More Bunk Bike Lanes? Why?

Some yahoo at city hall thinks they are going to score points by spending a shitload of my tax dollars on more bike lanes. But this time they will be on Pembina Highway of all places.

Sakes anyways! We’ve been over this!

These crap Winnipeg style bike lanes are so dangerous. I am starting to think the goal is not to make for safer cycling, but to eradicate any and all cyclists within the City of Winnipeg.

It’s no secret that Winnipeggers have always hated cyclists. For those of you from more civilized places like Medicine Hat or Dauphin; Winnipeg has the most ridiculous bike ridership in all the land. I usually hesitate before I refer to any of them as “cyclists”.

All winter, you’ll see idiots on their bikes sliding on icy roads and trying to force their bikes through deep snow on all the main drags. It actually gets even better than that. We’ll have one bum pedaling a bike with another bum on the handlebars while balancing a two-four through the snow right down Main St. at rush hour. Hell, we get bums in stolen wheelchairs balancing other bums with a two-four down the middle of Main at rush hour! Last summer, I saw a bum being pushed across the street in a baby stroller with a two-four of beer!

Pembina has got to be one of the stupidest streets to have a bike lane other than say, Bishop Grandin or the Perimiter. We have too many accidents on Pembina as it is! It’s loaded with potholes that seem to get bigger all the time. What about the underpass? How can you expect some poor sap to make it down Pembina on a bike of all things?

Look at the ones they put in last year, they’re terrible! As I have already said, if you don’t have a helicopter to drop you and your bike onto the road, you can’t get to the bike lane! And then it just ends!

Wait a minute…… didn’t I hear on the news that the City is buying a new helicopter? That must be what its for! Of course.

OK then, it might be starting to make sense. If they use the new helicopter to transport the cyclists to the designated bike lanes, then fine. Go ahead I guess. Seems pretty expensive. How will we contact the chopper pilot when we wanna go for a bike ride? Do we just call 311?

I don’t see why we couldn’t have the bike lanes on the streets adjacent to the busy streets, but OK. Whatever, you guys at city hall are the ones who know about these things, not me.

Let’s Get This Straight

The Chavez government did not criticize Canada…..Peter Kent.(sharp emphasis on the “t”)

What he said was he won’t take any “lessons from an ultra-right government that closed its parliament to avoid an investigation”. I have no problem with that. Right on the money.

I think he alluded to the Conservative’s lack of give a shit when it comes to human rights. What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it true anymore? Seems pretty accurate from where I sit.

Oh, you think we all fell for that bit of bullshit Harper said about suddenly caring about “poor women and children”. Ha ha ha ha. Lol.

Newsflash, nobody bought that.

What else was there? Right, something about a government that lets it’s First Nations live in poverty. Ouch. Bet that stings, eh?

What I found most interesting is Mr. Kent chose the same scripted pre-approved statement to describe Chavez that Mr. Braid used last week to describe Ignatieff. “Mr. ______ is calling into question the conduct of the brave women and men in the Canadian forces”.

It’s nice that they could re-use that line and it didn’t have to go to waste.

I will say that Peter Kent had a much better delivery than Peter Braid. That’s his years of TV news experience coming in handy right there. That’s what that is.

What Chavez said yesterday was a direct slap in the face to the Conservative Government. ie; Mr. Harper and his lackeys. Not me and my friends, so I’m fine with it.

Besides, you can’t blame this on Chavez. Like the rest of civilization, he was used to Canada’s reputation as a nice place with a reasonable government. He’s just pissy about the Harpercons. I am too.

Welcome Back Khadr? Harper Says No Way

there are lots of photos but i couldn't stand to look at them

I can’t believe that I actually have to write about this issue.

We have all heard the name Omar Khadr off and on for the last few years, but I wonder if many of us have connected all the dots in this story. Allow me to do that now.

Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen. Really, that should be all we need to know about him, but there is more.

It shouldn’t matter which country or who did it. His rights have been violated, period. The supreme court of Canada ruled this week that his constitutional rights have been violated while he was in another country. That should mean Foreign Affairs will demand his instant return to Canada. End of story. If it were me or my kid, you’re goddam right I’d expect action. I’d be screaming my head off about it and so would you.

Under the Harper regime, nothing is that simple anymore, is it? All joking aside, Stephen Harper and his lapdog Dimitri Soudas are the biggest douchebags ever. AARRRGGGGG They both completely suck.

Just so you don’t all jump down my throat at once, I include Dimitri Soudas because he is the official spokesman, and when I saw him on the news regarding this issue I just wanted to slap him so badly. Mr. Soudas repeatedly said that the government will not ask that Mr. Khadr be returned because blah blah blah blah blabbidy blah. And so forth.

Let’s clear up a few things here, shall we?

Omar Khadr was fifteen years old at that time. A kid.

He is charged with murder as a war crime and terrorism. Let’s entertain that possibility for a second. If this happened in Canada, he would be protected by the young offenders act. What’s that mean? Well, for one thing he would have been in and out of a youth detention center in two shakes of a lambs tail.

During a raid by the American Army, Omar Khadr had a house fall on top of him, got stepped on by the American GI who found him, he was blinded and then shot twice in the back. That is the summary of his “capture”. He arrived in at Guantanamo Bay in critical condition. They hung him by his wrists anyway. Then they shone LCD lights in his eyes for awhile. That my friends, is the tip of the iceberg, there’s a whole lot more, I just can’t bear to get into it.

Reporters have been calling it torture. Where I come from, we sometimes call that child abuse.

The poor guy has been there for seven years. He’s a grown up now. He’s also the last westerner left there. Everyone else has been brought home by their countries. I have little doubt that he is right fucked by this time and will never be alright. He’ll need years of therapy at the very least. His lawsuit asks for ten million. I should hope so! It should come out of Harper’s personal bank account if you ask me.

Incidentally, guess who the Supreme Court of Canada says violated his constitutional rights? A Canadian government official. Proud to be Canadian now?