I know that it’s basically impossible to prove at this point, but I was 100% correct about the results of this week’s election:

Government won!

As Rob and Doug Ford took to the airwaves to promote their continuing assholery in picking on exclusively one councillor for his vote (19 other councillors voted the same way as Ainslie — obviously they’re not singling him out!), in Rob’s most recent pet project (subways for Scarborough), the compounded stream of pure lies and disrespect for both voters (a.k.a. taxpayers), and just plain common sense hit new heights.

In fact, it can now be accurately, and without exaggeration, be stated that most of what comes out of Rob and Doug Ford’s mouths are complete and utter lies. And when, on the rare occasion that they manage to say something even remotely truthful and accurate, they still manage to fill their claims with all sorts of bullshit, derision, and spiteful hypocrisy. What the Fords say and what they do are more often than not exact opposites; just browse a bit through this blog — the number of examples is staggering.

Here’s just a smattering from the radio show:

Caller Paul from Scarborough challenged the Fords’ claims that the Scarborough LRT, the above-ground alternative to the subway, will lead to “ripping up roads” and all of the other deceitful fear mongering that the two Fords have been menacing Torontonians with. He accurately called them “liars”, and provided a variety of facts to back this claim. Turns out the environmental assesments have all been paid for and done, and most of the LRT route would cover the existing Scarborough Rapid Transit tracks (i.e. no ripping up of roads, etc.) The Ford “plan” scraps all of those years of effort and costs a whack of money (based on previous EA costs, $1 million seems like a conservative number), in favour of back-of-the-napkin calculations, seemingly done by a 3-year-old (though apparently no one’s seen it so that’s really just a best guess).

Doug’s dismissive response was to entirely ignore all of these facts and instead respond with the usual Fordian drivel, “Do you believe in a two-tier transit system?”. No facts, no reports (even skewed ones!) to his singular claim — nope, Doug just called Paul a “liar” and then proceeded to heap lie upon deception upon insult.

Doug also included Josh Matlow in his dis session, most likely because Matlow is one of those disgusting downtown “elites” who know how to count and read; according to the Fords, all Toronto newspapers and magazines are tools of the wasteful “elite” now that they’re questioning the brothers, so start burning your books, Ford Nation!

Ensuring that his brother wasn’t the only one publicly spreading incorrect / incomplete information, Rob added that the average household will pay $10 a year extra as part of a property tax increase (yet another topic demonstrating the Fords’ double-crosses). The numbers are actually closer to $38 per year for the next 30 years, and that doesn’t cover the cost of running the new line. I wouldn’t call this last part a lie — it’s entirely possible that this is simply just another example of Ford’s willful, bull-headed ignorance.

Continuing the radio program, Robbie went on to express his outrage at the expenses of Pan Am Games officials, which almost threatened to shine a ray of honesty onto the Ford administration until I recalled how completely unconcerned he was (and continues to be), when Pan Am organizers met with him and basically refused to discuss the costs of finding a mascot for the event. This would look pretty bad in and of itself, but it takes on Fordian proportions when you consider that Rob’s former hand-picked Chief of Staff Amir Remtulla has been Pan Am’s vice president for well over a year, and the guy in Amir’s position prior to that was none other than Nick Kouvalis, Rob’s previous Chief of Staff and the man generally credited with getting Ford the mayoralty. And this outrage-in-absentia isn’t uncommon for Fordo.

So in case you missed that, Rob Ford not only knowingly allowed secret Pan Am spending to occur on his watch without lifting a finger (this doesn’t even include the number of times that the Games were before Council as votes, reports, etc.), but he personally appointed the people who he now feigns outrage at. Not that there’s any insinuations of impropriety, mind you — unlike Ford, all of the Pan Am executives’ bonuses were above board. And while I agree that the bonuses are quite exorbitant, it doesn’t address the fact that Rob and his brother knew about them for years and did absolutely nothing about them. Actually, that’s not 100% correct — Ford is directly responsible for ensuring that some of those people received the exorbitant bonuses.

The bullshit didn’t stop there.

Rob continued by telling guest sports commentator Mike Toth about the lessons he learned from coaching football — the importance of being on time — a wonderful example to teach newcomers to Canada what the word “hipocrisy” means. If that example doesn’t quite hit home, there’s always the follow-up statement that Robbie made on the radio show by repeating his claim that City Hall has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and he calls bullshit on higher taxes and other revenue “tools”. What he actually meant is that he thinks you’re so fucking stupid that you won’t remember that he voted to increase property taxes by 1.6% all while simultaneously decrying any tax hikes, and at the same time hiking trasit fare and reducing services, championing massive police budget increases, cutting Councillor pay, wasting hundreds of thousands in unjustified firings, and millions in ass-backwards (some believe illegal) decisions … hell, I could go on for hours, but you get the picture.

It’s gotten to the point where that old joke has taken on a sad new gravity:

You know when the Fords are lying when they open their mouths.

Remember all the screaming Rob Ford did about respecting taxpayers, demanding open and transparent government?

Yeah, the same “respect for taxpayers” that has Rob Ford continuously covering up his budgets, his meetings, his schedule, and basically anything else having to do with his job. Well, you gotta give it to the man, he’s consistent in his bullshit.

Take yesterday, for example, in a photo op with Pan Am Games organizers. That event was marked by an abject refusal of the Pan Am people to say how much they’re going to spend on a mascot; one of those shining examples of potentially massive waste and secrecy that Ford vowed to fight tirelessly against.

So how is Rob Ford fighting this “gravy”? He shook hands with the organizers for the cameras and walked away without uttering a word or showing a shred of concern.

Let’s be fair here: maybe Rob’s control over the situation is very limited. Maybe the Pan Am Games group is separate from City Hall administration and mostly out of Ford’s hands. That would certainly help to explain Rob’s impotence, but it proves directly how two-faced the mayor is about his outrage for  secret deals and unaccountable government. The guy couldn’t even be bothered to raise an eyebrow.

I’m thinking that a book of such events would now have enough material to fill more than a few pages; something with a title along the lines of, “Heritage of Hypocrisy and Lies: The Ford Years”

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For some reason I always fail to properly explain why I think the name “Don Valley” is so much fun. It’s probably because I have a crap Italian accent, but imagine saying that name with a good one. By that I mean borderline comical. Call him “Don Valli” if it helps the imagination. Add about forty percent stereotype greezee gangster into the mix and you’ve got yourself a one spicy meatball.

“Don Valli don give no favers to no ones, see? Especially not to rat basterds like yous!”

Unfortunately, the Don is not currently in a position to make any demands. As a recent Star article points out, it’s mostly a heap of mud and rocks at the moment:

Yup. Not much to look at. But apparently what you’re looking at in the photo will be the tower on the left below:

I’m still not sure exactly how this is supposed to work, but this River City project sounds like a mix of for-sale condos, social housing, and rooms for athletes in the 2015 Pan-Am games. Once the games are done, those will presumably go up for sale as well. They’re expecting the whole 4-phase construction to take up to ten years. Which probably means fifteen. The scale of the project seems ginormous; “City” doesn’t seem entirely inappropriate.

They plan to create two parks in the area, one of them under the wide Eastern Avenue overpass. That should be interesting. Better than what`s there now:

And these tracks run both regular trains and GO trains. This one happens to go to Markham. The locals seem to put up with it but it’s woefully inadequate if we’re hosting guests from other countries.

We should be gracious hosts and show them it’s okay to spend their bolivianos / reals / guaranis / nuevo sols / bolivars / colons / quetzals / lempiras / cordobas / krones / pesos / euros / dollars here.

… Continue Reading

Okay, I can honestly say I gave him a chance, but I’m not really enjoying waking up to John Moore. The the thing about Bill Carroll (the former radio timeslot), I think, is that he’s a lot angrier. Bill’s got that righteous indignation thing down. John goes on a lot about stuff in a way that makes me not care about it. It’s blood-curdling rage emanating from the radio that helps me get up in the morning. Without it, I’m just too warm and snuggly in my bed.

Take the Toronto City Centre Airport story, for example. I’m not sure many people would care about the tussle going on there. It’s a three-way shoving match between the city, the Port Authority which controls the airport and I believe has it’s own squad of shadowy assassins, and Porter Airlines which managed to pull in record profits pretty much every year since it started flying. Oh, and the island residents who basically bitch 24-7, 365 about everything (“The city’s too loud! The lights are too bright! The planes are too scary! Wah! Wah!”)

(big!)

Bill would gnaw at this, getting angrier and angrier right up until the commercial break. I don’t remember his stance on the issue, but I clearly recall the outraged timbre of his voice. The current topic of contention is the proposed tunnel to the airport which no level of government wants to pay for.  It’s intended to replace the current ferry service which, at a full 20-second trip (maybe 30) from shore to shore, seems kind of inefficient:

But whatever. I’m sure Porter contributes to this inefficiency from its growing wallet so who cares? Bill does. Passionately. Desperately. I bet the fact that Toronto got the 2015 Pan Am Games probably caused his head to just explode. They probably had to drag his headless, blood-soaked corpse out of the studio live on the air. That would’ve been some show. If only it was still on at a time when I could listen.

I can just imagine his reaction at the $2.4 billion cost. He either would have been rejoicing that his beloved Etobicoke was getting a pool make-over, or cheesed that the athletes’ village will be in what is currently a large mud pit bisecting the east edge of town (ON TAXPAYERS’ MONEY, AND DOWNTOWN GETS ALL THE BENEFITS!!), or both.

He doesn’t care that he sometimes contradicts himself. Bill shoots from the hip and asks questions later. If there’s time. I don’t think John Moore even owns a gun.

Now I have at least three more days of waking up to do. Quite possibly a few decades on top of that. With Bill gone, I’m left sleeping in almost every day, but I don’t know where else to turn. The radio dial to. And with it staying dark outside later and later now, the problem is becoming more urgent. “Nature Sounds I” just won’t cut it, but what’s the alternative … the buzzer?!