With the Rob Ford crack “tape” seemingly lost forever, people are starting to get antsy. “Where is it?”, they’re rightfully asking. “Without it, who knows if it’s even real!”

Not precisely correct, but still, it’d be good to have a gander at that video, wouldn’t it?

And about that not being correct part, consider this for a moment; many crimes didn’t have video cameras, or good enough video evidence, to prove that they ever took place. So does that mean that all you need to do is to take someone out into a back alley and it’s your word against theirs?

In a court, that wouldn’t be the end of it. There’s this stuff called corroborating evidence — not proof, but strong hints — and in the absence of any recorded evidence we have … eye witnesses.

People tend to forget about this type of sworn evidence: people who actually saw the event in question.

Now I already know what the Ford supporters are saying: “But these are unnamed sources claiming this! Plus they’re drug dealers! Plus they’re lefties!”

Unnamed?

Poppycock!

There are at least five publicly named sources at this point — the reporters themselves — who have claimed (on record, no less), that they saw the video with their own eyes. In court, they’d be witnesses.

Drug dealers?

I doubt it. But the people who claim to own the video, probably yes. Does that mean that those people (the witnesses and the drug dealers are not to be conflated), were able to use their ill-gotten drug money to make up a sensational video? If you believe that Santa comes down your chimney every year, you might buy this one too. Does that therefore make the video fake? Highly unlikely.

Finally, is there any other corroborating evidence to link Ford to drugs? You bet there is. And there’s motive in what the mayor is currently doing too.

Seems to me that with five public and named sources, the likelihood of the video existing being high, the likelihood of the video being fake being low, the fact that not only is the whole thing believable but also likely, and finally, that everything that the Fords have subsequently done points to a clear motive — it all sounds like a pretty solid case to me.

Ford’s defense: his flaccid word.

Although I tend to lace my political analyses with a lot more profanity and not so subtle calls to action, I’m heartened to see that the mainstream media seem to be waking up to what’s happening — at least here in Canada.

Christopher Hume’s piece in the Toronto Star today, for example, demonstrates a willingness to no longer tip-toe around the issues. Although I wish I could quote the entire article, the last few-ish paragraphs sum it all up perfectly:

It was painful to watch our prime minister and chief environmental scofflaw, Boss Harper, squirm in New York last week as he tried to talk his way out of his antediluvian attitudes to climate change.

It was just as excruciating to witness Sheriff Ford’s efforts to deal with reports of a video of him apparently smoking crack. The man has yet to mount any defence beyond, “ridiculous.”

Through it all we remain so polite, deferential and glad to be of use, that a good many Torontonians lined up to denounce the media that did them the favour of revealing the mayor for what he is, an overgrown man-child who does what he wants, the city be damned.

Harper, by contrast, knows what he’s doing. He knows his actions are reckless, but to him ethics are a nicety leaders can’t afford.

Neither Harper nor Ford respect government, its institutions or the positions they hold. Both believe themselves exempt. To them, Canadians are gullible or too preoccupied with getting by to hold them responsible.

As bad as things may be, Canadians are terrified they could be worse.

I applaud you, Mr. Hume, for taking a stand against the blithe illegality and corruption of our various levels of government. Now we just need more people to do the same.

It was over a year ago that Sarah and I first heard about Rob Ford’s cocaine habit, and there have been a series of very strong hints since that we were onto something.

But yesterday evening, John Cook of the unabashed website Gawker posted probably the best evidence yet of Ford’s drug abuse. And what’s more, he’s standing behind everything he claims.

If you haven’t read the story yet, I’ll save you the trouble: some time within the last 6 months, Ford was caught on someone’s cell phone smoking crack with a group of people, chuckling at off-colour comments, and just generally being unmayorly.

The tale behind the video is a bit twisted, but basically the guy who shot it and showed it to John Cook wants to sell it for “six figures”, which makes me think it may never see the light of day (see additional comments below). But efforts are afoot nonetheless.

The Taiwanese animated news agency NMA took a few liberties with the story (plus a few other choice Ford incidents), but they’re not far off the mark:

Of course, Ford denied the whole thing right away, taking the opportunity to flaunt his ignorance and demonize the Toronto Star while simultaneously ignoring reporters’ comments that the story actually came via Gawker. But that’s par for the course for Robbie.

A little birdie told me that behind the scenes, Ford has issued a hefty bounty on whoever’s in possession of the video. Considering that one of the people in the recording, Anthony Smith (the guy on the left in the photo above), was gunned down outside a Toronto nightclub earlier this year, that bounty probably has an “alive or dead” rider.

Rumours are also flying that Ford is proving to be too much of an embarrassment to Harper’s Criminal, erm, Conservative dynasty, so Fordo is now feeling the squeeze from both ends. I’m sure Harper isn’t upset that Ford is a law-breaking, rude, incompetent scumbag, it’s that he’s making the Conservative tyranny look bad before it can accomplish its mission.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t really give much of a toss whether or not Rob snorts coke or civet droppings, it’s the fact that he’s a mayor who is openly breaking the law left right and center (not to mention admitting to not knowing how to do his job), that’s the clincher.

It’s time for Ford to go (jail would be a good start), and to take the rest of his Conservative cronies with him.

Just a few high-def old maps I pilfered from around the web.

Download the whole pack here (caution, it’s 122 MB): http://www.torontocitylife.com/downloads/Toronto_Historic_Maps_HD.zip

You know how it is … you’re strolling down the street thinking to yourself, “you know, it’d be nice to have a massive, fatal coronary right here and now”. Except every time you’ve tried that, those damn EMS people come by and resuscitate you.

Well, you’ll be pleased to know that the Toronto Star has put out a handy-dandy guide to the best spots to kick off in such a manner. And wouldn’t you know it, the place to be is in my old neighbourhood; what what!!

In response to Karen Stintz’ accusation that Rob Ford ain’t doing his job, his office sent back a tersely worded response:

“There is no lack of leadership from the Mayor.”

Not what Stintz said, but given the collective capacity for comprehension behind Ford Nation, let’s just say close enough.

Except that Ford did’t write or send the response, he got one of his lackeys (George Christopoulos), to do it. In fact, there’s no indication that Rob Ford was involved in anything to do with the situation.

To be fair, he was probably busy clearing his schedule in order to personally respond to each constituent’s phone call (as every mayor of every large metropolitan area should) — a conservative estimate of 300,000 calls a year, or 820 calls per day — and delegated this lowly task to Christopoulos. Or maybe he was coaching football. Whatever. Clearly Ford showed leadership and world-class initiative, and got right out in front of the issue.

Specifically, Stintz says that Ford is “abdicating his responsibility” (to Ford Nation: that means failing to do his job), by continually putting off on hearing about various transit funding options for the city (expected to need about $2 billion over 25 years).

The options, put forward by Metrolinx, include:

• Parking fees levy: An extra $1 a day, for a total of $1.4 billion a year.
• Sales tax: An extra 1 per cent added to the HST, for an estimated income of $1.4 billion a year.
• Fuel tax: An extra five cents per liter of gas, estimated to bring in $330 million a year.
• Payroll tax: With a hike of 0.5 per cent, this would be expected to generate $700 million a year.
• Property tax: Estimated to bring in an additional $670 million a year.
• Vehicle travel fee: Drivers would be charged 3 cents per kilometer traveled. Expected to raise $1.6 billion per year, but the setup and administrative costs would probably be massive (if this was even doable).
• Highway tolls: Same as above, but only on highways and at 10 cents a kilometre. Expected to pull in $1.4 billion a year.
• Development charges: Developers would be dinged with a 15 per cent increase, amounting to about $100 million a year.
• Transit fare increases: Guaranteed increases each and every year (in place now — thanks, Rob!), are apparently not nearly enough. An additional 15 cent per ride is expected to generate $50 million a year.
• Land value capture: This weird one has private land owners forking over cash to the government when their property values increase as a result of adjacent government projects (they build a park next door, claim that it makes your property more expensive, and skim the difference). No figures provided.

I’m not going to sit here and claim that any of these are giving me a boner, but with these few, short paragraphs, I’ve managed to do infinitely more research into the topic than Ford.

Maybe none of these ideas have any merit at all. Maybe some of them are quietly and not obviously brilliant. Rob Ford will never know as his only response is to obstinately stick his fingers in his ears, scream “I can’t hear you!”, and blame everyone and their dog for lack of planning, poor leadership, and a lack of momentum.

In the meantime, you can actually hear the paint dry as Robbie mulls over his own, intricate and vast transit plans, which comprise of:

• Casino: expected by Ford to pull in hundreds of millions, along with pixie dust and unicorns, and by those with any actual influence over it about $50 million.
• Casino: At woodbine!
• Casino: Downtown!
• Casino: At Cherry Beach!
• Casino: At the CNE!

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll no doubt notice the occasional lapse in posts.

While you could be forgiven for thinking that this is due to laziness or just plain old lack of motivation, I want to assure you that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Aside from blogging, living, my hobbies, the challenges of Sarah’s MS, and that thing called “earning a living”, I like to think I keep busier than most. Case in point:

This happy fellow is FloorPig, and he’s the star of a game by the same name. And you take him for a whirl on your Android phone here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.olliebit.FloorPig

The game is a simple (at least initially), puzzle game. The point is simply to guide FloorPig from the green tile to the red tile while removing every tile in between. If you’re having trouble picturing that, I recommend you try the game. Did I mention it’s free?

And if you don’t have an Android phone, a desktop, web, iOS, and probably Blackberry version should be coming very shortly.

Sarah and I are now working on the next game (tentatively called “Radius”), and we’re also working on expanding FloorPig’s challenging but still somewhat limited nine levels.

It’d be wonderful if you could try our game and send us some feedback, even if it’s negative; I’ve done this for many years so I have a pretty thick skin by now.

So if Toronto City Life isn’t being updated as regularly as you’d like, please accept our apologies. Maybe playing a game or two while you wait would help to pass the time?

I mean, come on — you weren’t expecting Rob Ford to support something to do with biking, did you?

Okay, so now that we got that clarified, I hope it doesn’t come as a shock that Fordo vowed to kill a motion before City Hall to remove some (unused) parking spaces below City Hall and replace them with a locker to hold around 300-ish bikes.

To Rob, this just doesn’t make sense — spend $1.2 million to make an estimated $70,000 in locker fees? In a classic Fordian non sequitur, Ford blurted out, “I’m going to try to kill it at council, but that’s a complete waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Sure there’s waste at City Hall — there are two seats reserved with the name “Ford” that are complete wastes of space, for example — but the bike locker isn’t one of them.

For starters, the current parking spots to be occupied are mostly sitting idle. Of course, that doesn’t mean an additional cost, but it also doesn’t mean additional revenue. For the 12 phantom cars that are to be displaced, that would be about $3,600 per year (assuming $300 per vehicle). Even if those spots were paved over with gold and diamonds and rented out at $1,000 a pop, and the number of cars were doubled, that would still only amount to $24,000 a year.

But for the city to get that money, those spots would actually have to be reserved, so to call it lost revenue is just not correct.

To be sure, $1.2 million is an up-front cost that can’t just be ignored. If the $70K revenue stream is accurate, it’ll take just over 17 years to pay off. So in the short term, it definitely would not make economic sense.

However, this re-fit is part of the plan to re-do Nathan Phillips Square and has been for many years, so Fordo kinda missed the boat on that one (he’s been on City Council for a decade, conservatively*).

But, okay, that’s Ford right? He did, after all, come out and declare that he’s not exactly skilled at doing the whole “mayor” thing, so this shouldn’t come as a shocker to anyone.

But Ford’s numbers (still trusting him on that dubious $70K), do make sense if you require immediate payback on projects. Municipal government doesn’t always have to require that, and especially not on a relatively small $1.2 million. Even at two and a half times, as one must expect from government projects, that’s still a less-than-astronomical $3 million.

I’m willing to bet that that new stage being put up top side at the Square, not to mention all the extra stuff behind it, is worth at least a cool three mill, and what purpose do they serve?

Presumably to attract tourists and locals who might spend money. Those same tourists and locals that may arrive on bicycles (I’ve seen ’em, even on those rented numbers!)

Seems like it’s not an economic issue that Rob Ford has, nor is it a political problem; for him, it’s ideological. He doesn’t like bikes, thinks cyclists are a pain in the ass, and still thinks that it’s possible to cram more cars onto the streets of Toronto as a solution to congestion.

I can see why he’d think that; he has the right of way on all streets (presumably because he’s mayor), and doesn’t really have to obey all of those lesser-known (and unenforceable!) laws — that’s for everyone else to do.

* I feel it’s fair to chip off a couple of years for vacancies, mental and otherwise.