Sunday, November 30, 2008

Hey Stephen! Why Are You Taking The Fun Out Of This Comedy

November 29, 2008

Name That Coalition - Final Voting Round

Name That Coalition!
Coalition of the Swilling
Two Scumbags and a Blockhead
Bloc Torontois
Canada Schmanada Party
Naturally Governing Separatist Party
The Wests Last/Best Reason to Leave
The Raucous Porkas Caucus
Left, Lefter And I Keel You If You Speak English
New Libs on the Bloc
The Faltered, The Done and the Wholly Toast
Free polls from Pollhost.com


Posted by Kate at 5:02 PM | Comments (65)


Possibly Not A Harper Supporter And Individual Responsibility

Pierre Beaudet's Blog

Pierre Beaudet's picture

Pierre Beaudet, active in international solidarity and social movements in Quebec, is founder of Quebec NGO Alternatives, and a professor of sociology.

Throw the bums out

| November 30, 2008

As if anyone had thought otherwise, Stephen Harper is still determined to carry out his revolution. With less than 25% of the population who voted for him, Stephen does not care and he is rolling. This ‘management», however bufoonesque it appears, is ‘rational' in the lines of the neoconservative agenda. The current crisis is an ‘opportunity' for Stephen, so he can further demolish what remains of the welfare state.

Certainly, his alignments would mean massive dislocations of the health and education sector through cutbacks in the transfers to the provinces. Major federal administrations would be reduced. Subsidies to failing industries would be minimal and symbolic because, fundamentally, Stephen wants to restructure the economy. In Afghanistan and elsewhere, it's business as usual with more military. On that front, Stephen is confirmed by the current ‘clintonisation' of Obama along the pursuit of the endless war.

Who would be surprised? In any case, the events of this past week had at least the advantage of putting the opposition's backs to the wall. Of course, the onslaught against the financing of political parties is a major point of contention. Stephen aims to ‘Americanize' our already feeble democratic system.

What to do? Liberals and NDPers, with the support of the Bloc, can actually form an alternative government. My information tells me, by the way, that it was some of the left-wingers of the Bloc and the NDP who brought the idea forward in the first place. Now the move has been taken over by the Liberal establishment and we will see if they have the guts to continue. Bear in mind that behind the Liberals are some of the major elites in Canada, like Power Corporation for example. These folks are not exactly hostile to Stephen and certainly not sympathetic to a long lasting NPD-Liberal alliance, not to mention the Bloc, their deadly enemy in Quebec. They might be afraid however of a political meltdown caused by a dislocating ultra conservative agenda.

The Bloc on the other hand are ambivalent. Their left-leaning heart tells them to support the anti-Stephen alliance. Their realpolitik head tells them that Stephen is the best enemy they can have. In the end, however, they understand popular moods; they will come on board. The NDP probably has the most to gain although a similar alliance with the Liberals in the 1970s did not yield an increase in support for them.

Can these politicians have a sense of what is at stake and overthrow the right-wing revolutionaries? It requires that the the Liberal establishment refuses the lousy deal that Stephen will without doubt offer, like scrapping the cutback in party financing. But fundamentally, it requires that citizens wake up and come out and shout, ‘throw the bums out'!


Google Manipulating The Internet?

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Google chicanery worsens

You can read here the story about how Pamela Geller and her "Atlas Shrugged" blog have been "sandboxed" by Google -- meaning that her page-ranking has been stripped -- which in turn means that Google searches that should put her stuff on the front page of results in fact lead to her site only at the very end of the search results.

I used the search term: "couple of days ago I was wiped off google search pages". It is from one of Pamela's recent posts, a post that I and many other conservative bloggers have reproduced. And because so many people have linked to it, it should have appeared at the top of the search results. It did not. All the posts by other people (including mine) came first and the original post came up only at the bottom of the searches. So it is crystal clear that Google is now deliberately perverting its own automatic ranking system to divert attention away from blogs it does not like. And because lots of people go no further than the first page of search results, that is a very effective form of censorship. Obama is not yet even in office and the censorship of conservative speech has begun!

I wondered whether Google was doing something similar to this blog and it looks like they do. Let me explain: There are no less than five group-blogs where the owners have kindly given me posting privileges -- in addition to my own 11 regular blogs. So most days I post to 16 blogs. What I post on the group blogs are one or two cross-posts of what I think are the more widely interesting posts on my own blogs.

Since only one of the group blogs gets more readers than this one, it seems likely that their page rank should be behind this one. There are around 1,500 links leading to this blog according to Technorati -- and that is pretty good as blogs go. So anything appearing here should come up close to top in search results. I checked, however, and it did not. Results from this blog appeared LAST. I found that a post put up on one of the group blogs will be listed in a Google search result BEFORE the same post on this blog. So my page ranking appears to have been manually tampered with too.

But I am not as driven as Pamela so as long as my posts are listed at all I am happy. Most of my posts are recycled bits from elsewhere anyway and the stuff that is original to me is VERY original (What other conservative blog has extolled the Eton Boating Song, for instance?) so, for want of competition, my own thoughts should still appear well up on searches even if their page-rank is low. The time may come however when Google completely delists pesky conservative bloggers like me. America will be well on the road to Fascism when that happens.

Thanks Flaggman For This Insight Into The Bastion Of The Left

November 28, 2008

Liberal Party of Canada: When it comes to the public trough, there’s no compromise!

They will write books some day analyzing the political genius of Stephen Harper. This move was audacious, stunning, bold, and absolutely right from a small-c conservative point of view: through his Finance Minister’s economic update, he has announced the end of the outrageous system of public financing of Canada’s political parties imposed by the Chretien Liberals. Read about it in Kelly MacParland’s fine column. Quite simply: a system in which the Bloc Quebecois receives over 80% of its operating funds from the very Federal Government it wishes to dismantle, is a system that must go. Grabbing this post-election opportunity in which the official opposition is at its weakest to scrap the system is the type of hardball politics that conservatives usually end up on the butt-end of! Finally, we have hardball players on our side.

What makes this incredibly entertaining is the bluster and sabre-rattling of the opposition parties. Both NDP leader Jack Layton, and Liberal leader-in-waiting Bob Rae, have called the move “undemocratic” - an Orwellian inversion if there ever was one. All opposition parties are threatening to vote against the measure, which would trigger a snap election. Check out these quotes from Joan Bryden’s evening report:

Ignatieff: “I’m utterly unintimidated and undeterred by this stuff and the caucus is in the same mood . . . . (Harper) has misread the mood if he thinks that the Liberal caucus is going to cave on this matter. No way. No way.”

Similarly, Rae said the Tories are “deliberately creating a political crisis in order to avoid dealing with an economic crisis.” He said there’s “no public policy benefit at all” to the move to scrap public subsidies for parties.

“It’s just absolute bloody-minded meanness that’s motivating them and it can’t be allowed to stand.”

So, after two years of abstaining on every key issue put forward by the Conservatives - from war, to justice, to taxes, to economics - we now know where the line in the sand is drawn for Liberals. Deny these pigs their seat at the public trough, and it’s war!

Dignity, thy name ‘aint Lib.

Proof Canadians Are More Tolerant?

....or that we tend to cave in more quickly.

Anti-Prop. 8 Mob Watch: A new blacklist published

November 29, 2008 10:40 AM by Michelle Malkin

132 Comments | 5 Trackbacks

“It’s a shame.”

Let The Facts Speak For Themselves

Charles Lewis: Intolerance triumphs on Canadian campuses
Posted: November 29, 2008, 4:00 PM by Kelly McParland
Filed under: Full Comment,Charles Lewis

At the University of Guelph, a student council decides an anti-abortion group is unfair to women so they are banned. Queen's University hires "dialogue facilitators" because they are unsure that the right kinds of conversation are taking place among students. At Carleton University, some students decide that cystic fibrosis is too white a disease so it is unworthy of charitable funding.

Critics charge that all these recent incidents are just the latest signs of the erosion of free speech at Canadian universities.

"I think that on many university campuses they think that if they have to decide between free speech and equality they will choose equality in the end," said Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, a lawyer with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. "And the problem is that dichotomy is a false one to start with because freedom of expression and equality go hand in hand. Disadvantaged groups have used their freedom of expression to get their voice heard. They've used freedom of speech to show injustice when it's out there to persuade public opinion. And that's how we've made the advances that we have."

Isn't That What CSIS Is Supposed To Do?




Keep an eye on terrorists; both foreign and homegrown.

CSIS SPYING ON MOHAWKS

Proof Positive.....

....of what the Brits have been saying about the French for centuries!

FRENCH MEN NEED LARGEST CONDOMS IN EUROPE

Councilor Walker Concerned Abou Social Safety Net....


.....while Comrade Miller and his lackeys are concerned about plastic grocery bags.

Miller's latest nickelhead idea

5 cents plastic bag charge not cost effective at all

King David Miller, a.k.a. our mayor, was pleased as punch last week when he rode in on his white steed to save the day with his new best friends in the city's grocery industry.

Never mind that he delivered his so-called compromise with the industry to reduce the number of plastic bags used by Toronto citizens in a cold, stinky transfer station -- with scavenging seagulls and a mountain of waste serving as the backdrop. (Oh the possibilities of that scenario!)

It didn't seem to matter one bit either that only a small group representing the largest grocery chains -- Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro -- were there and had signed on to the deal.

All hail the Climate Change King. When he and his minions bring forward their patchwork of proposals -- at council tomorrow -- aimed at reducing the number of coffee cups, plastic shopping bags and take-out containers in the city's waste stream, these large grocery stores will cash in (to the tune of as much as $44 million per year).

Instead of forcing retailers to rebate consumers 10 cents for each refillable bag they provide, Miller said he'll be moving an amendment that will impose a 5 cents fee on consumers for every plastic bag purchased. All retailers will have to play ball, whether they wish to do so or not.

"This is a major step forward in our efforts to reduce the amount of waste," Miller pronounced.

TRASHY

I didn't know whether his statement or the mountain sitting behind us was, to put it mildly, more full of trash.

If there was ever an attempt to punish both retailers and consumers (like me who already use refillable bags and containers) for so little gain, this patchwork of in-store packaging initiatives is it.

If one reads the report to council very carefully, it is quite clear this plan will only increase the city's diversion rate by a scant 1% -- if that.

As solid waste general manager Geoff Rathbone confirmed, the goal is to find 10,000 tonnes (or 1%) of in-store packaging to divert. The proposed initiatives around the three products in the plan -- coffee cups, plastic bags and Styrofoam food containers -- represent about 6,000-7,000 tonnes (or less than 1% of the city's 70% diversion target).

"It's a lot of noise isn't it?" noted Diane Brisebois, president and CEO of the Retail Council of Canada.

When asked why not just recycle the plastic bags -- since they will be accepted into our brontosaurus bins starting Dec. 8 -- Miller claimed "source reduction" is a key component of the city's 70% waste diversion goal.

"It is more environmentally sound and cost effective to reduce the amount of waste produced than it is recycle or dispose of it," he said.

Cost effective? Now that's a joke. When has cost ever stopped the Climate Change King from pursuing his "mandate"? A recession doesn't exist at Socialist Silly Hall.

And what price will taxpayers end up paying -- beside the 5 cents for plastic bags -- if these inane initiatives are approved this week?

The move to ban paper coffee cups (with plastic lids) and the plan to force chains to provide a 20 cents discount to those with their own refillable mugs has been sent back to the drawing board until next April. It's anybody's guess what will come of that.

It's also quite clear many Toronto retailers are not on board with the mayor's so-called compromise on plastic bags.

Gary Sands, v-p of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers (representing such outlets as Longo's, Highland Farms and Pusateri's) said they're "absolutely not in support of it."

He said over the long-term the large grocery chains could live to regret the compromise since it leaves the door wide open for the Mayor to hike the 5-cent charge.

"On principle we will absolutely not accept council setting prices in stores," he said. "It's not only wrong but illegal."

Brisebois, whose association represents thousands of independent merchants and chains in Toronto, said her members have concerns that if this is imposed on Toronto retailers, it will put them at a "competitive disadvantage" with similar shops in the GTA. "We don't live in a bubble," she said.

Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong fears the proposal has not been well thought out and could land the city in court.

"This is another policy train wreck waiting to happen," he said. "We're on very shaky ground legally and it's the absolute wrong time (economically) to interfere in the retail industry."

Toronto is the home of coulda, shoulda, woulda.

A more apt descriptive was never made......

Missed opportunities

New book shows how great plans for Toronto were left unbuilt

Toronto is the home of coulda, shoulda, woulda.

Great projects that never made it to blueprints, never mind into concrete and steel, litter this city's history.

We have waterfront dreams that never woke up. Great public spaces that ran out of space. Architectural marvels dumbed down to tall disappointments.

Mark Osbaldeston, author of the new book Unbuilt Toronto, A History of the City that Might Have Been, points to a road that never made it from the planners' book in 1911 to implementation, as one key place where Toronto's potential crumbled.

Called Federal Avenue, the road planned would have connected Union Station to a public square on Queen St. W., where we now find Nathan Phillips Square.

"Toronto does miss the experience of getting off a train and having something lead up to a civic square," said Osbaldeston. "It would've given a sense of place for Toronto's downtown.

"Once the opportunity is gone you can't get it back."

Union Station and the Royal York hotel were built with Federal Ave. in mind, but when plans fell apart, the hotel was extended west. Now in the way are the financial building towers like the TD Centre.

Around the Second World War, land for a square on Queen St. W. was acquired, but by then Federal Ave. was dead.

Osbaldeston said even his hometown of Hamilton has that sense of place leading to its civic square, but for Toronto, planning couldn't make it to implementation. It's the story of our city.

In Osbaldeston's research, the most damning example of that may be the waterfront.

In 1818 or 1819, Osbaldeston found waterfront land actually did find its way into a trust, never to be used, never to be built on.

It's exactly what happened in Chicago, where the lakefront land continues to be for people, not for buildings.

But in 1850, the railways came in and wound up the trust. The tracks were put in place, industry ruled and the quest to reclaim our shoreline was born.

Like every city, Toronto's landscape is littered with plans that never found funding or government approval or both. Some came closer than others, like the bridge to the island airport, one of the many proposals on display at the Royal Ontario Museum until Jan. 11.

The exhibit is a combination of plans from Toronto's vault, and some recent examples that never made it off an architect's computer.

"Some of them are quite entertaining, some of them are crazy," said outgoing TEDCO President Jeff Steiner. "But many are inspiring."

In the crazy category, how about Velo City? It's a highway for bikes criss-crossing the city. The two tubes with three lanes in each -- for slow, medium and fast cycling traffic -- are elevated above the roads so no major real estate costs would be incurred.

Then there's the proposed Humber Bay redevelopment from 2001 that called for connecting High Park to Sunnyside and the lake through a massive bridge over the Gardiner Expy. and Lakeshore Blvd., and along the curved shoreline. How about 13 low-rise condos right along the lake? Hmm, in a city that hates condos along the waterfront, letting buildings take over an untouched beachside location. Don't think so.

It's filed under "G" too.

In the more realistic category is what is now known as College Park. The building was conceived as the T. Eaton and Co. HQ. Phase one, the elegant building you see now, made it. What didn't was a 670-foot highrise. The Depression snuffed out that skyscraper.

Then, of course, there's Toronto's Bay-Adelaide Centre. It died in the recession of the early 1990s, as office vacancies soared. Toronto was left with a six-storey stump and a parking garage, a long-standing monument to a city stalled.

Finally, in 2006, the stump came down and a new three-building plan was unveiled.

The first building will be finished by July, said Brookfield Properties CEO Tom Farley. But phases 2 and 3 are now on hold, he said.

Is this site, this project, cursed? Just when it looks like it's a go, the market makes it impossible.

This is Toronto's ultimate coulda, shoulda, didn't site. It's getting better, but, like Toronto itself, fails to reach its full potential.

-- Mark Osbaldeston will give a free presentation at the ROM Dec. 4 at 7 p.m.

An Apparent Defeat Actually A Victory.....

......for the Canadian taxpayer and for Harper. No matter how much they deny it the liberals, ndp and the other guy showed their true colours...

Conservatives scrap plan to cut party subsidies

Opposition denies subsidy cut was incentive for coalition push

How stupid do the "opposition parties think we are?

Last Updated: Saturday, November 29, 2008 | 6:09 PM ET Comments962Recommend285

The federal government will drop its controversial plan to eliminate political party subsidies that are based on the number of votes received during elections, CBC News has learned.

More

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Wychwood Barns Being Questioned......

...not only by the area residents but now by poverty social in-activists.

Poverty Ignored

Re “Wych will,” Cover, Nov. 20: Artscape certainly deserves an “A” for the effort they put into convincing us of their essential humanitarianism, but not even the warmest of their self-congratulations could disguise the distressingly classist implications of their Wychwood Car Barns project.

The issue raises concerning questions about policy priorities in this city, both public and private. A real-estate developer receives $11 million of government funding to house post-suburban high-culture hacks, while thousands go homeless on east-side streets or are forced to the margins by sky-rocketing rents. The Canadian Urban Institute gives Artscape an award for innovative use of a brownfield, while squats are flushed out and Tent City is razed.

It is an increasingly familiar story. Affluent city dwellers attempt to confront neighbourhood blight but end up trapped in a trick question: destroy or beautify beyond recognition? EYE WEEKLY’s readership is no doubt well aware of who the winners are in this ongoing game of urban reinvigoration, but little is said with regard to the defeated.

If only we could put as much inspiration into addressing the crisis of poverty in Toronto as we put into the design of our art factories. Or maybe we need a “dilapidated eyesore” or two to remind us of the other, bleaker side of real life in our post-industrial city. ANDREW MOORE

Odds 'N Sods

Army deserter seeks asylum in Germany...

WAL-MART shoppers scuffle over last X-Box 360 console...

Cafe swamped with orders for 'Obama cookie'...

British citizens among killers?

International poll: 'Growing public reluctance' to support global warming efforts...

Thanks to Drudge.....

Cut Auto CEO Perks


How about setting an example by cutting perks of MPs? Not bloody likely!

Kelly McParland: Flaherty should go further in slashing MPs' perks
Posted: November 28, 2008, 8:30 AM by Kelly McParland

Jim Flaherty may have lifted the lid on Pandora’s box by indicating Members of Parliament will be asked to share the pain of the recession with some symbolic concessions on the many perks and privileges they enjoy.

The finance minister proposed a salary freeze, a reduction in discretionary spending and a crackdown on travel when he delivers his economic update today. Mr. Flaherty can’t impose the cutbacks, but it would be difficult for opposition members to block them while millions of Canadians worry about losing their jobs or their homes. The sacrifices are token measures, and will let MPs feel good about themselves.

It’s a nice gesture, but it also underlines just how privileged these people have become. Mr. Flaherty should be encouraged to go further ... much further. Why just limit salary increases; why not eliminate some? Why not chop several dozen seats out of the House of Commons, and reduce representation to a more sensible level?

Nichols Asks Some Sensible Questions

The majority of Canadians said NO to each of these questions...

Liberals Should Think This Through

The more I think about it, the more I think the Liberals would be making a dreadful error if they carried out their constitutional "coup."

I mean think about it.

* Do they really want Stephane Dion to be the guy leading the government at this time of fiscal crisis?

* Do they really want to be part of a government where the NDP will be calling the shots on fiscal policy?

* Do they think Canadians will really warm to the idea of an unelected government usurping control of the country?

* Do they really want to make some sort of deal with the separatists?

Maybe that's why Prime Minister Harper delayed the non-confidence vote for a week. He wants to give the Liberals time to think this through.

The Public Speaks......

......but the losers aren't listening.

Would you support a Lib Ndp Bloc coalition government ?
Yes (1059) 30%
No (2442) 69%
Not sure (49) 1%

Total Votes: 3550

That was Stephane Dion's position just three weeks before the election. I guess he was lying.

Daniel Goldbloom: Who will be prime minister next week?
Posted: November 28, 2008, 5:07 PM by Dan Goldbloom
Filed under: Daniel Goldbloom,Canadian politics

Am I living in Crazyland? CRAZYLAND?
For two and a half years, Stéphane Dion rages about how the Conservative government is a shameless, unacceptable travesty, and every time Harper dares him to vote it out of existence, he backs down. Harper, increasingly upset that Dion won’t take the bait, decides to break his own fixed-election-date promise, and gets himself re-elected Prime minister of a mildly strengthened minority government, forcing Dion to resign … in seven months. So far, so comprehensible.Click here to read more...

Whitey Holding Back Minorities?

The face of the city is changing and as whites become a minority you would think that diverse leadership would be driven by the non-whites......is it possible that the reason you don't see more diverse leadership is because of the racial differences among the non-white groups.

Making T.O. a truly DiverseCity


As chief executive officer of YWCA Canada, Paulette Senior attends many events where the city's movers and shakers exercise their power. She's on several boards. She knows how to squeeze the flesh. And she's one of a lonely breed of leaders – visible minorities who make up nearly half of Toronto's population but are nearly invisible in the halls of power.

"We're still in the position of being the only one," Senior tells the Star at Thursday's launch of an initiative to help Toronto live up to its boast of being one of the world's most diverse cities.

"I'm tired of being special," she sighs, and proceeds to talk about the stress and heavy toll on the too few visible minorities holding down top-level leadership roles.

The Maytree Foundation and the City Summit Alliance, leaders in the effort to build a more competitive, just and equitable GTA, are impatient with the glacial pace at which the GTA's leadership landscape is evolving.

On Thursday, they launched DiverseCity – an initiative to "change the face of leadership in Toronto."

"We have an impatience for change," said Ratna Omidvar, president of Maytree. "We can't afford to wait," she told about 200 people at the Sutton Place Hotel, calling for "relentless incrementalism."

By waiting, the GTA is losing its chance to be more competitive and is also losing face with its growing non-white population, who feel a "disconnect" when they don't see their own faces reflected among the city-region's leaders.

DiverseCity released a study by the Conference Board of Canada that shows we may be throwing away a huge competitive advantage by not fully using the skills, knowledge, creative abilities and energies of the largest-growing segment of our population.

Companies that embrace, not just tolerate, diversity perform better in a world that is increasingly multi-everything.

DiverseCity has set itself an ambitious target by 2010:

  • Create a speaker series, Nexus, that will see 300 senior level executives make new contacts across racial and ethnic groups.
  • Identify and equip 75 "next-generation leaders" to address the city's top issues with its leaders.
  • Facilitate appointing 500 leaders from under-represented groups to city agencies, boards and commissions.
  • Uncover 300 new voices from diverse communities who can speak to media on a variety of issues.
  • Prepare 90 diverse people to run for political office or run political campaigns.

Did you know that, in the 175-year history of Toronto City Council and the former Metro Council, spanning more than a thousand elected positions (192 since amalgamation alone), we've elected only a dozen non-whites?

It's tempting to argue political leadership should be colour-blind and culture-neutral. But ask any MP, MPP or councillor of ethnic origin, Sikh or Portuguese, Ukrainian or Jewish or black, how they are viewed in their community.

Ex-MPP Alvin Curling may have been elected to serve the northeast end of Scarborough, but blacks across the GTA and province called on him to represent the government at functions. Politicians of other ethnic and cultural backgrounds report a similar dynamic.

"We have a diversity deficit," said David Pecaut, the dynamo at the core of so many efforts to improve Toronto as a civil society. "We can turn it to a diversity dividend."

Contact Sangeeta Subramanian (ssubramanian@maytree.com), the talent scout and match-maker for this initiative.

Unions Rushing To Help During Economic Crisis

Help themselves......

CAW's Lewenza rejects wage cut talk

Union saying no to $95,000!

Proposal strikes out with PSAC

Ottawa Insight

Time for the feds to grow up

Prime Minister Stephane Dion?

They have got to be kidding.

Here we are -- on the brink, maybe, of the most severe global economic downturn in a century. The auto industry is imploding. Commodity prices and home prices are in freefall.

Overseas the Jihadist terrorist threat is back, with a vengeance.

It's impossible to say just yet what impact the attacks in Mumbai will have on international peace and security, but the risk of further bloodshed has just increased exponentially.

And now we turn to Ottawa, where our fearless leaders are -- wait for it -- contemplating taking down the government. Why? Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government isn't throwing gobs of money around to stimulate the economy -- nevermind the highly politicized proposal to end the $1.95-per-vote subsidy to political parties, potentially a deathblow to the cash-strapped Liberals.

They've responded like wet hornets. The Liberals have formed a coalition with Jack Layton's NDP and Gilles Duceppe's Bloc Quebecois.

Have they all lost their minds?

Stephane Dion wasn't good enough for Canadian voters. He's been essentially fired as leader of his party.

Let's make him PM! Come on people!

Who's he backed by? Jack and the Bloc.

That's right, the same Jack Layton who wants to cancel all the tax cuts and Duceppe, leader of the party that wants to separate from the country.

We had our election, six weeks ago. Its result was unequivocal.

Political dirty tricks aside, the Tory approach to the economic crisis has been relatively sensible so far.

And the Liberals don't have their house in order. While supposedly contemplating forming a government, the Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae camps are squabbling among themselves about who would lead it.

Enough. Six weeks ago Harper promised to stop behaving like Attila the Hun. He must do so. And the Liberal brain trust must stop behaving like idiots.

As MPs, these people earn, at minimum, $170,000 a year of taxpayers' money. They owe us better than this.

People Speak Out......

Waiting to hear the thoughts of the subscribers of The Daily Worker, The Toronto Star, et al.........

not buyin' it
November 29th 2008, 2:33am
if opposition don't like the election results,no problem.I don't like filling out income tax returns,end of story.
DK
November 29th 2008, 1:44am
I am again disgusted that we had to vote...and now, the Liberals and their bunch complete fools think that they can OVER-RULE OUR DECISIONS????

We put Haprer into Office, that was our choice, it was also our choice to not only not give Dion his seats, but we also took them away from him, Nationally embarrasing his stupid backside.

And now, without the consent of the voting public, they will simply step in and remove our decisions?

I DO NOT WANT DION AND ALL THE OTHER POLITICAL MONSTERS DECIDING IF THE HARPER GOVERNMENT IS RIGHT FOR ME OR NOT!!!

The choice in the end is ours....not theirs....if the voting public feel that the strength of the leadership of the country is not enough, then so it is and have an election.....and we did that.....and Harper was victorious.

We need to send a message to Parliament saying that we do not allow un-elected opposition members choose whether or not a Government is fit to stand. That is OUR choice. We made that choice last election.

Hands off Dion....this isn't your show, and you lost, get over it. Get over this divine right to entitlement you spoiled bunch of brats.

On an international level, this is making Canada look like an unstable place, minority governemtns and non-confidence votes.

Two party system.....if you win by even ONE SOLITARY VOTE, you are in....no minoroty, no majority, just a win, and the sole responsibility of governing this country, with NO opposition.
Craig A. Mouldey
November 29th 2008, 1:20am
I think we could be on the threshold of a democratic disaster. The conservatives were elected to a near majority by the majority of people who voted. they are the government. To have a liberal, NDP, Block group over turn that and have a basically Marxist government installed against the will of the voters would be a catastrophe.
All of this because of the financial melt down in the markets? This is not the conservatives fault and I still trust them more to help us navigate through it. that they are not rushing into anything is a very good thing.
I am starting to believe this entire episode has been manufactured by a few in power to gain control of the many. We had better wake up before freedom is just a word we once knew.
B. Caulfield
November 29th 2008, 12:54am
All the uproar over the lack of a stimulus plan by the conservatives is unfair. Even though the Americans are preaching anti protectionism, You have to think that if they bailout the Auto industry, it will be with a buy American made vehicles only, caveat. You would hate to see the Canadian goverment dump billions into the big 3, before they know what the new American administration will be like.
john stark
November 29th 2008, 12:33am
The Liberals should be in jail over the sponsorship, along with the NDP who supported them for 5 months. Just how much can you shred in 5 months?
John Henderson
November 29th 2008, 12:16am
The Harper government is doing exactly what is needed for Canadians right now. Any place they can find to cut unneccessary program spending, is the right decision. Until we know where the new Obama run American government is heading, then it would be a foolish measure to start spending on a new stimulus package. The Americans could just outbid up for Auto sector jobs, by knowing how much money that we were willing to spend to keep those jobs. Harper and Flahrety are keeping us on the right path. The opposition parties are using this opportunity to try and steal the last election. I would prefer a redux of the election, than having these clowns bury us in future debt and higher taxes. $300 million would be a drop in the bucket, in comparison to what these idiots would waste, if given an opportunity.
mark dixon
November 29th 2008, 12:15am
Are you an idiot Doug? This conservitive government just wasted 300 million on an election which they called by breaking their own legislation... oh sorry doug , you are an idiot
Edward Klutowski
November 29th 2008, 12:14am
Why do the opposition parties not try harder in order to reach governing status by conventional means...instead of using this situation to gain positions which the voters denied them...and MOST OFF ALL...I just do not agree to subsidize the Bloc Quebecois with my tax money while they continue to work toward the destruction of this great country.
More, much more

When We Cut Through All The Crap.....

Dion, Layton, May, The Other Guy

.....the "loyal opposition" and the other losers are upset not because of what Harper hasn't done but rather what he has done; cut them off from the public trough. Personally I think Harper is making the wrong move although maybe he has accomplished what he wanted....to show the liberals, bloc and ndp for what they really are; Conservatives won't include party funding cuts in key motion;

Harper moves to avoid political showdown

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has temporarily stymied a Liberal plan to bring down the government and propose a governing coalition with the New Democrats, delaying the opportunity for a no-confidence vote by one week.

In an address delivered from the foyer of the House of Commons on Friday, Harper said the government should be empowered by Canadians — not through deals negotiated in the shadowy halls of Parliament.

"While we have been working on the economy, the opposition has been working on a backroom deal to overturn the results of the last election without seeking the consent of voters. They want to take power, not earn it," Harper said.

The prime minister has cancelled Monday's opposition day, which the Liberals intended to use to introduce a motion to topple the Conservative government on the grounds that it has failed to recognize the seriousness of the economic downturn.

Harper said the next opposition day will be set for Dec. 8.

"The Liberals campaigned against a coalition with the NDP, saying NDP policies were bad for the economy. And now they want to form a coalition saying that this will strengthen the economy," Harper said.

He also cancelled a vote on a ways-and-means motion that had been scheduled for Monday night, a confidence vote that would have given the opposition another chance to bring down the government. That motion deals with the government's fiscal update, which has prompted the current political crisis.

Pointing out that the Conservatives received a renewed minority mandate last month to guide the country through the worst financial crisis in decades, Harper said his government has taken several steps since the Oct. 14 vote to bolster the economy — including injecting billions of dollars of liquidity into Canada's credit markets.

The Official Opposition disagrees, saying the government hasn't offered any serious plan to assist workers and businesses in hard-pressed sectors such as manufacturing, the automotive industry and forestry.

The Liberal motion reads: "In light of the government's failure to recognize the seriousness of Canada's economic situation and its failure in particular to present any credible plan to stimulate the Canadian economy … this House has lost confidence in this government and is of the opinion that a viable alternative government can be formed."

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

It's A Start Stephen.......

Comrade "No Plan B" Miller Doesn't Have The Balls.....

.....to stand up to the unions. We don't have to look any further than the wildcat strike by TTC employees where the employees and the unions saw no reprisals....

City must show restraint

Ottawa and Queen's Park start watching the pennies, will T.O. politicians and negotiators, too?

Garbage Celebration At Toronto Silly Hall....


.....it is what they are good at doing.

Small grocers slam charge on bags

Not Quite True.......

.....it just took us a couple of decades to realize that other people could make the same product and do it cheaper. Once an alternative was introduced to the marketplace North Americans made a decision.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

No Weapons Of Mass Destruction But Rather Weapons Of Mass Bondage

You can argue all we want about the "war" in Iraq and Afganhistan, you can march for peace, you can support deserters/cowards, etc. etc. but the simple fact is there are people in Iraq and Afganhistan who are denied the simplest things that we take for granted.....an education, walk the streets without being afraid of being raped, the freedom to make any comment you want, etc. etc.

Women lose in deal made with devil
Nov 26, 2008 04:30 AM

There are not many cheerful sights in Afghanistan. But one of them is watching little girls go off to school in the morning, tidy white head scarves knotted at the throat, book bags slung over their shoulders.

Eight a.m. in Kabul looks and feels a lot like 8 a.m. in Toronto, mothers accompanying their children to the school gates, older siblings clutching the hands of small brothers and sisters.

Even the capital's chaotic traffic slows down to take care around youngsters.

Other kids, as young as 7 and 8, push wheelbarrows full of produce or pedal along with ancient samovars attached to their bikes, serving glasses of tea to pedestrians.

Pressed early into labour as family wage-earners, they can only look longingly at students so visibly and busily engaged in the process of learning.

Nobody knows what kind of future is in store for Afghanistan's children, what the country will be like by the time they're grown.

Maybe it's all a false premise – no jobs, no opportunities and, if some form of Taliban regime forces itself back into power, certainly no education for females. They'll be shoved back into their homes – even though women have become since 2002 the primary income earners in many households – with only widows clad in ragged burqas allowed onto the streets in order to beg.

The pathologically misogynistic Taliban did allow that much during their wretched reign.

Unfortunately, girls attending school is an increasingly rare sight in the volatile southern provinces where the Taliban is snatching back terrain and imposing martial authority. Schools have been built by donor countries and burned to the ground by insurgents. And while the central government boasts of new learning institutions opening all the time, many of these "academies" are open-air facilities, with lessons taught under a canvas awning.

How very brave teachers are in Kandahar and Helmand and Uruzgan, threatened with night letters, shot, throats slit, yet many still defying the risks. We can all take a lesson in courage from them.

But it is understandable that fewer parents will expose their daughters to the dangers of a walk to school. An insurgency that squirts acid into the faces of schoolgirls – 15 students and female teachers dreadfully scarred in such incidents over the past month – has lost any veneer of legitimacy. They terrorize and brutalize, striking at the softest of targets.

There may be such a thing as a "moderate Taliban" but this is largely the fantasy notion of Westerners suffering from Afghan-fatigue, naively hopeful of an exit resolution. Experts on the ground interviewed by the Star in recent days say the Taliban is more than ever – more even than pre-2001 – intertwined with and answerable to Al Qaeda, converging again in Pashtun southern Afghanistan, ejected from Iraq by American troops and Sunni tribal leaders.

We are back at the beginning, making the same mistakes, with an Afghan government that thinks it can hang onto power by negotiating with the Taliban. This is folly.

With presidential elections scheduled for next year and his domestic popularity plunging, Hamid Karzai is desperate for Pashtun support. He seems now willing to make any deal with the devil to retain the power invested in him by America and secured – insofar as it is – by the blood of Western troops. This week, hosting a UN Security Council delegation, Karzai even called for a timeline to end the war. "If there is no deadline, we have the right to find another solution for peace and security, which is negotiations."

Karzai is a desperate man with no daughters.

We all know what a made-in-Afghanistan solution looks like. Females aren't part of it.

Bargaining In Good Faith - Oxymorinic?


Advisers accuse PSAC of selling out rights claim

A PSAC contract meeting turned bitter last night when about two dozen government "compensation advisers" stormed out after accusing the union of "selling" them out in a tentative new collective agreement with the federal government. As part of the proposed agreement, the Public Service Alliance of Canada agreed to drop two pay equity complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in exchange for $4,000 lump-sum, pensionable payments to many of its 100,000-plus members. [...more]

Carleton Setting A Trend??????

November 25, 2008

Future Of Carleton University "Aids Awareness Week" Also In Doubt

The proposal to abandon the Carleton Unversity Students' Association was put forward after it was recently revealed to only include bigots, and primarily idiots.


Posted by Kate at 5:48 PM

C arleton Faux Pas Becomes International Faux Pas

Color-coded charity: No compassion for white men with cystic fibrosis

November 26, 2008 09:25 AM by Michelle Malkin

90 Comments | 6 Trackbacks

Educational malpractice.

Leave It Up To Our US Cousins

The new, politically correct term for Indians/Native Americans

November 26, 2008 03:32 PM by Michelle Malkin

36 Comments | 1 Trackback

Amsterdam? Isn't That The Progressive Model....

...for almost everything that the average person finds risque, deviant, etc. etc.

Gay Bashing in Amsterdam.....

Bruce Bawer analyzes a report about gay bashing in Amsterdam - the major media ignored the main finding that muslims were the major source of the problem...
I wanted to see the researchers' report itself – which is entitled “As Long as They Keep Away From Me” – so I went to coc.nl, the site of the major gay-rights organization in the Netherlands, COC (which stands for Cultuur- en Ontspannings Centrum, or Culture and Recreation Center). Sure enough, the COC site had a pdf of the official report. I dove into it, and within a minute found the following on page six: “The suspects [in antigay attacks] are just as often native Dutch as of Moroccan descent (both 36%). Since 39% of all young people in Amsterdam under 24 years of age belong to the first group and 16% to the second, Moroccans are overrepresented among suspects in these kinds of violence.” Plus a fact, if 36% of suspects are native Dutch, that means 64% are not native Dutch. Most of those who aren't either Dutch or Moroccan presumably belong to the other major immigrant groups in the Netherlands – Turkish, Surinamese, Indonesian, and Dutch Antillean. (Based on my own experiences, observations, and overwhelming anecdotal evidence, I strongly believe that if full gay-bashing statistics for Amsterdam were available, these proportions would shift appreciably.)

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posted by GayandRight

Welcome Back. Another Quality Contribution

November 25, 2008

A blow to liberal fascism in Canada: Moon recommends repeal of 13

liberalfascism-2008-11

November 25, 2008 was a momentous day for opponents of Canada’s creeping march towards liberal fascism. A week after administrators at one of our most prestigious post-secondary institutions, Queens University, sent a gang of thought police out to campus cafeterias and lounges to eavesdrop on private conversations, the long-awaited Moon Report on the future of the Canada Human Rights Commission was released to the public (read the full report here). Despite the fact that the Commission’s own leader hand-picked the report’s left-leaning law professor writer, and paid him handsomely with Commission funds, Prof. Richard Moon made explicit in no uncertain terms in his report: the now world-famous Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act must be repealed! (More details in op-eds from Ezra Levant and the National Post Editorial Board).

Amazingly, the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s chairwoman Jennifer Lynch, seems ready to throw the report down the memory hole, and start again in her attempt to whitewash the fascism of Section 13 and preserve the legal activist community’s make-work racket. In this context, it’s not hard to understand why Canada’s “official Jews” (a term coined by Levant that I have gratefully adopted) continue to wage battle against those who wish to strip the Human Rights Act of its most heavy-handed powers of summary execution. Here’s the official response of Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress - an organization that clearly has the interests of lawyers and leftists, rather than Jews as a whole, at heart. Typical response of liberals to failure - double-down on the rejected policy, and blame the problems on “poor implementation” (reminiscent of Barack Obama’s upcoming return to the New Deal in America).

Farber may be the most egregious proponent of Section 13, but he’s not alone. Leo Adler, head of the Canadian branch of Rabbi Marvin Hier’s excellent L.A.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, has tarnished his organization through vocal support. The B’nai Brith, a Jewish community and charitable organization to which I belong, has also supported the draconian speech code law. I’ll be following Levant, and doing what I can to hit these organizations in the pocketbook. I will be doing my best to participate in his “Jews against book burning” campaign, and ensure that no donated funds of mine will go to the CJC or Friends of Simon Wiesenthal (who is probably turning in his grave at Adler’s antics) until their policies change.

In the meantime, I look forward to the law’s repeal in Parliament. Get it on the agenda, Mr. Harper!

What Next From Comrade Miller......

New Look At Nathan Phillips Square As Planned By Comrade Miller

If you don't goose step to Comrade Millers "Green Plan" will we see large Rs branded on foreheads or possibly armbands with a large R on a yellow background.

City could impose 5-cent charge for plastic bags

Updated: Wed Nov. 26 2008 9:34:28 AM

ctvtoronto.ca

Toronto Mayor David Miller is expected to take another stab at waste reduction Wednesday when he will officially propose a nickel charge for every plastic bag taken from grocery stores.

The mayor has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday morning at the Commissioner Street waste transfer station. It is expected he will make the announcement with supermarket industry executives in tow.

Some grocery stores, such as No Frills, already require customers to pay 5-cents per plastic bag. Many locations offer their customers carton boxes to pack their groceries instead.

This new proposal comes weeks after city councillors sparked a heated debate over a plan to have retailers offer a 10-cent discount to customers who bring their own bag to carry groceries. Other ideas included banning coffee cups or offering a 20-cent discount to customers who brought in their own coffee mug.

Critics panned the idea, saying it was unworkable because it would cost retailers millions.

City council is scheduled to meet next week to discuss a host of ideas meant to reduce waste and tackle unnecessary packaging.

Toronto, as part of its waste-diversion goal, has vowed to divert 70 per cent of the city's waste from landfills. In 2007, Toronto diverted 42 per cent of its waste..


Yoni Goldstein: Toronto's ridiculous new plastic bag laws
Posted: November 26, 2008, 2:01 PM by Yoni Goldstein
Filed under: Yoni Goldstein

Ten days ago, Toronto Mayor David Miller actually came up with a decent idea: In an effort to curb use of environment-destroying plastic bags, he wanted to offer consumers a 10¢ discount to not use plastic bags. That is, each time you go shopping — for groceries, cothing, appliances, whatever — and agree to carry your booty home in your hands, instead of in a plastic bag, you get a couple cents off. That idea would have surely got consumers interested. The discount would have been nothing more than a tiny symbol, but my bet is that customers would have taken it. Especially these days, buyers are likely to take whatever deal they can — even if it means a bit of inconvenience. It could have a win-win situation, for consumers and the environment.

But leave it to Mayor Miller to scrap a good idea for a much, much dumber one. Today, Miller has proposed new legislation to replace the 10¢ idea: Charge consumers 5¢ for every plastic bag they decide to use. Instead of offering an incentive for consumers to not use the harmful bags, the Mayor wants to tax people for using them.

So why the change? To placate businesses, who complained that the 10¢ discount plan would drive up their costs. The 5¢ idea, presumably, will be easier for them to stomach — that's not surprising considering that some discount chains, like No Frills, already charge customer 5¢ per plastic bag.

Admittedly, the new plan will have the same effect as the old one — people will stop using plastic bags — but the Mayor has turned a feel-good story into another case of bad PR. Instead of showing some goodwill to consumers — a sentiment that would most certainly have been appreciated given the economic climate and the upcoming holiday shopping season — Miller has given another slap in the face to Torontonians. What's worse, he's doing so because of the bogus notion that businesses can't handle his original proposal.

Another day, another boneheaded move by David Miller.

ygoldstein@nationalpost.com

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

If We Must Have Hate Speech Laws......

.....deal with under the criminal code which is slightly less screwed up than the human rights debacle.

Repeal hate speech provision: Moon report (1)

Section 13, the controversial hate speech provision in the Canadian Human Rights Act, should be repealed, according to an independent review by University of Windsor law professor Richard Moon. "The use of censorship by the government should be confined to a narrow category of extreme expression -- that which threatens, advocates or justifies violence against the members of an identifiable group, even if the violence that is supported or threatened is not imminent," Prof. Moon writes in the review, released today, five months after it was commissioned by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. [...more]

Turning Out The "Leaders" Of Tomorrow

Carleton University Students Association goes off the deep end, drowns (we hope)

A poll up today at 580 CFRA Radio asks:

Do you support a motion to the Carleton University Students Association calling for cancellation of Shinearama fundraising for Cystic Fibrosis, because according to the motion the disease "only affects white people, primarily men" and Carleton students want fundraising to "serve their diverse communities"?

I've sent an email to the Students Association asking for more info...

But hey, if you're white, who cares, right?


Is Michelle Being Diplomatic?

“Demented:” Joy Behar disses homeschool students

By Michelle Malkin • November 19, 2008 09:55 PM

Joy Behar of “The View” has the IQ of a rotten tomato, the manners of an ass, the mouth of a street thug, and the chutzpah to declare that “a lot” of homeschooled children are “demented.”

I guess we should give thanks that she sits around a table kvetching with other liberal women for a living instead of doing what she did before Hollywood embraced her. That’s right: She was a…public school teacher.

Her bigoted remarks dissing homeschooling begin at around the 6:10 mark and climax at 7:10 with Behar showing her contempt for both homeschooled students and parents: “A lot of them are demented when they’re homeschooled.”

Right. Because they’re so much better off in public schools where “proper socialization” takes the form of ideological child abuse. Eh, Joy?

***

Read about “demented” homeschool champions here.

Homeschooling: A record of academic achievement.

All in the family.

Times Are Tough But Not If You Feed From The Public Trough

Why it's nice to work for the government
Posted: November 24, 2008, 6:30 PM by Kelly McParland
Filed under: Full Comment

CanWest Global Communications Corp. said last week it will cut about 5% of its workforce, eliminating about 560 positions through voluntary buyouts, attrition and staff cuts.

CTVGlobemedia told employees last week there would be layoffs and a freeze on travel and entertainment spending at CTV Inc., the country's largest private broadcaster.

The Toronto Star is hunkering down, the Globe & Mail warned staff there are rough times ahead due to the sudden departure of advertising dollars.

That's the private sector. But what about the CBC, which gets its billion dollars a year straight from taxpayers?

No worries mate: here's the notice from InsidetheCBC.com

Public servants accept Ottawa’s offer

OTTAWA — Canada's largest public sector union blinked in the face of mounting economic gloom, accepting the federal government's final financial offer. The tentative deal would see roughly 100,000 federal public servants receive a 6.8 per cent raise over the next four years. [...more]

Let's Give Him A Break And Not Forget......

.....he is a politician and they are known to not have any connection between their mouths and their "brain." And let's not forget if it wasn't for this fact "columnists" would have to get out and get a real job.

Not letting promises get in the way of policy

Ibbitson: Barack Obama made two core promises during his primary and election campaigns. If victorious, he vowed to (a) break up Washington's old boys' club and (b) raise taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts to the middle class. Immediately after his victory, Mr. Obama set about breaking his first pledge. MORE...

F&^%ing Disgrace

Council
Comrade Miller & Executive Committee

No shortage of money for some things
November 25, 2008

Did you know Toronto closed down a couple of hundred subsidized housing units because they were in a horrible state of disrepair, and the city said it didn't have the money to fix them up?

This at a time when nearly 70,000 households are on the waiting list for a subsidized housing unit.

Only, now we know that money wasn't the problem. It couldn't have been. Not when the mayor can have staff reorganize itself to free up $400,000 to pay for a self-promoting newsletter taxpayers don't need and didn't ask for.

How many of those boarded-up homes could have been repaired for $400,000?

Of course, $400,000 is the equivalent of pennies in a city that deals with billions. No one is suggesting that $400,000 can make a dent in the housing repair backlog, pegged at $300 million. Even the $112 million earmarked for the problem this year doesn't eliminate the concern.

But 10 renovated homes, or 20, means 10 to 20 more families receiving proper housing in our city.

And using that money to write up warmed-over projects spun and massaged to tell citizens that their city is just humming along under the deft leadership of David Miller is a misuse of public funds and an abuse of public trust.

In case you missed it, Toronto announced recently it was publishing "Our Toronto," a quarterly newsletter it will send to each household. Apparently, it combines newsletters for water, waste and the TTC – a good move, one thinks, until one realizes the cost is doubled to $800,000. And city councillors did not get a chance to vote on the matter.

So, whenever the city contemplates closing swimming pools and libraries and community centres and cites a lack of money, we know the mayor has other options.

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Message Lost To Many

Who Did You Vote For.......

It is becoming more and more obvious that voters need to start paying attention to who is running for school trustees in their area.....I hate to say it but I don't recall who I voted for and who was elected.

Trustee needs a lesson in democracy

The following will apparently come as a shock to Toronto school trustee James Pasternak.

It's the fact that just as he has the right to support a black-focused, junior kindergarten to Grade 5 public school scheduled to open in his ward in September, so trustee Josh Matlow has the right to oppose it.

Or to ask the board to reconsider its 11-9 decision earlier this year to open it.

For Pasternak's benefit, this is how democratic institutions work.

In that context, Pasternak's notice of motion to the board last week seeking to gag Matlow from criticizing the school, and indeed to silence any trustee critical of any board school or the philosophy behind it, was appallingly anti-democratic.

Yesterday, Pasternak withdrew the proposal after it was reported in the Sun, saying he had only intended to raise the issue with fellow trustees for discussion.

But what trustees received from Pasternak was a notice of motion seeking support for his idea that not only should trustees be prohibited from criticizing schools or the philosophy behind them, but they should be hauled before the board's ethics review committee for making such remarks.

He also argued part of their communications budget, if it was used to publicize their criticisms, should be withheld while the committee investigated them.

Aside from confusing an allegation with a finding of fact, and that you don't punish until there is a finding of fact, Pasternak's entire motion was offensive to democracy.

Since there is only one black-focused school in the board, how could any trustee say anything critical about the idea of such a school, using Pasternak's bizarre logic?

Like Matlow, we don't agree with the board's decision to create this school.

We consider it to be tokenism and an attempt by the board to dodge the real issue -- the alarming, system-wide drop-out rate of 40% for black students.

That said, the board had every right to make this decision.

For Pasternak's information, that's how democracy works, too.

GIGO

Bin problem fix is in the bag

Garbage containers are just too big for homes without driveways or backyard access

Paula Abelha says the proliferation of the city's new grey and blue bins are starting to make her west Toronto neighbourhood look like an industrial area.

The Rutland St. resident says most of her neighbours are "struggling to figure out" what to do with the bins -- where to store them and how to get them to the curb on garbage day.

She told me she can only imagine what it will be like when there is the kind of snow we saw last winter.

"They're everywhere," she said. "They're an eyesore."

Late last week, I visited Abelha's street and neighbouring Connolly St. in Little Italy along St. Clair Ave. W, where the homes are so tightly packed together residents have little choice but to manoeuvre their way past the bins left on their tiny porches or on the boulevards out front.

In fact, we counted 168 bins sitting out for all to see along Connolly alone. They looked like a battalion of bins lined up to do battle.

It's absurd. Yet I'm betting this is one mess Mayor David Miller and his green cronies on council never even gave a moment's thought when they rammed through their poorly conceived and cost-prohibitive bin program -- with limited public consultation -- a little more than a year ago.

It's become obvious there's nowhere to store the unwieldy grey, green and blue bins in many dense neighbourhoods in downtown Toronto and the old cities of York and East York, where garages are a rarity, as are driveways.

Now perhaps Miller and Co. just couldn't care less, as long as they get their garbage tax. But it's hardly anyone's idea of the Clean and Beautiful city about which His Blondness yakked incessantly during the first four years of his "mandate."

Coun. Cesar Palacio said the whole garbage bin program has been a "nightmare."

He's heard, nevertheless, that Socialist Silly Hall may soon come up with an "out-of-sight" bylaw to force people to either stash their bins away or build a small compartment to house them.

Now that would be the height of cheekiness. But never rule anything out from the mayor and his arrogant minions.

Abehla says they ended up with two medium recycling bins to allow them to bring them from their backyard and their garage -- where they store them -- along the narrow passageway to the front. "It just seems to be so much," she said.

Connolly St. resident Jo Lynn Dickinson isn't so lucky with space.

She has been forced to put all of her bins on the tidy front porch of her rowhouse -- not a very pretty sight for company who come to visit.

"I don't like it ... it's very cluttered looking," said Dickinson.

She feels the concept is the "right idea" -- if there's a place to store the bins. "They're not geared for this type of development," she said.

Dickinson and her neighbours are not alone. Cabbagetown residents have had it up to their eyeballs with the new bin program.

Joice Guspie told me yesterday when her neighbour's car is parked in her shared driveway, "there's no way in hell" she can get her large grey bin from the side of her semi-detached home (where she stores it) to the curb -- especially when the snow flies.

"This winter it will either go on my front lawn or on my front porch," she said. "It offends me ... people are going to store them wherever they can."

Cabbagetown-area resident Linda Dixon says to add insult to injury, the city's garbage employees -- both the inspectors and the collectors -- don't seem to have a clue what to do with bulky extra items like pieces of wood.

"It's so confusing the different bins ... what you can put in them," she said, noting everyone's verandas are "getting to be an eyesore" with all the bins.

HE'S OPTING OUT

Shuter St. resident Bill Eadie has come up with the solution that should have been applied to everyone in this city -- had Miller and Co. not been pandering to their union pals.

With the city's permission, he said he's "opted out" of the bin program -- seeing as he has no room to store any bins at his compact row house.

Instead, he buys yellow stickers for his garbage bags, and puts out recyclables in a clear bag.

"I find using bags to be a great convenience," Eadie said. "Too bad the city was unwilling to give everyone the option of using bags."

About Me

My photo
I lean to the right but I still have a heart and if I have a mission it is to respond to attacks on people not available to protect themselves and to point out the hypocrisy of the left at every opportunity.MY MAJOR GOAL IS HIGHLIGHT THE HYPOCRISY AND STUPIDITY OF THE LEFTISTS ON TORONTO CITY COUNCIL. Last word: In the final analysis this blog is a relief valve for my rants/raves.

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