The Fire Hydrant for Board of Governors Perhaps the most serious issue facing campus right now is University Town. Over the next 10 years, UBC intends to make between $600M and a billion dollars from land sales, for things like luxury condos and a shopping mall. This massive development will cover an area slightly larger than what everyone calls "campus," and could potentially be home to thousands of dogs, unless we act immediately. The BoG has the power to enact bylaws, enforcable by the Campus Cowboys, banning dogs from campus and all developments that might spring up here. This power MUST be exercised. Dogs are evil. Evil evil evil. I will further advocate for floating all campus fire hydrants at 50kV to ground, to help enforce this rule and protect our hydrants. If we take the lowball figure of $600 000 000.00, and assume that this manages a meagre 5% interest, that's still $30 000 000.00 in interest per year, or $750 per student per year, by the tenth year. It is crucial that this money be invested in alcohol, to drown the sorrows of the students who thought they were going to a scenic, open, green campus, just like in the brochures. Now, you may point out, correctly, that $750 isn't much beer. It's about a month's worth of moderate drinking, in fact. This is where it gets fun. You may already realize that the people who buy million-dollar apartments next to Thunderbird Stadium don't know that the stadium is used several times per year by bands like Metallica, 54·40, and R.E.M. But guess what? NO-ONE realizes that the University Act gives UBC the right to expropriate any land it deems necessary for its own universital purposes. We can sell this land over and over again! And who decides what "necessary" means? BoG! And you thought our leprechaun at VP Finance had a license to print money! Just don't tell the nice rich people, OK? The BoG has formulated policies covering all sorts of bizarre and esoteric eventualities, with one shocking oversight. I propose a new Policy 129 -- Alien Invasions: The University shall remain open during alien invasions but may cancel or reschedule classes on a university-wide basis and/or curtail non-essential services in response to the threat. In the event that all humans in the Administration have their brains in some way compromised, Fire Hydrant (hereinafer referred to as "It"), being inherently brainless, shall become Dictator (or Emperor, at It's discretion), until It judges the threat to have passed. There has been a great deal of consternation recently over the rapid doubling of tuition, about 53% of which has been flung into a black hole called "Sustaining the Learning Environment." Preventing a further, equally nasty increase will require lobbying the provincial government. I would instigate an interdisciplinary project, combining elements of Physics, Chem, Metals and Materials, Chem Eng, and Art History, designed to lob messy objects in the general direction of Victoria. We'd practice on nearer targets, such as Gordon Campbell's house, but I'd like to see this project completed before the year is out. Initially, a collaboration with the Aggies and their farm would provide all the sheep shit we could launch, but I anticipate having to call an international design competition for further projectiles. Like other members of the Board, I intend to develop synergistic pedagogical buzzword paradigms based on our core competencies, then leverage them in befuddling as many people as possible. Finally, the main reason why you should vote for Fire Hydrant for BoG: To annoy Martha Piper. Can you imagine forcing Martha to sit next to a fire hydrant on the Board of Governors for a year? That would be so awesome! How can you possibly not vote for me? my poster        vote

The Radical Beer Faction is UBC's oldest political party. For the past 16 years, the RBF has toiled ceaselessly to promote inebriation, irreverence and informed choice at UBC.

OUR PLEDGE:
If you, the students of UBC, give us 10% of the vote, we will throw one big ugly mother of a free keg party on campus.

Vote online now at www.ams.ubc.ca/elections/. It's easy and fun, and you can do it with a beer in your hand!