Artsy/Fartsy...

...is in the eye of the beholder and is a matter of personal choice but paid for by taxpayer $$$$ without major consultation!

click above for more examples...

Air Farce Dealt With The Issue With Their Definition Of Arts/Crafts...

...one you piss in
...one you piss on!

160 Leftists Don't Make A Revolution...

...especially when the mesage is give me, give me.

Chris Selley: All-nighter didn’t shed any light on budget process

 "a parade of angry union bosses, troubled interest groups and alarmed residents"

Lawrence Solomon: KPMG’s timid Toronto cuts


Few taxpayers would notice any diminution of service

By Lawrence Solomon

‘Even if city council votes for a fraction of the several hundred millions of dollars in suggested cuts, the cuts suggested by city-hired consultants KPMG could transform the city,” the Toronto Star warned last week in an article about proposed budget cuts under Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Added Gord Perks, a municipal Councillor and Ford critic: “These cuts would change Toronto from a city that is great to live in to a city that no one would want to live in.” Hundreds of Torontonians turned out to City Hall Thursday to plead with Mayor Ford and the rest of city council to spare city services.

In fact, the potential cuts that KPMG laid out are just what you’d expect from a consulting group inspired by accountants: cautious and uninspired. If Mayor Ford adopted most of the cuts, few Toronto taxpayers would notice any diminution of service, some would see an actual improvement in service, and all would benefit from a lower-taxed, more vibrant city. As an added benefit, Torontonians would learn lessons in independence and responsibility.

Many of the KPMG cuts fall into the spoonfeeding category. Does the Toronto municipal government really need to take animals to the pound when owners tire of their pets? Or to run a “toxic taxi” service to pick up paint cans from residents unwilling to dispose of them on their own? Or to send cleanup crews out after neighbours or local businesses have a street party? Or to perform any number of other conveniences — from running an employment agency to providing daycare — that the private sector does more efficiently and at lower cost?

More

Passage on an urban graveyard train

Toronto’s business-minded mayor needs to be reminded that there are two sides to a ledger – expenses and revenue

...how many of those making presentations to the Executive Committee suggested raising property taxes, city imposed fees, etc. 

Pity the children: Ford brings the naysayers to his doorstep

Atwood Actually Has A Valid Driver's Licence?

Probably Not...

...unless the city beauracry is given the $$$ to form an artsy/fartsy committee, to hire consultants, etc. Simplicity and common sense is not a hallmark of city administration.

Art bike inspires councillor, but will he save it from the scrapheap?

Is the neon orange, abandoned bike on Dundas St. W. public art or an eyesore?

Homeless Being Promoted...

...as a cottage industry by the artsy/fartsies.

Canada's most talented homeless


By MIKE STROBEL, Toronto Sun

Homeless, but with a hidden talent? Call me.

A Possible Insight Into Artsy/Fartsy Funding....

Comrade Miller's Party Cancelled-Only 19 Accepted Invitation...

David Miller's more out of touch than ever: Levy

By SUE-ANN LEVY, Toronto Sun

Clearly David Miller doesn’t really care about his good friend’s fortunes in Toronto’s mayoralty race.

Kiss Of Death

F^%kfinger

Mayoral Race

Vital signs goodGood-news report forms delicious subtext to David Miller?s endorsement of Joe Pantalone

By Michael Hollett

Further proof – besides looking out the window – that Toronto is not the anarchic, chaotic, tire-fires-in-the-street Gomorrah that mayoralty candidates Rob Ford and George Smitherman would have us believe came this week with the release of the Toronto Community Foundation’s Vital Signs report.

>> More

This Alone Should Get Him Elected...

Ford fares poorly in art group's report card


By DON PEAT, Toronto Sun

Rob Ford is a dunce, according to a report card from the city’s arts community.

TIFF Shortcoming...

Sunday, September 12, 2010 9:40 AM

Canadian journalists not (always) welcome

He Should Put Wychwood Barns On His List

How St. Clair fuels Rob Ford: Granatstein

By ROB GRANATSTEIN, TORONTO SUN

Rob Ford is in the midst of teaching the TTC, city bureaucrats and Joe Mihevc a harsh lesson about screwing up.

Characteristics Of The Left Wing...

Atwood’s U.S. sellout

By KORY TENEYCKE, QMI Agency

Earlier this week, Avaaz, an American special interest group funded by U.S. billionaire George Soros, circulated a petition opposing the television licence for Sun TV News — Quebecor’s proposed all-news channel for English Canada

Canadian author Atwood pushing petition challenging 'FOX North'

By JOE WARMINGTON, Toronto Sun

Last Updated: September 2, 2010 6:53pm

• Comments

Margaret Atwood believes in freedom of speech for her own works.
But she doesn’t seem as enthusiastic about the concept for others espousing views she apparently doesn’t like.
Has the legendary Canadian author, famous for such novels as The Edible Woman, become The Censorship Woman?
The Giller Prize winning author and our most prestigious writer lent her signature to a U.S-based petition to stop a new Sun Media all-news network may be one of the most ironic, hypocritical plays in Canadian history.
“Prime Minister Harper is trying to push American-style hate media onto our air waves, and make us all pay for it,” says the petition with 45,000 signatures on Avaaz.org. “His plan is to create a ‘Fox News North’ to mimic the kind of hate-filled propaganda with which Fox News has poisoned U.S. politics.”
Despite being vitriolic and inaccurate, the recipient of the Governor General Award Tweeted Wednesday “we shouldn’t B Forced to Pay for it, & CRTC chair should be arms’ length, not Harper tool. Fox free 2 set itself up.”
Pretty rich talk about a free market from someone who comes from the Canada Council grant culture. It’s especially shocking coming from a Companion of the Order of Canada who I have yet to see at a pro-troops rally or along the Highway of Heroes.
Her freedoms were fought for and won by Canadian soldiers.
Her ravings match those of the elitist left that were terrified about Conrad Black controlling so much of the Canadian media, but were not at all vocal when Liberal-backers later bought the same newspaper chain.
It’s selective censorship coming from the 70-year-old literary icon who once threatened to boycott a book tour in Dubai because of the banning of a book which featured a gay character.
The book wasn’t banned, and nor will this new TV network, no matter how many signatures they get for the petition.
As Atwood knows, Canada covets, cherishes and practices freedom of the press.
“I don’t remember seeing her launching a campaign against Al Jazeera when it filed for a license from CRTC,” noted Kevin Gaudet of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation. “Pushing the petition against SUN TV demonstrates her opposition to free speech. Currently taxpayers are forced to pay $1.1 billion a year for the CBC and now Atwood and her ilk want to deprive Canadians of even having the choice to view SUN TV.”
It’s astonishing, especially for someone famous for her 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, a story about the perils of a totalitarian regime.
“So disappointing you’d put your name to anti-free speech movement,” Sun Media’s Ottawa Bureau Chief David Akin poignantly wrote in a return Tweet.
Atwood fired back: “Free speech does not mean under-the-carpet deals that would force people to pay for Fox out of cable fees.”
She did not return my request for an interview but she wasn’t backing down Thursday, telling the Globe and Mail “some people signing the petition object to the expected content. I object to the process. It’s the pressure on yet another civil servant that bothers me.”
And yet the petition does not talk about the process, but instead viciously and erroneously states Harper is trying to “push American-style hate media onto our air waves” which is clearly unfair and arguably libellous.
She tried to weasel out by telling the Globe “of course Fox & Co. can set up a channel. . .if it’s legal” but “it shouldn’t happen this way,” calling the approach “part of the ‘I make the rules around here,’ Harper-is-a-king thing.”
But it’s disingenuous because you either support the petition or you don’t.
She certainly feels entitled to the right to express her opinion but has no problem assisting a movement trying muzzle those of others.
Wonder if she will object so obstreperously if asked to come on the network to promote a new book?
Maybe that one will be called The Hypocrisy Woman?

Atwood’s U.S. sellout

Teneycke: Icon’s ignorant attack confirms just why Canada needs Sun TV News. Earlier this week, Avaaz, an American special interest group funded by U.S. billionaire George Soros, circulated a petition opposing the television licence for Sun TV News.. MORE...

The blind protester

Selley: 'Not about content, 4 me; about process, & a commercial station exacting forced fees. CBC was set up as a service, not a biz." The most accomplished CanLit expert might struggle to recognize the prose, but that's none other than Margaret Atwood.. MORE...

Soros trying to keep conservative Canadian TV channel off the air

My new post at David Horowitz's NewsReal blog looks at the unprincipled (and error filled) petition being circulated by a George Soros-funded leftist group to keep Sun TV News off the Canadian airwaves.

# Kathy Shaidle :