Art Bell Endorses Barack Obama

It's almost as good as an endorsement from Oprah. Radio host Art Bell endorsed Barack Obama last night on the late night Coast to Coast show. Coast to Coast gets up to 10 million listeners a night.

"I think I'm an Obama guy," Bell said during his opening remarks on the show. Then he repeated himself, explaining that after listening to the speeches and "watching the sparks fly" between Barack and Clinton, he believed himself to be "an Obama guy."

"I like Obama", Bell added later in the show. "I think Obama has the ability to bring this country together in a way that has not been done since John Kennedy."

When a caller expressed the opinion that Obama's Muslim ancestry could work in favor of the U.S. internationally, Bell disagreed. "We're very much a warrier-like people and I don't think the race or background will make any difference to those attacked."

Bell, a self-described Libertarian who had earlier in the primaries praised Republican Ron Paul for his "revolutionary" ideas, commented last night on John McCain becoming the Republican candidate for President. "I've always liked John McCain but would have liked him to achieve that last time."

Bell's endorsement of Obama carries weight, even though Bell now only does the occasional Coast to Coast show. Bell built up a loyal, almost cult-like, following during his years as regular host of the show which not only focuses on UFOs and the paranormal but has a steady stream of interviews with political authors and scientists.

One caller told Bell last night, "You're a legend." Bell responded, "I really would prefer not to be thought of that way." In the past Bell has attempted to knock himself off the pedestal listeners put him on, advising them not to assume that he has the answers, that he is no more qualified to figure things out than they are.

Related Story: Racist Comments Follow Art Bell's Endorsement of Obama

Geert Wilders Releases Video Dutch Government Did Not Want You to See

It’s the video the Dutch government didn’t want you to see. The government made it known to Dutch politician Geert Wilders that they did not want him to release his video, Fitna, for fear of unrest amongst Muslims.

But Wilders released Fitna today, a video warning that Islam and the Koran pose a threat to western freedoms and it is time to wake up. “Islam and the Koran are a danger for freedom in the Netherlands in the long term and I need to warn for that,” Wilders said on NOS television today.

Wilders, a critic of immigration, founded the increasingly popular Freedom Party under the slogan, "Stop the Islamization of The Netherlands.''

This video is of interest to Canadians watching the attempted Islamization of our tradition of free speech. Ezra Lavant, a former publisher hauled in front of the Alberta Human Rights Commission to face a complaint by a Muslim Iman for running cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, achieved hero status when he took on the Commission for "applying Saudi values in Canada".

Watch the video the Dutch government did not want you to see.

Traffic Lights Down and No Cops Around

All traffic lights were stuck on red at the busy Main and Hastings intersection during rush hour this afternoon. I first got a report at about 3:30 p.m, another report at 4:00 p.m., and another at 4:45 p.m. that the lights were still down. They started functioning again shortly before 5 p.m.

There were no Vancouver Police on the scene the entire time. At around 4 p.m., one police officer drove by in a squad car, turning toward the police station just around the corner on Main. He didn't seem concerned about the mayhem. "Shift change," said a bystander.

Multiple lanes of cars were headed in the direction of pedestrians walking in the crosswalks. One woman with her baby in a stroller was talking to a male friend on her left, not realizing that three cars were coming at her from her right. The drivers did see her and slowed as she suddenly saw them and darted to the safety of the sidwalk.

The drivers were actually quite courteous. The fact that they were crossing against red lights may have made them more willing to yield to pedestrians.

A Downtown Eastside resident sent us the above photo.

Where were the police?

Emergency Response Team Enters Jubilee Rooms

The Vancouver Police Emergency Response Team entered Jubilee Rooms at 235 Main St. on the Downtown Eastside this Good Friday evening. Eighteen cops were in the building, the desk clerk told tenants standing outside. Jubilee Rooms, formerly known as New Zealand Rooms is on Main St., between Cordova and Powell St., across from the courthouse.

A man "somehow got a key" to the place, a witness said. "That place is locked 24 hours a day. They can't figure out how he got a key." He managed to get past the male desk clerk and beat up his ex-girlfriend who lives there. The desk clerk called the police.

The man then barricaded himself in the washroom on the 1st floor. A male cop on a cell phone on the scene said the man apparently had a long knife.

There were numerous police vehicles outside the Jubilee: two squad cars, three ghost cars, an SUV. There were also two ambulances. Ambulance attendants placed a stretcher near the door of the Jubillee. One of the ambulance attendants was taking photographs.

Police brought out the ex-girlfriend. She was holding her hand and wrist up, as though she were favoring them. "Maybe her wrist got twisted," a witness speculated. Police put her in the back of the squad car. She was not handcuffed. "She wasn't crying," says a witness, "but she did look a bit shocked." A witness who arrived at this point says this was about 5:50 p.m. and the incident "must have happened just before that." It would not end until 7:55 p.m.

A cop said on his cell phone that the suspect had threatened suicide. He had said he wanted to kill himself and had been thinking about it for a while.

A large white truck arrived carrying Emergency Response Team equipment in the back. Some police officers went to the trunks of their cars and suited up with body armour, others went to the white truck and suited up. A driver and passenger got out of the white truck and entered the building with guns that, according to a witness, "resembled miniature AK47s". "Are those bean bag guns?", a witness asked a female cop passing by on horseback and chatting with people on the street. She said they were, adding that police try to avoid using lethal force when possible.

"You should have seen the arsenol!", says a witness, "when the cops came back down [the stairs of the building] and they put all their weapons on the cars." The cops were laughing and joking as they came out of the Jubilee, possibly out of relief said the witness.

The suspect was brought out alive.

Police Ticket Sidewalk Bicyclist

Finally, somebody gets a ticket for riding their bicycle on the sidewalk.

It happened this afternoon at around 3:30 when a bunch of Vancouver Police officers were standing in front of the Carnegie Center at Main and Hastings. A guy rode across the crosswalk on his bike and then west on Hastings St. on the sidewalk. A cop approached him, took out his ticket book and wrote down the guy's information. Then he handed him a ticket.

The bylaw probiting bicycling on the sidewalk needs to be enforced more often. Bicyclists are becoming an increasing menace on the sidewalk.

When I told a friend of mine this evening about police issuing the ticket, he told me what he had seen a bicyclist do on Main St. in Chinatown. A guy on a bike, wearing a blue helmet, rode fast toward a crowd of people waiting to board the bus. The people scurried out of the way.

"I saw the same thing! On Main Street in Chinatown!", I told him. "I just wrote about it today [in a draft of this post]. What did the guy look like?" He was middle aged, my friend told me.

The guy I saw didn't look more than 32 years old. It was a few months ago, about 5:30 a.m., and this guy, with his helmet on, was bicycling fast toward a cluster of people boarding a bus. They scattered like pigeons.

On three or four occasions, I have called out to bicyclists on Main St. not to ride on the sidewalk. One guy yelled in my face as he whizzed past me, "Fuck off!" I have resigned myself now to the fact that the bicyclists own the sidewalk. I just move over.

I am thinking along the same lines as a guy who was quoted in the "rant" section of the Westender newspaper advising pedestrians to get into the habit of walking along the curb so that bicyclists can have the sidewalk all to themselves.

It continues to amaze me that bicyclists put on their expensive gear so that they feel safe and confident riding their bikes . . . on the sidewalk. They think they're "green" but they're not; they're yellow cowards.

Jimmy Pattison has a Spot for Ethel Whitty

Sunday night is the busiest night of the week in the Carnegie Computer Room, as people prepare for the new week. So what did City staff do?

Believe it or not, they turned out the lights and locked the door.

After the door had been locked for a couple of hours, a volunteer opened it as a favor to people in a jam with no internet access. But he is not a regular volunteer in the computer room.

That's the problem at Carnegie with its multi-million dollar budget: the poor have to beg and cajole somebody into providing computer services that the Center is richly funded to provide.

Staff always have an excuse for not opening the doors. The current flavor of the week is that staff person Colleen Gorrie is off sick. They're like children; they must be watched constantly. The only excuse they haven't yet used is that the dog ate their homework.

Did I mention that the Sunday evening before last, the poor were locked out of the computer room as well?

The Great Taxpayer Rip-off at Carnegie continues. It is not only CUPE members who are responsible but the City's manager at Carnegie, Ethel Whitty, and her City Hall boss Jacquie Forbes-Roberts.

If you are even suspected of tattletaling to the taxpayer about locked doors by discussing the issue on the internet, Forbes-Roberts will succumb to pressure from Carnegie staff to bar you from the building. Don't believe me? Ask William Simpson who was barred "indefinitely" in a letter signed by Forbes-Roberts and hand delivered to him by Ethel Whitty and CUPE member Dan Tetrault.

Billionaire Jimmy Pattison, who has an office about ten blocks west of Carnegie, should now have spots for the likes of CUPE, Whitty, and Forbes-Roberts. He just bought "Ripley's Believe It Or Not".