Robertson has stated his first priority is homelessness, as it should be, but the way he is tackling it should raise some eyebrows. In his own words:

“Job number one is calling together an emergency task force on homelessness and working on solutions to getting people off the street into a safe place to live as quickly as possible.” (Vancouver Sun)

Emergency task force? The homelessness issue has already been studied to death by the outgoing mayor and council. There is already a plan — actually, it’s called the Vancouver Homeless Action Plan (naturally). We don’t need more planning sessions to come up with ideas: We need implementation.

How about this? The cops escort social workers and medical health professionals into the downtown eastside and other affected areas of Vancouver, conducting a census of the mentally ill and the hopelessly addicted. Empower these teams to take these people off the streets for a more thorough mental health evaluation. Those found to be suffering from mental disorders making them useful only for the predators and criminals stalking their neighborhood are hospitalized and given therapy and a roof over their head. These people are to be released back into society only when they can demonstrate the ability to function without posing a threat to themselves or others.

That would be a start. Until the criminal justice system in this country allows local judges to harshly sentence the predators in our city that prey on the defenseless, that may be all we can hope for in the short term. But it would be a start.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

~John McCrae, 1915

1. America’s economy rebounds about a year from now, no thanks to the executives drawing down billion-dollar compensation packages that got the world into this mess.
2. Osama bin Ladin captured, along with the goat he’s been screwing in a cave the past six years or so. The Marine Corp deploys in strength to Afghanistan and the few remaining Taliban that don’t want to blow themselves up sue for peace talks.
3. US troops leave Iraq. The former stomping grounds of Saddam Hussein becomes just another out-of-the-way country no one but archaeologists and obscure travel writers ever visit.
4. A strategic energy plan puts America on a road to giving slightly less cash to regimes that put a significant amount of petro-dollars into projects involving dead Americans. Let’s face it, energy independence ain’t an option until the Yanks build a shwack of nuclear plants.
5. Obama gets re-elected in 2012 with an even larger majority.

I’m not American. But as I’ve written before on this blog, an Obama presidency makes me hopeful about a whole lot of goals that would benefit people beyond America’s borders — people like us.

I’m really, REALLY hoping the voting results for tomorrow’s election will be so monumentally clear that we’ll skip the contentious 50/50 split of the past couple of contests. Go, Obama.

Canada’s political commentators have been busy trying to figure out whether an Obama victory is good for Canada. Given that Canada is so dependent on a prosperous America, and Obama represents a break with economic policies that have brought a superpower to the brink, I’m certain an Obama win is good for our great country. I think the video below demonstrates my point:

Even better after you see the original. Genius.

These cops have come a long way from the upright ways of Dudley Do-Right and have started to resemble Vladimir Putin’s old pals.

From the Vancouver Sun story:

“This is just such an unbelievable set of circumstances,” Kosteckyj said. “We’re talking about 20 or 30 seconds. Why would it take so long for the RCMP to complete their report? It leaves the impression they’re delaying in the hope the public will forget.”

Maybe they’ve never heard of the adage that justice delayed is justice denied.

UPDATE: It just keeps getting better. One of the police officers accused of being involved with Robert Dziekansky’s death (”accused” being a fairly generous term for a guy caught on videotape) has now been charged with impaired driving in a man’s death (Winnipeg Sun).

These are the kinds of people the top cops appear to be covering up for? Yikes.

KABUL, Afghanistan — An appeals court sentenced a young Afghan journalist to 20 years in prison for blasphemy on Tuesday… The defendant, Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, 23, was a journalism student in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and worked for a daily newspaper there. He was arrested last October and accused of printing and distributing an article from the Internet about Islam and women’s rights, on which he had written some comments about the Prophet Muhammad’s failings on that issue.

“They may be sons of bitches, but they’re our sons of bitches”, is not an acceptable basis for foreign policy. The democratic government of Afghanistan needs to step up to its responsibilities to itself and the world and release Sayed now. We can help.

This is what we’re fighting against in Afghanistan: Pure evil.

This is what the world is fighting against, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere: List of Islamic Terror Attacks For The Past Two Months

Of course, being Canadians, we can’t vote in foreign elections. But we wish him well.