Seabus bomb scare

RCMP detonated a fishing rod in a tube mistakenly left behind at the Seabus Terminal in North Vancouver yesterday, so that's one less Olympic terrorist incident to worry about.

The suspicious package was discovered at 2:30pm and detonated at 5pm after city blocks were evacuated and buses, all CNR trains on the waterfront area and the SeaBus harbour ferry connecting North Vancouver to downtown Vancouver were halted for three hours while RCMP helicopter Air One circled overhead and dog and explosive disposal units and a bomb-diffusing robot combed the area.

The Province : "RCMP spokesman Const. Michael McLauchlin said there is no longer a threat to anyone."

Owelympics : Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of debt ...

Church Sign Generator - from the old internets

A Global TV news story on the International Olympic Committee's elevation to a special seat at the United Nations carried the headline :

Canada declines to sponsor UN resolution on IOC observer status .

Now why would Canada decline? 25 other nations sponsored it.

Over at Bread 'n Roses, Toe suggests this may have had something to do with it:

A memoir, written by a Chinese sports official, tells the tale bluntly:
Beijing sealed its bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics by trumping Toronto in backroom deals.
Behind the scenes, Beijing officials told European members of the International Olympic Committee that China would support the candidacy of Belgium's Jacques Rogge for IOC president in return for their support of a Games in China, according to retired sports minister and president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, Yuan Weimin.

The scheme worked to perfection. Not only did the Chinese capital get the 2008 Games, but Rogge was elected IOC president and not a single member of the IOC executive board was elected from Canada or the Americas.

CTV : "The alleged deal would have impacted Canada as Toronto bid against Beijing for the Olympics while Montreal's Dick Pound was running against Rogge."

Speaking to the UN General Assembly on behalf of Canada today, John Furlong, head of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games, said :

"Canada recognizes the power of sport to build sustainable communities, to advocate for equality, to foster social inclusion among young people and to contribute to a global culture of peace."

Hey, John, glad to hear you brought up 'sustainable communities' and 'equality' and 'social inclusion' and all.

Maybe while you're there, you might mention to our Permanent Mission to the UN that despite our using First Nation art and motifs to advertise the 2010 Games, sell Owelympic swag, and decorate the athletes' outfits and medals, Canada has yet to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples . Now it's just us and the US.

Thanks.

British Columbia's ticking time bomb

Brought to you by Gordon Campbell and a failed forest protection policy. (Emphasis mine)

Many communities in the B.C. Interior are at significant risk of potentially catastrophic forest fires this summer, because critical prevention work promised by the government has not been done, a forestry expert said Friday.

It could make 2003, when the town of Louis Creek was wiped off the BC landscape, look tame.

Campbell and his Vancouver-centric government have been in possession of the facts for six years.

British Columbians can consider themselves fortunate that the disaster was not worse. Few communities in the province would have been immune from an interface fire, given the extreme danger ratings over the course of the summer. Without action, the danger remains.

And what came out of that report, now sitting on a shelf, gathering dust?

Oh yeah... that. And that. And that. And, not least of all, this.

The top 100 bureaucrats in the provincial government will receive salary increases as large as 43 per cent, all in a bid to attract and keep top executives...

Right. Heckuva job they're doing. I'm willing to bet there is not one of those "top bureaucrats", regardless of ministery, who doesn't have at least one priority file with the words 2010 Olympics in it distracting them from the job British Columbians are actually paying them to do.