Do we really want to see a vote go one way or another because someone slipped out for a coffee?
This guy just doesn’t get it. If you want a coffee, figure out a way to get a coffee without missing votes, and without having someone else pay for it.
Hear him on Charles Adler to get how much this guy is simply entitled to his entitlements.
I’m one of those lazy, useless autoworkers you always hear about, and I can tell you it’s more than my job is worth to start missing cars because I was off getting coffee. Yet we manage to drink coffee. Surely, as one of our betters, Toronto City Councillor James Pasternak can figure out how to have coffee, and do his job.
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Free coffee, James Pasternak
The oh so provincial edition
We‘re getting stiffed by two levels of government on a regular basis. It may be time for us to start thinking about acting on our own and becoming a province.
As an Ontarian, may I just say, sayonara babies.
Lets be clear what this is about. The federal government and the Government of Ontario have become immune to Toronto’s whining, so now they want in on the equalization train… If Ontario won’t pay, maybe Alberta will.
I repeat, sayonara babies.
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Giorgio Mammoliti, Province, Toronto
The flowers have to be at a certain height to water them and the signs have to be at a certain height to see them — unfortunately, it’s the same for both, so they need to put flowers elsewhere.
To paraphrase James Carville, It’s the stupid, stupid. And actually, the flowers don’t need to be put elsewhere, the flowers don’t need to be there period. How does a city with a $700M hole not know that?
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Toronto
If only she had blown bubbles in his face, maybe Toronto Police would consider it assault.
The details: I was at Yonge-Dundas Square … And I used my new Canon camera to take photos of this neon shrine.
Suddenly, a woman wearing a hijab ran toward me… She was screaming: “We are Muslim! You do not take pictures of us!”
I informed the lady I was in a public square in a democracy. I can actually take pictures of whomever I please.
And then: Ka-pow! Her fist collided with my face…
The cop walked back to me. No charges would be laid, he said, because he believed the woman’s story — namely, she was merely trying to knock the camera out of my hands.
Even if you accept the story of the attacker, she committed a crime.
The Toronto Police Service has become so bad at doing their job, it’s hard to imagine that Chief Bill Blair will not be a Cabinet Minister within the year.
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Bill Blair, David Menzies, Officer Bubbles
What’s that line about moral and intellectual superiors?
Ford said he had to miss the parade because of a family gathering at his cottage. A Star reporter did not spot
him there over three hours Sunday afternoon; when she approached as the family packed up their cars around 5:45 p.m., his niece Krista, daughter of Councillor Doug Ford, said he had gone to Huntsville. She guessed that he was shopping for groceries.
The Toronto Star sent a reporter to spy on Rob Ford. Charming.
And what did Mayor Ford miss? Fellows in cowboy boots with leather wanker rings and pink rape whistles.
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Doug Ford, Krista Ford, Rob Ford, Toronto Star
Lying in a hospital bed recovering from serious surgery, your first item of concern should not be death threats, as in, direct threats against your life. And when that happens, the Police should take the threats seriously, even if the threat came from a muslim.
I contacted Toronto police. Within hours, two uniformed policemen from 51 Division came to interview me in hospital. However, barely one minute later, we were interrupted. Two men entered the room and told everybody else to leave. They did not identify themselves, but five minutes into what amounted to a two-hour interrogation, I realized they were police intelligence officers. One of them, I recognized by reputation – a Muslim officer who had shut down a previous investigation into a death threat against me in 2008, and another one against a partner in liberal Islam, Tahir Gora.
The money quote from moderate Muslim Tarek Fatah: “I’m hopeful that the police may yet make the right decision, now that I have gone public with this disgrace. If not, I will know the city I love is lost.”
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Tarek Fatah, Toronto, Toronto Police
Just because Rob Ford is now his honour, doesn‘t mean the good ship Toronto is going to be righted. As Joe Warmington writes today, there’s more wrong with Toronto than Transit City and doughnuts at council meetings:
…Toronto’s first murderer of 2011 statistically has a better than a 50-50 chance of not getting caught….
Of the 60 homicides in 2010, more than half have not yet ended up in arrests which means as many as three dozen murderers may be walking free among us.
And that’s just in one year. In the first decade of the new millennium — from 2000 to 2010 — there were 220 unsolved murders in Toronto…
Toronto is not in a death spiral because of the politicians they chose, but the choices the politicians made, starting with the choice more than twenty years ago to overly-politicize their police force.
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Joe Warmington, Rob Ford, Toronto, Toronto Police
Remember when Sarah Thomson entered the Toronto mayoral race? She was a choice for conservatives, a business woman with good fiscal sense.
Today, she left the race, citing Rob Ford as the “voice of anger,” and threw her endorsement behind a Liberal with the nickname furious George, who was responsible when the Ministry of Health blew $1B on a program that created zero electronic health records.
Want to know why Toronto’s broken? “Sarah Thomson, conservative choice for mayor.”
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
George Smitherman, Rob Ford, sarah thomson, Toronto
“Back when my job was to sell Toronto,
we used to have visitors just about every week from other cities in the world desperate to learn how to do the things we did best.”
…a big shot from Paris Metro wanted to see how we ran such a successful transit system, others who wanted to learn how to build a retractable-roof stadium and another group who marvelled at the CN Tower.
We had Russians who wanted to replicate our financial centre towers… another group…who wanted to examine the Stock Exchange, a third who was intrigued by our Keele Landfill and a police chief who wanted to know how we kept people from shooting each other.
… a group from Cincinatti who were amazed by our mixed-income co-op communities…
…we don’t do anything particularly well enough any more that any city official in his right mind would… come here to learn our secrets.
The last seven years of Miller leadership has not built a single thing for the city that is better…
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Brian French, Toronto Sun
An alt-rock band entertained the true believers. Hippies generated electricity with stationary bikes to power the amplifiers.
Meanwhile, over at Nathan Phillips Square in front of City Hall, the party faithful were gathered for Toronto-Cuba Friendship Day. A sparse crowd of lefties was demanding that Canada end the U.S. blockade of Cuba (how Canada is supposed to do that was a little vague). The communists were out in force extolling the virtues of the Cuban Workers’ Paradise.
h/t SDA
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
One day, someone will write a book about Toronto’s demise and there will be a chapter entitled: August 26, 2010.
On one hand, this council often talks about finding new sources of revenue.
On the other hand:
“This is not an airy-fairy, done on the back of an envelope (plan),” she said. “There is a dearth of housing in this area for artists.
“To suggest that staff didn’t come back with a positive report is incorrect,” McConnell said.
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Rob Ford has a ten point lead in the polls for Mayor of Toronto. His basic platform of reigning in spending is resonating with voters who appear fed up with the sanctimonious politicians that are ruining a very broken city.
How sanctimonious?
In my opinion, if Mayor Ford is elected, city council will have a caucus meeting and they will choose their own mayor and (Ford) will be the Mayor in name.
Of course, one of their issues is that old Mike Harris, “he’s divisive,” lie.
He won’t be able to pass gas without the permission of council,” Moscoe [Councillor Howard Moscoe AKA That Fat Pantload] said.
When asked if he thinks Ford will be able to work with council, he added: “Depends how often he wants to pass gas.”
**************
Not unrelated:
The number one news story for Toronto – Canada’s largest city – was that a traffic officer illegally parked in a disabled parking bay…
Never mind “despite two shootings that took place in Toronto and the terror arrest in Ottawa,” what about Kyle Rae declaring council would choose not to respect the express wishes of the voters.
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Howard Moscoe, Kyle Rae, Rob Ford, The Big Pantload
Kyle Rooks of TCHC (Toronto Community Housing Corporation ) said yellow tape surrounded the weeds…
Oh my God! Its Hogwood Hysteria!
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
After 19 years on city council, a guy can become used to the entitlement culture that is modern Canadian politics:
Kyle Rae admitted Tuesday he spent $12,000 from his taxpayer-subsidized communications budget to throw himself a “Farewell Celebration”…
Somehow, to this guy, to these people, a soiree at an upscale eatery for supporters is part of a councillors communications. Seems dodgy, you say. King Kyle, it turns out, has his i’s dotted and his t’s crossed.
Rae said he felt his constituents had effectively paid for such an event since he had handed over a $25,000 cheque to the city four years ago – money he raised that exceeded the spending limit for his re-election campaign that year.
So you see, it’s all good.
But wait a minute. If you donate to a candidates re-election campaign, and he sends taxpayer money your way to thank you, isn’t that a kick-back? Or at the very least, an election expense?
And if you didn’t donate to Kyle Rae, don’t like him and never voted for him? Not to worry, that newsletter he always sends out letting you know why your garbage wasn’t picked up – it’s in the mail.
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Kyle Rae
Many of Toronto’s critics, this one included, believe they have waged a war on cars over the past 20 years. The war has been waged in the name of getting people on the TTC: give the city of Toronto a nickel, they’ll buy a quarter’s worth of bike lanes; give them a dollar, they’ll buy $10 worth of street car tracks; give them $10 an they’ll buy $100 worth of subway line. And recall, these people want to tear down the Gardiner Expressway, all the better to see all those condos that dot the lake.
The Toronto Board of Trade issued a report yesterday that says Toronto’s commute time is the worst in 19 major urban centres, including the notorious Los Angeles, and that is a “glaring downfall” in the city’s economic picture.
The Board of Trades solution?
Building the city’s public transit infrastructure is critical to improving productivity, Ms. Wilding [Carol Wilding, head of the Toronto Board of Trade]…
In other words what we’ve been doing the last twenty years isn’t working, but if we do it faster…
Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral
Carol Wilding, Toronto Board of Trade
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