Vancouver Bashing

Listening to CBC radio this morning, the Morning Edition host Sheila Coles and the national sports correspondent were cracking jokes about Vancouver. I think they were being tongue in cheek, but who knows?

Still, it’s hard to blame them. Vancouver is like the new Montreal – indebted to the Olympics for the foreseeable future. And the Vancouver Canucks are destined to win as many championships as the Expos.

I had contemplated starting a blog war with Ryan at Wiredcola, but he’s just so darn likable, even for a West Coaster. Look, he even came up with an interesting blog post about power poles containing geographic positioning data on them!

Oh heck, I’ll come right out and say it… Vancouver sucks because of the Canucks, and Ryan’s blog smells — when I open it, my computer gives off the aroma of burnt capacitors.

I dare you to find a problem with Regina, or my blog. Dare you.

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UPDATE: The speed at which a response has been withheld is nothing if not typical. BCers tend to take at least an hour longer than any other Canadians east of them, to complete. Voting. Watching TV in prime time. You name it.

Jeff seems to be a good sport at most things, so I’ll include him in this pending blog war as well. Normally I’m in favour of Canadian teams winning the Stanley Cup, but this year I’m willing to make an exception, and will cheer against the Canucks.

UPDATE: Jeff fires back.

No one disses the Pats. Well, no one on my blog has done so before, that is. It’s not really that I want to see the Blues win it all, but when they do move to Saskatoon, it’ll be much closer to having a Stanley Cup winning team than Vancouver will ever have.

Scrapping the Gun Registry

The Sask Liberals are in favour of scrapping the Canadian gun registry. After years of being tossed aside by rural voters as “[federally affiliated] Liberals”, the Sask Liberals have detached their hips from the federal party and are tossing the broken gun registry under the bus. It’s about time.

The registry does not prevent gun crime, and the way it was implemented cost Canadians billions of dollars. The Conservatives aren’t right about much, but they are right that the registry in its current form unfairly targets law abiding rural and First Nations Canadians more than everyone else, and doesn’t protect police or civilians.

Registering gun owners would simplify the registry. We could leave long gun registration optional, since everyone possessing an operational firearm would have to be certified to use it. That would still give police a way to use a computer to guess who is more likely to have a gun in their possession. Everyone using guns for crimes is already a criminal — you don’t need to make law abiding gun users into criminals by throwing onerous red tape at them.

If the Liberal Party of Canada changed its thinking on the gun registry they’d take away a key selling point the Conservative Party has in rural Canada. Better still, they’d send a signal to lost voters that the party is capable of listening, and correcting mistakes. Last I checked, rural Liberal candidates don’t have a lot of means to influence voters other than saying, “We’re not incompetent or evil like the Harper Conservatives, but we do believe in government programs that sound good in Toronto, despite costing billions for little effect.”

You could call the gun registry Canada’s Vancouver 2010 Olympics – debt without tangible benefits to the country thus far. The difference is that at least the Olympics will be over in a year, and won’t make people outside of Vancouver into criminals.

Olympics to Cost “A Lot”

“A Lot” is a technical term, because no one has a more exact number for what the 2010 Olympics will cost the people of Vancouver, and Canada. Montreal went into debt to buy the Olympics in 1976, and Vancouver will have its own hole to dig out of. Hopefully it will get something that doesn’t become famous for having giant chunks of cement falling off of it within 40 years. (Big O)

Raphael takes a poke at the giant debt, and the lunacy of VANOC. He points out one of my scathing posts about VANOC too.

VANOC – The Dingo That Ate Vancouver’s Baby

Vancouver’s Olympics are a little more than 1 year away, and they are already a financial disaster. Well done VANOC. Is this why you don’t want bloggers covering the Olympics?
For ongoing coverage of Olympic sized boondoggles, keep your browser tab pointed to The Gazeetter. Taxpayers are on the hook for nearly $0.9 Billion in condo developments.

VANOC endeared themselves to me and other bloggers when they replied with a rude form letter to questions from the blogosphere and Canadian community. Then they refused to stand up for Canadian hockey, in an apparent an effort to lose millions of dollars.

COC, IOC, VANOC tell Team Canada to lose money

You’d think money grubbers like the IOC wouldn’t try to cost a valuable Olympic “partner” like Team Canada millions of dollars. But they are going to anyway. They shouldn’t be suddenly enforcing a rule, they should FIX the rule that causes this problem where a team can’t wear a jersey they’ve used for more than a decade. What if they told the Swedes to lose their crown yellow jersey?

The Olympics in Vancouver are more than a year away, and already I can’t stand how they are being run. I’d asked VANOC previously how bloggers could participate in covering the Olympics, and they replied with a form letter telling bloggers to take a long walk off a short pier. I think they should take that walk instead.

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Hat tip to James

SaskBloggers Get Ice Cream

Saturday was the 3rd Annual SaskBloggers get together in Saskatoon. The turnout was pretty good with 7 bloggers and 2 guests in attendance. I think we made more noise laughing than kids getting ice cream in the restaurant.

Saskboy (me), Lore_Weaver (whose blog has been spammed into malfunctioning), Jadon, Twyla, Tanya, Zach Bell, and Huffb1 came out to talk politics, pollution, technology, car sharing, blogs, and more.

On the way back from Saskatoon, Patty and I clocked a coyote with the front bumper at 100km/h. The bumper, and the coyote did not survive.

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In talking with my dead-tree-media relative later on in the day, he made a good point that once newspapers are no longer able to sell advertising, and professional journalism newsrooms give way to blogs and central TV news services, democracy is going to suffer a crisis. Spin doctors will feed bloggers, and they will flood media with mostly spin, without professional journalists to gather news and filter the filler from the facts. It’s logic counter-intuitive to bloggers who are distrustful of professional media, but undeniably there will be fewer bloggers attending court, or press conferences than there are newspaper journalists. Will bloggers step up, and gather news when the pros get other jobs?

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A news story on Saturday Report about Right to Play, reminded me that VANOC 2010 is not allowing Right to Play to appear at the Olympics because they have sponsors that might conflict with those who paid to sponsor the Olympics. It’s a fine example of how VANOC and the Olympics are totally corrupt, and place money above the spirit of sport and children.

Another Day, Another War

A war in Georgia is a little too much unsettling on what is a day that supposedly represents a movement toward world peace and mutually respectful competition. Wars also don’t improve air quality, although the Olympics are having a momentary positive effect if you don’t count the planes that took the athletes to compete, and the energy to make and transport the throw-away junk souvenirs.

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Also disappointing, but not really surprising is that Jim Prentice has again let Canadians down. When he’s not looking out for American businesses that want to sue children and dead people for downloading music, he’s defending Bell and Telus who want to charge you to get cell phone spam. This does fit with the Conservative trait of defending large businesses who want you to pay through the nose. Remember fees for using bank machines? Jack Layton was there for you, and Stephen Harper got a stern talking-to from the bankers.

The Message That Needs To Be Sent

Tibet is going to be the downfall of the 2008 Olympics. It’s a shame, the athletes (who aren’t doping that is) don’t deserve to be caught in the middle of the controversy.

The list of bloggers boycotting the Olympic sponsors/partners is growing.

Olympic Sized Boycott

Steve, and many, many other bloggers are renewing my interest in either an Olympic boycott, or a large blog oriented protest action against the IOC.

Anonymous: “I’m not downsizing what is happening in China. I would never agree with such acts of violence.
However, the only people your affecting when boycotting the games are the athletes.”

It isn’t only the athletes affected, however. The people who have been displaced from their homes have been forever affected in a negative way. The people who have been killed by a corrupt and anti-freedom government have been affected. Canada has to at least consider that we should put life before games. It’s our fault that athletes have put their lives into games that we did not keep pure. But the Olympics are now more about sponsorship and “partners” than they are about the true Olympic spirit. Protecting the Olympic “brand” is what VANOC is concerned with, not protecting the dignity and life work of athletes and the Olympic spirit!

A Pre-emptive NO from VANOC

I was reading the ridiculous VANcouver Olympic Committee logo use guidelines. For media they supposedly have different requirements for use of the Olympic logo. I asked what they were because the webpage said to email for further details if you were media:

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From: Saskboy [mailto:saskboy hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 12:53 PM
To: Media Relations
Subject: guidelines

Hi,
What are VANOC’s guidelines for media use of the Olympic logo in coverage of the games?

Thank you,
Saskboy
http://www.abandonedstuff.com

There response was both baffling in its presumption I was going to request to use their stupid emblem, and the severity with which they “protect” the Olympic spirit.

Thank you for your interest in the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Unfortunately, we cannot permit your request to use the Vancouver 2010 emblem.

All uses of the Vancouver 2010 logo and wordmarks are strictly controlled. It is the responsibility of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) to diligently protect the Olympic Brand that will be used in association with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

For the benefit of all Canadians, VANOC must ensure that the value of the Olympic Brand is maintained as part of its efforts to stage well-organized and financially successful Games. To preserve the value of the Olympic Brand, VANOC is obligated to ensure that it is used only by official sponsors and licensees who have acquired those rights. Under its commitment to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), VANOC cannot permit other parties to use the Olympic Brand or otherwise suggest an affiliation or connection with, or the sponsorship or approval of, VANOC, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the 2010 Winter Games, or the Olympic Movement in Canada.

For more information about the rules and regulations governing the use of the Olympic Brand, please visit our website at http://www.vancouver2010.com/en/LookVancouver2010/ProtectingBrand.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Vancouver 2010 Info

Want to get the latest information on the 2010 Winter Games? Join one of our mailing lists. Sign up now at http://www.vancouver2010.com.

bc

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In other words, “DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, LOOOSURRR!”

Maybe they were afraid I was going to do this, like Havril did.

Mmmm, useless stuff. Soon it will become abandoned at junk yards and garage sales around the country.

I think as bloggers, we have a duty to mock the corporate branding mentality of the VANOC committee. Any ideas on the best ways to do this? Perhaps it would be a good idea if a lot more people linked to Havril’s mascot page?

When the 2012 Olympics roll around, it would be nice if copyright, and trademark law were modified enough in the right direction to allow bloggers to write about the games without worry of lawsuits. Perhaps the Olympics should have lawyer downhill bowling competitions? Maybe athletes will stand up to the Olympic committee and blog about the games with impunity.

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Hat tip to Creekside1.