by Sean Orr | A promise broken on Bill C-51? Quick, take your shirt off! Trudeau says rights must be balanced with security in battling terrorism. We’ve seen this before. So revolutionary! “Get up, stand up. Stand up for your delicately balanced rights.” – Bob Marley. “You gotta fight! For your delicately balanced right! To paaaaaaarty”- Beastie Boys

“Getting that balance right isn’t always easy in the challenging situation we now live in…” Why do I find this more insidious and terrifying than any of Harper’s hawkish rhetoric? What shall we call this subtle casuistry, this Obama-style, third-way, empire lite? This false dichotomy between “security and freedoms”? I know, let’s call it Justinism.

Justinism is masterful media manipulation: Contrast Between Photo-Op Justin And Policy Trudeau Is Night And Day.

It’s been 10 months, and Liberal voters are still having a difficult time seeing past the glossy veneer slathered on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They have yet to acknowledge that their aspirational leader is anything other than the exact antithesis to their ideological enemy, Stephen Harper.

And yet, Justinists, like Trumpers, don’t care about facts.

They see him at The Tragically Hip show in Kingston and he can do no wrong. And while I may have been crying at the time, I was still able to sputter “bullshit” at the TV, not least because he was that guy who wore the shirt of the band he was going to go see:

Gord Downie Uses Tragically Hip Concert To Spur Trudeau On First Nations “He cares about the people way up North, that we were trained our entire lives to ignore, trained our entire lives to hear not a word of what’s going on up there…” You just got put on the spot during one of the greatest performances of any band ever, Mr. Prime Minister. No presh.

Meanwhile in Saskatchewan, a Cree man with a flat tire gets murdered. And the accused murderer got bail. Meanwhile Premier Brad Wall whitewashes his province’s entire history:

“This is a province full of wonderful people. We have the Saskatchewan values and the Saskatchewan character. It’s built on tolerance, actually, if you consider our history. We’re good neighbours and we need to remember that.”

My friend Nathan Redekop, a resident of Saskatchewan, responds thus:

“Good neighbours” who steal everything you have, systematically try to destroy your culture, drive your children into punishing poverty and then abduct them, and imprison your people at 33 times the rate of others. You have to go to Israel to find “neighbours” who are more psychopathic than Brad Wall and his rich white friends.

Christy Clark just unveiled a climate change plan that’s so bad her own experts are ripping it apart: “British Columbia Premier Christy Clark quietly unveiled her government’s new “climate leadership plan” on a late Friday afternoon in the middle of August before a backdrop of people dressed up as scientists in lab coats…” I actually had to stop reading at this point. For my health.

I wouldn’t put it past her to respond to NASA’s report that July 2016 was the hottest month ever recorded with, “well for us BCers July was actually pretty mild, donchya know…”

Kinder Morgan president says pipeline supporters drowned out. Yeah, that’s because there are fewer of them, idiot. Almost 100% opposed. Thanks for the laugh, CBC.

Smoking gun of the day: Canada tax chiefs knew foreign money’s big role in Vancouver housing market 20 years ago, leaked documents show, but they ‘ignored’ auditors’ warning. Now, if only that headline could be as clear and concise as the deceit and bullshit being rained upon us from above.

Advocates demand better rental protections in ‘out of whack’ Vancouver market. “Somehow our provincial and municipal governments don’t see the fact that we even have the word ‘renoviction‘ in our lexicon indicates the existence of a huge problem.” – Kay Higgins.

Mental Health advocacy group in Vancouver’s DTES to close doors forever due to funding loss. Well, I can think of one organization that would gladly fill the vacuum…

As Canada Moves to Legalize Marijuana, Shop Owners Ask: Why Wait?.

In the Downtown Eastside, a gritty Vancouver neighborhood, a crowd of people were smoking crack and shooting heroin on the sidewalk outside Farm, a dispensary with a self-avowed social-justice mission. It employs only women, many of them immigrants, former prostitutes or victims of sexual assault, and its proceeds help finance neighborhood programs like needle collection and a community garden.

Hmm, I’m pretty sure I forbade everyone from characterizing the DTES as “gritty”. Did you not get the memo, New York Times? Also I’m pretty sure we’re using the term “sex worker” now instead of prostitute.

Vancouver Drug Users Fight Poverty Tourism by Gawking at Yuppies. How adorable.

Peak Vancouver of the day: Concord Pacific Place revealed as site for Dîner en Blanc Vancouver 2016. The symbolism is almost perfect: a pretentious faux elite celebration of whiteness held on the same lands where we once upon a time (Expo 86) whored ourselves to the world before giving it all away to one, single, developer.

Faux Victorian couple ejected from Butchart Gardens for fancy attire. Victoria might be totally uptight, but these people are asking for it:

Perhaps they’re right. Maybe they’d be happier in an era when they could more easily flourish in the “dominant culture,” like the 19th century. Since they regard themselves as such students of the time, I’m sure they’re prepared to engage with the full spectrum of the “dominant culture” of the Victorian era, including such popular contemporary pastimes as epidemic disease, famine, slavery, lynchings, imperial aggression, and anti-Semitic pogroms.

Vancouver pair pitches idea to bring a beach and big-wave surfing to False Creek. Good luck. You can’t even have dragon boats in False Creek without NIMBYs losing their shit. If you want to play their stupid, selfish game you have to know their stupid, fucked up rules. To wit, Scout pitched the idea of a surf spot next to False Creek a year ago, and it included 220 condos. Bees with honey, carrot and stick, et cetera.

If you are old enough to remember the great North Van all-ages venue Seylynn Hall, then this tweet is for you:

hey dudes! u going to see black rice at seylynn village tonight? @seanorr @josiahhughes pic.twitter.com/aKCeWNcnyq

— Jonny Hughes (@jonnydhughes) August 17, 2016

Related: Revolutions, Punks, & Poets: Vancouver’s Forgotten Stories.

Bonus: It’s Not Lit, Fam: Calgary Paper Makes Interns Explain Teen Slang. Your turn, Vancouver Sun.