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Rob Ford's Toronto

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grey said:
Toronto is in The Guardian today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/11/toronto-bike-lanes-removed
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This is an embarrassment. Read how the article actually begins, with a recount of a few of the Fords' greatest hits:

Toronto hit the news recently, with proposed budget cuts that may affect the city's libraries, police and public transit. The city councillor Doug Ford even made international headlines when he attempted to slough off criticism by the Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood. He said: "If she walked by me, I wouldn't have a clue who she is."

In the wake of the controversy, Atwood said: "You start with [undermining] … Gay Pride and bicycle riders and me … The message is: 'We don't want you people here.'

"My question to the council would be: Are people like me welcome in this city?"

That is a good question, particularly if you cycle in Toronto.
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News today that the Toronto Sun has sacked Rob Granatstein, one of the paper's only dissident voices.

The Sun should be extra fun to read now.
 
grey said:
News today that the Toronto Sun has sacked Rob Granatstein, one of the paper's only dissident voices.

The Sun should be extra fun to read now.
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Granatstein was no dissident at the Sun, but as a right-leaning journalist he was generally fair, smart and classy -- while still upholding the Sun's trademark populism and irreverence that made it a fun read. He seemed to understand the difference between political incorrectness and propaganda. Unfortunately, the election of Harper and Ford has changed all that, and the Sun now blindly cheers on the powers that be, rather than hold them accountable. It's even worse at Sun News, where a whiny persecution complex prevails, as if Pierre Trudeau and David Miller were still in power.

Sun Media also recently withdrew from the Ontario Press Council, the self-governing organization that handles complaints about press fairness. Sun Media cited "political correctness," as if journalism needed more use of the word, "lefttard." And Sun Media is also believed to be behind a CRTC plan to lift a ban on "false news." Sun News is also the subject of a record number of complaints to the CRTC.

By firing Granatstein, Sun Media has clearly decided its future need not include intelligence, fairness or accuracy.
 
He didn't suggest a 'legal panhandling zone' per se, but that he's ban it everywhere on Toronto property other than Queen's Park. He is trying to get more attention from the province on the matter by encouraging people to be visible right where the provincial leaders work. Or do you not think the province should be pulling more of their weight on this?
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Legal nowhere but in one place makes that one place, by subtraction, the only legal spot around.

It's hard to believe that the Ford Administration would consider talking to the province about apt federal assistance for the city's homeless and/or panhandlers. It's a dialogue that needs continuous improvment and upkeep, not insults and injury. Needless to say, I disagree with Mammoliti's tactics and the Mayor Ford's attitude and approach so far.
 
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A few quotes from a NY Times opinion article regarding the riots in London, arguing that they are a result of ongoing cuts to social services (written by a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and a professor of sociology at Columbia University - real experts; oh wait, do Mayors Ford look to experts for evidence and facts with regards to their policy decisions?):

"Britain’s current crisis should cause us to reflect on the fact that a smaller government can actually increase communal fear and diminish our quality of life."

"Mr. Cameron was good at selling people on the idea of cutting costs, but he has failed to make the case for what and how to cut: efforts to increase university fees, to overhaul the National Health Service, to reduce the military and the police, even to sell off the nation’s forests, have all backfired, with the government hedging or simply abandoning its plans. In attempting to carry out reform, the government appears incompetent; it has lost legitimacy. This has prompted some people living on Kingsland Road to become vigilantes. “We have to do things for ourselves,” a 16-year-old in Hackney told The Guardian, convinced that the authorities did not care about, or know how to protect, communities like his."

"In many ways, Mr. Cameron’s austerity program is the Tea Party’s dream come true. But Britain is now grappling with the consequences of those cuts, which have led to the neglect and exclusion of many vulnerable, disaffected young people who are acting out violently and irresponsibly — driven by rage rather than an explicit political agenda."
 
Armbruster said:
Granatstein was no dissident at the Sun, but as a right-leaning journalist he was generally fair, smart and classy -- while still upholding the Sun's trademark populism and irreverence that made it a fun read. He seemed to understand the difference between political incorrectness and propaganda. Unfortunately, the election of Harper and Ford has changed all that, and the Sun now blindly cheers on the powers that be, rather than hold them accountable. It's even worse at Sun News, where a whiny persecution complex prevails, as if Pierre Trudeau and David Miller were still in power.

Sun Media also recently withdrew from the Ontario Press Council, the self-governing organization that handles complaints about press fairness. Sun Media cited "political correctness," as if journalism needed more use of the word, "lefttard." And Sun Media is also believed to be behind a CRTC plan to lift a ban on "false news." Sun News is also the subject of a record number of complaints to the CRTC.

By firing Granatstein, Sun Media has clearly decided its future need not include intelligence, fairness or accuracy.
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Sun Media and its handlers are clowns.
 
greenleaf said:
A few quotes from a NY Times opinion article regarding the riots in London...
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Ooh Ooh, let me try to put my slant the same article with selective quotes...

An old-fashioned Marxist might imagine that the broken windows and burning houses expressed a raging political reaction to government spending cuts — but this time that explanation would be too facile.

Today, the rioters seem motivated by a more diffuse anger, behaving like crazed shoppers on a spree; while some of the shops looted are big chains, many more are small local businesses run by people who are themselves struggling through Britain’s economic slump.
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How'd I do?
 
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I'm surprised that anyone would bother taking the limited buy-out that Frick and Frack are offering City employees. A maximum of six months' pay is nothing when you consider what the private sector offers ( and Toxic Avengers like the Fords are constantly droning on about how wonderful and superior free market capitalism is ... ) by comparison: I got 85 weeks pay and benefits to leave my former private sector place of employ, have taken it as salary continuance and am still contributing to the company db pension plan to increase my eventual pension. Similarly, the Province is now backing off paying a consultant the going rate for co-ordinating the TTC's art program - when some of the same politicians are forever telling us how wonderful market forces are and how government should be more like the business community.
 
I was under the impression that only workers close to retiring or at retirement age were being offered buyout packages. A friend suggested recently that this is the best way to go to reducing the number of staff at city hall. Offer the packages then simply don't replace many of the workers as they leave.
 
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