New Media

The top cop in the land, Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, has apologized to Maher Arar for RCMP complicity in his being sent to face torture in Syria.

That’s nice. But when are the heads going to roll?

Yes, US officials actually sent him to Syria. The FBI and the CIA are cupable. But the RCMP set this train wreck in motion when they alleged to their American counterparts – completely without evidence, as it turns out – that Arar and his wife had links to Al Queda. In the aftermath of 9/11, they had to have some inkling of what would happen.

There is a terror threat out there. Psychos like Ahmed Ressam (the Millenium Bomber) caught just south of Vancouver on his way to blow up Los Angeles Airport are even more numerous than before the 9/11 attacks.

The RCMP’s catastrophic screw-up just gives credibility to people who claim that the war on terror is a just a facade for a war on civil rights.

One nice perk of certain kinds of jobs is the opportunity to travel.

How nice for Vancouver’s Mayor, Sam Sullivan, that he may get to return to Europe so soon after waving our flag around Turino at the Olympics.

The reason for the European tour? A fact-finding mission to see how cities over there deal with their drug problem.

The only problem is, he’ll be going on the taxpayers’ dime – and so will politicians from other levels of government, if the mayor gets his way.

Here’s a fact for you before you head over, Mr. Sullivan: ever heard of the Internet? Or perhaps, the telephone? Why should taxpayers be on the hook for politicians to go slumming in Amsterdam?

This city does have a serious drug problem. Traveling to far off lands in search of a sexy solution is a bad move – particularly when free information and advice is so widely available from public sources already.

For example: How about locking up the drug fiends who commit 90 per cent of the crime in Vancouver instead of letting them back out on the street after a stern warning?

The Vancouverite is taking a poll on this subject right now: the results speak for themselves.

As anyone else who invested in Vancouver’s hot real estate market will attest, it’s a good thing to pay down the mortgage as fast as you can, in particular while times are good.

If you can’t pay down your debt in the good years, when exactly will you pay it down? That’s particularly true if the economy tanks or interest rates rise over the long term.

That’s the situation facing Vancouverites – and in a larger sense, people across Canada.

The Conservative government just paid down our public debt by $13. 2 billion dollars (according to Reuters newswire) after racking up an astronomical surplus. They also managed to shave a billion bucks off of the whole budget.

The Liberal response (as articulated by Liberal finance critic John McCallum): “If there is already an absolutely enormous surplus of C$13 billion, then why is it necessary to cut programs for unemployed youth, for illiterate adults?”

Good question. The answer? A $481.5 billion public debt.

Yes, Canada seems to be doing okay now. But the mortgage still isn’t paid off quite yet.

Time to call in the army.

Sixty Canadian Border Service guards fled their posts south of Vancouver today because a suspected killer was on his way into the country (See the details here).

There is irony in this, of course. But nobody’s laughing, since we now have a potentially armed and dangerous criminal on the loose somewhere in or around the Lower Mainland.

The worst part of it: this isn’t the first time this has happened. I can recall at least three separate occasions like this.

Even after high-profile incidents like this, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin refused to arm the border guards out of an irrational fear of being mistaken for a gun-toting Texan. Our Conservative government finally acted, giving our guards guns – well, sort of. The plan is supposed to take 10 years to implement.

Guns at the border isn’t “Texas-style” anything. Most countries around the world control their borders with armed border agents. It’s common sense. You need more than harsh language and pepper spray to keep some bad apples out.

Ten years? We should be able to do this in less than 10 months.

Sure, it’s disgusting. But is it art?

The Body Worlds 3 exhibit has been running at Vancouver’s Science World since last week. It runs until after New Years Day.

That’s definitely long enough that I can’t make the excuse that I was too busy. Still, I just don’t know if I’m going to end up seeing it.

Flayed corpses plastinated and placed in lifelike poses might just be too much for my stomach to handle. Possibly, I could go around Halloween time and temporarily trick myself into thinking they’re just B-movie props.

Maybe there’s another component to my hesitation. The sacrilegious angle doesn’t offend me. But even without an all seeing creator, isn’t there an intrinsic dignity to human beings that is disrespected by this kind of exhibit? My experience in 8th grade biology class says, no. Still, something about it puts me off.

Yes, I can see the educational value in such an exhibit. What better way could one demonstrate the human condition?

For those locals with stronger stomachs who are also thinking about going to the exhibit but don’t really know what to expect, or for anyone wanting to learn more about Dr. Gunther von Hagens’ work, I’ve posted a video above.

Enjoy. Or not.