Thread: We gonna burn this city

So it's game on. October 30th is the initiation of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Torch run. Every single peace officer in the region will be in riot gear and on duty, more than half on double overtime in excess of 8 hours. Each and every city the torch stops at will be the same. There is a full time RCMP security detail and private security at each stop. An estimated 9,000 police and military and 3 - 5000 private security guards will be involved in security from this day until the end of Paralympic games in March 2010. Security costs are alread in excess of $900,000 and will certainly top a billion.



Protest groups have been preparing for over 4 years. There will be a massive rally in Victoria to meet the torch relay and to start of the 'season of protests' that will take place for the next 5 months. In his novel "5 ring circus" one anti-Olympic activist made it very clear that it would be very easy to stop the games, one sniper on the Highway to Whistler Mountain could do the trick just nicely, "Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more"





So what are they protesting? They're protesting the cost of the games. They think that public money should be spent on social programs. Since the games are mostly funded by sponsors and the public spending on infastructure will benifit the city for generations, where is all the money that could be used for social programs being spent? It's being wasted on police, military and private security to protect people and property from .....THE PROTESTORS!!! A billion dollars of public money, gone up in flames.



I don't have any figures, but I'm guessing any local or Provincial social programs are going to be slashed for a decade at least to cover the cost of dealing with activist groups that are protesting for more social programs. Which makes me sincerely doubt their intentions are really anything at all to do with soclial spending, and more to do with a sincere desire to break something and get away with it, and tell all your friends "I was there, I fucked the man"



And after voting 'no' on the Olympic referendum 5 years ago (years before deciding on a change of careers) I'm now going to spend 3 weeks this winter wondering if the next chunk of concrete has my name on it.

Actually, Wash State is getting an entire Ops Centre for an Olympics that isn't even in your country.

The non-descript warehouse is located at the tip of a dead-end road in an industrial park near the Bellingham, Wash., airport, 30 kilometres south of the Canada-U.S. border. A one-storey structure without signage, it offers no clue from the street what goes on behind its cream-coloured walls.



But inside the building, amid an expanse of cubicles and TV screens, the purpose is plain: The U.S. federal government has turned the 25,000-square-foot space into a high-security co-ordination centre for the 2010 Winter Olympics.



The centre is the most visual part of the U.S. effort to prepare for any possible emergency that might occur from mid-January to late March. Around 40 federal, state and local government departments in the United States have been meshed into an intricate network that could muster up resources at a moment's notice to respond to lethal threats at the border, a health pandemic or acts of terrorism. On a less apocalyptic scale, the groups could bring together crews to deal with snowstorms or major collisions that shut down highways.



The groups are among more than 130 government departments - including 17 federal and provincial government agencies from Canada - that have been participating over the past two years in regular meetings of Washington State's security committee.

Globe and Mail





One useful thing I've heard is that they're running more Amtrak services, and if it makes economic sense they may keep running them after games. I'd LOVE to be able to hop a cheap train in van, do some shopping in Bellingham, and be home for dinner without the 3 hour border wait with a screaming kid in the car.



We'd love to visit the US more often, but it just isn't worth the wait and the squinty eyed border guard.

Torch looks just like a doobie too.



http://www.sookefastball.com/news_im...e/torch_22.jpg

Sorry - bad edit. Went from 900,000,000 to a billion. Which is a hundred million over budget. And that's stricty security. That's nothing else that is involved in putting on the games. A billion dollars just for security.

Yeah that's still on the negotiating table.



In other words... if they are counting on me doing my 4 years "bleeding for the force" up there they're gonna find themselves short a man up in Yellowknife.



They consider it payback for all the overtime I'll make this winter.





I'm actually getting Olympic fever. I'm pumped. I know it's so wrong and dirty and corrupt and fixed and shitty... but damn it... it's gonna be one HELL of a party.

Be honest Dr. 700 dollars a person to watch a hockey game? How much tax dollars have they used in preparing for these games? So lets see they use the taxpayers money preparing about a year out, most taxpayers poor to middle class won’t have the money to attend, but they will reap the benefits after it’s over. My guess is they will probably break even but the rich will enjoy the games. But Hey they should not protest because it will cost more money and should just sit back and take it. That is what you are saying right? Stay safe anyway.