There are many things that, at one time, were the exclusive domain of the tinfoil hat brigade. Claims such as the government spying on everyone, or that that same government is engaged in a global plot to enslave its citizens under corporate rule through coercion, outwardly hypocritical violence, fear and intimidation, secrecy, open criminality, and many massive rights violations, all promulgated by a colluding mass media as perfectly normal and certainly not worth informing you about.

Seems like those tinfoil-donning lunatics were onto something; it even turns out that tinfoil is pretty good at blocking out the types of radio waves that can affect a human brain. So these days, when those same crazies talk about visitors from other planets, I’m much more apt to take a few moments to hear them out.

I’m still on the fence about the existence of extraterrestrial creatures. Yes, I think the chance that other life exists out there is extremely good; intelligent life too. But I can’t remember ever seeing a UFO or anything that might look otherwordly so I can’t rely on any personal experience.

When I have to resort to trusting the accounts of others I steer towards those who have some established credibility. Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Minister of National Defense,  for example, seems like a pretty solid bet. Not only was Hellyer a rarity among politicians (he had some qualifications for his position!), but he has remained a sensible and balanced public voice maintaining that UFOs are real and being covered up by governments worldwide. Contrasted against the way governments operate, Hellyer’s claims seem even more plausable.

Here’s what he had to say earlier this year at an official-looking “hearing” on UFOs and ETs in Toronto:

The truth is out there.

Rob Ford’s office published a video today thanking Toronto for a great summer.

Maybe this is supposed to take everyone’s mind off of another certain video?

This obvious campaign piece was apparently passed by the Integrity Commissioner before being put put online. Remember her? The woman Ford wanted to have fired because she was doing her job? The same Integrity Commissioner which who’s decision Ford didn’t see fit to abide by because, well, he can do whatever he wants?

I wonder if there’s a stronger word for “irony”.

Was the proposed casino supposed to bring revenue to the city of Toronto, or “10,000 jobs“, as Rob Ford repeatedly pronounced?

I suppose if the numbers were as high as Ford asserted ($100 million, minimum), a casino could’ve potentially brought both. But those idealized revenues turned out to be about half (or a quarter, or an eighth, depending on what day it was and how he was feeling), of Rob’s projections.

So faced with the reality of only about $54 million under the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission’s formula for divvying up casino spoils, Ford declared the project dead:

If the province won’t agree (to) that $100 million, then folks, the deal is dead. We are not going to carry on the casino debate.

Well, that’s it. Ford’s one and only source of potential income for Toronto projects has dried up (aside from the mysterious public-private partnerships that never materialized). So if the city can’t get a bigger chunk of cash out of the deal then it’s pointless.

Oh, and about those jobs — if the city can’t get a bigger chunk of cash out of the deal then they’re pointless too. Sorry, single moms, I guess it’s a future of frying up chicken for the foreseeable future.

Okay, snarkiness aside, I hope you see what I’m driving at here. Rob has no problem pulling the “jobs, jobs, jobs!” card out of his ass when it’s expedient for him, but when something like the casino fails we quickly see that it was never about jobs, his constituents, or the citizens of Toronto — it’s about gobbling up money for use by the government. Okay, yes, we do need transit funding, but we also need jobs, so to sacrifice one at the expense of another belies the true intentions behind the casino push.

Not that I believed the job numbers either, but that’s kind of beside the point.

At least there was a smidgen of honesty in some of Ford’s remarks:

Contrary to what many people have said, I’m not married to a casino, I never campaigned on a casino.

That’s true, unless you consider marriage to be an exclusive commitment. Then again, he never campaigned on subways either, but that never stopped him from claiming the opposite at every opportunity.

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 so I’m clear, I support neither the Tamil Tigers nor the Sri Lankan government in their ongoing struggle. Yes, I do know a bit of the history of the island, the forced displacement of the indigenous Tamil people, etc., but not enough to take a firm stand either way.

But that’s not my point in writing this anyway.

I want to expose the hypocrisy, arbitrariness, and two-facedness of our government in designating enemies and terrorists, especially now that they’ve pushed the “anti-terrorist” Bill S-7 down the throats of Canadians (the latest in a long line of tyrannical, totalitarian, deadly measures that have only one, logical conclusion).

The Tamil Tigers consider themselves freedom fighters, fighting an evil and corrupt strong-man government (openly and proudly installed and maintaned by the Harper government). Sure, many people wouldn’t agree with that definition of the Tigers, but that’s beside the point — Harper loves him his Sri Lankan “authorities” and has made sure Canada’s been helping out since 2006 while simultaneously ensuring dissent is fully destroyed:

Canadian interest in Sri Lanka is also driven by a foreign policy commitment to the principles of freedom of expression, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

In April 2006, Canada listed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as a terrorist organization under the Canadian Criminal Code, and in June 2008, the World Tamil Movement was also added to the list.

Now, John Baird, the guy currently running this part of Harper’s shit show, has this to say about the same government that they’ve been brown-nosing and loving up over the past 7 years:

“We’re appalled that Sri Lanka seems poised to host CHOGM and to be chair-in-residence of the Commonwealth for two years,” he told the Guardian.

“Canada didn’t get involved in the Commonwealth to accommodate evil; we came to combat it. We are deeply disappointed that Sri Lanka appears poised to take on this leadership role.”

This in-your-face hypocrisy is troubling on many levels, but there are two that stand out above others.

1. It’s excruciatingly obvious that this has nothing to do with “terrorism”, supporting human rights, ensuring equality, etc.; it’s all about arbitrarily (at least, on the surface), vilifying one group or another for reasons of conquest, division, strife, and control.  And while simultaneously decrying our new enemies abroad (but not actually doing anything to back up the vociferous fist-pounding), the government is passing measures designed to go after its own people in the most draconian manner and with complete impunity at home (again, see S-7 for just a smattering).
2. This “these are friends, no, they’re hated enemies” narrative, state of constant and unending war, fear, and domestic subjugation have been spelled out almost exactly in works that were once considered mere horrific works of fiction:
   

This dark and unsettling road that we’re on is nonetheless clearly marked, and has an even more clear destination. It’s not as if history hasn’t shown us example after example of where all of this leads (if we let it), and those who choose to remain ignorant, or worse, supportive of it, also have plenty of first-hand experience to draw on:

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

If…if…

We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

On Newstalk 1010’s RoDoFo (Rob/Doug/Ford), radio show on Sunday afternoon, Rob said he’d like to see more women in politics, and if any of yous dames out there are interested, to call him at home or meet him over coffee and he’ll tell you all about how City Hall works.

Yes, the man who repeatedly admitted he doesn’t know how to do his job is going to tell you all about how to do his job.

Don’t worry, those allegations of him beating his wife a few years back were never proven, I’m pretty sure he’s over grabbing women’s asses by now, and the fact that women are leaving his own hand-picked executive committee left right and centre shouldn’t be read into too deeply.

Just imagine the kind of intellectual treasure trove you’ll be able to tap into!

Sarah and I were invited to sip and discuss the somewhat misnomer-ed Canadian Club Whisky (it’s American-owned although it has deep roots here), at a promotional event hosted at her old alma mater.

There was the traditional tasting of some of CC’s star products, straight up…

…and mixed…

I find the CC version of a 12-year-old to be less smooth than a comparable Macallan, but comparing pricey Scotch and North American whisky probably isn’t fair.

Not that it really matters much; I wouldn’t classify myself as a CC drinker (or whisky, for that matter), but I could definitely see myself ordering a few of the tasty drinks we sampled. The food, consisting of nibbles supplied by Tundra, was also great.

But probably the best part of the event was the fact that the Canadian Club Chairman was walking around, mingling, and generally making himself available to the guests.

If you don’t recognize him, maybe this will help:

He’s not shy to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi…

…or to bring his son to events…

Sarah and I caught up in person with Toronto’s social media scenesters, drank till we were glowing, and made friends with the caterers (you never know!)

We were also pleased to see a number local businesses being supported as part of Canadian Club’s campaign. Both inside and outside the great hall, these locals rounded off the manly inspiration behind the CC campaign with things like men’s cuts, personal grooming products, and suits.

Many thanks to Canadian Club and Praxis PR for having us and for the generous swag bags we lugged home.

Cheers!

Despite the fact that camera-wielding media now have to stand against the walls of City Hall to make way for His Rotundness to get around, Rob Ford managed to smack himself in the face with a TV camera as he was leaving some meeting or other yesterday while staring intently at the ground.

Ford immediately went into finger-pointing mode, exclaiming:

Ah fuck man. Holy Christ! Holy. Guys have some respect, you just hit me in the face with a camera.

By this we can only extrapolate that “respect”, to Ford, would mean no media at any time. No surprise there. Except, of course, that little thing called reality would respectfully disagree with what actually happened:

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.