Toronto Star -- how low can they go?

Royston James this week published a op ed piece in the Star in which he suggested that the city's finances could be brought in line by each day hanging each of the city counselors in Nathan Phillips Square and charging admission. Now Royston being a black man obviously does not see the irony of his statement as compared to what happened in the American south not that long ago. You have to wonder of Royston was not a black man whether he would have been allowed to make those comments.

If you remember a couple of years ago the Star called for the armed over throw of the democratically Ontario Government -- the Harris Tory's. The said this was an op ed piece it just was not in the editorial pages of the Star.

How low can they go -- I am sure once someone takes the Star's advice to heart we will find out. Moron's the lot of them.

Rush to excessive use of force: Robert Dziekanski

It is not often I find myself so upset by a set of events that I have to comment on them. This is one of them. It is clear from the video the RCMP rushed to use excessive force on Robert Dzienkanski -- an apparently slightly agitated (note slightly) and responsive man was tasered by the RCMP for no apparent reason. One officer is caught on tape telling them to hit him again -- the convulsions caused my the first tazer are considered to be resisting arrest.

I am a supporter of Police generally, I have a police officer in the family -- this is just wrong however -- very wrong. This was not a taser incident this was manslaughter.

The RCMP's spokesman says not to rush to judgement -- but admits based on the video people will, and frankly they should. The RCMP spokesman says we need to understand what the officers were thinking -- officers that clearly were not trying to communicate with anyone -- the deceased, the spectators, no-one. They obviously decided that this man needed to be tasered in advance of their arrival -- guess they did not expect him to die.

The RCMP can expect another loss in public confidence over this -- the young officer's(Douglas Scott) death in the north will leave the headlines in the next couple of weeks/days -- this incident and video will live on in infamy for years.

There should not just be a coroner's inquest into this, there should be criminal charges laid.

There I have had my say -- must admit I feel no better about it.

Mulroney Fiasco -- the bluff or the royal flush?

It has been a while since Mr Mulroney has been this much in the news, the liberals have tried hard to continue to paint him as the anti-christ over the years -- cost us a bit of money. Now we have Mr Schreiber on the eve of deportation for tax evasion and a host of other things sending letters to further inflame the situation. I guess if i was scheduled for deportation to a jail term in Germany -- i too would be doing everything in my power to stay in the country.

Now Mr Mulroney did an interesting thing -- he has call for a full public inquiry, something that has shocked parliament hill. He has said and probably rightly so that he will never get out from under the cloud of suspicion without a full airing of events. I can imagine not only are the conservatives a little concerned about this given they are on the eve of an election, but so too are the Liberals, as it has never been revealed how much of the previous investigation was driven by Chretien's hatred for Mulroney and his puppets in the RCMP acting a little KGB like. Also Mulroney is taking aim at the media -- I am assuming the likes of Stevie Cameron and the Toronto Star will also be a little apprehensive as their purported journalism has been little more then rewriting washroom innuendo.

All in all Mulroney may actually get what he is asking for, the public inquiry that is, but sometimes you have to be careful of what you ask for. But then maybe he is a better poker player then we give him credit for.

taxastrophe

Well it appears the mayor of our fair city, the honourable Mr Miller, won his battle to raise taxes in Toronto. He got both the license tax for cars and the tax on the sale of houses through. The house tax is just plain stupid -- in times of economic slowdowns with reduced new housing starts Mr Miller is going to see reduced tax revenues -- I understand he was loathe to raise property taxes, which by the way he is going to do anyway, but doubling the land transfer tax -- talk about stupid. I understand there may be an arguement that even in a recessio there will be a minimum number of house sales -- however I am pretty sure that is not what their budgets are based on. As for the car tax, just wait till all those cars are registered to addresses outside of Toronto. By the way has the province agreed to administer either of these taxes?

Mr Miller and the other sycophants on city council are a short sighted bunch -- they want the other levels of government to bail them out (I appreciate the argument) but refused to go after the parties during the last election, guess Mr Miller was a little busy at all those green city meetings.

John Tory -- Redux

Well in the postmortem on the election Mr Tory has come to the realization that the religious schools proposal was not a smart idea -- well who knew. To compound this he now realises that he needed to listen to those amoung his team that were telling him to back off on this earlier in the campaign -- again who knew.

Had a chat with a Tory insider and they revealed that Tory has a hard time letting go of that back room role -- where you can push an issue, only to have it over ruled by a more street savvy politician. I guess he misses the advice, guidance, decision making for lack of a better description, of the Bill Davis's of the world. I think John has learned its a little tougher out there then he expected, and lets face it I don't think he expected the McGuinty liberals to play to the racist anti-muslim undercurrent in Ontario. But all is fair in love and war and the Liberals capitalised on the anti-Muslim vote -- and got themselves a majority with the support of 21% of the eligible voters. Ain't democracy grand.

51% of eligible voters voted

Frankly I am disgusted -- what good is having a democracy if you refuse to participate? To put this into context the Ontario Liberals got 71 seats based on the votes 21% of eligible voters. This means that one in five Ontarion's felt that the Liberal vision of Ontario was the correct one -- I won't make assumptions about those who chose not to vote.

I am not going to dispute the legitimacy of the Ontario Liberals right to rule -- they won the election based on the rules we have. I disagree with McGuinty that campaigns that call politicians liars, promise breakers et al would convince people not to vote. I mean lets get serious any party that has the Liberal war machine, namely Warren Kinsella and his ilk, behind it -- is going to run negative campaigns. And lets face it negative campaign work.

The disenfranchisement of the voter has to much more than that -- politicians are politicians, some are reptilian in nature others are saints -- most are in between -- they have been like this for centuries, and the public has been aware of it. Why are people refusing to vote? Would love to see some polling on this -- I am assuming it is a lack of a decisive vision for the future -- lets face it most of the policy initiatives across all parties came out of the same photocopier. The futility of voting when people feel nothing substantive is going to change.

The political parties and media also does a piss poor job in educating the voter on the need to vote -- the need to be part of the discussion -- it rather is seen as a closed club, fraught with insiders, full of scandals and graft and frankly from the media pretty poor reporting.

I personally think papers like the Toronto Star further exacerbate the problem with less than ethical reporting -- one sided and inflammatory headlines, bullying people into questioning their convictions and further alienating and marginalizing people who do not fit their narrow view of an idealized Ontarion and thereby increasing apathy and a sense of futility.

But then of course I could be wrong.

Congratulations to the Ontario Liberals

In a sweeping victory the Liberals have maintained a 35 seat majority with a 42% of the vote. A very hearty congratulations to the Liberals and their campaign -- not to take anything away from them Tory basically handed them the election with a series of missteps and gaffe's -- the largest being the religious school funding.

It will be interesting to see how the Liberals handle the Catholic School funding issue -- not that they will extend to other faiths in the short run -- but they will probably face increased level of scrutiny on the Catholic School funding -- with every silly religion decision made by Catholic Trustees being put on the front page of the newspapers. I would expect we can expect silence from the Liberals on this issue for now -- not sure that will make the issue go away.

The NDP increased their popular vote -- not sure what that will bring, as the Liberals are able to push through or not do whatever they want. I think the PC's and the NDP are going to take on the oppose everything role in the media for the next four years -- and frankly their ability to hold the Liberals to account will be severely muted.

In the mean time we can expect the Status Quo -- as Ontarion's voted for the liberal platform of change -- which was unremarkable -- and steeped in the Status Quo.

Who did I vote for -- and I did vote, I went with the party that most closely matced my liberal social policy/conservative fiscal beliefs -- let you figure that one out.