Hit me again bartender

My favourite 5 minutes of morning radio was very interesting this morning. The announcer mentioned that he had several children who were in the police force and that over the long weekend he took the oppertunity to ride with two of those police officers. A very hard job they do said Cliff, one that is both important and at times very difficult. Both of those attributes are very true. There is nothing so difficult as doing the job that no one wants to see you in person doing. The police are there when the little kid is lost and scared, the police are there when some moron thinks that his woman is a punching bag, the police are there at the road block doing their best keeping drunk drivers off the street. Every time I run into a road block my trip is extended in length by 5 or so minutes and I am very happy to spend those minutes. 

Those out there who get into their cars after have 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or..... have no business being on the road. Long gone are the days when it was funny to stumble out to your car and ram it into a fence post, or a tree, or the broadside of a bus full of kids. Those who drive after drinking think that they can handle it, they are good drivers, they are in control. Tell that to the kid who watched as her mother was mowed over by the person in comeing down the road from the bar, tell that to the person lieing in the hospital after being pulled out of the car that was t-boned by the kids driving away from the party.

The solution to drunk driving is no longer educating people, we have all heard it before, too many times to count, we have all seen the pictures of the mangled cars, the mangled survivors. The solution isn't bring these people to court, the court system is too back logged as it is, and there are too many lawers out there ready to twist any little detail out of context to get people let off. The solution isn't more fines or suspensions, thou I think losing your licence and having that posted publicly is a great start. I think the solution is the cars themselves - you get stopped with x amount of alcohol in your system, the car you are in is taken right then and there and you don't get it back. Every time you lose a car, another mark goes on your driving record. Soon every time you ask buddy to borrow his car, or you go to rent a car you get told no. Eventually you will get the message and one more drunk will be off the road permanently.

Until then, every time I have to spend 5 minutes at a road block, I will thank the officer stopping me because that officer is out there doing a dirty, nasty job and making the roads a bit safer for me to be on.

THE NHL, Can we afford it?

Short Clip of the Stanley Cup Riot, 2010

This is the legacy left behind from the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs. Down town Vancouver torn apart, fires, looting and so on and so on.
Every year the same sort of thing happens in two cities - one because they won, one because they lost. Some cities manage things a whole lot better than were in Vancouver that year but still, how much does it cost all of us, even those who don't care about hockey.

I am sick of having to pay for extra police, extra security all because some people don't know how to behave as adults. Take another look at that video, recognize anyone it in? Those people have cost YOU millions of dollars.

This behaviour will continue every year until we stand up and make these miscreants pay for the damage they did. Round them all up and make each and everyone of them spend a week cleaning garbage from the street. And let them wear a bright orange vest so everyone will know exactly why they are there.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

I heard a rather telling statement on the radio today. In many of the cities here in North America there is a group of people who are "occupying" a small chunk of it in protest of life in general. Fine, for what the protest is all about, I agree with the concept of what they are doing - not what they are doing.

Here in Victoria, there is a group camping out at the green space beside City Hall. On the news cast it was reported that this "occupation" has cost the city, meaning me and all those property owners, $60,000 with a break down of 10k for garbage clean up, 30k for city staff extra work and 20k for police overtime. $60k of money flushed and still it will continue to be pissed away.

There was a snippet from the local police station about that $20k, they get bitched at for taking too long to respond to a call and when they do get there to deal with what ever, POLICE BRUTALITY gets thrown at them. This from a group of people who have deliberately put themselves in a more dangerous situation.

People, you have got to stop with the bullshit. Cops are just like you and I - doing their best to get the job done. A dirty, thankless job that needs to be done. By and large they are a decent group of people, people who are good and really care. Yes, there are some bad apples in the mix, that same number of bad apples are in every mix of people. Unfortunately those are the ones we hear about, or at least that is how people want to portray them.

"Look at that brute of a cop, tasering that poor homeless man" was the cry. What wasn't repeated was the chain that poor homeless man was swinging around at people, nor is it reported that the brute of a cop had just had that chain wrapped across his forehead.

When was the last time you heard about that brute of a cop, holding the little kid who had just been beaten by a drunk parent?

When was the last time you looked at that brute of a cop and remembered that he had just seen some drunk mow a mother over with his car?

The next time you get pulled over because you were doing 60 in a 50 zone, look in the mirror. You knew what speed you were doing, you knew it was wrong. Don't look at that cop and say, "Haven't you got something worthwhile to do?" because the answer is yes, and if keeping you from speeding through a residental area stops one kid from being killed, that cop is doing something worthwhile

Cops have the toughest of jobs, let them do it without making it tougher for them.

Need for speed

Important person 

Screaming up the highway

Radar Love