars on site anywhere in Canada. Especially in Surrey.

RCMP officer arrested for child luring

Lindsey Bruno wanted for murder

February 2nd 16 year old Levonne Baptiste was murdered on the Samson Cree First Nation townsite south of Edmonton. Police have confirmed the incident was gang related and have issued an arrest warrant for Lindsey Bruno in connection with the shooting. Bruno is a resident of Hobbema, which is located approximately 90 Km south of Edmonton.

Previous violence prompted reserve residents to vote for an eviction bylaw giving leaders the power to ban suspected gang members from living in the community. The ban followed the death of five-year-old Ethan Yellowbird, who was hit in the head by a stray bullet while he slept in a home on the reserve in 2011. Three teens pleaded guilty to manslaughter for Ethan's death and are awaiting sentencing.

Two months after Ethan’s death, his 23-year-old aunt Chelsea Yellowbird was killed in a drive-by shooting. That case remains unsolved.

For the record, Godzilla lied. Again

This posted in this week’s Surrey Leader: For the Record:

"The public record shows, and City of Surrey staff verify, that Mayor Dianne Watts voted in favour of first and second reading for a rezoning application regarding a South Surrey casino proposal in 2010. A letter from the mayor published in the Jan. 29 edition of The Leader stated otherwise."

Godzilla wrote in and clarified her “mistake.” Gateway Casinos wrote in and confirmed the Surrey Leaders position. Grant Rice also wrote in clarifying the errors in Ms Watt’s previous claims which likely caused the Leader to print their retraction. Stop bullying at Surrey City hall. Oh no! They say she's got to go. Go Godzilla.

Old photo of David Giles

Here’s an old photo of David Giles a blog reader sent in from Kim Bolan’s new web site about the Hells Angels. They also submitted this other picture of Leatherman from the Village People and said they thought Giles looked a lot like him back in the day.

Personally, I think he looked a lot like Groucho Marx with those big bushy eyebrows. I know I made fun of Sean Wolfe and all these “gangsters” who spend all their time at Meryl Normans getting their eyebrows done. To each their own. I just find it pretty femmy and not very gangster.

Yet going to the other extreme there’s something called personal hygiene. Those bushy eyebrows are nasty. Trimming them would be totally in order. It just shows you how powerful the Hells Angels patch really is. We thought Giles looked like a clown now. Turns out he has always looked like a clown. What other organization on earth can empower such a complete idiot and turn him into something to be feared by the public? Every clown has their day I suppose.

Christy Clark get out of my facebook

These political ads are completely out of control. Now even Adrian Dix has started in response. There is nothing Adrian Dix could possibly have done in his past that could ever come close to what Gordon Campbell’s liberals have done and keep doing on a regular basis. This new tradition of political ads when there is no election is absolutely wrong.

During an election political candidates and parties run commercials promoting their cause. There are rules that govern how much they are allowed to spend on advertizing during an election. Now they are breaking those rules by advertizing when there is no election and using tax dollars to do it. Double trouble.

The cost of all of these ads need to be tabulated and subtracted from how much they are allowed to spend during an election. The political ads that are paid for with tax dollars need to stop. Taxpayers associations need to file a class action lawsuit against the offending parties. Top of the list is Stephen Harper and Christy Clark. Adrian Dix has just recently started to counter balance their attack ads.

This is fraudulent use of tax dollars. The most glaring example is how Christy Clark ran a political ad promoting herself during the previous Super Bowl. That costs a lot of money. Where did those funds come from?

Let’s face it, Gordon Campbell left office with the lowest approval rating in the country. Christy Clark in just the interim leader of that party trying to make everyone forget what a horrible job they did under Gordon Campbell’s leadership just like Kim Campbell. Only it’s not working because everyone remembers what the BC Liberals did with Gordon Campbell. Political ads paid for with tax dollars are totally offensive.

When are they going to stop collecting the HST? We already had the referendum. Yet they keep collecting the HST and keep spending the money. We need to sue the BC Liberals for still collecting that tax as well as for spending tax dollars on their bogus advertizing. Resolving the matter in the courts is the only way now because they refuse to listen to reason.

The other day I logged into facebook. I don’t use facebook much any more. There is a whole list of concerns I have with that service. Privacy is just one of them. After I logged in to my facebook I noticed the feed that shows you recent comments or activities in your friend accounts.



I looked down and see one from Christy Clark. Wait a minute says I, I know I don’t have Christy Clark on my friends list. Why is her profile page on my friend’s feed list? None of my friends posted it. It just said suggested site. Now this isn’t on the right hand coulomb with all the other advertizing, this is in the feed section.

God knows Christy Clark has a million stupid facebook ads on the right hand coulomb of facebook. Again she is using tax dollars to fund her dismal campaign while she refuses to implement the HST referendum. This was an ad in my friend’s feed section that she obviously paid more for. This has gotten completely out of hand.

Commercials during election time are tabulated and subtracted from the politician’s allowable election expenses. Commercials when there is no election need to be subtracted from what they are allowed to spend during an election as well. Political commercials paid for with tax dollars need to cease and desist. Stephen Harper and Christy Clark need to be sued in court by the Canadian tax payers to get those tax dollars back. Right now they are committing fraud.

Regional sales tax: Time for some new Mayors

Local mayors feasting on poison kool aid got together and proposed a regional sales tax to fund translink. Two subsequent editorials in the Vancouver Province respond with it’s time to fire these mayors. I totally agree.

“Every single mayor on the Mayors’ Council promoting its latest long shopping list of new fees and taxes to pay for transit in the Lower Mainland should be fired by voters in the next municipal election. The current crop, apparently, is incapable of hearing what cash-strapped taxpayers are saying: No New Taxes!”

“Forget the parochial concerns of local mayors. The greatest argument against a regional police force is the performance of Greater Vancouver’s two existing regional agencies - TransLink and Metro Vancouver.”

“While TransLink’s habitual tax increases, never-ending budget deficits and lack of direct accountability have been well documented over the past several years, Metro Vancouver has slid somewhat under the radar. That needs to change.”

We all know who is supporting this poison kool aid feeding frenzy. Diane Watts earlier said that having a toll on the Port Mann bridge is not fair so we should toll everything. That was the most insane statement I have ever heard come out of any politician’s mouth.

Translink sucks. They keep charging more and going further into debt. So what’s their answer? Keep spending more money they don’t have by building more sky train lines and keep going further in debt. That is bad business. Yes big cities have good subway systems. Yet any business that operates on the honor system will not last long in the real world and that is exactly what we are seeing.

They’re just starting to put in turnstiles finally. That is long over due and needs to be implemented across the board. Free rides is bad business. So is subsidizing those free rides with tax dollars.

Not long ago a report was published saying that bus drivers have a button they push every time someone gets on without paying the fare. It was pushed 2.5 million times in one year. Once again that is bad business. Giving away free services then wondering why it’s in debt. Fares are expensive. Fare evasion needs to be addressed.

They already have a regional gas tax. Look at the difference in the price of gas between Surrey and Abbotsford. That is criminal. It’s an additional billion dollars every year. Now they want more. I’m telling you, this Dianne Watts cult is poisonous and is tied directly to the days of Gordon Campbell. We need to wake up and smell the coffee by firing these arrogant mayors that want to tax and spend forever. Go Godzilla.