Is it just me, or does there seem to be a strong correlation between a person's propensity for driving Cadillacs and bumper-sticker Christianity? Dumb enough to buy the one, so they're dumb enough to buy the other?

And, in further developments on the burgeoning police state that my home town of Vancouver is rapidly becoming, there's this. This story goes along with the harassment of one of my students a little over a week ago by Canada's secret police. She's friends with a University of British Columbia prof who's not a fan of the Olympics and who makes no bones about saying so. The secret police were waiting for her outside of a class at the college where I teach. How did they know where she'd be? Who knows? They "interviewed" her, then, as a closing question, asked her if she'd mind giving them her cell phone number. She said she would mind, and didn't give it to them. While in another class the next day, she missed a call. Guess who it was from. The secret police. The very ones to whom she hadn't given her number. How did they get it? Who knows? Frankly, folks, if any of you are planning to attend the up-coming winter Olympics here in Vancouver (evidently a new suburb of Tehran), don't.

Happy June 35th (O.K., that was Thursday, but...). I'm a big fan of the site "The Big Picture", and their photos of Tiananmen in 1989 and now provide a nice little reminder that people tried, and scum prevailed. It'd be nice if that happened less often, wouldn't it? Not to mention how nice it would be if the scum weren't still in control. Ah, well.

On the other hand, how often do you get to see the Secret Police deploy umbrellas as a weapon of suppression?