King Arthur Movie Tristan

It's a sad state of affairs when the local newspaper starts reading like The Onion, but that's the case today. These guys are nuts, and they're running this province.

Health care in Ontario is a +$30B dollar ministry in Ontario, and the guy running the show doesn't have the native intelligence to figure out how unpleasant it might be to wear a soiled diaper:

Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman says he's considering personally road-testing a new absorbent adult diaper to see if it's appropriate for the province's nursing home residents.

"As a matter of conscience, it's something that I have been seriously considering," Smitherman told reporters yesterday.

The super diapers have become a flash point in the debate around adequate staffing in long-term care facilities.

It's a mighty cold day in hell, and Hespeler when Sid Ryan and Peter Kormos are the guys making sense in a debate, but in Dalton's Ontario, that's how effective banning pit bulls has been against global warming:

Ryan:

"So if the minister wants to play silly games, let him put on a diaper and sleep in it all night long and come into the legislature and wear it until 12 o'clock, and let him soil that diaper and lay around in it for the length of time our seniors have to do in this province."

Kormos:

"Smitherman's a damned embarrassment. One doesn't have to use or exhaust one's imagination to understand the humiliation, the indignity, of sitting in one's own waste for what could be hours at a time."

Really, wet socks are annoying, how much brains and imagination does it take to know spending hours in wet diapers is not good enough.

Then there's Aboriginal Affairs Minister Duncan Bryant, who is telling developers not to pay extortion to the Six Nations Development Institute, a group who is demanding $7,000 fees to develop along the Grand River, land which the institute has no legal claim on:

Ontario will not stop Six Nations from charging developers fees on disputed land near the Grand River, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant said.

He spoke yesterday as calls mounted for the government to halt what some are calling extortion.

A Six Nations development institute is demanding developers pay fees to build around the site, while protesters continue to occupy a former Caledonia housing project.

Developers who got letters seeking fees say the province is hanging them out to dry by not intervening or guaranteeing their safety.

But Bryant said it's up to police to intervene and press charges.

"Developers ... didn't just fall off the turnip truck," he said. "They know very well what the rules are and the laws are."

But Bryant won't step in and nobody can reasonable expect the OPP to do anything about it. Not after Caledonia. So the developers pay the bribes necessary to do business in Ontario (how about a new slogan? "not your average third world country." That ought to rake in the tourists). So the developers pay, the Liberals pretend the issue has gone away, businesses moves on to the next province, and Ontario sinks in to have-not status.

Speaking of which, Dalton is doing a fair bit of whining this week:

Federal politicians have to stop "talking down" the Ontario economy, Premier Dalton McGuinty says.

The premier said he wasn't prepared to follow their advice to cut taxes because he would have to close hospitals, cut social services and stop buying textbooks for students.

Instead, the Stephen Harper government should be partnering with his government on strategic investments in training, jobs and infrastructure to help grow the provincial economy, he said.

"It'd be nice to have the federal government in our corner," McGuinty said. "It'd be nice to have a federal government which doesn't seem to take so much delight in talking down the Ontario economy." Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's comment that the McGuinty government is letting Ontario slide into "have not" status and should cut taxes to improve the business climate did not go over well at Queen's Park.

It would be nice to have the federal government in our corner. Instead, the feds are reduced to acting like stern parents, warning the province of the consequences of it's actions. Dalton's response? Right on cue, here comes the petulance. Answer one question Dalton, are we or are we not heading for have-not status according to the federal equalization formula? If not, answer the argument with facts. If so, why? And don't say it's Mike Harris's fault.

Better yet, someone give this guy a diaper.

Finally, we go back to article two, Bryant Skips Home Fight, for one last item:

Meanwhile, Tory party leader John Tory wrote Gary McHale yesterday opposing the Richmond Hill activist's "inappropriate" planned Caledonia demonstration Sunday at OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino's home in Woodbridge. Public figures accept protests with their jobs, but "have a reasonable expectation that our families and our private homes will be left out."

While I agree in principle, don't the people of Caledonia have a reasonable expectation that there families and private homes will be left out of protests, whether by native bands, angry unionists or local nutjobs? And if they do end up in the middle of "inappropriate" protests, that their leadership, both politically and in the police, will aid them? And if that doesn't happen...?

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Government of Ontario: a rash on all their asses

Hmmm. Hidden camera's at a Tory convention? Ads of John Tory being evasive? Cut and Pastes of Tory bloggers speaking poorly of John Tory? (without links, in case your looking for integrity). Looks like it's going to be a dirty campaign, and looks like it's started.

I just wish I liked anybody in this campaign so I could join the fun.

Last week I was driving south along Townline Road here in Cambridge, toward the site of the new RIM Centre, home of the Waterloo Predators (Names are based on pure speculation and is not to be taken as fact; Site location, however, is based on conjecture, and may be treated as such). This section of Townline is a two lane road, yet some guy on a motor bike travelling north was passing in the centre of the road, between cars. Which brings me to one of the funniest stories of the week:

About 40 motorcyclists from across the province held a rally at Queen's Park yesterday calling for stiffer penalties for motorists whose actions put bikers' lives at risk.

"Bikes have a right to share the road and we need to cut down on the carnage," said Brian Burnett, provincial vice-chairman with Bikers Rights Organization Canada. "The province set up new laws to stop street races. We want to see changes to the Highway Traffic Act regarding the usually lax charges laid in regarding tragic collisions with bikes."

The group took part in a Fallen Riders Memorial Awareness Ride and held a ceremony for 67 bikers killed on the road since the late 1960s.

Burnett said as many as 40 bikers can be killed on Ontario roads every year.

Because I'm responsible for clown boy passing cars in the middle of the road. Or that guy last year who was driving on a 410 exit ramp at over 200 KM/ hour.

I have always been amazed that I am not allowed to drive to the grocery store at 40KM/hour, without a seat belt, but these guys can drive 100KM/hour on the highway with, as cousin Eddie would say, "nothing between the ground and my brain but a piece of government [approved] plastic."

With that in mind, they should be careful what they ask for. When Dalton McGuinty sees that 40 bikers a year number, he will be looking to ban bikes; that's how he solves problems. But really, should they be asking for greater protection from drivers until they have done more about the lousy bike riders on the road. They are out there, they are a legion, and anybody who drives regularly sees them everyday in the summer. It's not all of them, certainly not, but it's enough.

But none of that is why the story is so amusing. It's the last line that makes it so:

The biker group also wants the province to strike down the mandatory helmet law.

Does your municipality recycle compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFB's)? I emailed the environment department in my region (Waterloo) last week, but they haven't got back to me: Nice representation. However, I haven't heard of them recycling CFB's, although it's possible the local hazardous waste depot takes them.

CFB's cost 30c/bulb to recycle according to Dan Power of FLR. My house has about 24 bulbs in it. If each bulb lasts five years (a very optimistic assumption), that's 5 bulbs/year out of my house. That's $1.50 per year for one household.

Now Waterloo region has over 400,000 people. Lets assume 100,000 households in the region. If we further assume my house is average i.e. four people, 24 light bulbs, that's a cost of $150,000 per year just to recycle light bulbs once every household has no choice but to use compact fluorescents.

That's $150,000 a year over and above present expenses. Who's paying for that? Both my province and country have banned incandescent bulbs, which one of those jurisdictions is going to pick up the extra expense to every municipality of recycling CFB's? Or do they expect that we should just throw them out, and let all that mercury lie around the landfill?

And is it really smart to make virtually mandatory something that you need to take to the hazardous waste depot to get rid of?

I can't figure out governments in this country anymore. The other day I was Praising Baird for his Kyoto paper, The Cost of Bill C-288 to Canadian Families and Business. But yesterdays nonsense makes no sense to me, especially considering the opposition for C-288 put forth by the environment ministry. Last week Baird was suggesting the costs of Kyoto would be onerous, this week he started imposing costs. The environment ministry is becoming the ministry of whack-a-mole (or is that ministry of whack-a-prairie dog?), bashing away here, then there... no up there.

This seems to me a simple problem. You believe global warming is on, it's man-made and it is a looming catastrophe, or you don't. If you believe all three parts of the first statement, then you do anything - ANYTHING - to solve the problem. If you don't believe all three parts of that statement, then you do nothing, because there is no problem to solve. Half measures make no sense. And what John Baird is doing is half measures.

Which is it John Baird?

Then there's the Liberals in Toronto. What ever came over them to release the FLICK OFF campaign. (Notice, by the way, you don't need a fancy font. Use almost any font, type it in caps, it looks like what it's supposed to look like.) If you haven't seen it yet, here it is:

Never mind complaints about prissy indignation, it is entirely inappropriate for a government to be putting together this kind of vulgar campaign. The government should, and must, be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. They should be raising the level of debate, not lowering it.

But what boggles is, did they ever think this would be OK? As the Post points out "...the premier's office thinks parents who find this campaign offensive lack a sense of humour -- that they are just not with it." Did they not realize this would be a problem? Or have they become so removed from reality, that it never occurred to anyone this would be a problem? If that is so, this group needs to be removed from office quick. If only there was somebody, anybody else to vote for.

Oh, and memo to a couple of children of my acquaintance. Telling your dear old dad to FLICK OFF at any time, for any reason, government approved or not, is hereby added to your "I really don't recommend it" list.