Canuckleheads - The Real Thing

OneGreatCountry
CaptainJackVille

A sneak preview of a couple tunes from the long-awaited, soon-to-be-released Weakerthans albabasterpalooza is now available through the Radio3 website.

'Civil Twilight' and 'Night Windows'......both fantastic in that way that only Mr. Sampson et al. can make 'em.

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Who Will Reform The Reformist Reformation, v1.1

GameEverything
ConVille

From those noted purveyors of commie-pinko news, The Bloombergians:

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who can't choose a new central bank chief himself, has done the next-best thing: stacked the panel that nominates David Dodge's successor.

Since taking office in 2006, Harper's government has replaced eight of 12 Bank of Canada board directors, instead of reappointing them when their three-year terms expired. New faces include William Black, a former official in the ruling Conservative Party's Nova Scotia branch, and Douglas Emsley, who worked for a Conservative premier of Saskatchewan.

Hmmmmm.....

Don't need elected MPs when you've got appointed liasons.

Don't need impartial boards when you can fill 'em with lackeys.

The courts......wonder when will they will start gaming those too?

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Who Will Reform The Reformist Reformation?

WhatKindOfConIsThisAnyway?
NeoStraussiansOnCrackVille

With all the cries and indignation swirling around mayor-gate and other anti-democratic unelected 'Liasons', Declan from CAtO (the waterskeeter, not the institute), makes a very interesting point:

I never supported the Reform party, it's true, but at least you could believe they honestly wanted real reform, not whatever this so-called Conservative party is turning out to be.

Then again, Declan often makes interesting points.

Including pointing out that while some are saying that Vancouver is the most liveable city in the world others are saying that it is only the sixth most overpriced.

See what I mean.

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Clang, Clang Go The Jail Guitar Doors

PunksComeThrough
DoTheRightThingVille

It always amazes me when artists, athletes, actors, or even 'gasp', musicians get smacked down for trying to do the right thing.

After all, what could people like that possibly have to add to our civil society when we've got a creme de la creme of used car salesmen, real estate agents, oil oligarchs, spooks, and a guy who was handed a baseball team by his Poppy's friends running the world.

But there is no way the smear merchants, the screamers, or even Rex Murphy, can win when musicians use music to help their fellow man.

Which is exactly what Billy Bragg and Mick Jones are doing with a program Mr. Bragg calls 'Jail Guitar Doors'.

Jail Guitar Doors is an independent initiative set up by Billy Bragg with the aim of providing musical equipment for the use of inmates serving time in Her Majesty's prisons. It takes its name from the b-side of the Clash's 1978 single 'Clash City Rockers'. In an appeal to fellow musicians, Billy writes:

“Aware that this year sees the fifth anniversary of the passing of Joe Strummer, I was hoping to be involved in more than just another tribute gig. Hearing the Clash as a 19 year old had changed my life, so I guess I was looking for a project that underscored the transformative power of music. Inspiration arrived in the shape of a letter from Malcolm Dudley, a drug and alcohol counsellor working at HMP Guy's Marsh near Shaftesbury in Dorset."

So - go give them money, or, if you have the connections, start bugging our own legends of lotuslandia to fire up a local chapter*.

OK?


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*Assuming, of course, that Mr. Keithley has gotten over that incident at the Gardens in 1981...
Credit-where-credit-is-due: A reverse tip-o-le-chapeau to Elizabeth Renzetti for her pro-j piece in the Globe.

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Were We Bushwhacked By Karl Rove's Mini-Me?

Pimpin'OurWoods
BeautifulBritishColumbiaVille

Don't very often do this, but.....

This post is nothing but a shameless, shillophantic rant designed to hype Will McMartin's latest piece in The Tyee.

Essentially, Mr. McMartin introduces us to a very fine fellow by the name of Ed Gillespie, a man once dubbed the 'architect' of Newt Gingrich's 'Contract With America' who is now being touted as Karl Rove's replacement at the top of the Cheney Administration's Top Gun Propagammon Machine.

So, what's Gillespie's connection with Beautiful British Columbia?

Well, to find that out you'll have to go read Mr. McMartin's column.

And when you do just keep repeating that famous Shrubbism from the 2004 debate cycle over and over again:

"Need some wood?"

Go and read Mr. McMartin's column - right now!

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Oh ya, and if you don't like the wood chant mantra, possibly because of the scary hallucinations of David Emerson pouring over the Anschluss Manual that it may invoke, you can always mumble something about pipelines if you are so inclined - OK?


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Surveillance 'Lite' Doesn't Hurt A Bit

TheyDoItAllForUs
NewConOrderVille

As the co-host of CTV's 'Question Period' and the Globe and Mail's 'senior political reporter' Jane Taber is watched and read by hundreds of thousands of Canadians each and every week.

So when she writes the following about the 'surveillance as freedom' it is difficult not to take note of it:

Summit (ie. government? Surete du Quebec?) organizers hired a cameraman to monitor the protestors so that the live pictures could be beamed back to the leaders at the Chateau Montebello during the two-day event. The TV monitors were set up in the hotel. This is consistent with the protestors' human rights and court assertions that that protestors be seen and heard.

Ottawa Notebook, Aug 25, 2007 (behind subscription wailing wall)

Now I'm sure Sandra Buckler loved that bit of straight-up stenography.

But the next bit is downright unbelievable.

"However, according to a summit (ie government? Surete du Quebec?) officials, protestors turned on the camera operator - who in effect was working for them - roughed him up and broke his camera. So he quit."


Now we are in no way condoning the roughing up of anyone, be it by protestors or black clad 'summit officials' in bandanas and boots (ie. we really have no way of knowing which is which these days now do we).

However, based on this little tidbit that titled 'Protest TV' in her column last Saturday we can't help but wonder if Ms. Taber also thinks that the Laurence Olivier/Dentist character in Marathon Man was actually billing Dustin Hoffman's character when he was ripping his teeth out and asking....

"Is it safe?"

Sheesh.

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For a grown up look at the surveillance = freedom issue in the NewConOrder, please see Klein, Naomi, who we're pretty sure is read by at least a few, maybe even ten, thousand Canadians every month or so.


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Never Mind The Bollocks.....

MaximumStrongmen'RUs, VolII
CheneyRecordsVille

......Here Come the Allawi Pistols!

Co-Starring:
Babs Chablabbi as Sid
Judy! Judy! Judy! as Nancy
Wee Philly Z. as the Malcolm-In-The-Middle-Of-It-All.

Number One, with a bullet, for sure.

Sheesh.

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Where And When Did The Police Meet the Protestors?

StockingUpTheInconsistencies
MoreAndMoreEveryDayVille

________

Update: Alison points us towards a second source re: 'where' (see bottom of post)
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We finally know the 'who' of the Montebello undercover police deal, but what about the other four 'W's that make up the central tenet of modern journalism?

For example........'what', exactly, were the undercover police doing and 'where' were they going 'when' they were outed by the legitimate protestors?

And 'why' were the illegitimate protestors/police doing what they were doing?

Well, here's the latest in a long string of 'official' versions of the story ('w's bolded, in brackets all mine):

Yesterday, a senior Quebec Provincial Police officer, Inspector Marcel Savard, said the clip shows only a portion of the events.

Earlier (when), the undercover officers had infiltrated (what) a separate group of "extremists" and one of them handed an officer a rock, he said. The officers left the group and ended up in a crowd of peaceful demonstrators.

"He had a choice, a very quick choice to make," Insp. Savard said. He held onto the rock because "he was still hoping that his cover was good (why) ... [but] he never had the intention of using that rock."

Which is fair enough, as far as the story goes so far, except for one little thing.

There was no 'where' there.

****

There is someone, however, who says he knows 'where' the three illegitimate protestors met the real protestors.

And that person is a citizen, Mr. Paul Malouf, who also says that he was there.

Here is Mr. Malouf's statement, directly from his website:

"As I was walking westward on the 148 through the town of Montebello: These 3 individuals were walking up route 148, going towards the main confrontation at the gates of the Chateau Montebello. They were confronted initially be the rouge/noir in front of the Crevier Gas Station on route 148. The rouge/noir told them to backtrack, to go away, to get lost in french. The 3 individuals seemed perplexed at being outed. The 3 individuals veered off to the right, off of route 148, to the quiet 2nd line of police on route 323."


Now, I have not been able to verify Mr. Malouf's statement with a direct second source (another central tenet of journalism unless, of course, one is planting stories on the front pages of grey ladies to start wars). Thus, at this point, it must be taken with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of caution.

However, Mr. Malouf's statement is not at direct odds with the first part of the statement from the QPP's Inspector Savard quoted above.

But the second part of Monsieur Savard's statement, the part about the 'very quick choice', how about that?

Well, for that we have to return to the 'when' and examine it a little more closely.

And to do that we head back over to Mr. Malouf's place to get a little bit more:

......they (the police) were exposed several minutes before before the video started , almost in front of the quiet train station on route 148.


Hmmmm.... 'several minutes'?

Isn't that plenty of time to make all kinds of very quick and/or even very slow (and deliberate?) choices?


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There is something else buried in Mr. Malouf's account that is worth considering quite seriously if it can be verified unequivocally. And that is the following: "These 3 individuals were walking up route 148, going towards the main confrontation at the gates of the Chateau Montebello". Now if they really were heading that way (ie. towards the actual business leaders and heads of states behind the gates), well that would be whole different kettle of fish altogether don't you think?
Update: Alison has a second source that pretty much confirms what Mr. Malouf had to say about the 'where'. And it is none other than Dave Coles, the labour leader from the infamous video who said the following during an interview on CBC Radio's 'As It Happens' earlier in the week: "I didn't know they were police right away but I knew they were agitators because earlier they had been trying to get the young kids down on the road to cause trouble." This statement was essentially confirmed by former police officer and crowd control expert Douglas Kirkland in an interview with Macleans.ca's Kady O'Malley posted yesterday: "in speaking with [Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union] yesterday, he really filled in a bit more of what happened before the tape started to roll. The Black Bloc guys had already identified them as probable police, and that's part of the reason why they were on the move back to the police line."

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The New Democracy?

AllYourMovementsAreOurs
SurveillanceVille


Why this business of surveillance being equated with freedom should most definitely not be trivialized........

Montebello, Year Zero............ Naomi Klein

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Also up at the Gaurdian's blog - where you can search/surveille the comments for nuggets if you so which (thanks to Enough Already)
Dana, at the Galloping Beaver, makes a similar point, and makes it well.
Picture at top of the post depicts anti(thetical)-protestors helping protestors excercise their constitutional rights by watching video images of them on computer monitors set-up inside the Chateau Montebello (screenshot from Canadian Press video).


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"Put The Rock Down, Man!"

WeShowedYouOurVideo/NowShowUsYours
ObfuscationForTheNationVille

_______

Update: Here is an apparent eye witness report of what the undercover police were up to before they got to the riot police line where the 'incident' took place. There are some heavy implications there if what the poster, Paul Malouf, surmises about their initial destination is correct (thanks to Dr. Dawg - again)

Double Secret Probation Update: Chet has an excellent, eyes wide open from the left-sided POV, analysis up at the Vanity Press.
________

"Put the rock down, man!" is exactly what police line-protecting protestor Dave Coles began yelling at the Surete du Quebec (provincial police) 'undercover' officer at the 35 second mark of Paul Manly's infamous Montebello Protest Video.

The image above is a still shot from the 39 second mark. It shows Mr. Coles pointing at the rock while he continues to demand that the masked man put it down.

The man refuses and then he lays out a pretty solid, chest high, rock-still-in-hand-shove-shot at Mr. Coles a few seconds later.

All of which could be viewed as somewhat provocative, if not downright 'inciteful'

But, according to the latest from the QPP that is not what was going on at all:

(Quebec Provincial Police) Insp. Savard defended the three agents and said they were not there to provoke demonstrators in Montebello, Que., where Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon met.

"At no time did the officers in question engage in provocation or incite anyone to commit violent acts," Insp. Savard told a news conference.

(....snip.....)

Insp. Savard acknowledged that one of the officers was given a rock by protesters but did not use it.

"One of the extremists gave the rock to one of our police officers and he had a choice to make," Insp. Savard said.

"He was asked by extremists to throw the rock at the police, but never had any intention of using it."

Alrighty then.

Yesterday, when they finally admitted, after repeatedly denying it, that the members of this band of bandana-clad banditos of bountiful non-belligerence were in fact theirs, the QPP mentioned that they had additional video evidence of their own that helped them make the correction.

So, perhaps they could show us some of that documentary video evidence to prove that 'one of the officers was given the rock by protesters' and was 'asked by extremists to throw the rock at the police'

Why?

Because, based on developments so far, it is not as if the authorities have given us any reason to believe anything their spokespeople say.

Especially in the absence of hard evidence (boulders excepted, of course).

_____
Oh, and the next time you hear Stockwell Day et al. dismiss this as nothing more than QPP-specific issue that does not involve anyone else, please refer to the following interesting press release from an even more interesting little outfit that calls itself the 'Unified Police Agencies'.


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My Favorite Montebello Website....

CitizenJ
AllTheWayVille


Listen.

I am no journalist.

But I am interested in how the process works, which is why I get involved in protracted (and mostly fun) discussions/arguments with folks like Mr. Ian King (and occasionally with more shy and retiring pro-journos offline).

And one of the things that almost invariably comes up is the point that bloggers/citizen journalists don't break stories but instead just comment on all the stuff that is generated by pros who don't let their personal views get in the way of their reportage.

And I understand that point on a whole lotta levels*.

However, understanding that point is precisly why I find the best citizen journalism so compelling.

Take Jennifer Smith's Montebello stories, for example.

Jennifer, as far as I can tell, has no strong affinity for any one group, but she is politically aware, and for a number of reasons she decided to attend the recent Ottawa and Montebello protests with her teenage son.

This is not something she does all the time as she 'reported'** at the time:

It really has been a while since I've gone to one of these things. I turned up about half an hour early, and there were already tables for the Communist Party, the Marxist-Leninists, CUPE, the Steelworker's Union, the Committee to Free someone whose name I've forgotten (sorry), supporters of U.S. war resistors, and a couple of guys with signs saying "9/11 Was an Inside Job". It was oddly comforting when the Raging Grannies turned up and started singing.

I was a little concerned that I couldn't find the Council of Canadians right away (they turned up later), but I was even more concerned at the number of disparate groups who seemed at least as concerned with pushing their own, often conflicting agendas as they were with fighting the SPP.

I guess this is how it's done now. Maybe it always has and I've just forgotten.

All fine and dandy, right, and interesting too, especially for those Canadians of a certain age (like me) who often feel exactly the same way when we show up at one of these things.

And then there is the way we feel when we take our kids with us.

Because I know that when I take my kids I want them to see that they can make their voices heard about things they feel are important.

And then there is that other important idea - which is that I want them to see stuff with their own eyes once in a while - free of the TeeVee's google-eyed goggles.

But......

When we go to these things together there is also the little niggling worry that something untoward might happen.

And sometimes, as Jennifer found, this little worry can blow-up to the size of the Stay-Puff Marsmallow Man very, very quickly:

As the march was wrapping up, a largish group has stopped by the fence, so I went to see what was up. All I could see was a cordon of police officers surrounding someone who was apparently being detained or searched. I spotted the top of the person's head and for about ten seconds I thought it was my son.

It turned out to be a different teenaged boy. The story floating around the crowd, for what it's worth, was that he was arrested for having a can of spray paint in his possession, which he had apparently been using earlier to paint stenciled picket signs. I have no idea if this was true or not, but they put the kid into the back of a police car and took him away with no violence and hardly any shouting.


And it is precisely that insertion of the truly personal into the reportage that I find so fascinating about Citizen Journalism.

And, as noted above, such insertions are antithetical to most professional journalism.

Which is why I like to pay attention to the best of both of them.

OK?

______
*But one level I do not understand is the one that prevents professional columnists, who have the freedom of voicing their opinion, from telling us what they actually know.
**It has to be noted that Jennifer does do some freelancing, which may explain her ways with the wizardy of wordmithing, but I don't count that as being involved in day-to-day pro-stuff.
Update: Certainly didn't want to suggest that Paul Willcocks is either shy or retiring - although judging by appearances (and performances - Go Rafe!) he appears to be a slightly different breed of pro-media cat. Regardless, Mr. Willcocks most definitely does have a few interesting comments to make about this topic in the, where else, comments.


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Provocateurs Unmasked?!

WhyNotJustHireMaxwellSmartAndAgent99?
MontebelloVille

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Update: At first glance it looks like a half-a-mama-mia-culpa attempt at damage control at best - especially the official release (see below).

Double-Secret Probation Update: So, how long before this guy announces that everything is fine and that this just has to be standard operating procedure when you're dealing with the evil intentions of unarmed-anarchist-labour-warrior -petition-bearers with digicams who are clearly pre-occupied with preventing provocations pre-meditatively?

TriplesHitWithoutBeingBornOnThird Update: Frank Frink, working at DKos and A Creative Revolution has really worked over the Quebec Provincial Police's Official Statement that we have below and in doing so has cleaned up the translation.
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Well, here it is from the CBC (shamelessly stenoing here to make sure it's all recorded for posterity):

(thanks to Larry Hubich of the Sask Fed of Labour)

Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

The YouTube video shows Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, ordering three masked men back from a line of riot police.
(CBC)

However, the police force denied allegations its undercover officers were there on Monday to provoke the crowd and instigate violence.

"At no time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit criminal acts," the police force said in French in a news release. "It is not in the police force's policies, nor in its strategies, to act in that manner."

"At all times, they responded within their mandate to keep order and security."

Police said the undercover officers were only at the protest to locate and identify non-peaceful protesters in order to prevent any incidents.

Police came under fire Tuesday, when a video surfaced on YouTube that appeared to show three plain-clothed police officers at the protest with bandanas and masks across their faces. One of the men was carrying a rock.

In the video, protest organizers in suits order the men to put the rock down, call them police instigators and try unsuccessfully to unmask them.

Protest organizers on Wednesday played the video for the media at a news conference in Ottawa. One of the organizers, union leader Dave Coles, explained that one reason protesters knew the men's true identities was because they were wearing the same boots as other police officers.

Coles on Wednesday said the only thing he didn't know was whether the men were Quebec police, RCMP or hired security officers.

"[Our union] believes that the security force at Montebello were ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and provoke incidents," Coles, who is president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, said at the time.

The protest at Montebello occurred outside the Fairmont Le Château Montebello hotel, near Ottawa, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The summit about border security, free trade and other issues began Monday and finished Tuesday.

Protesters said they gathered to voice their concern about Canada losing control of its energy, water resources and borders. Others decried what they said was a high level of secrecy at the summit.

And here it is, directly from the Surete du Quebec (Quebec Provincial Police), first en francaise:

La Sûreté du Québec précise certains faits concernant le Sommet de Montebello

23 août 2007

À la suite de la diffusion d’un extrait vidéo sur le site Internet Youtube.com, impliquant possiblement des membres de la Sûreté du Québec lors du Sommet de Montebello, cette dernière aimerait apporter certaines précisions. Après avoir analysé son contenu, en plus de prendre connaissance des vidéos enregistrées par les corps policiers, elle est maintenant en mesure de confirmer que ces individus sont des policiers de la Sûreté du Québec. Ces derniers avaient le mandat de repérer et d’identifier les manifestants non pacifiques pour ainsi éviter les débordements. Les policiers ont été repérés par les manifestants au moment où ils ont refusé de lancer des projectiles.

En aucun temps, les policiers de la Sûreté du Québec ont agi comme agents provocateurs ou commis des actes criminels. De plus, ce n’est pas dans les politiques du service de police ni dans ses stratégies d’agir de cette manière. À tout moment, ils ont répondu à leur mandat de maintenir l’ordre et la sécurité.

And here it is in English, from the Google Translator, courtesy of the Great Aunty Bertha (with a little help from the BoingBoing):

Following the diffusion of a video extract on Internet site Youtube.com, possibly implying members of the Safety of Quebec at the time of the Summit of Montebello, the latter would like to bring certain precise details. After having analyzed its contents, in addition to taking note of the vidéos recorded by the police bodies, it is able now to confirm that these individuals are police officers of the Safety of Quebec. The latter had the mandate to locate and identify the nonpeaceful demonstrators for thus avoiding the overflows. The police officers were located by the demonstrators at the time when they refused to launch projectiles.

As any time, the police officers of the Safety of Quebec acted like provocative or made agents criminal acts. Moreover, it is not in the policies of the service of police force nor in its strategies to act in this manner. Constantly, they answered their mandate to maintain the order and safety.

Me - I like the part about using their 'videos recorded by the police bodies', to aid in the identification - Ha! (see previous post).

And, of course, the part about their identification/outing when they refused to 'launch their projectiles' - Double Lord Ha! Ha!. (that'd be the 'half-a-mama-mia-culpa' part).

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The Montebello Video We Have NOT Seen

DigiCams?WhoKnew?
ProvocateurVille

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.....wee updates at bottom of post.....
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So, when, I wonder, will we first hear one of those myriad RCMP/Surete du Quebec/Public Safety/PMO spokesmodels say something like the following:

"We condemn any attempts to cover-up this case, no matter who is involved"

Which, of course, is exactly what Richard Milhouse Nixon, said publicly in 1973 just before the axe fell.

Of course, what really laid Mr. Nixon low were those pesky Watergate tapes that put him on the record saying stuff like this:

"I don’t give a sh*t what happens. I want you all to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up or anything else, if it’ll save it—save this plan. That’s the whole point. We’re going to protect our people if we can."

Of course, we are no longer limited to secret audiotapes to find out what really happened.

Because, these days, everybody has a digicam.

And at places like the Montebello/Anti-SPP demonstrations it wasn't just the protestors that had them.

So, in an effort to help clear up this thing about the identities of the bandana-clad belligerints definitively, perhaps reporters could ask the Quebec Provincial Police to release the video that was collected by the camera within the circle in the image at the top of the post (which is a screen-shot from the original YouTube video).

And if the QPP says 'Non!' now, perhaps some sharp-eyed, hard-headed young staffer working for the public inquiry that follows(?) will stumble upon this post after using 'teh google' 10 or 12 or 34 months from now and ask them again.....

OK?

____
And if we can't use video for identification purposes, we can always use Alison's milk cartons. They are really quite something.
Speaking of sharp-eyed and hard-headed, the link to the Maclean's Forum inquiry post comes from the always sharp and often hard Mr. King whom, I'm quite certain, will note that I did not instead link to this one.
Update: Folks, both in the comments and via the E-mailchain, have made the point that, if they are not willing to release the names, the Police are very likely going to be unwilling to release a video in their possession. And of course they are correct. However, the thing to remember is that, if a bit of a ruckus is made about it now, someone will be able to ask for it later if (when?) enquiry-assisted pressure is brought to bear. OK?
Not-So Secret Double Probation Update: There is no video involved, but this piece from Mat Mernagh of Toronto's NOW is the best chunk of 'inside the protest' reportage that I have read so far (and that includes both the pro- and notsopro-media)

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Stageleft Calls It........BootGate!

TheyGot(Yellow)DiamondsOnTheSolesOfTheirShoes
MontebelloVille


And Stageleft asks some very good, important questions about the alleged 'provocateurs/trouble makers' with the masks and rocks who slipped through a doubled line of riot-clad police officers during the SPP demonstrations, as well:

[1] Why were at least 2 out of he three trouble makers wearing boots identical to those worn by riot police? What are the odds of this being a coincidence?

[2] Why did the three trouble makers receive markedly different treatment from other protesters?

[3] Why were the three troublemakers unknown to others at the demo?

[4] Why were they so very adamant that their faces not be shown?

[5] Where are they now? Are they still in custody? Where?

Now, let's hope that those questions get asked, repeatedly (as in over-and-over-and-over again) by the pro-media, until the stonewall of the RCMP and the Surete du Quebec begins to crumble?

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And as I've said a number of times already (during those moments of above water lucidity when I'm not reaching for my snorkel), Joan Bryden of the Canadian Press has done a great job so far of trying to get answers to most of Stageleft's questions.

The Garbage Strike Conspiracy, Unplugged

There'sNoTrash
LikeStinkyTrashVille

......now returning to our regularly scheduled civic/lotuslandia programming......
(all the Montebello SPP Protest stuff is below)

I mentioned earlier in the week that the garbage had begun to pile up in the median of KingEdward in the Creme de la Creme belt (between Granville and Arbutus).

And then, yesterday, on my way home, I noticed that it was all gone again.

Strike over?

Are you kidding?

As for the folks who live around Fraser and KingEd?

Not so much.

(in the 'get out there and pick up that unsightly trash that is in full public view' department I mean)

*****

So, The Economist, has named Vancouver the world's most livable city.

Now given when the folks in the Econoline Van would have been doing their surveys it does make one wonder..... Should the credit go to Larry Campbell and his COPE council or Sam Sullivan and his NPA council?

Regardless, the true answer, or even the shades of grey, you can bet that Smilin' Sammy's Spam machine is already starting to crank up in an effort to paint it all black, or white, or sky blue, or whatever heck colour coding they've decided to push this week.

Can't wait for Rod Mickelburgh's next Spammylot report - they usually come out Saturdays in the Globe if I'm remembering correctly.

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