Mark Hasiuk

Media helps fudge Pride Parade figures

(Vancouver Courier, Aug. 11)

Pop quiz: How many people watched the annual gay Pride Parade two Sundays ago in the West End? Times up.

If you follow local mainstream media, you probably said between 600,000 and 700,000 people. (CTV reported 700,000. So did News 1130. Our city's two big dailies--the Province and the Sun--reported 600,000 as did the Courier.) 

Big numbers, apparently postulated by the Pride Society, the parade organizers and political tour de force in the city's West End. According to Pride president Ken Coolen, this year 650,000 people watched the parade and 125,000 attended the Pride festival. The Pride website claims "over 700,000 people" attended last year's event.

Big numbers mean big business. Year round, Coolen and company quote impressive attendance figures while flogging ad space on parade brochures and banners, courting major sponsors such as Pepsi, Bud Light and Telus. This year TD Bank assumed title-sponsor status for an undisclosed dollar amount. And what about those attendance figures? They seem a bit high. Seeking an impartial outside source, I contacted the Vancouver Police Department. Surely the cops know how many people lined the Pride Parade route. "No, we leave the crowd estimates to the organizers, as that's something they are very proud of," said Const. Lindsey Houghton, spokesman for the department. "That being said, I've heard it reported that the estimates were around 600,000."

Perhaps we require an outside, outside source.

Mark Robinson teaches mathematics at Regent Christian Academy, a K-12 private school in Surrey. Using news photos and television footage, Robinson analyzed the crowds at two major summer events--the Pride Parade and the Celebration of Light. According to Robinson, estimates for the fireworks crowd (250,000-300,000 people) seem plausible. The five-kilometre waterfront viewing area, which includes English Bay and Kits Point, boasts sections up to 100 metres wide. "Sure, if it's a good day and the weather's cooperative and people pack in there. Plus the boats come in as well."

However, according to Robinson, the much-bandied Pride Parade numbers are literally impossible.

This year's parade route began at Robson and Bute, horseshoed around Denman, and finished at Pacific and Bute. According to Google maps, the route totals 2.7 kilometres. "But I gave it three kilometres, which is 3,000 metres," said Robinson. "Of course you have crowds on both sides of the street so you double it. That's 6,000 metres of available space for spectators."

Now follow along closely.

Using a very generous two-and-half person per metre ratio, Robinson multiplied 2.5 (people) by 6,000 (metres). Answer: 15,000 spectators. Citing news footage, Robinson concluded that some sections of the parade route crowd were 10 deep with people while other sections of the route were less populated. However, to be generous, he assumed that the entire parade route was 10 deep. Ten multiplied by 15,000 equals 150,000 spectators. Shoulder to shoulder. No spacing. From Robson to Pacific Street.

"And that's being very generous, there was probably less than that," said Robinson. "It's probably closer to 90,000 that were actually there."

Ninety thousand. What about the 700,000 figure parroted by the media? What would that crowd look like?

"You'd be talking about crowds roughly 47 deep on both sides, crowds that are physically impossible to be in that space because you're dealing with curb to storefront."

By the way, a crowd of 700,000 equals 37 sold out Canuck games or 12 packed BC Places. We experienced crowds like that last February. We called it the Olympics.

But don't blame the Pride Society—facts aren't their responsibility. They care more about bamboozling corporate sponsors and inflating the appeal of their parade’s shallow participants.  Blame Vancouver's mainstream media, which once again demonstrates an appalling lack of curiosity and a political correctness bordering on corruption.

In conclusion, more math: 700,000 equals nearly one third of Metro Vancouver's 2.1 million people. That's a lot of people in the West End for a two hour parade.

But hey, who's counting?

 

 

Two summer mistakes expose Mayor Robertson's attitude and intellect

(Vancouver Courier, Aug. 4)

The bloom's off the rose. The phantom's unmasked. The real Gregor Robertson has stood up.

Last month after a city hall microphone captured Robertson, mayor and party leader of Vision Vancouver, mocking a group of citizen speakers, a strange thing happened in the local media. He was criticized. Newspapers, television and talk radio expounded on Robertson's dastardly derision.

Of course, they had no choice. The audio clip was posted online for the whole city to hear (YouTube: Robertson, microphone). The mainstream media scrambled to catch up, and in our sound bite culture, the story was too juicy—and too obvious—to ignore.

Since assuming office in 2008, Robertson has enjoyed a relatively free ride in the media. Due to scant coverage of city hall (outside the Courier, of course) and Robertson's carefully crafted image as an environmental altruist with a missionary love for homeless people, his handsome face has remained unscarred.

Until the microphone gaffe. And then last week, more trouble. According to several media reports, Robertson, the fanatic cyclist and chief architect of Vancouver's ever-growing bicycle infrastructure, blew through a red light on Dunsmuir Street, cutting off a bus and epitomizing the selfish behaviour of Vancouver's worst cyclists.

Of course, these two incidents--the citizen slandering and the red light run—on their own mean little. But combined they reinforce what some have suspected all along. The mayor is supremely arrogant, and probably a little dim. And when shaping public policy and spending taxpayer cash, those traits matter. Big time.

If you followed Robertson on the '08 campaign trail, you know what I mean. His campaign speeches were empty fluffy things that hung in the air momentarily before disappearing forever. Follow-up questions were countered with meaningless platitudes, and while all politicians deal in talking points, candidate Robertson took the art of nothingness to a whole new level.

Now safely in office, Robertson rarely speaks off-script and grants few interviews. Compared to his two most recent mayoral predecessors—Sam Sullivan and Larry Campbell—Robertson is virtually invisible and unaccountable, hiding behind a wall of partisan councillors charged with explaining policy and taking blame. He's a plastic leader with a sneering disdain for public consultation and media participation—two prerequisites to a healthy democracy.

Robertson, a former NDP MLA in Vancouver-Fairview, also benefits from his supposed ideology and a deep-seated media bias. If he leaned right of the political spectrum, Robertson's intelligence—or lack thereof—would be part of an unfavourable media narrative.

But give him credit. While raised in money (son of a corporate lawyer, stepson of a wealthy San Francisco businessman) and blessed with perfect timing (an environmentalist who rode a populist green wave into the mayor's chair), he's yet to spoil the ride. He's smart enough to surround himself with smart people with money. For example: Joel Solomon, the progeny of wealthy mall developers from Tennessee. In 1995, Solomon invested in Robertson's fledgling Happy Planet juice company, liked the cut of Gregor's jib, and eventually helped bankroll Robertson's successful 2005 MLA bid and his '08 run for mayor. According to Vision Vancouver records released last week, despite Robertson's indignant public calls for campaign finance reform, the party raised more than $433,000 since March 2009, including thousands from Solomon's private equity firm.

Robertson must wonder at his luck every now and then--when hiding under his desk at city hall or during late night hours inside his renovated heritage home off Oak Street, peering into a glowing laptop, twittering whatever synaptic spasm wafts through his brain. In those private moments he also likely conjures thoughts of grandeur. Victoria. Ottawa. And beyond.

And who can blame him. At 45, he owns an impressive resume. While issues may puzzle, Robertson's sure of a few things. He's better than you. They know better than us. And being mayor is easy if you don't think too hard. "My style is to empower people around me," said Robertson, during a Courier interview last summer. "I'm a team player and I like to see people use their strengths. There's so many big issues the city has to deal with and I can't take all that on."

City council's 'green' zealots greenlight hot weather plan

(Vancouver Courier, July 14/10) 

They cooked the books. Bludgeoned dissent. Targeted skeptics and destroyed data.

Last November, thousands of damning emails and documents were leaked online detailing the serial molestation of information by researchers at the Climate Research Unit (CRU), a renowned global warming think-tank at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. The resulting scandal, dubbed Climategate, threatened the sacred script of global warming conventional wisdom.

Last Wednesday, in a final attempt at damage control, an inquiry (formed and funded by the university) released its Climategate findings despite three previous independent reviews. According to the inquiry, CRU manufactured "misleading" information and exhibited "a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness."

That was a generous assessment. CRU researchers provide key "evidence" to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the enviro-Vatican and green policy incubator for governments worldwide. Considering CRU's potential impact on public policy, and the malfeasance of CRU researchers, the entire East Anglia operation should be dismantled and buried in unmarked graves to discourage future vigils. 

But we shouldn't be surprised. The global warming industry exists on misinformation. Inside laboratories and think-tanks, science and advocacy casually mingle like patrons at a nightclub, spawning acolytes who play fast and loose with facts while pursuing their own "green" agendas.

For example. Our current city council--led by two Generation X graduates, Vision Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vision Coun. Andrea Reimer--represents Vancouver's first green government of the new millennium. Robertson's successful '08 mayoral campaign was so flamboyantly green it bordered on satire. Reimer, a Green Party refugee, cut her teeth as a public speaker flogging copies of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

Both nodded approvingly last Tuesday inside council chambers as Jennifer Standeven, the city's assistant director of business operations, outlined plans for a so-called Extreme Hot Weather Preparedness and Response Plan. 

From the lectern, Standeven, a matronly and bespectacled bureaucrat, proclaimed that last summer's record-high temperatures in Vancouver will continue for "at least the next couple of decades." And last summer's heatwave killed "150 to 200 people" in British Columbia.

Seeking clarity, I contacted Standeven after her presentation and she emailed me her muse--an article by Tom Kosatsky, a climate change researcher (red flag! red flag!) at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. While Kosatsky's article highlights a spike in deaths last summer compared to other seasons, he's unable to definitively link those deaths to heat. In fact, Kosatsky notes (grudgingly, I'm sure) that B.C.'s Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport determined "over the past 10 years... less than one death per year has been attributed to hyperthermia or heat stroke, or otherwise directly to environmental heat injury."

For her next trick, Standeven dragged into council chambers the late Curtis Brick, an aboriginal man who died in Grandview Park last July. The heat, said Standeven, killed Brick. We must respond with an aggressive public awareness campaign.

Reimer agreed. "It's up to us to make sure that no tragedy like this happens in the future," she said, from her seat at council, "when we know we'll see more extreme weather and hot temperature events."

But wait. According to Owen Court, coroner for the Vancouver region, the cause of Brick's death has never been established. A coroner's report is expected sometime next month. Heat may have contributed to Brick's death, but nobody knows for sure.

After Standeven's presentation, council unanimously voted in favour of the hot weather plan. Expect safety brochures and emergency water trucks coming soon to a neighbourhood near you.

Of course, council's behaviour last Tuesday pales in comparison to the high-stakes fraud perpetrated by CRU researchers in England. The city's hot weather plan is more silly than sinister. Vancouver gets three weeks of summer, and unlike most other big cities in Canada, rarely eclipses 30 Celsius.

But both cases expose the "green" movement, which self-righteously claims high moral ground while practicing the gutter politics of hysteria and deception.

 

WISH Drop-in Society receives porn award!

Check out this great little survey making the rounds online. Titled the "WTF? The Alternative Entertainment Awards," it lampoons the ridiculous porn awards show in Vancouver tomorrow night (Wed, June 9). My upcoming Courier column notes that the WISH Drop-in Centre Society, a taxpayer-funded organization, will receive a porn award in the so-called "advocacy" category. Only in Vancouver.

Best body part:

Nominees:

1. Appendix

2. Knee

3. Chin

4. Arm pit

5. The Middle finger

Benefits the most from exploiting women in the sex industry:

Nominees:

1. Johns

2. Pimps

3. Tourism industry (hotels, taxies etc.)

4. Advertising industry (newspapers, Craigslist etc.)

5. Porn industry (production companies, porn magazines, porn websites)

Most absurd award:

Nominees:

1. TNT Adult Entertainment Award for Favorite Feminist Advocate

2. TNT Adult Entertainment Award for Favorite Sex Worker Advocate

3. TNT Adult Entertainment Award for Favorite Support / Advocacy

4. TNT Adult Entertainment Award for Favorite Academic Advocate

5. TNT Adult Entertainment Award for Favorite Support Worker

*TNT is a website dedicated to the Canadian porn industry. Their

awards event will take place in Vancouver on June 9, 2010. Send your votes to award@yahoo.ca.

Israel's high seas assassins

Today (Tuesday, June 1) the Rachel Corrie, a 40-year-old cargo ship from Ireland, continues full steam ahead towards the blockaded Gaza Strip, carrying aid supplies and 19 activists including Nobel peace laureate Máiread Maguire.

Israeli forces are ready, guns cocked.

On Monday, in international waters in the Mediterranean, Israeli commandos raided an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, killing nine and triggering outrage around the world.

Following the barbarous attack, three Canadian activists were pulled from the six-vessel flotilla and currently sit in Israeli jails.

Ironically, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Ottawa on Monday when the carnage began. He met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper then returned to Israel, forgoing a scheduled trip to Washington.

Harper said Canada regrets the loss of life but “understands” Israel’s “right to self defense.”

The Obama Administration, rife with Zionist zealots such as White House chief-of-staff Rahm Israel Emanuel, also failed to condemn the slaughter.

Meanwhile, 1.5 million Palestinians suffer concentration-style oppression in the Gaza Strip, which is subject to indiscriminate assault by IDF warplanes. The last full-scale invasion took place in January ’09 when more than 1,300 Palestinians—including 440 children—were killed during Israel's 22-day operation.

Sometimes I wonder what I’d do, if I was a Palestinian…

 

 

Smoked out

Well, they did it.

On Monday, the big brains at the Vancouver Park Board, the modern day equivalent of the Roman Senate, voted to ban smoking on beaches, parks and public greenspaces.

The ban goes into effect Sept. 1. Punitive details—enforcement procedures, fine dollar amounts—are yet to be determined.

Vision Vancouver commissioner Raj Hundal, the driving force behind the ban, was well chuffed—and well he should be. It's not often a low-level government body, composed of skateboard activists and wannabe city councillors, can single handedly eviscerate the personal liberty of hundreds of thousands.

“I’ve been asked will people still be smoking [on beaches and in parks] after Sept. 1, and the answer is yes,” said Hundal, during an interview with the Vancouver Courier. “But if you ask me if the number of people smoking will be less after Sept. 1, the answer to that is also yes.”

Can this city get any weirder?

Vancouver's so-called civil libertarians

It’s been a great week for Vancouver’s so-called civil libertarians, who claim to defend personal freedom and liberty while attacking anyone outside their narrow worldview.

For example.

Due to complaints from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, headed by professional scold David Eby, fire officials will soon remove a mural of the Grim Reaper from a wall inside the Main Street firehall in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

The comic-book style mural features a bloody syringe above the words, "It's not the end of the world, but we can see it from here." The mural was painted 15 years ago and is visible from outside the building.

Eby said the image lacked “sensitivity” to neighbourhood residents who struggle with addiction and doesn't think the Grim Reaper is an appropriate symbol for the fire department.

(Note: The Law Foundation of British Columbia funds the BCCLA. When writing cheques, is this the type of “action” the foundation has in mind?)

Of course, Eby failed to recognize the gallows humour of the mural and the constant stress experienced by Downtown Eastside first responders. The firehall in question responded to 500 calls last month—most of them medical, meaning drug overdoses—making it the busiest firehall in North America. If Eby and his cohorts did more to liberate the neighbourhood from drugs, rather than protecting the “rights” of drug dealers, that number would be much lower.

But that’s beside the point.

Eby’s silly campaign against the firehall highlight the absurd nature of his organization and the dearth of common sense in the Downtown Eastside. Folks like Eby have bullied and intimidated the neighbourhood into the ground, and are more responsible for the disenfranchisement and degradation of neighbourhood residents than any firehall mural or police policy.

I don’t know what drives guys like Eby. You’d need a staff of psychiatrists to figure that out. But know this. Eby’s not about civil liberty. Not even close. He’s about Eby. He’s a white Al Sharpton, who searches for and exploits any “issue” that might grab headlines and enhance his profile.

Until grownups advocate in the Downtown Eastside, the neighbourhood will remain mired in misery.

In other liberty news, right now the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal is hearing a complaint from local lesbian Lorna Pardy, who suffered “discrimination” and “hurt feelings” three years ago after a stand-up comedian poked fun at her and her girlfriend.

The details of this case, which has already cost the defendant thousands in legal fees, are obscene and Orwellian. Google Pardy for the whole story. Oral arguments will be heard this Friday.

FYI: Pardy’s lawyer, Devyn Cousineau, works for Vancouver's Community Legal Assistance Society, which is funded by B.C.'s Ministry of the Attorney-General.

Bet Eby would like a slice of that action. That's how he rolls.

 

(USA) Israeli Occupied Territory

March 8: Vice-president Joe Biden arrives in Israel.

In a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden reiterates U.S. support for Israel and the Obama administration’s “absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel’s security.”

(According to The Israel Lobby, a book written by Harvard professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer, the Israeli lobby is the most powerful force in American politics. Through well-funded, well-organized groups such as AIPAC, the lobby owns the United States congress).

Calling the prime minister by nickname, Biden drives home the message—to Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Gaza and everywhere else. “Bibi, you heard me say before, progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel.”

Tuesday, March 9: As Biden sleeps in his Tel Aviv hotel room, the Israeli government announces plans to build 1,600 new homes in the Ramat Shlomo housing development in disputed East Jerusalem, a blatant and reckless violation of the embattled Roadmap to Peace.

Biden wakes up, condemns the timing of the announcement, saying it’s "precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel."

Wednesday, March 10: Biden accepts Israel’s apology for the “timing” of the announcement and restates America’s unwavering support for “it’s greatest friend and ally.”

(The U.S. gives Israel $3 billion each year in direct aid and untold millions in military hardware and training. Israel owns hundreds of nuclear weapons, in violation of several United Nation's treaties. Meanwhile, Palestinians suffer daily abuse at the hands of IDF members and live in concentration camp-style conditions). 

Biden flies home.

Thursday, March 18: President Obama cancels his trip to Indonesia so he can meet with Netanyahu who’ll be in Washington next week to attend an AIPAC conference.

According to the Washington Post, Netanyahu will tell Obama that the Ramat Shlomo expansion plan will continue due to widespread public support among the Israeli people.

How ya like your Mr. Hope and Change now?

 

 

 

Games spawn conspiracy, loads of irony

(Vancouver Courier, Wed., Feb. 24, 2010)

Five more days until the shutters go up, the Germans go home and Vancouver's two-week global party comes to an end.

In these final days, there'll be much backslapping--commendations to organizers and volunteers who helped make these Olympics "the most successful Games in history."

Volunteers like Angela Allen, a bespectacled and middle-aged wife and mother from Asheville, North Carolina. Allen bused in every day, in her green volunteer's jacket, from Surrey where she's staying with a friend of a friend. In eight-hour shifts, she helped direct media members to and from their hotels.

It's Allen's second Olympics. During the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, she volunteered at the University of Georgia's Sanford Stadium, a short car ride from Centennial Olympic Park where Eric Robert Rudolph detonated a 40-pound pipe bomb--killing one, wounding 111 and putting a serious dent in Atlanta's Olympic spirit.

Rudolph's doing life in the Florence supermax federal prison in Fremont County, Colorado. Convicted of several bombings and the 1998 murder of a police officer, he spends 23 hours a day in a small concrete cell.

Allen slowly shakes her head at such violence, and considering the raucous protests during the Games opening days, offers sage advice in her smooth Southern drawl. "Everything has people who are for or against it," she says. "In the States we have the right to express our opinions--I expect y'all do here, too. But it's important to be respectful of others and their property."

Speaking of the United States. And terrorism.

The vast media spotlight of the Olympics attracted countless folks hoping to garner support for their respective causes, including devout members of the self-described 9-11 Truth movement, which questions the official government version of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

You may have seen them around. White males in black 9-11 T-shirts toting black and white Truth banners, in the background of television broadcasts or distributing pamphlets on the street.

From the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, in his black toque and half-beard, 37-year-old D.J. Ball, an East Side resident and 9-11 Truther, thumbs his Canon XL-1 camcorder.

In between chats about Bush and Building 7, Ball has filmed several anti-Olympic protests with an eye on police malfeasance. So far, he says, the police have done an admirable job maintaining order. "They've been respectful and let the protesters do their thing."

According to Ball, the Olympics provide a perfect theatre for a "false flag" operation, perhaps perpetrated by agents of the United States or Israel, designed to justify retaliation against enemy countries like Iran. "We pray it doesn't happen, but if it does happen, we want a real investigation, not something like the 9-11 Commission farce."

The stars are aligned for a false flag, he added, noting Stephen Harper's prorogued Parliament and the jingoistic fervour surrounding the Olympics. "But if nothing happens it's all just a coincidence."

False flags? Mossad henchmen? Seems a tad heavy for breezy Vancouver. However, there's lots of misinformation out there, combined with the inevitable niggling ironies associated with a multi-billion dollar event.

The city's awash with patriotic red mittens and their "Made in China" tags. Fat giggling children cheer uber-fit athletes while swilling sugared water amid the red and white blur of Coca-Cola's Orwellian advertising campaign.

Faced with these hypocrisies, we wearily turn to those halcyon days two weeks ago, when a 22-year-old "aw-shucks" skier from Quebec City struck gold on Cypress Mountain.

Following Alexandre Bilodeau's masterful mogul run, a conga line of televised hairdos repeated ad nauseam that Alex's gold "brought the country together."

Of course, it didn't. Not even close.

Canada is an unformed thought, bound by two oceans and destined for partition. In 50 years, there won't be a Canada, just an amalgam of economies currying favour with Imperial China.

Bilodeau's a nice kid with sweet technique. But as flag-draped coffins routinely return home from a distant dusty war, drawing disinterested glances from a fractured and self-absorbed citizenry, the galvanizing magic of Bilodeau's gold dissipates in the mountain air.

So raise a glass for the Olympics, it's almost done. We got the Canada Line, they sold a million red sweaters, and bar owners on Granville Street reaped record harvests.

It was fun while it lasted but it's time to move on.

Doktor Feelgoodentag

I’ve been keeping taps on a mysterious character in the local harm reduction community.

Dr. Michael Krausz, the Hamburg psychiatrist and resident addictions expert at St. Paul's Hospital, is largely responsible for a four-year “heroin treatment” trial slated to start sometime this year.

According to Krausz’s diabolical plan, addicts will receive free heroin to manage their addictions.

A source close to Krausz notified me of a midnight meeting last week inside a darkened Farris Hall at UBC. It was a chilling scene.

Speaking before a wild-eyed crowd of supporters, Krausz outlined his plan for the final solution to Vancouver’s heroin problem.

“Do you vant total treatment?” he shouted in his thick German accent. “If necessary, do you vant a treatment more total and radical than any treatment ve can even imagine today?”

Krausz pounded on the lectern and accused harm reduction skeptics of sedition. “This stab in the back vill not be forgotten! Their day of reckoning vill come!”

Following his speech, Krausz led the frenzied crowd in a stirring rendition of “Das Deutschlandlied” before goose-stepping off stage and collapsing into the front row of spectators.

He was carried unconscious from the hall to a waiting black BMW, which tore up large chunks of manicured sod as it sped east towards University Boulevard, disappearing into the foggy night.

For more on Dr. Krausz and his heroin experiment, click on my latest Courier column below.

http://www2.canada.com/vancouvercourier/news/opinion/story.html?id=d496d6f5-d199-44ad-b75e-f1204ddd4212