Tell me, is it logical that there be legislation, taxes and licenses which prevent honest law abiding citizens from purchasing LEGAL items like liquor at convenient times of the day (ie after 7pm) at reasonable prices, when i can step out and buy drugs anytime, anywhere with little to no fear of prosecution.
Believe it or not, in Vancouver its actually easier to purchase drugs, particulary marajuana, than liquor. With the heavily regulated alcohol industry here, the state owned liquor stores run hours that closely shadow post offices. When ever you need some, there's never any store open. This is maddenning and ridiculous in a city where you can get just about any drug any where at any time. In typical fashion, again the innocent people are over policed and over taxed, while the criminals suffer no ills, and laugh at the rest of us.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Crime and the City
Most cities have their share of crime...but none of them seem to accept it so much as Vancouver does. Here because of the warmer weather out west we get more than our share of the destitute. With the destitute come the drugs, and with drugs come crime. With Canadas lenient laws which seem to do their best to put criminals back out on the streets again, despite countless reoffences, it seems no one is amazed and shocked that these people are free to run around and commit crimes, and the public are only to happy to accept it since, "well it was the drugs".
check this out: www.baitcar.com, a website setup by the authorities here to publisize a program to deter car theft. have a look at this one in particular http://baitcar.com/video/oncoming . This individual has 123 convictions against him between 97 and 04, and yet he is still not incarcerated!!! What are the authorities doing here to protect the innocent civilians??? This individual has stolen more than 1000 vehicles... and guess what his sentence was.... 4 years... and now guess what...he's writing a book!!! http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=a1d44b96-645d-468f-8a8c-65910351e4c1
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=46394c1e-a2fa-401c-8017-b18659a14811
And now he's made out to be some kind of hero... Lets not forget, he's an adult who made choices and endangered the lives of everyone.
Vancouver has the hightest rates of car theft in North America...resulting in the most insane insurance premiums imaginable. But wheres the uproar? Where are the activist groups? The funny thing is, I would be in more trouble if i were doing 15km/h above the speed limit, than I would be if I were caught selling drugs on hastings st here..... for me speeding would incur a fine or $100 or more, and possibly increased premiums on my drivers license. for a drug dealer, police pretty much just ignore them, as they operate on the doorstep of the cities largest police office on main st without any fear...
check this out: www.baitcar.com, a website setup by the authorities here to publisize a program to deter car theft. have a look at this one in particular http://baitcar.com/video/oncoming . This individual has 123 convictions against him between 97 and 04, and yet he is still not incarcerated!!! What are the authorities doing here to protect the innocent civilians??? This individual has stolen more than 1000 vehicles... and guess what his sentence was.... 4 years... and now guess what...he's writing a book!!! http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=a1d44b96-645d-468f-8a8c-65910351e4c1
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=46394c1e-a2fa-401c-8017-b18659a14811
And now he's made out to be some kind of hero... Lets not forget, he's an adult who made choices and endangered the lives of everyone.
Vancouver has the hightest rates of car theft in North America...resulting in the most insane insurance premiums imaginable. But wheres the uproar? Where are the activist groups? The funny thing is, I would be in more trouble if i were doing 15km/h above the speed limit, than I would be if I were caught selling drugs on hastings st here..... for me speeding would incur a fine or $100 or more, and possibly increased premiums on my drivers license. for a drug dealer, police pretty much just ignore them, as they operate on the doorstep of the cities largest police office on main st without any fear...
Friday, May 11, 2007
The road to Vancouver...
Well like the they say… if you build it, they will come. It seems in Vancouver with respect to road infrastructure, it’s almost happened in reverse. Despite the swelling population sprawling east toward the fraser valley, and the growing population to the north, the city has done little to nothing to address the ongoing traffic issues which now plague this relatively small city. Vancouver is small city, and while geographically we may be challenged by the many waterways and mountains that surround us, we shouldn’t have traffic problems as big as we do. I’ve lived in Sydney, (a city with between 4-5 million people) more than twice the size of Vancouver, and yet we have as bad if not worse congestion in major thru ways. So what’s the problem?
Incredibly poor planning and management by city councils, who have essentially ignored the issue to this day, in combination with over zealous activists who protest any rock you move, are largely to blame for the poor state of Vancouver’s urban road system. Vancouver’s residents are extremely willing to protest or raise up a stink about just about anything, roads, bridges and buildings. And the city has been slow to push vital developments through the bureaucratical processes and hurdles, ensuring the new suburban developments and the 10’s of thousands of new residents they bring have access to roads and highways. Particularly to those areas east of the city, creating a huge bottleneck on Highway 1 at the Portman bridge and north to the Lions Gate bridge, a major thru way connecting the city with North Vancouver, West Vancouver and beyond to Whistler.
Despite the infrastructure being completely inadequate by any standard, the activists have so far stifled any plans to expand the bridge (often claiming it will encourage people to over populate these areas).
Many of these issues should have been addressed in the late sixties, and seventies when most governments in north America were busy planning intricate freeways, bypasses and tunnels to divert traffic and provide adequate passageways for commuters traveling into and out of cities. But Vancouver missed this vital window in the mid 70’s and has done little to address the issues since.
The current infrastructure is barely coping, yet the population continues to expand, so the obvious question is what about public transport? You would assume if you were going to ignore the roadway requirements of a population, that you would do it in favor of developing public transport infrastructure, well Vancouver hasn’t really even done that. The city is pretty much void of a rail transit system, save for a almost ‘toy like’ monorail system which is little more than a hub to hub link for people living within very specific areas of Burnaby, Vancouver and soon to be Richmond. The bus system is a joke as you go east, and getting to your destination can often mean a series of complicated changes and lengthy rides.
In addition to the lack of public transit options, lack of roads, bridges and tunnels the problem compounds when the roads that are in place have been left to decay to a state where you actually damage your vehicle by driving through the city. It’s true, the pot holes alone are enough to drive all urban dwellers to SUV’s. The city seems incapable of making any plans or scheduling work, as one day they will lay a new road down and the next, some developer will dig it up to lay a pipe, then patch it again, then dig it up again, and patch it again. These points at which the road is patched are often the worst, as the people responsible for filling holes and repaving roads seem incapable of making a transition between two surfaces which when driven over does not result in your being ejected through your vehicles roof.
Now the problem is of course that the cost of addressing these issues, is monumental, as real estate and construction costs have surged, the city can almost not afford to address the problem, but can they afford to leave it any longer? One thing is for certain, people will continue to come to Vancouver, but the question is how will they get around once they get here?
Incredibly poor planning and management by city councils, who have essentially ignored the issue to this day, in combination with over zealous activists who protest any rock you move, are largely to blame for the poor state of Vancouver’s urban road system. Vancouver’s residents are extremely willing to protest or raise up a stink about just about anything, roads, bridges and buildings. And the city has been slow to push vital developments through the bureaucratical processes and hurdles, ensuring the new suburban developments and the 10’s of thousands of new residents they bring have access to roads and highways. Particularly to those areas east of the city, creating a huge bottleneck on Highway 1 at the Portman bridge and north to the Lions Gate bridge, a major thru way connecting the city with North Vancouver, West Vancouver and beyond to Whistler.
Despite the infrastructure being completely inadequate by any standard, the activists have so far stifled any plans to expand the bridge (often claiming it will encourage people to over populate these areas).
Many of these issues should have been addressed in the late sixties, and seventies when most governments in north America were busy planning intricate freeways, bypasses and tunnels to divert traffic and provide adequate passageways for commuters traveling into and out of cities. But Vancouver missed this vital window in the mid 70’s and has done little to address the issues since.
The current infrastructure is barely coping, yet the population continues to expand, so the obvious question is what about public transport? You would assume if you were going to ignore the roadway requirements of a population, that you would do it in favor of developing public transport infrastructure, well Vancouver hasn’t really even done that. The city is pretty much void of a rail transit system, save for a almost ‘toy like’ monorail system which is little more than a hub to hub link for people living within very specific areas of Burnaby, Vancouver and soon to be Richmond. The bus system is a joke as you go east, and getting to your destination can often mean a series of complicated changes and lengthy rides.
In addition to the lack of public transit options, lack of roads, bridges and tunnels the problem compounds when the roads that are in place have been left to decay to a state where you actually damage your vehicle by driving through the city. It’s true, the pot holes alone are enough to drive all urban dwellers to SUV’s. The city seems incapable of making any plans or scheduling work, as one day they will lay a new road down and the next, some developer will dig it up to lay a pipe, then patch it again, then dig it up again, and patch it again. These points at which the road is patched are often the worst, as the people responsible for filling holes and repaving roads seem incapable of making a transition between two surfaces which when driven over does not result in your being ejected through your vehicles roof.
Now the problem is of course that the cost of addressing these issues, is monumental, as real estate and construction costs have surged, the city can almost not afford to address the problem, but can they afford to leave it any longer? One thing is for certain, people will continue to come to Vancouver, but the question is how will they get around once they get here?
Thursday, May 10, 2007
More Taxes/Fees and Charges.
http://www.encorp.ca/cfm/index.cfm?It=925&Id=48
Yep, they've done it again people, the good folks in charge of solving our problems seem to only have one solution to anything. that is, slap a tax on it, then set up some monopolistic company to profit from and get rich on a poorly organized govt initiative, on the backs of BC's consumers. This time its electronics. The BC government have just established a new tax or fee on electronic goods like computers and tvs. The charge is $15 for a CPU and $5 for a laptop.
If you are like me, you dont buy anything here anyway, (i buy almost all my electronics in the US) i recently even purchased a 50" plasma down there and brought it back in myself, saving tax, saving hundreds of dollars, and now saving myself some communisitic recycling fee...
I am all for recycling and giving the environment a break, but this doesn't solve problems, all this will do is drive consumers costs up, and ensure that some politicians brother, (who runs the program) will profit and get to drive around in a car that their own education level could never afford.
make the business of recycling attractive, by giving tax breaks to companies who offer it, setup some compeitition, encourage industry and commerce to meet the challenges...nope all of that too hard, the easy answer, slap a tax on it, this year it's $15, in 5 years it will $100....when the lame asshole running the recycling plant can't do it on budget...
Yep, they've done it again people, the good folks in charge of solving our problems seem to only have one solution to anything. that is, slap a tax on it, then set up some monopolistic company to profit from and get rich on a poorly organized govt initiative, on the backs of BC's consumers. This time its electronics. The BC government have just established a new tax or fee on electronic goods like computers and tvs. The charge is $15 for a CPU and $5 for a laptop.
If you are like me, you dont buy anything here anyway, (i buy almost all my electronics in the US) i recently even purchased a 50" plasma down there and brought it back in myself, saving tax, saving hundreds of dollars, and now saving myself some communisitic recycling fee...
I am all for recycling and giving the environment a break, but this doesn't solve problems, all this will do is drive consumers costs up, and ensure that some politicians brother, (who runs the program) will profit and get to drive around in a car that their own education level could never afford.
make the business of recycling attractive, by giving tax breaks to companies who offer it, setup some compeitition, encourage industry and commerce to meet the challenges...nope all of that too hard, the easy answer, slap a tax on it, this year it's $15, in 5 years it will $100....when the lame asshole running the recycling plant can't do it on budget...
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