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Rob Ford's Toronto

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Kat_YYZ said:
I'd love to save the money, but I can't get past the fact that when the 2003 blackout occurred, it was only the landlines that worked, not the cellphones. I keep thinking: what if I'm just super-busy and forget to plug in my phone to charge it? Then there's a power failure and a my cellphone has no juice, and then something happens that I need to call 911 for...
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Most modern day phones (i.e.; cordless, 'cause it's damn hard to find a corded one nowadays) require a wall-wart, which means unless you're keeping an old princess phone around for emergencies, you're not likely to have phone service anyway.

I'm in the same age group and I haven't had a true land-line since 2006, when we got a vonage line. That vonage line was finally ditched a few months ago.
 
It's completely normal to have an 'unelected' in that sense leader in a Parliamentary democracy. Gordon Brown was Prime Minister of the UK from 2007-2010 after Tony Blair resigned after two years in office.
 
Peepers said:
We may not vote directly for a premier or prime minister but we do vote indirectly using mpp's or mp's as a proxy. Wynne has yet to lead her party in a general election so in a very real sense she is "unelected".
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Just because YOU vote for an mpp/mp as a proxy that doesn't mean the parliamentary system actually works that way. Bottom line is you elect a representative in your riding who represents you in the legislature. That person may or may not have a party affiliation. That party gets to choose their leader via whatever internal mechanism they choose.

You don't have to like it - but it doesn't make her (or Ernie Eves) "unelected".

"Unelected" is a nonsense term that seems tailor made for the current politics of ignorance and populism.
 
Peepers said:
I will gladly answer the "unelected" question.

We may not vote directly for a premier or prime minister but we do vote indirectly using mpp's or mp's as a proxy. Wynne has yet to lead her party in a general election so in a very real sense she is "unelected".

It is not "trolling" to suggest this! Maybe you should be given a few weeks vacation for calling forum member a "dumbass"
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If the shoe fits. The point of a parliamentary democracy is that we elect governments, not premiers and prime ministers. Governments are given a mandate by the number of elected MPP's / MP's only. Now, if you are more fond of a party leader than your local MP, and vote for someone you don't like locally, that's your stupid decision.

The Liberal government is as "elected" today as it has ever been, and the Liberal government has chosen Wynne to occupy the top spot. She has every bit as much a mandate to govern as any other premier. Not understanding parliamentary democracy is not an argument, it's just ignorance.
 
Peepers said:
I will gladly answer the "unelected" question.

We may not vote directly for a premier or prime minister but we do vote indirectly using mpp's or mp's as a proxy. Wynne has yet to lead her party in a general election so in a very real sense she is "unelected".
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Actually that's confounding reality - the party chooses the leader; the people chooses the elected representatives, of which the party leader must be a member. Just because the people (or you) think they are using a proxy doesn't mean a) that's how the system works and b) that said individual is "unelected". Thinking that one's interpretation is correct doesn't make anything real.

AoD
 
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So how would David Peterson be classified when he became Premier in 1985 after toppling the short-lived minority government of Frank Miller? Seems that these situations happen a lot more often than people think and they're not unusual.
 
it's one thing to be uninformed, or even misinformed, about westminster parliaments and the ontario legislature particularly. that is acceptable, to me. but to know better - to argue semantics that the premier is unelected because she hasn't led her party in a general election - and to still throw around these terms, is reprehensible. you're aiming for a very specific political effect, a very partisan effect, by misleading people.

as a public servant who does some pretty ridiculous things to try and keep track of taxpayer dollars being spent, i really resent how online partisans misrepresent government finances.
 
That image of Taverner does look like an older Doug Ford. Maybe he's related through one of the mysterious Doug Ford Sr, siblngs?

Anyone of you with ancestry.ca memberships want to investigate the Taverner/Ford/Campbell family trees?
 
nfitz said:
Most importantly, cell phones do emit potentially harmful radio waves at short distances. If you read the pamphlet that comes with phones these days, there's a safety warning to keep the phone greater than 1.5 cm away from the body when transmitting ... probably fine for a 30-second phone call occasionally, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to accept the cancer risk if they were a heavy user, such as 30-minute or so a day.
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That's a government mandated safety warning, put in there because a portion of public has believed the FUD about cancers.

Direct from cancer.org:

Non-ionizing radiation is low-frequency radiation that does not have enough energy to remove electrons or directly damage DNA. Low-energy UV rays, visible light, infrared rays, microwaves, and radio waves are all forms of non-ionizing radiation. Aside from UV rays, these types of radiation are not known to increase cancer risk.

It is important to understand the difference between these types of radiation. For example, the non-ionizing radiation given off by a cell phone or a television screen is not the same as the ionizing radiation you might get from x-rays taken in the hospital.

Cell phones create non-ionizing radiation; Physics, for the win! In addition, with the development of digital mobile phones, we should be seeing a massive decrease in the incidences of brain cancer in the last decade, as one of the great advantages of moving to digital (aside from encryption) is the ability to use much less broadcast power. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a decline in brain cancer.

There have been no definitive links between cell phones and cancer. http://www.thestar.com/business/2012/04/26/good_news_cellphones_dont_cause_cancer_probably.html

Re: Bias against Ford;

From this study:

http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/d...-dwindles-as-cell-only-households-grow-22577/

Adults living in poverty (51.4%) were far more likely than adults who were not poor (28.9%) to be living in wireless-only households.
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
Actually that's confounding reality - the party chooses the leader; the people chooses the elected representatives, of which the party leader must be a member.
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Exactly. In that sense, the people never elect the Premiere or Prime Minister -- instead, we elect a party, and that party chooses who its leader is, and thus who gets to be Premiere or Prime Minister.

Seriously, this is Civics 101. No one who lives in this country should be confused by a parliamentary system of governance.
 
Tulse said:
Exactly. In that sense, the people never elect the Premiere or Prime Minister -- instead, we elect a party, and that party chooses who its leader is, and thus who gets to be Premiere or Prime Minister.

Seriously, this is Civics 101. No one who lives in this country should be confused by a parliamentary system of governance.
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The worst isn't the lack of understanding - it is not recognizing this reality and then going out there making wild claims about how it is illegitimate and undemocratic because it doesn't fit their own personal choice of outcomes. There is arrogance there.

AoD
 
john lancaster ‏@jlancasterCBC 4m
Exclusive: @CBCToronto @5. Details of what else happened the night #MayorFord left a conservative BBQ in August.
 
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