May was a busy month. Let’s just have a stiff drink or two and leave it at that, okay?

June is presenting its own unique set of challenges but thankfully it’s also presenting some low-hanging fruit:

In case you can’t or don’t want to watch the video, it can be summarized thusly: a cyclist is recording their trip along a waterfront biking trail when they spot a group of cops tackling another cyclist, ostensibly for running through a stop sign, and seemingly trying to escape the orders of the same officers; basically a traffic stop that ended in an aggressive takedown. At one point up to three cops are piled on top of the guy, apparently in order to restrain him.

Understandably, this has generated some online debate about excessive force but since we can’t see what happened prior to the tackle we should probably wait a bit longer to get the full story. Maybe the guy had a gun? Maybe he just stole some old lady’s purse? It’s not as if I’m a fan of state coersion but at this point I don’t have enough information to pass judgement.

It’s worth noting that the video is not actually taken on “Lakeshore”, it’s a little farther south along Queens Quay at Little Norway Crescent. Were the person recording the video to pedal their conveyance a few seconds longer they would quickly reach Bathurst Street and the southern edge of 545 Lake Shore Boulevard West, a Homes First project that straddles both streets, and an interesting juxtaposition to the events in the video.

Although 545 Lake Shore is billed as a homeless shelter, in reality it’s more of an open-use drug site and repository of often shady, sometimes nefarious characters. Of course there are some genuinely down-and-out folks there but between the ubiquitous meth-heads, leaners, and those who supply them, the truly needy are far outnumbered by those who need not be there.

Right across the street is the Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre which houses various preschool programs and a JK-to-grade-8 public school.

Given this context, does the recorded incident simply represent a determined decision to enforce the law or is it something along the lines of performative theater, perhaps in advance of certain events? Hard to say.

Being perennially broke I often shred newspapers for my cat to relieve herself on. Unfortunately, almost all of the mainstream media has become so toxic that I’m afraid that it’s no longer suitable for even this purpose.

On the RoFoDoFo Radio Show yesterday, the two brothers, maintaining that they’re not bullies in singling out and personally attacking Ainslie for his subway vote, included a little advice for their audience: the only two papers worth a spit in this town are the Toronto Sun and the National Post.

These two stalwarts are, as the brothers pointed out, not part of the Ontario Press Council that recently cleared the Star and the Globe on their Ford reporting. All the other papers are Star sympathizers and the Council is a kangaroo court.

Alright then, let’s have a gander at what the Sun and the Post say…

‘I am so f—— mad at you’: Rob Ford to Sun columnist

“It was not a robocall, but Ford live and furious.

“I am so f—— mad at you right now,” he screamed, berating me over the line.

When I told him “I don’t care,” he became even more enraged.

He said “I am so f—– -angry” several times as I stepped away from the dinner table to take the surprise call.

It seems he was upset about my Thursday column.

In it, I called him out for what I thought was an unfair lambasting of a city employee caught in a picture appearing to be asleep–particularly when he himself has been embroiled in many controversies.

He took offence.”

…

“”I don’t want to hear these excuses,” Ford said of the apparently snoozing worker at the Carmine Stefano Community Centre in Etobicoke. “Really? No proof or explanation? No compassion? No one is allowed to have a bad day? No second chances?

Do you want us to apply that same standard to you, Mr. Mayor?””

Thank you, Toronto Sun. And now, a recent editorial from the National Post…

Robyn Urback: Councillors acting like cellphone vigilantes? Now that’s embarrassing

“”Mayor Rob Ford, of course, took the bait, calling the [Mammolitied sleeping city employee] incident a “complete embarrassment” and “black eye on the city.” As if this is the municipal incident that will bring down the reputation of the city.

“We cannot tolerate this,” Ford said at City Hall, seizing the opportunity to talk about contracting out parks and recreation jobs. “I want people to show up to work and do their job. If they can’t do their job, there’s thousands of other people that are willing and able to do their job.”

The event is low-hanging fruit for Ford and his team, which continues to tout its now-weary refrain of “ending the gravy train.” An what better cargo sauce than an apparent city slacker?””

…

“But whether he [the city employee] was actually sleeping or just inspecting the carpet tweed doesn’t matter much to the question of Mammoliti and Ford’s lowly decorum. As elected city officials, they should have behaved better.”

A big thank you to both sources. I strongly encourage TCL readers to read the whole articles, they have much more excellent information than I could re-post here, and you may stumble onto additionally revealing content beyond the cherries I’ve picked.

You may have heard the term “paywall” — it’s when a web site limits the amount of content that you can see unless you sign up with them for a fee. This typically happens after you’ve viewed a predetermined number of articles, and that number is reset on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis (depending on their setup).

All of Toronto’s major daily newspapers have put up paywalls, including the Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Globe and Mail, and National Post.

And they’re all just awful.

Much hooplah was made about a developer that bypassed the New York Times paywall a couple of years ago, yet little (if anything), has changed since. David Hayes, the developer who cracked the NYT paywall, claims it took him a lunch hour to write the bookmarklet that bypasses the newspaper’s paywall.

A couple of days ago when Sarah was hitting the Star’s paywall I decided to take a quick look at what would be involved in getting around it. Twenty minuted later I had bypassed the paywalls of all of the above papers, including the New York Times (before I’d read anything on the topic, I should add). It took another 30 minutes to produce a small, generic site script that makes the dewalling process just a little easier and faster.

I’m not blowing my own horn here. I’m no super genius and this “hack” could be accomplished by anyone with rudimentary web development experience. In fact, both Hayes’ code and my own are almost unnecessary; with a few extra steps, you can bypass these paywalls with no extra software or crazy hacking skills. Chances are good that you already know how to do it.

I can see some extra benefit to a utility that would assist in automatically navigating the paywall beyond the first article — so that you could click on the web page links instead of having to load article by article — but this was more of a proof-of-concept thing, and the proven concept is that paywalls are unfortunately simple to defeat.

I’m not currently posting my dewalling code publicly. However, I will detail why this problem exists, and what the papers can do to fix it (if you’re from any of the aforementioned newspapers, feel free to give me a shout).

So Why Are Developers So Dumb?

I don’t think they are :) And to be honest, I totally get why things were done this way.

When a typical web browser grabs the web page you request, it sends out some limited information for the listening web server on the other end. This includes listing the browser’s capabilities (what kinds of content it can handle), specifying what it’s looking for (usually the URL of the web page), and cookies.

The receiving web server has that, plus an IP address, to identify an individual reader over the internet.

The IP isn’t unique to you, it’s unique to your internet connection which may be shared by many devices (like the the internet box thing, a.k.a. residential router, in your home). Browser capabilities can’t be assumed to be unique, again, because of that shared internet connection thing. And cookies can be cleared with the click of a button.

Given these limitations, how are web developers supposed to identify unique readers while ensuring that other legitimate readers can still access the site?

Better to err on the side of caution and just use cookies, sometimes along with IP, rather than accidentally block readers. Paywalls are necessarily leaky.

So What Should They Do?

This is a tough one.

It’s tough because it puts the limitations of technology up against corporate culture and profits.

What this does is really call up the need for reflection on how the papers profit from their content, and to me it’s an all-or-nothing proposition.

One option is for the papers go all-in and make certain articles, sections, features, etc. fully pay-only. That means having to log in to access them, otherwise it’s an excerpt, or some sort of teaser, to the general hoi poloi.

Another, more Zuckerbergian option is to offer access in exchange for personal information. I’m not necessarily averse to this, but it also requires a content lock-down of some sort.

The current paywall solution is somewhere just above both of these, being easily circumventable but still acting as a deterrent to the average web user.

I would gravitate towards the nothing end of the scale with a nag solution where on every X views of an article, the non-subscribed reader receives a temporary pop-over message suggesting that they subscribe. IP address on the server could be used to determine how often to do this — it seems unlikely that shared connections would all be connecting to the same content source, and even so, all it would produce is a nagging reminder that people really do like the content. It’d be sort of like a local rating system with an option to subscribe.

Beyond that, there could be a mild nag every time, for non-subscribed users. This starts to get close to being just plain old fashioned inline advertising, which would be the next solution before nothing at all (full, free access to everything).

Of course, since the papers have full control over their sites, there’s theoretically no limit on how inline advertising could be accomplished. There’s the always classy Toronto Sun wall-to-wall background…

…but if that’s not the newspaper’s style, I’m sure there are other and more elegant approaches.

Ultimately, the decision is whether or not to lock away content. Logins are reliable, which is why they’re so popular. Identifying users without them is inherently unreliable. Either content can be locked away completely, or it should be assumed to be open to everyone. The seemingly in-between paywall solution is actually in the second family by reasons which I’ve explained earlier.

Astute web developers will point out that other mechanisms are available to bypass some of these limitations: Flash shared objects, or persistent browser databases. While these are a step beyond simple cookies, both are easily deleted as part of most modern browers’ cache management. In other words, they’re not much better than anything mentioned so far.

Browsers impose these limits to provide a level of privacy protection, and without requiring readers to manually enter additional information like a username and password, it’s tough if not impossible to pinpoint an individual human being. Without this exactness, any paywall or content blocking system is bound to be flimsy. The solution, at least at the present time, won’t involve technology; it’ll require high-level decisions about what will be locked away from the general public and what won’t.

I found it interesting to read what Peter Worthington’s final thoughts were about the paper he helped to found in his auto-obituary:

Of course, there is the Toronto Sun, which was never as good a newspaper as it could have been, but which was always a fun place to work, with good people who seemed to be forever being replaced by other good people.

The Sun was always pretty tolerant of me and, I must say, I was pretty tolerant of it from time to time. We both served each other’s purpose.

Not great, high turnover, and a necessary evil — or am I reading that wrong?

You must know me by now, I’m not exactly what you’d call fond of the Toronto Sun. But I guess it must fill some void out there because it’s managed to stay alive since 1971, and credit for that certainly must lie with Peter Worthington, the paper’s founding editor.

Worthington died from staph complications today, and although I’d probably have nothing polite to say to him (despite him occasionally being right on the money), you gotta give it to the man — he gnarled on that conservative bone until there was nothing left.

I know I’ve written about that hateful little troll, Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy, before, but now that the one man that could make her forget she’s gay (Rob Ford), has gotten off on a technicality, she is in full-on murder-everyone-who-doesn’t agree-with-you mode.

No, it’s not a “right” or “left” thing, Conservative versus Liberal thing (how did all the “Commies” suddenly become Liberals anyways?!), it’s an asshole versus reasonable human being thing. I mean, if she’s so hot for gambling and prostitutes and all the other crap Ford wants to swaddle the city with, why doesn’t she walk on down to the nearest street corner and spread that musty cavern of hers? Oh, right, it’s because she would have to do what she demands that everyone else do.

Because, you know, there is simply no other way for the government to make money, despite the offensive deposition Ford put everyone through while he was (we can only guess), snorting coke in some back room and completely ignoring everyone’s ideas. I know the coke thing is a rumour, but I’ve had enough experience with drugs to see that this is probably the case — the sweating, the holier-than-thou attitude, the confrontationalism, the ruddy face, etc. Chances of Rob snorting: very high.

Just to be clear, just because he may do drugs wouldn’t necessarily make Rob an awful person (except that he is), but I’m pretty damn sure he should not be holding office under the influence, driving under the influence, etc.

And the “technicality” term being tossed around? People like Levy love to use that word when describing how the mayor snubbed his nose at all the rules and laws of our city multiple times, or how he directly, knowingly, and willfully voted on something directly and monetarily affecting him. Those are “technicalities”, but the fact that Toronto Council wasn’t supposed to have imposed a punishment (hence the loss of the entire case), is not a technicality, that’s JUSTICE!

That’s also precisely how murderers, rapists, and drug dealers get away with it — legal technicalities are a criminal’s best friend.

But, you know, Levy’s just fine with that. People shouldn’t be held to account. Whoring out your daughters is a wonderful future for them. Getting into drinking and gambling, why, that’s practically next to godliness. Shouldn’t be surprising then that this creature passing for a woman would now be chastising Councillor Ana Bailao for her drunken driving charge, right? After all, drinking and gambling is precisely what we want in this town, so anyone who does it should immediately lose their job. (I’m sorry if this is twisting your brain — this is a Ford-lover we’re talking about here)

I happen to agree somewhat, drinking and driving is bad. Somewhat worse than, say, Ford driving while reading, or threatening the lives of passengers on a streetcar by plowing past its open doors, but the Ford-supporter hypocrisy is flying its true, shit-brown colours by defending Ford’s complete lack of regret and remorse (not even a hint of apology or a thought to changing his ways). Bailao drank and drove, potentially endangering many people on the road…the guillotine for her! Ford drove distractedly and dangerously an multiple occasions, unapologetically and directly endangering people on and off the road…oh, he just made a mistake; let’s use tax money and get him a driver!

And this is pretty much the Ford / Harper / etc. camp philosophy in a nutshell. It’s a philosophy that turns on others with the most outrageous slanders, hatred, and vitriol — remember Ford / Cherry’s inaugural speech? Of course, if you call them so much as “silly” they’ll call for your public hanging. They openly and gleefully promote vice, crime, selfishness, greed, money money money, me me me, to the exception of everything else, push on with bullheaded ideas despite any planning or consultation, and are basically oblivious to anything but their own whiny needs. And none of these characteristics are incongruous — these are just simply vile, offensive, pin-headed people. If you want to be nice, “petulant adult-children” works too.

The really sad part is that these people are so blind to basic human concepts like faith, charity, love, and kindness, that they’re willing to forfeit their entire family’s future on a momentary status gain. It’s all about feeding the overly swollen ego — me, me, me! And for some reason, they think that in the groups of selfish, uncaring, self-loving aggressors they move in, that they’re going to achieve some sort of universal love and acceptance from everyone by beating them down, insulting them, and making their lives miserable.

It’s really not that complicated…

Psychopathy: is a personality disorder that has been variously characterized by shallow emotions (including reduced fear, a lack of empathy, and stress tolerance), coldheartedness, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity, criminality, antisocial behavior, a lack of remorse, and a parasitic lifestyle.

This is not something I thought I’d ever be saying in my entire life, but Christie Blatchford actually hit the nail squarely on the head in a November 29 piece for the National Post (which makes it doubly stunning).

In it, she talks about Clayton Ruby, the lawyer who worked for free with Paul Magder to bring Rob Ford before the judge on the conflict of interest thing. I was instantly thinking she’d be ripping into the “lefties” who banded together to make this happen, but instead, and rather shockingly, she directly concedes that this is no left-wing conspiracy.

She puts an almost-human spin on both Ruby and Magder, describing some of their past work and the types of causes they put their weight behind. And rather than taking one side or another (i.e. the “left” or “right”), she exposes a much more direct and accurate picture of what motivated both men:

In April of 2010, Toronto Star food writer Corey Mintz wrote a piece headlined “My dinner with Clayton Ruby.”

…

Mr. Mintz was doing the cooking. As his friends discussed the “polarizing allegiance to the left or right,” Mr. Ruby cut through the verbal red tape, Mr. Mintz wrote.

“I think it’s all abstractly meaningless,” Mr. Ruby said. “There are people who do good in the world. And there are people who do not. And we make judgments.”

And that, I suspect, has much more to do with the efforts to fell Rob Ford than anything else: They do good; Mr. Ford, in their eyes, does not.

It’s interesting to compare this to Blatchford’s earlier pieces where she doesn’t come across in quite the same way:

November 26: “So, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been given the boot from office because an opportunistic citizen hired a smart and politically savvy lawyer who found a club of an arcane statute with which to tie the hands of a judge who was willing to play ball.”

November 23: “That week in court refreshed my memory, as the lawyers say. It was never that I loved Mr. Ford, either the detail of his politics or who he is particularly.

Rather, I liked who he wasn’t.

He wasn’t David Miller, his pretty-boy predecessor. He wasn’t the late Jack Layton. He wasn’t Sandra Bussin, the former councillor. He wasn’t Olivia Chow, another former councillor, Mr. Layton’s widow, who may yet return to run for the mayoralty (but only, of course, if “the people” demand it).

Mr. Ford wasn’t a part of that soft-left ruling class which, during my time at City Hall in the mid-1990s, ran the show, and appears to still. He wasn’t an earnest subscriber to the conventions of downtown city politics, with its sure convictions about What We Believe In.

I remember that so vividly, the smugness, the preening disdain for outsiders, even if, sometimes especially if, they were actual citizens.”

Maybe this is just some opportunistic writing now that it’s looking like Ford’s popularity isn’t all it was cracked up to be (how very Mamolliti of her). Still, the piece is out there, and I’m left with a profound sense of confusion.

Adding to this is feedback from newspapers like the Sun. Okay, well, that one’s perhaps a little more understandable ever since Ford made it clear he and they weren’t friends. Still, writers like Joe Warmington are usually through-and-through Fordites, often quoted by people like Newstalk’s Jerry Agar to prove just how much mainstream support the mayor has.

Just look at Warmington’s latest about a scuffle between Ford and Adam Vaughan:

But many of his leftists enemies — not all — have shown themselves to be graceless. Others have acted like classless lowlifes — the kind who would make fun of his weight, bother him at home with his kids and spread hateful, and hurtful lies, like him going to a gun club when he didn’t or incorrectly saying he called a 911 operator a “bitch” when the tape proves it did not happen.

To be fair, Warmington mentions Ford’s conflict of interest fiasco in this article, recognizing that Rob is somewhat responsible for some of his own mess, but it doesn’t quite stack up to the finger wagging that Warmington gave the mayor when the verdict was delivered:

In reality it would never have ever been put in the judiciary’s hands had Ford shown some humility and displayed a modicum of tolerance for people, and views that don’t walk lockstep with his.

Self-destructive or self-sabotage are other words. It’s as if he prefers the turmoil and conflict more than agreement. Every scandal he’s been involved in, he created himself.

He won’t go to Pride Parade. Dumb.

Talking on cellphone while driving. Avoidable.

Getting into ruckuses with reporters or comedians at his home. Childish.

In this instance, like he did when he slipped and fell at the Grey Cup event on the field in Nathan Phillips Square last week, he sacked himself.

“It is difficult to accept an error in judgment defence based essentially on a stubborn sense of entitlement and a dismissive and confrontational attitude,” wrote the judge.

He played chicken with a judge and lost. Had Ford played the game a little bit it would not have come to this. Had he listened to his peers that he was in conflict and not voted on his own motion, there would be no story. There was no need for any of this. In a culture of us and them, he made it easy for them.

Compare this further with Warmington’s most recent representations of Don Cherry as he backs Ford:

November 28: “Cherry did that himself (get flack for public commentary) last hockey season for emotional comments about three former NHL enforcers and never looked back.

He said now that Ford has done that, there needs to be some compassion and let him get back to doing his job.

“Here’s a guy that has dedicated his life to helping under-privileged kids and this is what happens to him?” Cherry said. “The guy made a mistake with the letterhead (and voting) no doubt. But he didn’t waste or lose billions of dollars like so many other governments have. His was a minor mistake. A human mistake.”

The Hockey Night in Canada legend made headlines two years ago at Ford’s swearing-in by telling Ford’s enemies to “put that in your pipe, you left-wing kooks.”

So he’s not surprised by what’s happening now.

“Let’s lay the cards on the table. The only reason this happened, the only reason, was because of the left-wingers out to get him,” Cherry said.

It has been difficult for him to watch.”

November 29: “Ford has no one to blame for this mess but himself since everybody from his brother Doug, to Don Cherry to deputy mayor Doug Holyday warned him to stop leading with his chin.”

Again, and shockingly so, Warmington is one of the most balanced voices at the Toronto Sun at the present time. Still, with only a day to separate his take on Ford’s situation, Warmington still meekly manages to flip flop more than a fish freshly tossed onto dry land.

And that right there is what I see as being the crux of the problem. It’s not a fight between the “left” and “right”, it’s a toss-up between those who choose a side and obstinately stay with it, even to the point of doing a 180-degree turn in their thinking whenever the breeze changes, and a more centrist approach that is willing to look at all sides with a more critical eye. In other words, the right/left stick bullheadedly with an ideology, often resorting to a 1984-like “doublethink” in order to maintain their blind allegiance.

Of course, I can’t say that this is true across the board, but it certainly seems to be more predominant with those who identify themselves as “right”-leaning (though I’ve seen plenty of examples of exactly the same thing among the “lefty” types too). I couldn’t even imagine the shock to their system when they realize that their beliefs are in line with the most repressive and conformist sort of communist-socialism one could conjure up.

Then again, these same people believe that the extreme right belongs to the Nazis — National Socialists – an extreme form of collectivized,  totalitarian control — and the left to the Communists — an extreme form of collectivized, totalitarian form of control. Only rhetoric, lack of critical thought, and instantaneous doublethink could possibly keep such things separate.

To anyone who is critical, none of this sits well.

Take Adam Vaughan, for example. This Councillor is typified as the anti-Ford at City Hall. He is the predominant “leftie” who the Sun holds up as the source of all evils in their nonsensical didactic.

Because Vaughan has publicly butted heads with Ford, he is placed by the “right” as the man who played the leading role in the mayor’s downfall, and furthermore, that he’s one of the major figures responsible for the “gravy” at City Hall. Ipso facto, anyone who doesn’t blindly follow Ford must necessarily love Vaughan, and by extension waste and gravy and so on and so forth. You get the idea.

That would have to make me a Vaughan-loving “leftie” then, wouldn’t it?

Only problem is that I don’t subscribe to that kind of stupidity. I’m no more enamoured with Vaughan than I am with Ford.

I mean, Vaughan has had fewer dictatorial tendencies thus far, but there’s something I learned recently (and about which I’ll be writing), that make it obvious that both Ford and Vaughan are cut from a very similar cloth.

Point I’m trying to make is that we need to decide where we stand, not where our politicians stand, or what rhetorical one-liners we want to support, etc. Yeah, that does mean we all need to dig a bit deeper, follow politics a bit more closely, read the news (all of it!) with a critical eye, and be willing to take a stand when something doesn’t fit with our own souls.

Sometimes that might even mean — *gasp* — changing our minds about someone!

It’s clear that a large percentage of the population isn’t doing any of this.

And by the way, next time you’re hearing about or discussing the Nazi Holocaust, or the rise of the Communist regime, or any one of the multitudes of evil that spring up around the globe, and you’re wondering how people would allow themselves to fall under such systems en masse (and once you’re under it, good luck!), try comparing what happened then to what’s happening at this very moment.

Blatchford mentioned it, and people like Clayton Ruby are keenly aware of it. And the similarities are horrific.

You gotta love the twisted logic it requires to be a Rob Ford supporter these days. Sue-Ann Levy (thanks for the find, Sarah), is just one cautionary example.

In her article berating Councillor Karen Stintz’ and her “Gang of 23” for taking an “unprincipled stand” against Ford’s let’s shove all transit underground and out of sight philosophy. Just look at the Scarborough RT, for example, what a shambles!

Yeah, well I did my time in Scarborough and couldn’t help but notice how our crappy RT, which is above ground, compared to the rest of the TTC, large sections of which also runs above ground. Levy and Ford, though, probably wouldn’t know that. And yes, the RT is kinda famously not compatible with the rest of the subway system so making the systems link up would make sense. But that’s not what Fordo supported when he unanimously overstepped his bounds, declared Transit City dead, and pronounced that Eglinton would be getting low-floor underground trains requiring a different rail gauge — exactly like the LRT.

And besides, Sue-Ann’s got her crusties all in a bunch because it was Toronto that elected the mayor with a loud and plain voice (no doubt), of 47% of voters, while Stintz is running amok with just 23 renegade Councillors which, for some reason, is not a democratically elected, and arguably much wiser, majority (there are 44 Councillors in total).

Well, Sue-Ann, let me break it down for you: I’m sure these 24 Councillors, making up 54% of Council, collectively got way more votes than His Weightiness, and if you weren’t filled with such glaring blind spots and adoration for your rotund master, you’d realize that this is the actual voice of Toronto that this “gang” of Councillors represents. Or does the concept of representative democracy not really make sense to you?

As a source of information, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Sun newspaper, a tabloid rag that panders to the lowest common denominator with a few blurby bits of print parading around on each page awash in seas of advertising. The vast majority of their content comes in off the wire via AP or Reuters, often to the point where you can read entire articles — verbatim — in other local papers.

The Sun “newspaper” carries skimpily-clad Sunshine Girls on the back page, features way more sports coverage than international news, and is filled to the brim with bright, colourful photos, eezee-to-read sentences, and sensationalist headlines up the wazoo.

Basically, if you want to have your news predigested and regurgitated for mindless consumption along with a heaping bowlful of red-blooded stereotype, the Sun is for you!

Normally, I wouldn’t give a toss about the Sun. Live and let exist to wipe my ass with, I say. But recently it’s become painfully clear that this “newspaper” is a reflection of the myocardial infarction we currently have sitting in Toronto’s mayoral chair, as well as his ruddy-faced lap dogs like Giorgio Mamolitti who whine like little girls whenever their precious feelings have been hurt by public opinion, contradictory free speech, or that terrible terrible thing we call a democracy (I’ll have to post his bitchings during the last marathon depositions on YouTube).

And to be honest, I’m getting fucking sick and tired of hearing clamoring idiots calling for myopic, one-dimensional, all-pennies-and-no-brains bullshit with which to fix this city’s problems with.

Most meat-headed partisans like to think they’re in the clear, the “he was voted in so he must have majority support” fallacy. Except that only 47% of the people who voted actually voted for Rob Ford. That means that less than half of the people who voted directly support His Rotundness. Moreover, only about half of Toronto actually voted, so the bellowing loudmouths milling around in Ford Nation account for only about 25% of Toronto. And guess what, most of downtown didn’t vote for Ford — the people who will be most affected by his actions are the ones who can’t stand him the most.

The other fact that Fordites continue to forget is that there are 44 councillors at City Hall which must approve stuff before any of Ford’s ridiculous plans can ever come to fruition. “But Ford is going to do blah blah blah…” Yeah, no he’s not, because he’s a bully and he can barely make friends with a fire hydrant let alone a thinking councillor.

Fordites also can’t seem to come to grips with the fact that their portly hero is full of shit.

… Continue Reading