I knew as I was framing this post in my mind whilst working today, that I would be pretty lonely in my opinion. I knew already what the great Joe Warmington had to say, could have guessed what Right Girl and Wonder Woman were saying, yet still found myself agreeing with David Miller.
I, and this blog, have been supporters of our troops since day one. I used to own one of those magnets, until some anti-war-Bush-hating-BirkenstockAndSock -wearing-smelly-old-needs-a-haircut-hippy-unionist stole mine 
(or it fell off, who really knows)(see picture right). But again, I must say it, David Miller is right: showing the ribbon can be construed as a political statement.
The debate, then, ought to be, should we be making political statements on public emergency vehicles? And perhaps, a reasonable answer is no.
I happen to think they belong there, I happen to be happy that Rob Ford was prophetic ( "It should be 45-0," adds Councillor Rob Ford. "We should all be 100% behind our brave troops."). But, if the answer is no, we should not be making political statements on public emergency vehicles, that means NO political statements: no breast cancer ribbons; no firetrucks in the gay pride parade. Not just, no right of centre political statements, no political statements. And that's what is really galling everybody. They know this wouldn't even be a question if this was any other cause.
For me though, the best part of this was the bit nobody noticed. The ribbons would stay on until removed during routine maintenance. That means that, unless you are a highly paid unionized mechanic in the city of Toronto, you are not qualified to remove an over sized fridge magnet from a fire truck.
Fortunately, this is all moot, as Toronto council voted 45 - 0 to keep the ribbons. Apparently the city of Toronto e-mail servers were getting a work out.
