Who says cops are humourless?

Flipping the bird to a cop is now ticketable. In this story, which has achieved National cachet, written by ambulance chaser par-excellence - Pete Fisher. Constable Bettina Schwarze is reported to have awarded the offending driver, who flipped the bird as he was driving away with one ticket in hand, another one for "Making an illegal hand signal". Talk radio idiot John Oakley, in a feeble attempt to maintain ratings on a dog day for news, severely criticised the ticketing as, "an attempt to overreach authority". Sad but predictable.

The candidates are coming to Town

The Liberal nomination dog and pony shows are ready and willing to meet you. Schedules for 'meet and greets' for both previously announced candidates are up in cyberspace. Check the face book links on the left of this page for details. Andrew McFadyen is having one at the best Western, in Cobourg, on the 6th Aug - Thursday, and Kim Rudd is having hers on the 8th - Saturday, at the Cobourg market building. The only indication of where the candidates stand is to count the number of supporters each one has in their facebook group: McFadyen - 218 and Rudd - 177 announced supporters. Of course this is only play count and it all depends on the real vote, which depends on real memberships. The Membership Sec hasn't said anything about those numbers yet. Rumours still abound about With the entry of the Brighton Mayor (Christine Harrington), this morning, into the race, there are now three. going at it Unless she enters with her pockets stuffed with memberships she is late out of the gate and will waste both her money and effort, not to mention Political Capital as the nomination date is being set for very early September - less than 30 days away. Personally I can't see anything other than ego in it for CH, unless she is a stalking horse for McFadyen and we know that the NQW Libs can't do anything without declaring regional warfare. So the view from here is that someone in the East really wants to put the boots to the Western candidate. Besides whoever wins will have one heckuva job, in this swing riding, to overcome an 11,000 vote deficit against Norlock. The prize, at the moment, doesn't look attainable. So why would a popular mayor do it?

Things must be very slow if we are debating this. Some party activists, at next month's party convention want the New Democratic Party (NDP) to change it's name and drop the "New" from the name. In this story Lawrence Martin of the G&M discusses why it's a good idea. How come all of those people who will never vote for the NDP always have plenty of ideas about how to make it for the better. It's not as though any of these Liberals will ever vote for the NDP so why do they bother?

A fine day for a celebration

Yesterday these people were honoured for many things as part of the Coborne 150th celebration. The most interesting honoree was a past Beauty Queen , Miss 1959 - delightful and quirky. With so many events to choose from yesterday a trip to Colborne was handy and it sure turned out to be dandy!. Unfortunately the arrival at 1245 meant we had missed the parade but manged to catch the opening ceremonies. Hosted by Heritage Cramahe and MCd by Pat Westrope it was an unusual political event - short on pols speeches but long on local history.



I was surprised, and pleased, by the number of locals that got into the act by wearing period costume this couple stood out for their elegance and grace under the sun.


Click on the pics to get a larger view

I hope the rain keeps away today

One of the hard working merchants at the Sidewalk Sale yesterday. Scotty Carrigan flips burgers for the masses. One of about seven BBQs on the street, his was the biggest and most visible, he was doing well at lunch time.

Yep went to the bank yesterday and when downtown realised "It's that time of the year again" - Sidewalk Sale time. Not afraid to ruffle feathers, when I say this, but this year the institution is is showing its age, it's very tired and almost on its last legs. No rides, a DJ putting out fifty year old tunes, this thing needs a sprucing. That will not stop me being there today. If I provide the body the DBIA should produce more action!

Toronto Council's pending strike vote has produced a lot of editorial ink this morning. The TO Star is for Council to vote for it, the TO Sun is of the same mind and a guest editorialist , Kelly McParland, in the National Post used his column inches to beat up on the Mayor. Interesting point - three of the progressive voters will be absent or intend to abstain - Moscoe (abstaining), Vaughn and Rae absent. So who knows what is going to happen: the anarchist in me says the Mayor's opponents will vote it down and the pragmatist says the majority will realise that a No vote will be anarchy and the start of a labour war that cannot be won and thus vote for it.
The saddest part of this is the Mayor has decided to have the vote in camera. This affront to democracy will only increase the (il)legitimacy of closed meetings when discussing contracts. This discussion has nothing new, nothing that needs confidentiality and thus we need to know what the gutless pols are saying in the back room and compare it to the spin they spout on the front room.

So who won the strike?

Now the warfare begins. The residue of any strike is the war of words after the fact. Angry emotions between the partners usually are seen by acrimony in the relationship that has to rebuild trust. But in the final analysis most people want to declare a winner. So who won?

If both parties are mad then usually no one won. If one side crows about the deal then that side won. If one side's leader finds itself under fire from supporters then that side lost. Just look at the situation - Mayor Miller has the usual opponents screaming at him for "caving". He for his part is claiming that he achieved an objective (capping the sick bank liability) and the Union is proclaiming that, "We fought off all the concessions".

But there is a juicy speculation going on at the BurdReport about the possibility that Toronto Council will reject the deal. In the words of one pundit, "That means the strike will resume" Wrong the strike will finish and a Lockout will start. Then social warfare will really breakout. Armed with a mandate to crush the union Toronto taxpayers will be caught in an ideological war, fought by proxy in the pages of the Toronto Star vs the National Post. With the airwaves ablaze with anti-Miller opinions Corus radio and its many stations will be cranked at full volume, aided and abetted by "good ole boys" progressives don't stand a chance.

In a cheeky, but serious, submission our cultural correspondent has submitted a suggestion for the tree carving competition. Wally wants to carve the bottom two thirds of the tree in a sculpture that resembles children's building blocks, each side spells out the word "peace" in four languages. Read about it here.

Intrigued by a question on Facebook

A question popped up last night on facebook, "Does anyone know anything about a windfarm in Grafton?" I did, having seen a story in the NToday here. Last month the family went to a wedding in the Bruce Peninsular and driving through one is assailed by many many windturbines, they are huge. Foolishly thinking that these pieces of equipment may be the answer to the non-renewable energy debate I was pleased to see them, and still am. But the next morning, when reading a local paper, it was puzzling to see that not all citizens in the area are so pleased. In fact there is a backlash to them for a couple of reasons. First of all the usual non-provable health issue, secondly the low rent paid to farmers and the owners of the land and thirdly the stewardship of the land by the turbine company - they are accused of wrecking arable land with big trucks. Hitting "opposition to wind farms" in Google produces 275,000 hits, so obviously a lot of people have something to say on the topic. "Support for windfarms" gets 2,620,000, even more people like to talk about them. But of the 275,00 11,700 want to talk about wind farms in Kincardine. Obviously the Bruce Peninsular is a hotbed of debate as 6,200 hits for the project. So about 2 to 1, on the internet against the turbines. But what will happen in Grafton?

Want to learn all about the opposition to WInd Power, rather like not supporting Mother Theresa or having too much time on your hands, look here. I suppose the opponents of the Grafton project have already started to research and may even have joined the North American opposition movement here - National WindWatch. But for a primer on the topic look at this page "What to do if it's happening to you"

Over to you the people in Grafton!

One for Doug, can you see the face?

Here's a part of the tree that is going to be carved up. And as commentator Doug suggests one may be able to see a face in the tree already. Not a big face and not one of the Virgin Mary holding a baby Jesus, but if it brings in tourists why not suggest it.

So it's a done deal, or is it?

The Cobourg Community Centre saga just drones on and on like the Energiser Bunny - with a life of its own. Yesterday the resolution to approve the project was put and voted upon. The result was a 5-1 win for the "four dead white men". Councillor Mutton was convinced that financing the Municipal portion of it, over twenty five years at a fixed rate with money we don't have yet, was a good idea and she went along with the majority. Councillor Frost, still objecting to the lack of details, voted against the process not necessarily the project. He is still stating, with all of his professional experience, that the project is bound to over-run its costs without seeing a detailed scope of work that Council should approve.

It is an amorphous piece of work. Council approves the idea and then shops out all the details to "the best Project Managers we can find" and then sets up committees to liaise with the PM to actually build the box with two rinks. CAO Robinson told me yesterday that the scope is in the report that outlines the project that was issued in June, so what's the problem. The Director of Works tells me that the scope is limited because the building is designed to be so flexible it can be a convention centre one day, a Seniors' centre the next and at the same time can host a basketball tournament. He didn't use those words but says, "The key to this building is its flexibility, no one group will have a piece of it, All will share it" It appears that the word "scope" has two meanings: one - Frost's (the traditional PM definition) where the costs and uses are fully outlined so that one can see future risk and potential over-run and the rest that say "These guys we hired will build it for $27 million and eat the over-run. But the danger in that is when over runs or rework or increased material costs happen the building will be redesigned to accommodate it and we won't get what we thought we would get. However as the next stage of the process is the issuing of the RFP Council will then get to see what we think we will get at the end. That's why the process drones on and on, Council can still get out of it by not issuing the RFP. But the philosophical differences in this debate can be summed by by watching a huge beast of a man - Cllr MacDonald rising to the full height of a bull elephant fulminating with condescension and disdain as he rose to rebut Frost, he was ready to speak at the start of the debate, and could hardly wait to knock Frost's arguments. Speaking with much pomposity and arrogance, as only he can, proudly declared, "As all the scope is outlined in the report I can only assume that the Steering Committee's work, on which you have a seat, will be complete by 2010, and we have have two professionals (Peacock and Robinson) who, in their considered opinion, say it can be done." So there you have it folks we don't need a Council to take ownership of the project send it off to unelected committees and let Councillor MacDonald concentrate on serious matters - points of order and other picayune points of procedure that Cllr Mutton may cause that offend his senses of parliament!

As to the problem of the Lawn Bowling Club going into the building on public money that will solved because the bowlers can't agree on moving. Especially if they have to pay full market value for the privilege.

In other Council news, revealed by the coordinators' reports, Cllr McCaughey told the world that some of our public trees are bug infested, and Cllr Mutton revealed that the Committee for Art in Public Spaces could not find any local takers to carve the tree stump in Victoria park so an invitation will be sent to esteemed out of town tree carvers to produce a work of art from a limbless stump, albeit a thirty foot high stump.

Monday Morning

Not much fodder for thought in the agenda for the Council meeting tonight. The only contentious item is the Community Centre resolution.
Wondering if great leadership had happened during the week, after two members of Council voted against the project for two different reasons, wherein the leadership had tried to mollify the concerns of the dissident councillors by working out solutions to their concerns, as opposed to just going ahead because the majority prevailed, I made a couple of calls. Discussion, with the DM has taken place but not enough effort obviously because Councillor Frost is still more than a little peeved. Stan Frost has been a professional Project Manager for most of his career and has never gone into a project not knowing the scope of work until now. "Unless the scope of work is defined over-runs will always ensue, and I see no difference here". The $27 million project has been green lighted with the details of the scope of work missing and that makes Cllr Frost a man with a cause - he wants Council to sit down and define the details, not allow a Steering Committee (which has no mandate to report back to Council but liaise with the Project Manager) to do it on an ad-hoc basis. "Council has to take ownership of the project" he says as he watches unelected and yet to be appointed unknowns do the task.
If as it is feared and the dissenters stay on the No side, for reasons that can be avoided by a little wordsmithing of principles that all concerned agree on then the Town motto is just another fancy piece of script not a credo to live by - "Our strength is in our unanimity"

Last week this pic appeared on facebook, some strange equipment is sitting on top of the Epstein building on the corner of King and Division, and the submitter wondered if they were cell phone antennae. My concern and perhaps the LACACers who read the board could comment, is ; "Have these attachments been submitted to the heritage people for approval?" Heritage guidelines are a mockery if such effort goes into the selection of paint and the regulation of signs when monstrosities such as antennae can be allowed in a Heritage District, (this will be followed up with a call to the heritage regulators and the results reported)

Update: 0915 Monday. The Town of Cobourg's building department tells me that discussions are underway, led by the Director of Planning, with Bell Canada, who is believed to have placed them up there. Bell claims that Federal Communication policy trumps Heritage guidelines and we will have to wait for a week to interview Mr McGlashon, as he is on holiday!

Why is there only one villain in a strike? As we sit and wait for the Union, in the Toronto Garbage Strike to make an announcement about leaving the bargaining table, I wonder why in these cases there is rarely more than one party taking the blame. The classic example is that of the VIA drivers who went on strike two and a half years after the contract expired. That meant these parties had three years to get a deal. In fact they got a half-assed resolution hours after going on strike. Obviously Management had made a decision something it failed to do in three years prior. But the drivers got all the blame!

Another law suit for an online writer, this is no surprise but the way the lawsuit has been dealt with is. This is a copy of a service document on Ezra Levant for comments made online, and only online. The long arm of libel law has caught up with the miscreants of cyberspace, and so it should! Just because we are writing online doesn't make responsible editions immune from their responsibility to be lawful.

The memory of an older person

What a memory shaker this is. Had to go to the Liquor Store to get some feminine drinks - vodka coolers, and thought that I would treat myself to an exotic beer, something more than my usual buck a beer. The LS doesn't sell Dos Equis any more so I picked up some Stella. At the checkout I did a triple take and closely examined the can for authenticity; there were piles of "Tiger Beer". Last seen by this thirsty guy 40 years ago on the Malayan Peninsular. Rumour had it that because the beer was so potent it couldn't handle the climate change and consequently never ventured past Egypt. Many a 'squaddie' has killed many many brain cells with this stuff. It came straight from the brewery into the canteens in quart bottles, sold on the streets in Singapore. Hong Kong and all Garrisons East of Cairo. One the finest sites I ever saw was when we had just come out of a ten day jungle exercise back to the 'bivvies' on the beach, there was the biggest pile of beer crates ever assembled just for the drinking. Never happen in this day of PC armies, and dry bases. Modern soldiering has lost all the fun. Tiger beer was a large part of my youth and to see it almost 40 years to the day was a wonderful flashback. Anyway bought some, drank it, and the taste is still the same. Must confess I have to holdback though as the largest part of the beer was its potency and I'm damn sure I can't take that at this stage of my life.