George Bush ts a wanker

By Stephanie Wilson

The outgoing US chief weapons
inspector David Kay has decided to
admit that he doesn’t think that there
are any weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq. No, really? They’ve had
almost a year to find them - even more
if you count earlier weapons inspec-
tions. The problem, Kay says, was the
intelligence that the US based its
assumptions on. Given that it’s an elec-

_ tion year and Bush wants to be re-
elected so he can screw over even more
countries...er, I mean, ‘liberate’ and
‘democratize’ other countries, the
White House has issued a statement
explaining that they believe weapons
of mass destruction will be found.
Right.

Now this brings up another issue.
Bush justified the war in Iraq on the
assumption that Iraq possessed illicit
weapons and was a ‘threat.
Remember the whole UN Security
Council Resolution 1441 debate?
(Which, I might add, doesn’t actually
‘approve’. the war.) Instead of just
admitting that they were wrong, the
Bush administration now rationalises

the war as “justifiable humanitarian
intervention.” Human Rights Watch
claims that war for ‘humanitarian’ rea-
sons is redundant and if the US really
cared about the welfare of the Iraqi
peoples the US would have ‘inter-
yened’ when Saddam went on a geno-

cidal rampage and killed thousands of

Kurds in 1988. Either way, it has been
apparent for a really long time that the
occupation really isn’t about weapons
of mass destruction In fact, American
foreign policy under the Bush regime
has little room for humanitarian caus-
es. Why would you want to help the
people of Sierra Leone when they sup-
ply so many of the diamonds on the
US market?

Given that it is an election year, the
White House has announced an inves-
tigation into the intelligence reports
leading up to the war in Iraq. This
could be interesting. If the investiga-
tion is truly independent, then the
committee could investigate the Bush
administration’s actions - at least in
theory - and might be a liability to
Bush’s re-election campaign. If the
committee isn’t independent enough,
it might be another liability to Bush’s

Letters to the Editor

' These are,
our Weafo
: 2 Mees

yy ». Destruct: one

re-election campaign. I suspect that a
fluffy, happy preliminary report will
surface right around Election Day and
the actual results of the investigation
will be released after the investigation.

In the end, Bush and the David Kay

and the CLA can say whatever they
want and demand as many investiga-
tions as they want. It doesn’t change
the fact that Bush violated internation-
al law and killed countless numbers of
innocent people. Weapons of mass

12

FEBRUARY 11, 2004

destruction still haven’t turned up and

Traq is still in chaos. I can only hope

that as the American people engage in
their marathon of an election period,
they keep this in mind.

Thanks NUGSSI Just a Quick Observation

I want to send out a Thanks to
NUGSS for their recent (apparent)
policy change as to protecting the
rights of and supporting students.
NUGSS has, as most students know, a
bad reputation around campus. A
reputation for being, as some student
like to say “intrusive”, “money grub-
bing”, “stupid-head-morons” (only to
quote a few students). I would like to
offer hope to these {and all) students of
UNBC. NUGSS seems to have final-
ly, much to the amusement of many
students, overcome (at least to some
extent) and put aside their total self-
serving (i'll-do-it-if-as-long-as-i-can-
put-it-on-my-resume-and-i-still-get-
paid-$500/month) political attitudes
(yay-UNBC-and-all-that-it-stands-for-

I'm not a child,

Students who believe that freedom
of speech includes allowirig discrimi-
natory groups on campus will be glad
to know that UNBC currently has no
rules disallowing these groups access
to conference services at UNBC.
Next week we may in fact be faced
with posters of child pornography
and slogans of “I’m not a child, Pm
an object” in the hallways of UNBC.
But hey, freedom of speech right? I
know what you’re thinking, it’s not the
same thing, but think about it. Ther

including-screwing-students-for-
more-money-for-less-services) and
finally remembered that they are a
student union, serving the student
body and should be acting for the best
interests of all students at UNBC and
not their own. NUGSS has done all
this by making posters showing their
support for “student directed” protests
to the Campbell Gov’t’s tuition hikes.
After 3 years NUGSS has finally real-
izing that they should be doing some-
thing about the tuition hikes and
should be supporting the students. i
would like to say... THANK-YOU
NUGSS!!! for finally showing us that
you have a backbone and actually
stand for something!

/'’m an object!

talk to someone who has been dis-
criminated against and ask them if
freedom of speech makes discrimina-
tion okay. This is a progressive. insti-
tution that believes in diversity. PRO-
LIFE is NOT an example of a group
that advocates for diverse thought.
Advocates for such groups believe in
one solution for all situations. In a
real world, this is simply not realistic.

This is just a quick observation I'd
like to make apparent. One day while
I was supervising an exam with a pro-
fessor in the Canfor Lecture hall; I

noticed a student who I would say

was definitely larger than an average
student. In other words, this student
looked extremely uncomfortable in
their seat. Specifically, this person
was completely squished into the

+seat. At the time I thought ‘that is not

fair, if there are ramps for people
who use wheelchairs then shouldn't
there be bigger seats for bigger peo-
ple’. I then wondered whether this
lack of accessibility for overweight

people could constitute a form of dis-
crimination. Discrimination _ is
defined as an unjustified negative or
harmful action toward a member of
a group, simply because of his or her
membership in that group. A stereo-
type is a generalization about a group
of people in which identical charac-
teristics are assigned to virtually all
members of the group, regardless of
actual variation among members

I think that in this situation, based
on that definition of discrimination,
discrimination has occurred. I think
most overweight people would prob-
ably find it rather uncomfortable and

perhaps embarrassing to be squished
into a tiny seat. A generalization or
stereotype also occurred; the univer-
sity probably assumed that most stu-
dents are of average weight and
build, and are able to fit into an aver-
age sized seat. Fortunately UNBC is
committed to providing an environ-
ment that is free of discrimination,
and the student newspaper seemed to
me, to be a good medium through
which this issue could possibly be
brought to their attention.

Ps. If you disagree with me, please
send me an explanation as to why
you disagree, thanks, anonymous

Much Ado About Nothing

Some members of residence council were running
around in a panic after hearing a rumor that all future
events were cancelled in light of a recent Residence-Vs-
Having lost one of the ‘safe’

Residence hockey game.
plastic pucks and broken the other,

decided to bring out a black puck rather than send home
the sixty-plus players and spectators who had shown up to
participate in this, the most successful residence event to
date. That wasn’t what set off the alarm bells with the
UNBC facilities department, though:
event, several members of the studentry brought beer bot-
tles, violating the ‘no alcohol on school grounds rule’.

Residence Council

while watching the — the council.

The

By William Hull

blame for this horrible, horrible act fell squarely on the
shoulders of Residence Council, and brought into ques-
tion how well the council would be able to handle alcohol
at the upcoming semi-fofmal dance.
somehow mangled from “Maybe we should think twice
about serving alcohol at the dance” to “Res council will
never do anything again, ever.”
telephone, the immediate, dedicated response remains a
testament to the upper-echelon members’ dedication to

News of this was

* A classic case of broken

The opinions expressed in the Opinion section of Over The Edge. are those of their authors, and not those of

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