It's one of those "if you're Canadian, you know what I am talking about and if you are not, it's not really that relevant to your life (except in a theoretical sense) in as much as it's not your nation's largest city currently hamstringing itself."
Toronto elected an idiot as mayor. Now it turns out unexpectedly that the idiot is an idiot. The mayor is threatening the provincial premier that if the province does not make quick with the moola, the mayor will unleash his legions of suburban voters on the side the suburban voters almost certainly going to vote anyway.
You know, given that the PC seem likely to win in the fall, I don't really see the upside for the (Liberal) Premier to spend money here. The 'burbs aren't going to vote for him out of gratitude. It may be strategically better to leave things be and let the effects really start biting after Hudak gets in.
as do I (west end 'old' city of Toronto) and I had to sallow my tongue so as to not get in a shouting match at a backyard bbq at some one who was "approving' of the idiot and / or lying mayor.
at this point the best to hope for is for some (minor) of his chickens come to roost and have the majority of city council in open revolt against him (save for some of this loony right supporters, including his brother doug "more libraries than tim hortons").
thankfully he can't do much without council suport.
Couldn't we not spend the money, watch everything turn to shit in TO, and then have McGuinty and friends point and yell very loudly "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU ELECT IDIOT TORIES! DON'T DO THAT, YA MORONS! REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED WITH MIKE HARRIS?!"? But I suspect that would be a little too much to hope for.
If there was a minimal intelligence requirement for public office, Idiot Face wouldn't even have been able to run. And given the reality of Idiot Face, Mike Harris and his high-school-dropout Education Minister, and the rest of the Usual Gang of CRAPs in Ottawa, my Inner Fascist thinks that enacting such a requirement has suddenly become a really good idea. Then again, I am the person who thinks that neoconservatives should be legally prohibited from holding elected office in Canada under Constitutional grounds, given that our Constitution guarantees "peace, order, and good government" and a bunch of ideologically warmongering, disaster-capitalist, "government is the problem, so let's drown it in the bathtub" anti-statists aren't going to be able to deliver on any of that, so grain of salt as required.
I didn't know that, but that makes my case even more compelling, n'est-ce pas? Neocons certainly don't believe in anything resembling welfare (in any sense of the word) applying to the population at large*.
On my good days, I'm into making their political philosophy unconstitutional. On my bad days, I'm into putting them all up against a wall somewhere. You don't make policy decisions that make my life miserable for years and kill one of my relatives and stay off my "burn it down and salt the earth" shit list.
____________ * A set which, for the purposes of this comment excludes aforementioned neocons, their families, and cronies.
Letting things go to shit works, once. Then when your guys can't clean up the shit rapidly while under heavy opposing fire, the other guys get back in and just make it worse.
The other bit of it is, he doesn't actually seem to have a plan on paper, only a "seat of the pants" kind of "if we have money it'll happen" thing.
Which makes me question his role at Deco, it can't be in a critical capacity, he's a shite business man if he thinks any funder is going to generally cough up money on nothing at all.
You know, given that the PC seem likely to win in the fall
Last poll I saw showed a statistical tie between the Libs and Cons, FYI.
-- Steve thinks that, with Ontario's notorious habit of electing governments from the federal opposition and Hudak's tone-deafness, that McGuinty may actually get the nod again.
Horwath is polling a very, very distant 3rd right now. (The two leads are tied at roughly 30%, she's about 11%, 14% undecided, the remainder were "no answer" or independants. Margin of error was about 3 points IIRC.) I suspect that the one term they had will haunt the NDP for a looooong time here in the province.
-- Steve's kinda hoping for a Lib win; the local candidate mentioned one of the office's contracts as an election plank, so even if personal inclinations didn't lean that way simple self-interest would prompt a bias their way.
Everyone in Ontario both remembers Bob Rae, and is not willing to be blinded by his tanking of the Federal Liberals into thinking that his party has changed.
We remember what the provincial NDP are and look like.
Hmmmm. The Ontario Demographic Factsheet is broken down in inconvenient ways for this:
The 0-14 year olds are about 16.5% but their total ignorance of the NDP back then is balanced by their inabiltiy to vote. The 15-24 year olds make up 13.6%; maybe too young to remember him even for the older ones and some of them can vote. The 25-44 yr olds make up 27.6%, can all vote and some will have been kids 16 years ago. Everyone else is old enough to remember them and can vote.
The terrifying legends of the Reign of Bob Rae and what happens when you let the NDP run the province have been passed down to the young in hushed whispers around campfires.
That's not a bad analogy. The only bigger bogeyman is Harris, and Rae *caused* Harris.
It helps that Rae's currently a federal Liberal, and, the Liberals being the party with the longest knives, every time Rae steps forward everything he did as Premier and everything bad that came about because the NDP fucked up the job so badly makes the rounds again.
And I'm kind of okay with that. Ontario should have *finished* Rae, permanently, but he's like some kind of malignant cockroach.
My first experience with provincial-level NDP came from growing up in Saskatchewan. You may well understand how I might therefore disagree with your assessment of the Ontario arm's present state based on a previous leader's handling of the job in this province.
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Toronto elected an idiot as mayor. Now it turns out unexpectedly that the idiot is an idiot. The mayor is threatening the provincial premier that if the province does not make quick with the moola, the mayor will unleash his legions of suburban voters on the side the suburban voters almost certainly going to vote anyway.
You know, given that the PC seem likely to win in the fall, I don't really see the upside for the (Liberal) Premier to spend money here. The 'burbs aren't going to vote for him out of gratitude. It may be strategically better to leave things be and let the effects really start biting after Hudak gets in.
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at this point the best to hope for is for some (minor) of his chickens come to roost and have the majority of city council in open revolt against him (save for some of this loony right supporters, including his brother doug "more libraries than tim hortons").
thankfully he can't do much without council suport.
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If there was a minimal intelligence requirement for public office, Idiot Face wouldn't even have been able to run. And given the reality of Idiot Face, Mike Harris and his high-school-dropout Education Minister, and the rest of the Usual Gang of CRAPs in Ottawa, my Inner Fascist thinks that enacting such a requirement has suddenly become a really good idea. Then again, I am the person who thinks that neoconservatives should be legally prohibited from holding elected office in Canada under Constitutional grounds, given that our Constitution guarantees "peace, order, and good government" and a bunch of ideologically warmongering, disaster-capitalist, "government is the problem, so let's drown it in the bathtub" anti-statists aren't going to be able to deliver on any of that, so grain of salt as required.
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(I need to re-read A Fair Country to make sure of this...)
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On my good days, I'm into making their political philosophy unconstitutional. On my bad days, I'm into putting them all up against a wall somewhere. You don't make policy decisions that make my life miserable for years and kill one of my relatives and stay off my "burn it down and salt the earth" shit list.
____________
* A set which, for the purposes of this comment excludes aforementioned neocons, their families, and cronies.
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Or at least this is what happens in US politics.
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Which makes me question his role at Deco, it can't be in a critical capacity, he's a shite business man if he thinks any funder is going to generally cough up money on nothing at all.
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Last poll I saw showed a statistical tie between the Libs and Cons, FYI.
-- Steve thinks that, with Ontario's notorious habit of electing governments from the federal opposition and Hudak's tone-deafness, that McGuinty may actually get the nod again.
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-- Steve's kinda hoping for a Lib win; the local candidate mentioned one of the office's contracts as an election plank, so even if personal inclinations didn't lean that way simple self-interest would prompt a bias their way.
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We remember what the provincial NDP are and look like.
Fuck THAT.
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The 0-14 year olds are about 16.5% but their total ignorance of the NDP back then is balanced by their inabiltiy to vote. The 15-24 year olds make up 13.6%; maybe too young to remember him even for the older ones and some of them can vote. The 25-44 yr olds make up 27.6%, can all vote and some will have been kids 16 years ago. Everyone else is old enough to remember them and can vote.
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It helps that Rae's currently a federal Liberal, and, the Liberals being the party with the longest knives, every time Rae steps forward everything he did as Premier and everything bad that came about because the NDP fucked up the job so badly makes the rounds again.
And I'm kind of okay with that. Ontario should have *finished* Rae, permanently, but he's like some kind of malignant cockroach.
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All the polls I've seen are depressing (and show an NDP bounce, not that I'd care for one since I really like McGuinty):
http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com/2011/08/liberals-up-three-seats-in-ontario.html
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-- Steve hates it when his google-fu punks out like that.
PS: I got badly burned by 308's recent federal coverage, and no longer hold that model in quite so much awe as I once did.
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http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110815/ontario-election-nanos-poll-110816/20110816?hub=TorontoNewHome
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