Critics accuse Mayor Ford of getting all Shock Doctrine-y | Ford Focus | torontolife.comWriting in Toronto Life, John Michael McGrath draws the comparison but then appears to soften it:... but given that 96 per cent of Toronto’s services are impossible to cut, as those KPMG audits keep finding, Ford really isn’t going to be able to change people’s lives the way, say, a Latin American junta might. So it’s a mild shock, if it’s anything.That may be, but the broader picture includes a looming provincial election which could see the return of the Harrisite slash-burn-and-pillage approach …
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SIU Concludes Reopened G20 Nobody Investigation... aaaaand, guess what? Can't find any way to charge anyone else.Who could have foreseen such a thing?Oh, well. Maybe the Toronto Police will actually come forward and out the other members of Team Curbstomp. Otherwise, the whining they do when witnesses don't step up and their nice words about acting to regain our trust might look ... hypocritical or something.(Why, yes – as a matter of fact, that was a monkey flying out of my ass. What's your point?)Related posts:I'm sorry, @TorontoPolice Tweeter guy - perhaps I'm being a little harsh | …
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DAMMIT JANET!: Eye-OpenerNice reproductive freedom you got there. Be a shame if something was to happen to it.Go read. …
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An Addendum « All Fired Up In The Big SmokeOver at AFUITBS, @cityslikr describes the subtle art of politics as practiced by Team Ford. Not.Go read. …
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Storify: great for aggregating tweets, but you can go blind putting them in order if you're dealing with more than a handful.If only there were a sort function ...[<a href="http://storify.com/orwellsbastard/why-its-important-to-kill-the-pissedoff-taxpayer-m" target="blank">View the story "Why it's important to kill off the Pissed-off Taxpayer meme | #TOpoli" on Storify]</a>Tips of the chapeau to @AureliaCotta and @timfalconer and @HiMYSYeD as well. …
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By now so much has been written and blogged and tweeted about yesterday’s clusterfuck at Toronto Council that there’s no point in rehashing it. Go read Matt Elliott’s summary at Ford For Toronto if you want a recap. For Christ’s sakes. This isn’t just about the lack of any coherent policy justification, or the Machiavellian political gamesmanship, or the schoolyard-bully dynamic evident on the council floor, or the Speaker’s obvious bias and procedural cluelessness. It’s about all of those, but something worse as well. Here we are, moving into a …
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By now so much has been written and blogged and tweeted about today's clusterfuck at Toronto Council that there's no point in rehashing it. Go read Matt Elliott's summary at Ford For Toronto if you want a recap.For Christ's sakes. This isn't just about the lack of any coherent policy justification, or the Machiavellian political gamesmanship, or the schoolyard-bully dynamic evident on the council floor, or the Speaker's obvious bias and procedural cluelessness. It's about all of those, but something worse as well.Here we are, moving into a world beyond peak oil, facing the need for a …
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I'm sorry, I had to give my head a shake.Fluoridation?Look, we've all seen the passage in Dr. Strangelove where General Ripper talks about what an insidious Communist plot it is, but the thing is, that's not just satire. Fluoridation of our drinking water has been a touchstone for conspiracy-minded whackjobs since the 1950s, but now Mayor Stupid wants to get rid of it under the guise of the "Core Services Review."The notion of saving money and reducing the cost of government may seem a bit more prosaic on the surface, but let's not kid ourselves – what's going on here is …
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Sad, isn't it. When this is what occupies our imaginations and dominates public discourse, is it any wonder that so many people don't bother to take the responsibilities of citizenship seriously? Look at the energy it's consuming, for Chrissakes.  (Yeah, I know. Mea culpa. Now piss off.)This, incidentally, is Where We Juxtapose again. Kai Nagata's got some interesting things to say about the state of journalism and TV news, but that's for another post.The worst part is, there's lots of worse shit going on under the radar – Michael Geist highlights some things about net neutrality …
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If the last Friday-night music post was something that aged well over four or five years, well ... give this a spin. …
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From teh Tumblr.Lives on the line.Sudden tragedy.A sobering reminder.Heroes in blue.Gave his life in the performance of his duty.Officers coming from all over to pay tribute to a fallen comrade.It’s a mythology with a lot of miles on it. You can practically write this shit in your sleep.Just one question: even if we allow for the sake of argument that this mindless fetishizing of men in uniform is a good thing, how come we don’t see this kind of blanket, wall-to-wall, 24/7 coverage whenever a Canadian soldier gets killed in Afghanistan?Yeah, I know. I’m an insensitive bastard.Related …
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[<a href="http://storify.com/orwellsbastard/ivortossel" target="blank">View the story "@ivortossell's got the right idea for giorgio mammoliti" on Storify]</a>But let's at least give the guy a chance to speak for himself.Yo, Georgie? You want to tell us what you think your video proves?Related posts:On second thought, Rob, stay at the cottage | #PrideTOHow to hold them accountable: let them embarrass themselves | #policeaccountability'Respect for Taxpayers' is a load of …
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The whole idea of Mammoliti at the Dyke March just seems ... wrong.[View the story "Watching Mammoliti at #PrideTO: Ya know what, Rob? Stay at the cottage" on Storify] …
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Just as we wind down the first half of 2011 in preparation for Canada Day, three disparate blog posts are jumping out at me:At Sixth Estate, Government of Canada Issues Statement Opposing the AlphabetAt Politics and its Discontents, Sun News Network – Full of Sound And Fury, Signifying NothingAt Porcupine Blog, The Hegemony of Authoritarian Ideology and the Vancouver Hockey RiotAll worthwhile reads, but there is, as you might gather from the title of this post, a common theme: the facility for critical thinking and its absence in far too many of our fellow citizens. This …
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Something about the Tumblr / Tweeter interface is not working ... (mumbling obscenities under my breath ... ) …
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On reflection, maybe I ought to cut you a little slack. Maybe you really are committed to fixing the organizational and occupational culture.Maybe you really do want to fix the bridges between the police and the community they're sworn to serve and protect.Maybe I really should take your words at face value when you say things like this:So you want to earn our trust and respect? OK then.I see, so we're supposed to look for daily actions and not just nice words. How about arresting the two assholes who kicked Adam Nobody in the face after he was handcuffed?And then the next day, since we're …
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Don't know what this guy was doing ... ... but even if we grant for the moment that the apprehension was lawful and justified, can you explain why the Toronto Police officers effecting the arrest decided they had to grind his face into the concrete while one of them put a knee on his head? Right around the 40-second mark.I know I'm just an uninformed civilian who doesn't understand policing, or appreciate how you guys put your lives on the line serving and protecting us day after day, but it sure looks like gratuitous and needless infliction of pain to me.God knows, I wouldn't want you to …
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"Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter: only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you—that would be the real betrayal."She thought it over. "They can't do that," she said finally. "It's the one thing they can't do. They can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you.""No," he said a little more hopefully, "no; that's quite true. They can't get inside you. If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Chapter 7 Related posts:@TorontoPolice …
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Hundreds of citizens arrested on bullshit pretexts.Detained arbitrarily in conditions that were gross violations of human rights.Subjected to racist, sexist, misogynistic and homophobic slurs and harassment.Assaulted indiscriminately.Beaten, tear-gassed, shot with rubber bullets, and paraded naked.And after all this time, no public inquiry, the Blue Wall endures and only two cops charged.Tell us again how the system is working, @TorontoPolice Tweeter guy. …
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Creekside: G20 : Caught in the Act: "When police stick to phony script : the Miami Model"Have I mentioned that Alison rocks today? …
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Just realized: tomorrow marks exactly one year since the day OB jumped into the blogosphere. The inaugural post:The G20 narrative: whose story is it?Guess we're still struggling with that, but since you're all clamouring for a speech, I'll just keep it brief.Shoutouts to Stephen Harper, Dalton McGuinty, Rob Ford, Julian Fantino, Bill Blair and, of course, Officer Bubbles and the Toronto Police. I wouldn't have done it without you ... …
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Because there isn't going to be any meaningful institutional response.But this might be even more effective. Just show them being assholes, and then let public scorn do its work.If they don't act like this, they won't have to worry about being embarrassed.Of course, enough of these recordings and we may be facing something like this ...(h/t policewatch.ca)Related posts:Care for a chaw, S-Supt. McGuire?@SousLePave: Best tweet from yesterday's #G20rallySo the cops are using social media?@TorontoPolice Tweeter guy weighs in | #G20No name tag? You disgust me, OfficerG20 asshole cops = …
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Please tell me someone got a picture ...Related posts:The day they turned the Charter of Rights into toilet paperCare for a chaw, S-Supt. McGuire?No name tag? You disgust me, Officer …
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Guess it's good to have the occasional reminder. From Jason Kenney's favourite left-wing kook.Related posts:That 'disrespectful' Brigette sparks the wrath of Ottawa's VillagersRe Brigette DePape: I will now eat my wordsLive tweets from the CCLA's G20 hearingsDon Davies and Bill Blair spar over the G20The day they turned the Charter of Rights into toilet paper …
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... with a few nice words about accountability and regaining public trust.Here are some suggestions for you.Do something about the assholes who brutalized Lacy MacAuley.Out the sons of bitches who kicked Adam Nobody in the face after he was cuffed and lying on the ground.Press criminal charges against the pieces of shit who did what they did to Sean Salvati.Let's see them charged, handcuffed and doing the perp walk for the cameras. You know goddamned well who they are. Talk to us when you're ready to do the right thing instead of letting them hide behind the Blue Wall.Talk to us when you're …
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New poll finds ‘monumental shift’ in public perception of Toronto police because of G20 actions - thestar.comI might just have to revise my opinion of the Star again. This is clearly adding to the pressure for a public inquiry, although I'm not getting my hopes up given the amount invested in stonewalling and resisting it.Of course, I wouldn't be surprised to see the emergence of some astroturf group along the lines of Citizens for Police or something in response, amplified by the Sun torquing the shit out of a "grassroots" Cops are Tops campaign. Fuckheads. …
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So apparently it takes three big strong police officers to manhandle one guy. Naked and handcuffed.Don't know whether this is before or after they beat the shit out of him.And please, spare us the pathetically transparent bullshit about security. There's absolutely no goddamned reason in the world for him to be stripped naked other than humiliation, psychological torture, debasement and power-tripping. The idea that people capable of treating another human being like this are walking around with guns and the legal right to use deadly force is mind-numbing. This isn't Baghdad, mind.What's …
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So Bill Blair's had some time to reflect on last summer's G20 clusterfuck, and good and loyal servant he is, he's graced us with a report. Among other things, he praises his officers for "facing danger and extreme provocation."Indeed. Takes a special kind of guts to stand your ground in the face of a small woman blowing soap bubbles.Officers were caught off-guard and unprepared. Yeah, because we had the fucking G20 sprung on us without any notice.Officers were overwhelmed. Poor lambs.That's not the half of it. According to the Star, the reportdoes not explain why so many were arrested, nor …
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From ... guess which piece of birdshit-catcher. The usual "police morale is low" bullshit. A sample:The situation has worsened with each new allegation of police brutality and little has been done to restore the faith in those sworn to serve and protect Toronto. “It’s become embarrassing to say you’re a Toronto cop,” said one of several officers who recently spoke to the Toronto Sun on condition of anonymity. He said it has become a daily concern and many cops are fed up with being “the whipping boys” for decisions they had no hand in making. “Cops are leaving Toronto in …
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An Open Letter To Councillor Josh Matlow « All Fired Up In The Big SmokeThere's nothing that says "balance" is sacrosanct. When one side of an argument is based on facts, reflection and careful consideration of evidence and the other side is based on sound bites, discredited ideologies and gut-instinct idiocy, there's no virtue in claiming that the truth lies somewhere in between.Required reading. …
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True, I may be undermining weeks of arguing for engaging the people we disagree with in a spirit of openness and respect. And name-calling isn't going to help us show them how they're actually voting against their own interests, or reveal the corporatist / continentalist / ruling-class Divide-and-Conquer strategy. Class warfare's tricky that way. …
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Ah, Marcus. The Globe's ideologically reliable municipal-affairs curmudgeon is kind of like a stopped clock that way.Of course, the analogy only goes so far, because you don't have to ask a stopped clock why it's right twice a day, and that's a degree of frequency and predictability that ... well, let's just say it's not in the same postal code as Marcus.However, credit where it's due and all. Marcus's pulse is quickening because according to him, the Nightmare on Bloor Street is over and now they've got these fancy-shmancy new granite widened sidewalks and there are planters and specially …
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Following the example of my friends impolitical and pogge.A few years old, but like a fine wine, it ages well ...Raising Your Voice...Trying to Stop an Echo by hammockmusic Raising Your Voice...Trying to Stop an Echo by hammockmusic …
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On the Canucks Riot, Protest, and Division : Politics, Re-SpunAnd more.Good lord, someone's actually pointing out the class dimension inherent in the Vancouver riot, and drawing the connection between that and the corporatist power structure's nasty little game of Divide-and-Conquer.Not to mention the malignant influence of Don Cherry. You know, that guy who has a national platform on the "left-wing" CBC.[drops teacup]How unseemly. …
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The Sixth Estate » When You Don’t Know Your History, You’re Bound to Make Up S@@tAnd again. Either the Vancouver Police and the corporate media are taking stupid pills, or they're serving some agenda. Now let's think about this: who benefits from mischaracterizing the riots as the work of anarchists and political activists?Whose interests are served by the blanket demonization of activism per se?Conversely, whose interests would be harmed by acknowledging the connections among NHL product, overwrought ersatz nationalism, unfettered testosterone, economic privation and too much cheap …
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Porcupine blog: Explaining Conservative Support Among “Ordinary People”.I can't believe I haven't seen this until now. …
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Go and read this piece from Ed Keenan in The Grid. He's right of course, and you don't need a master's degree in public administration to know that public services cost money. And you don't need cheap childish gimmicks, either. The troublesome part is that something so blindingly self-evident seemed to elude a majority of Toronto voters last fall. They were all too willing to buy into Rob Ford's bullshit about mountains of wasted cash and municipal inefficiencies and gravy trains, and worst of all, the idea that under David Miller, things were just so irredeemably awful that the only thing …
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@cityslikr's pal Urban Sophisticat on the Six Sigma sickness currently afflicting our municipal leadership. Read it now. On The Road To Metropolis « All Fired Up In The Big Smoke …
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Sorry, dear friends. This is going to be one of those times when I try to get cerebral, but not too cerebral, and end up sounding like a wanker. Business as usual, in other words. In the context of last week's Twitter exchange with @thekeenanwire over the question of what we deserve, I admitted that I hadn't thought through all the implications of what I was saying or where I was going. To the extent that we could arrive at common ground in 140-character bursts, we managed to agree that "need" was probably a better word than "deserve" when we're talking about a police force, or a society, or …
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