Special interests always seem to prevail

As the Community Centre plans get to be examined some things jump out at you. Why is there no aquatic centre, why is the emphasis on hockey when it started off as a Seniors project and why is the Lawn Bowling in on it?
In every large scale project something slips in that may not be part of the mandate of the project. In the last 'big dig' - the Library, which coincidentally was handed off the GillBrocanier to stickhandle through the process (even when he decided not to run in the next election he kept the job as chair of the building committee) there is a question of vested interests being slipped a quick one. The original concept of the Library build (also called the Cultural Centre) it was thought the Library, Art Gallery and Archives as well as other unnamed cultural entities could have a home on a controversial site (where it is now but the Town had to move a Tee-Ball pitch much to the chagrin of parents and the Legion). In the end, because of cost and design restrictions (As usual the most innovative designs were left on the cutting room floor) the Art Gallery was excluded. The building went ahead as a Library, and the Historical Society, with its subsidy, was moved into rooms at the Library.
This time the CCC has moved forward without an aquatic centre, despite the fact that 54% of those surveyed use aquatic facilities and the only one in Cobourg is maxed out and the other one is in Port Hope, but the Lawn Bowling Club is included - why? Does the Town want the existing land for more grass cutting opportunities? Does the LBC want to move? All questions to be answered as the steamroller moves inexorably forward to its conclusion - hurry up the design to make it shovel ready for the stimulus funds and get on with it in time for the coronation of Mayor Brocanier in 2010. All we have to do is finance another $10 million on the local taxes (1/3 of the total)

More on Kraft

Well the rumour guy appeared to have it half right. The new buyer is not a scrapman but a person who understands the intricacies of the scrap market as part of his own background as Owner of TrentFab, a Trenton based manufacturing company. Having walked past the plant last night I can say that there is a lot of scrap that has to cleaned out before anybody can go in as tenants. Still it is encouraging that a person with a fabricating background has purchased the place even if he stands to make his investment back in months, and the job promises are tenuous, if the steel market goes back to the highs of last summer.

The Readers are always right

When I asked the question who was GritGirl and the subsequent followup about ToryBoy1 it was pointed out to me by the readers that, quite rightly, I had overestimated the cost and technical expertise needed to produce such videos. Now it has been confirmed by Warren Kinsella that this is a fact. "I am excited by the vid below because someone calling themselves "OneTenGrand" did it. Why is that exciting? Because it means what Grit Girl started is spreading - Liberals (likely young Liberals) are using their acquired computer skills to defeat the discredited Harper regime." To see an example of the latest that Kinsella has posted go the video page.

A rumour confirmed

Earlier this week I heard that the Kraft property has been sold. The way the story goes is that two smart businessmen with a background in Scrap and Salvage, had bought the place to strip it out. Apparently Kraft sold it the way it is complete with some forklifts, the rumour said over 40. Anyway these guys allegedly have already leased out the Lab area to the County, presumably for the Land Ambulances who were looking for a home. The rest of the area has a fortune in scrap metal and raw inventory. Good luck to them but in order to remain less critical than normal we will have to wait and see just what other businesses these guy will put in there. I guess any sale would be deemed a success to a Council that is so "laissez-faire" it gives the French a bad name. Can't wait for the Town Crier to welcome the first Rolloff truck on its way to do business into the community! Another opportunity wasted. The Town could have done this months ago. Just put that "play money" into action, hire a project manager and we could have made money for the taxpayer.

PS I stand to be corrected if this rumour doesn't pan out.

Love those conservative editorials. I read a lot of online stuff and it runs the gamut. Here is an editorial from the las Vegas Review and Journal. It details some background to the AIG bonus outrage. BTW I feel that the rage is all phony designed to make lawmakers look good in a very embarrassing situation.

Who said journalism is dead, we still have backgrounders amongst us. How about this one describing just who got what in the AIG mess.

He's back in the public eye

Mike Harris, remember him? Well he's poked his head over the trenches at the law firm he's bunkered in and is back here Reputedly to be working his rolodex and calling party members to support the leadership hopes of Tim Hudak. Well the TO Star acts as though this is a big surprise - duh. Why would MH support anybody else? Hudak is married to the wicked witch of the revolution - Deb Hutton, Harris's righthand hatchet person. If these are the people on Hudak's team Christine Elliot doesn't stand a chance - never mind who her husband is!


In another vein here is a interesting piece written by Jo Cruddas MP for Dagenham entitled new socialism it is a new take on an old problem - dogma.

Remember when I asked who GritGirl was?

Well now somebody called Toryboy1 has appeared on the internet using the same style of videos as GritGirl we now get the other side of the story:
I just wonder who is paying for these things.

How about this a Minister of Science that will not acknowledge science

“I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,” Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. In this story here Gary Goodyear will not tell us if he believes in evolution. Leading some in the science community to speculate that he is a "creationist"

Speculation proves to be true

In this story Bob, I have troubling making my mind up, Spooner told Cobourg just what the BurdReport suspected a couple of days ago. There will be no aquatic facility in the new MULTI Million dollar recreation facility (CCC), and you know why --- because the YMCA has one. Well tough for them if the Town builds one, we need one and it should be in the CCC. In fact this study fails to do what irtshould have been told to do, and wasn't - consolidate recreational facilities under municipal control.
If all we are going to get out of the MILLIONS of dollars spent on this thing is more hockey facilities we have failed the general population of the Town and caved to the hockey rink rats and moms who hang out at the rink. Is hockey a rising demographic, are the facilities we have overloaded, could that overload be accomodated by one more pad instead of three? We will never know as this report will not change much in the travels through bureaucracy. So we started off with a simple request for more floor space by Seniors and ended up with an Arena fit for a Junior A team - some metamorphis!

Is this the future of newspapers?

The "SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER: 1863-2009" is the tribute to the end of a print newspaper. However as it ends the paper era it is asking that all of its loyal readers go to the online version here.
Will it work and is this webpage any different from any other newspaper webpage, and will it retain or repel readers? These questions are up for answering, but what we do know is that ad revenue is down and the operating costs of papers are the same, a lttle lower now that newsprint prices have tumbled, so deficits loom.
Joel Connelly write an op-ed piece extolling the virtue of the new online venture (he would,and as a survivor of the move he'd better make it work to save his job) here . However all of these optimists forget one thing - advertising revenue. You still need lots of it and it's hard to fit it into an online design without becoming overpowering.
I bet the Sun-Media gurus are watching this move very carefully, why else would the new consolidated Northumberland paper have .com in its title. Perhaps the most telling argument against local success in the online edition of both local papers is that the "interactive part" - blogs and comments sections are not well used. Can't say I blame the journos who have been asked to write blogs, what is there to say after you have banged out the maximum number of words for a pay cheque? And checking the names of the commenters there a few who I recognise as being multiple posters - they will comment on all and sundry no matter where the operation is.
Drudge has posted this link wherein former staffers of the Rocky Mountain News, the latest large market newspaper to shut down leaving inhabitants of a large urban area without newspaper coverage, have announced their answer to the problem. They will offer free content but charge a subscription for commentary and special content.
For another in depth look at the problem read this only on the web would you get this much distribution of such a long article (for instance in the NT.com columnists have been told to reduce their contributions from 750 words to 400. An edict like that would never happen online.

Finally back to the top here is a video from Seattle. It may take time to load, it's a busy day in Seattle today!

It goes on and on today, I guess the failure of the Seattle PI has brought everybody in on the discussion, here is an opinion about how the Internet will save local papers. I can really relate to this one. The hits on this site have doubled in the last two weeks. Now why is that? perhaps local content reigned supreme in the last couple of days!

A nice tidy job!

The Spooner affair will be put to bed next Monday when the committee report will reveal that the vote to put Miriam in her place will remain at 5-2. So much for Spooner's efforts to stay on side.