The Jib Jabbers are back

It's that time of the year, election time that is, and the satirists and comedians are hard at work making fun of the process. Jib-Jab, an animation company that produces spots about everything, and some of those spots allow you to insert faces of your choice and send them to friends and enemies alike has produced this one about the forthcoming election. See it here

And who said the option was dead!

Police chief supports amalgamation with Cobourg

And we thought that Keef was the problem stone!

I guess being 62 and filthy rich allows you to do things like this Runaway Ronnie disappears with Russian

More on stupid people

This letter was published in the Northumberland News:

To the Editor:

My husband and I attended the Cobourg Waterfront Festival on June 29.

We parked on a small side street and did see the no parking sign, however we parked well off the street not blocking anything.

When we returned, a tow truck was hooking up our van. We received a parking ticket and feel this may have been justified, but to tow the van over a $22 ticket is a bit much.

Is the Town of Cobourg that much in need of money? We are three seniors with a veteran sticker on our licence plate, yet the tow trucks were lined up like vultures.

God help the poor out-of-town families left stranded with children, not knowing if their vehicle had been stolen. I would think Cobourg would be more lenient when they are looking for the tourist trade.

We for one will never attend your festival again.

Jean Ferguson

Brighton

What can we say? Try this - "If you knowingly parked under a No Parking sign and then complained about being towed because you were in a safety zone we don't want you in Cobourg if you are not going to obey the law!!"

What a perceptive comment

Tucked away in the comments on Garth Turner's blog today was this comment - read it and then realise that not all taxpayers and voters are of the usual type some can think!

"I got my first up-close look at where my new neighbours are living while (coincidentally) distributing Garth Turner fliers over the past few weeks.

Several things struck me:

1) In the two and a half or so hours I spent pounding the pavement, I saw exactly two other people using the sidewalks - one walking a dog, and another handing out newspapers.

2) The reason for this may be the fact that there is absolutely no shade to be found. Anywhere.

3) The second development I walked through wasn’t bad, but the houses in first one (which was only a year old) all had peeling paint, heaved up paving and crumbling concrete on their steps and porches.

There are many, many things wrong with suburbia, particularly in its current, “insta-house” incarnation. Garth has covered most of them, but one thing we all have to remember is that the people living there aren’t the enemy.

Too often in Milton I’ve heard disparaging, marginally racist comments made about “those people” who have suddenly invaded our town, as if somehow they are to blame for the mess. In fact, not only are they the victims in all this, they are actually responsible for the only upside in this whole fiasco: added racial and cultural diversity in Milton.

Hell, I can actually buy some decent East Indian junk food now!

By all means, blame the developers, although they are only doing what corporations do - maximizing profits. Even better, blame the municipal politicians who, seduced by the siren song of millions in added property taxes and development fees, have rubber stamped every single development application that has crossed their desks with the sole caveat that there be at least one Big Box complex for every eight square kilometres of McHouses.

The fact that they have suddenly realized that all the development fees they’ve been charging don’t begin to cover the costs of servicing these developments, and in fact come too late to help anyone for years after they move in, elicits exactly zero sympathy from me.

And yet, they keep handing out those permits like candy and continue to leave all the fussy business of urban planning to corporations whose sole purpose is to squeeze as many high-priced, low-cost houses as they can into hundreds of undervalued acres of former farmland that we may never, ever get back.

They should all be run out of town on a rail."

Your morning smile

And you thought there was just Molly Maid! Fancy A Job As A Naked Cleaner

Will Jim Fullerton's fence be next

I hope that the beach lovers in Cobourg don't read this and take heart. Man with chainsaw hacks beach fence to cheers. The property owners on the West Beach should either build bigger fences or tear them down. Either way this story just puts pressure on the Mayor to clear up the festering political mess caused by misguided property owners.

Working this weekend

Working this weekend certainly makes one's patience with the fellow man'woman driver stretch a bit.

Just got back from towing illegally parked vehicles. What gives some people the arrogance to park wherever they want and then slough off the enforcer. I say if you park under a "No Parking " sign you deserve the tow and the attendant fines. You park where you want to and it will cost you. All the shouting and screaming will not help you - you were stupid! I towed a few stupid people today.

The Partridge file - the Frink saga continues

Just as we thought the frink saga has ended local Lawyer Martin Partidge has filed an appeal to the Minister of the Environment of Ontario. He claims that an environmental assessment of the project is neccessary as exemptions are granted to projects that cost less that $1.5 million. The Frink has cost, Martin claims, at least $5 million so far and rising. The documents that he uses to explain the reasoning are here. Check them out there are 28 pages of tightly packed reasonings and Martin is asking the Minister to examine every one of them.

The argument is simple - what is the project? Is it the concrete pad or is it the whole amount of money needed to build the infrastructure for the pad and the monies used to fund the stages of the project and more importantly is it the original cost of the land and its reclamation. One little project ;or many little parts of a big project?

The Town's reaction has been one of dismissal, just as it has been all the way along this project's path. My way or the highway!

Is there such a thing as a Heritage Crime?

From this

















To this

Because if there is this is a classic example. The reason such societies and organisations like the ACO and the Historical Society and presumably LACAC, the Town's own creation, exist is to not only make people aware that Heritage is important but those who possess Heritage properties have a responsibility to maintain them in their Heritage states.

Cobourg lays claim to many different architectural styles of buildings but none sum up late Victorian - early Edwardian better than the houses built by Reuben Jackson. Solid brick houses, usually built in clumps of four or five, based on the traditional Canadian three up three down design.

The house featured above was a designated Jackson house because it was the first of many. and the outstanding feature that seperated it from its neighbours was the decorative, rather than utilitarian, front porch. Well folks that's gone now! Destroyed by its owner, not even disassembled for return in a better state. This has happened without the Town officials not knowing and seemingly not even caring. We spend untold hours at Council meetings debating the colour of paint and the building department cannot even enforce the lynchpin bylaw of heritage conservation. Such a disgraceful event. This wanton destruction took place without a permit or variance. Try building an addition to your house and the building nazis will be all over you for the money for a permit, but do a disgracefully small reno, no permit needed, and they look the other way.

This will not go away!