South Carolina scientist works to grow meat in lab

South Carolina scientist works to grow meat in lab: "

Medical University of South Carolina scientist Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D. has been working for a decade to grow meat. He has taken myoblasts — embryonic cells that develop into muscle tissue — from turkey and bathed them in a nutrient bath of bovine serum on a scaffold made of chitosan (a common polymer found in nature) to grow animal skeletal muscle tissue.

Cultured meat could eventually become cheaper than what Nicholas Genovese, a visiting scholar in cancer cell biology, called the “heavily subsidized production” of farm meat, and if the public accepts cultured meat, the future holds benefits. “Thirty percent of the earth’s land surface area is associated with producing animal protein on farms,” Genovese said.

“Animals require between 3 and 8 pounds of nutrient to make 1 pound of meat. It’s fairly inefficient. Animals consume food and produce waste. “Further out, if we have interplanetary exploration, people will need to produce food in space and you can’t take a cow with you.”

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Skiers rescued after night lost outdoors

Skiers rescued after night lost outdoors: "Two Vancouver Island men are recovering from a night in the backcountry near Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in eastern B.C. after skiing out of bounds on Sunday."

Democracy Without Politicians or Elections (As We Currently Know Them)…

Democracy Without Politicians or Elections (As We Currently Know Them)…: "

If this economic crisis has done anything, it has exposed our so called “democracy” as a fraud.

I believe the problem is simple: Politicians are no longer accountable after they win the election. Because if they were accountable then they wouldn’t be able to transfer the massive amounts of taxpayer wealth to the bankers. They wouldn’t be able to ignore the massive fraud in the mortgage “securitization” business.

They wouldn’t be able to change the FASB (accounting) rules so that bankrupt banks could hold their assets at pre-crash prices. And if the only thing citizens can do is riot in the streets and still be ignored by their governments, then it’s safe to say that while politicians hold office they are unaccountable.

In this video I present an alternative to our “democracy”: No elections. No politicians. Instead, it’s a political system where citizen completely control the legislative process without needing to be actively involved in crafting the legislation. In other words, they can continue living their lives, but they have absolute control over the laws in their country:

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Mission city council goes reefer mad

Mission city council goes reefer mad: "A bit of a rant about reefer madness in the Interior. Mission has completely gone off the deep end, but then, hard to blame them when a good chunk of the world still thinks legalizing pot will destroy families, bunnies and rainbows. From the January 13, 2011 issue of 24 Hours Vancouver.

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I’ve spent the last few days pretending that Mission city council’s draconian new search and fine regime is the big rights issue of the week. The council has been conducting “grow op” searches of Mission residents’ homes that have high power usage, over 300 homes and counting, and billing the owners for any bylaw infractions they can find.



$5,200 for the cost of the inspection is just the start for residents who, among other things, had an empty room for a baby (indication of a grow op), a hook in their ceiling (indication of a grow op), grew cucumbers in the basement (non-permit installation), had a badly wired hot tub (bylaw violation).



But it’s not just Mission. Surrey, Richmond, and Nelson too have all flirted with similar regimes. Often at the behest of police forces who find it too challenging to assemble the evidence needed for search warrants for grow ops, and prefer the lower standard the law requires for searches by bylaw officers.

Blame police? Blame the municipalities? Yes, both deserve blame for trying to circumvent the basic privacy rights of Canadians, but it’s not that easy. Both are trying, in their own dysfunctional, illegal ways, to deal with the fact that Canada still, despite every common sense argument to the contrary, insists on criminalizing marijuana production and possession.



The new International Centre for Science in Drug Policy has more than 16,000 names on their petition supporting the Vienna Declaration, a demand for governments to follow an evidence-based illicit drug policy. The CSDP’s suggestion is that politicians should look at health, economic and rights data and evaluate drug policy against this framework instead of, well, setting drug policy based on what the Americans are doing.



Except it’s not even what the Americans are doing any more. The debate over California’s near miss on a referendum to legalize marijuana entirely ignored the fact that the state is already awash in “medical” marijuana, with prescriptions easy to obtain from private doctors and green pharmacies everywhere. Denver, Colorado has taken medical marijuana to new heights with my Google map showing more than 20 dispensaries in a city of just over 600,000 people, roughly equivalent to Vancouver. Vancouver currently has 3 dispensaries.



Financing gangland lifestyles and directing money to police forces instead of community centres, the continuing war on pot makes less and less sense with each passing year. With most Canadians now support the legalization of marijuana according to Angus Reid, more than 1.5 million Canadians now smoke illegal marijuana recreationally according to the Canadian Medical Association.



Is the real issue here Mission city council’s illegal cash grab searches? Well, perhaps for the voters of Mission and possibly the courts, but otherwise, no. The real issue here is why our government is overwhelmingly supporting invasive and failing law enforcement that is expensive, makes us less safe by supporting organized crime, and results in a very profitable enterprise growing B.C.’s most lucrative cash crop, untaxed and unregulated, in basements across the province.

Visit pivotlegal.org for more information about Vancouver's low-income housing crisis.

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Keep your paws off of me

Keep your paws off of me: "A few unsolicited thoughts about the idea that my neighbours could come over and take me downtown for some unspecified offence they believe I committed. This is a bad, bad idea being driven by two apparently problematic exercises of discretion by Crown counsel in different cities. From the January 26, 2011 issue of 24 Hours. The text of the proposed law has not been released yet.

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You’re walking down the street when you see a masked man, carrying a burlap sack with a dollar sign on it, running away from two police officers. They’re yelling, “Stop! Police!”



Trained in martial arts by several Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, as well as the two Ultimate Fighting Championship tournaments you have watched, you step in and grab the burglar, holding the struggling culprit until police arrive. They’re winded, but grateful.



As they cuff him and take him away, they pat you on the back. “We don’t encourage this, it’s too dangerous,” they say. “But thanks.”



The criminal law says your use of force and arrest is ok here, but the Federal Government wants you to see even more action. Last week they floated the idea of reforming citizen arrest laws in Canada to give increased powers to Canadians to use force. Like the third round on a roller coaster at Playland, this is one idea that may sound good at first, but may turn Canadians’ stomachs in the actual implementation.



Canadian law currently allows non-police like you and me to use force to arrest someone if you: (1) see someone escaping from or being freshly pursued by police; (2) if you actually see someone commit an offence in relation to your property; or, (3) if you actually see a person commit a serious criminal offence called an “indictable” offence. Just don’t arrest someone you see committing fraud in relation to fares, or keeping a bawdy, gaming or betting house, those aren’t indictable offenses.



Canadian law also allows you to use “reasonable” force to detain and remove someone from your property if that person is trespassing or attempting to. You can also use reasonable force to defend your house from someone breaking in. You can also use reasonable force to protect yourself from assault, so long as you don’t use any more force than is necessary to prevent the assault.



Given these powers, the question is: what other powers are available? How about the law allows using more force than is reasonably necessary to stop an assault. I blocked the punch and hit him back and he ran away, but then I chased him down and kicked him until he was unconscious. “Citizens’ arrest!”



How about the law allows arresting people you just believe caused an offence somewhere, but which offence you didn’t actually see yourself? “My car was broken into, and you were nearby, and you look like a drug addict, get your hands up, citizens’ arrest!”



Don’t forget, increasing citizen arrest powers increases powers for private security guards. Do we want private security guards acting as private police, being hired like Dog the Bounty Hunter to track down and arrest people they just think committed offences?



As the police have demonstrated, even those with extensive training in arrest and use of force don’t always do it right – let’s be careful who else we invite to use force on us.

Visit pivotlegal.org for more information about Vancouver's low-income housing crisis.

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Cases to watch in 2011

Cases to watch in 2011: "A few of the cases to watch for in 2011. From the January 5, 2011 issue of 24 Hours Vancouver.

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2011 will be the year of drugs, sex and police in Canadian law. The rights to live in marriage-like relationships with more than one other person, inject illicit drugs in safe injection facilities, talk about getting paid to have sex, and for sex workers to work together will all be considered by Canadian courts in 2011.



Here’s a list of four legal files to watch in this legal year that will surely draw the attention of the media and the public in 2011.



1. Drugs - PHS Community Services Society v. A.G. of Canada – After winning twice in B.C., Vancouver’s Portland Hotel Society and an army of intervenors are off to the highest Court in Canada to argue that people addicted to drugs have the right to access medical treatment and supervision at safe injection sites. A drug user advocacy group called Cactus, based in Montreal, has already announced that, victory or not, they’ll be opening an injection site in Montreal in June.



2. Sex – Polygamy Reference – After repeatedly trying to charge Winston Blackmore, head of Canada’s largest known polygamist group in Bountiful, B.C. under Canada’s criminal law against polygamy, B.C. has given up. The province is now seeking to confirm the constitutionality of Canada’s polygamy law in B.C. Supreme Court through a rarely used “reference” process. The reference asks the Court whether it is appropriate for police to investigate and the state to punish living in a marriage-like relationship with more than one person. The reference will not examine issues of consent, education, and age of marriagability, which are core to the issues at Bountiful.



3. Sex – Prostitution cases, Ontario and B.C. – Sex workers in B.C. and Ontario are, in separate cases, challenging the constitutionality of Canada’s criminal laws related to sex work. Having sex for money is legal in Canada, but all of the associated activities (negotiating for price, working together for safety) are prohibited. In B.C., survival sex workers will be fighting for the right to even be in Court at the Supreme Court of Canada this year. In Ontario, sex workers have won their case at trial and will be appearing in early 2011 at the Ontario Court of Appeal.



4. Police – A big year for the RCMP - Beyond courts, law makers in B.C. have promised to reform the laws that regulate RCMP oversight in B.C., with likely implications for the few remaining provinces that still allow police to investigate themselves. The RCMP themselves have asked the feds to reform how they get rid of the “bad apples.” The RCMP contracts in all provinces in Canada, excluding Ontario and Quebec, expire March 31, 2012, and all provinces will likely ratify a new deal with the force by the end of 2011, perhaps with new rules about oversight, training and standards. Finally, a public inquiry into the policing failures around Robert Pickton in B.C. will examine what policing reforms, including merging RCMP and municipal forces into regional forces, are necessary to prevent a similar disaster.

Visit pivotlegal.org for more information about Vancouver's low-income housing crisis.

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Time to ween police from our taxes

Time to ween police from our taxes: "A few folks who were paying attention pointed out that they felt my thesis in the following column was wrong - if police funding goes up, crimes go down, therefore more police funding is inherently good.



Part of this is my fault for writing a column right before collapsing from food poisoning (CSIS! Damn your secret agents!) and as a result failing to be totally clear that just because you reduce crime to zero or near zero by putting a police officer on every corner, or in every living room, doesn't mean you should do it.



Finding that delicate balance between complete privacy violation and giving 90 cents on every tax dollar to police, and personal liberty in a society that can still afford community centres, schools and hospitals, is what I was on about. I simply think we've hit the point where crime is at low and acceptable levels and we should begin funding crime reduction strategies other than police and jails.



What I didn't have space to focus on was the weird disparity between VPD funded officer levels and, for example, per capita officer funded levels in RCMP centres like Surrey. What's that about?



From the January 19, 2011 issue of 24 Hours Vancouver.

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It’s time for Canadian police forces to hold a press conference and announce that crime rates, after almost a decade of decline, are now so low that we can start reducing our spending on police.



I can imagine it now: “We have spent enough on police,” Chief Jim Chu of the Vancouver Police will say, standing side by side with Commissioner William Elliot of the RCMP. “Let’s have some more parks and better schools and libraries.”



Yesterday, the Vancouver Police Department announced that property crime is down 24% in Vancouver since 2007. Traffic deaths are steadily down from 24 in 2007 to nine in 2010 with injuries down 8%. What about gang shootings? Violent crime is down 8.7% from 2007. Police 911 response times are 8.6% faster. These trends are not unique to Vancouver, but are being enjoyed across Canada.



In the 2010 Stats Canada report “Police Resources in Canada”, despite almost a decade of year over year declines in the crime rate, the nation marked our sixth straight year in a row of increases in the number of police officers per 100,000 Canadians.



Expenditures on police by Canadian cities reached over $12 billion in 2009, representing $365 per Canadian, which, after inflation, was 7.3% higher than in 2008 and the biggest per capita cost increase since 1986 when Stats Can started collecting data. It’s the 14th year of police budget increases in a row in our country, increases that started in 1997, and seem quite recession proof.



22% of Vancouver’s budget goes to policing, making it the largest single municipal expense. Compare this to 4% for libraries, 1% for theatres, 6% for community services and 11% for parks and recreation. The VPD got $218,000,000 from the city in 2009 and the number keeps growing.

And it’s not that police are somehow busier despite the apparent drop in the crime rate. You’d have to go back to 1973 to find a lower number of crimes and alleged crimes per sworn officer. In 2009, there were 32.1 incidents per officer, per year, down from a high of 51.1 incidents per officer in 1991.



When you drill down in B.C., the numbers make even less sense. The RCMP in Surrey have 138 officers per 100,000 residents. In comparison Vancouver has a whopping 223 officers per 100,000 residents. Only the municipal force in Victoria has more police, with 235 officers per 100,000 residents. The remaining forces in cities of 100,000 people or more sit between a low of 112 officers per 100,000 (Coquitlam) and a high of 163 officers per 100,000 (Abbotsford).



It’s time to consider why we continue to expand our police forces and the scope of their control through new laws despite the fact that crime is down so significantly. Perhaps the moment has come to reinvest in what prevents people from being involved with police in the first place – drug treatment and detox, exit programs for sex workers, mental health supports, safe and affordable housing, and youth programs.

Visit pivotlegal.org for more information about Vancouver's low-income housing crisis.

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