An extra week of news in Bizzaro BC is like a lifetime. I can’t fit it all into one little column without skipping spitting bus drivers, astroturfing Liberals, skyrocketing convention centre costs, corporate sponsorship of Vancouver parks and rec centres, MLAs voting to remove murals at the Legislature, Suzuki’s greenwashing of the Vancouver Sun, and a Three-hundred acre land deal for Whistler area First Nations as part of a bribe, sorry, deal to host the 2010 Winter Games.

Then again, some things never change. Gas prices keep going up, The Province keeps complaining about gas prices going up, the Canucks lose, and some government comes out with a green plan that doesn’t go near the root of climate change (this time it’s the Tories). Those clowns in congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns. How does it keep up with the news like that?

Sullivan promises free museums at Christmas, a Skytrain down Broadway, prescription drugs for hardcore addicts, a cure for AIDS, and peace on earth. Opposition city councillors accused the mayor of taking credit for things he had little to do with.

Critics also panned the speech for being oddly specific at times: “Civil City means mothers will not hesitate to send their children on a bus by themselves to the downtown eastside to take piano lessons.” Oh come on Sam, everyone knows the mighty Piano Teacher Cartel contributed heftily to your campaign.

Is Sullivan losing control of more than just his mind? At a recent party meeting NPA councillor Peter Ladner managed to elect four of his own supporters to the NPA board leaving Sullivan in a minority position. But Steve Burgess reminds us that “these are not opposition parties, remember. This is one NPA councillor staging a power play against a sitting NPA mayor”.

Now it seems Sullivan paid city lobbyist Ken Dobell $250 an hour of taxpayers money to tutor him to be a lobbyist. I’d rather the money go to teach him how to be a mayor.

But Dobell is also Gordon Campbell’s crony and could face legal action. How could special advisor to the premier, troubleshooter in the forest industry, finance chair for the Olympics, member of the Convention Centre board and 2010 Legacies Now and lobbyist for the City of Vancouver possibly have any dual allegiances?

While the BC Rail corruption trial has uncovered some startling allegations, more notable are the accusations of fake radio show call-ins and phony protesters. And then it was revealed by Defence lawyer Michael Bolton that the solicitor general ‘intervened’. Oh man, that would suck being named after the guy from Office Space.

I know! We should give these guys a raise! Despite the fact that B.C.’s MLAs sit fewer days in the legislature than they have since 1972, an “independent” hand-picked panel recommends they receive a 29% pay hike and 54% for the premier. While minimum wage and welfare rates stay frozen.

Yet, a report titled The Vancouver Agreement Hotel Analysis Project revealed that Eighty-five per cent of the SRO hotels charged rates in excess of the $325 per month income assistance shelter allowance for a single employable person. Some hotels charged up to $475 per month and only 230 rooms in the Downtown Eastside were actually available for under $400 per month.

The 54 hotels generated 11,269 emergency calls for police, firefighters and paramedics in 2005.

Hotels were also rife with welfare fraud, fire code violations, management problems and rodent infestations.

Eighty per cent of the hotels had bedbugs. So Campbell buys 12 of them and expects the homeless to live in them. Reminds me of Barbara Bush’s infamous Superdome quote, “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.

Speaking of Bush, George Bush’s czar on homelessness has seen Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. And he’s not impressed. How fucking bad does it have to get before George W. Bush thinks we have a problem? Although I might have to agree with him if he starts talking about regime change.