Toronto Election :: Animal Farm
Rob Förd :: Boxer
Dough Förd :: Napoleon
Friday, September 12, 2014
Monday, September 8, 2014
Every candidate has a transit plan pulled out of his/her ass
Hey, remember me? I'll soon be taking a hard squint at many of the crazy third party mayoral candidates for 2014. How'd that last election work out for y'all?
Anyway, some thoughts about the latest mania sweeping Toronto city politics: transit plans! You simply can't be a serious mayor unless you utterly pull a wild-eyed fantasy map out of your ass and claim you'll build that as mayor. Hey, I love TTC fantasy maps as much as the next transit geek. I love looking at transit maps in cities where they seem to build whole new lines every five years. Hi, Seoulites! But fantasy aside, if it comes down to a choice between subways or LRTs, what's the sane choice?
Funding that shit
Now, lots of candidates talk about their vision for transit and sometimes they even talk about funding it. Anyone can have a vision. It really comes down to a plan to fund your vision. Hence the reason I've never been able to realize my vision for hotels in space.
How do you finance it? That comes down to you need to do what every mayor has done for decades: ask the feds and the province for billions of dollars they're not willing to give Toronto. I remind you a definition of "crazy" is "doing the same thing over and over again but each time expecting a different result." Although when I talk about third party candidates as being crazy, I don't mean the clinical definition. I just mean they're intense and interesting. But when I talk about the major candidates thinking this time asking the feds and the province for billions of dollars everything will be different, well, I really do mean that person is crazy. Completely, utterly bat shit unhinged crazy. They're a complete danger to the City of Toronto.
But I also suspect most of the major no good assholes had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they proposed their clearly bat shit crazy fantasy maps. So maybe they're not crazy. Just crafty.
Building that shit
When you see a candidate fantasy map, count each new subway line. Budget 10 years per line. Herr Förd wants 4 new lines in phase 1. That's 40 years. Phase 2 ups it to 4 more new lines. That's another 40 years. If you are reading this, I guarantee you'll be dead by the time phase 2 is completed. If not, my estate will pay you $5. Also, ask yourself where you'll be in 40 years? I'll most likely be dead. Will you be dead? Retired? Okay, maybe your kids will be able to use it. So if you don't mind paying for a transit system your kids will use, then go for it. And do you really think in 40 years time, by the time we cut the ribbon on the final phase 1 line, the existing TTC lines (Bloor/Yonge/Sheppard) will be just humming along like greased lightening? We will need to be appropriating billions to simply repair those lines over the next 40 years.
Things look a little better when you look at LRT lines. That's about 5 years per line. The original Transit City plan called for 9 LRT lines. We could build 8 of them in the time it takes to build out 4 subway lines.
Really? Ten years? Aren't you just pulling numbers out of your ass?
Well, as they say in any financial document, past performance is no indication of future performance, then maybe. I'm just looking at the history of building transit stuff. From the moment the province and feds promise "no kidding, we're really giving you money", it takes about 10 years to build a subway line or an extension. To build an LRT line it takes 5 years. Something else to consider. When we build subway lines we tend to build short lines with only a few stations. When we build LRT lines we build longer lines with a larger number of more useful stops. Of course, maybe, this time thing will be different. We can build a new subway line in under 10 years or we can build two lines concurrently. Yeah, maybe this time things will be different. Keep hoping!
A short history of building subways in the modern era of Toronto
On the Yonge/University line the North York station was added in 1987. Nearly 10 years later it added Downsview. One stop north. In 10 years.
The Sheppard and Eglinton lines were funded in 1993. A decade later, Toronto got half of what was funded. Basically a 5.5 km four stop subway. Eglinton was killed off.
The University line extension was funded in 2006. Ten years later five new stops will come on line.
Over on the Bloor line, Islington was opened in 1968. It took 12 years to dig it one stop to the west, to Kipling. Likewise, Warden was opened in 1968. 12 years later they extended it one stop to the east, to Kennedy.
Bottom line: it takes about 10 years to build or extend a subway line. The only time we tried to build two subway lines concurrently we ran out of money quickly and killed off one line.
A short history of building LRTs in the modern era of Toronto
We've had better success with building LRTs on their own dedicated lines. The St Clair line was done in 5 years. It's 7 km long.
The Spadina LRT was green lit 1992 and came on line 5 years later. It's 6.6 km.
Conclusion
If you're looking for something you might enjoy during your working career, LRTs are the way to go for a number of very fine reason. First, Herr Förd hates them. Second, they can be built quicker. Third, the lines can be longer and can accommodate more stops (more stops, less walking, your property is more valuable closer it is to an LRT station). Fourth, no station politics. Building a subway line is a heap of politics but then deciding where to build the station, what to name it, who gets a station, who doesn't, can slow shit down a lot.
Anyway, some thoughts about the latest mania sweeping Toronto city politics: transit plans! You simply can't be a serious mayor unless you utterly pull a wild-eyed fantasy map out of your ass and claim you'll build that as mayor. Hey, I love TTC fantasy maps as much as the next transit geek. I love looking at transit maps in cities where they seem to build whole new lines every five years. Hi, Seoulites! But fantasy aside, if it comes down to a choice between subways or LRTs, what's the sane choice?
Funding that shit
Now, lots of candidates talk about their vision for transit and sometimes they even talk about funding it. Anyone can have a vision. It really comes down to a plan to fund your vision. Hence the reason I've never been able to realize my vision for hotels in space.
How do you finance it? That comes down to you need to do what every mayor has done for decades: ask the feds and the province for billions of dollars they're not willing to give Toronto. I remind you a definition of "crazy" is "doing the same thing over and over again but each time expecting a different result." Although when I talk about third party candidates as being crazy, I don't mean the clinical definition. I just mean they're intense and interesting. But when I talk about the major candidates thinking this time asking the feds and the province for billions of dollars everything will be different, well, I really do mean that person is crazy. Completely, utterly bat shit unhinged crazy. They're a complete danger to the City of Toronto.
But I also suspect most of the major no good assholes had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they proposed their clearly bat shit crazy fantasy maps. So maybe they're not crazy. Just crafty.
Building that shit
When you see a candidate fantasy map, count each new subway line. Budget 10 years per line. Herr Förd wants 4 new lines in phase 1. That's 40 years. Phase 2 ups it to 4 more new lines. That's another 40 years. If you are reading this, I guarantee you'll be dead by the time phase 2 is completed. If not, my estate will pay you $5. Also, ask yourself where you'll be in 40 years? I'll most likely be dead. Will you be dead? Retired? Okay, maybe your kids will be able to use it. So if you don't mind paying for a transit system your kids will use, then go for it. And do you really think in 40 years time, by the time we cut the ribbon on the final phase 1 line, the existing TTC lines (Bloor/Yonge/Sheppard) will be just humming along like greased lightening? We will need to be appropriating billions to simply repair those lines over the next 40 years.
Things look a little better when you look at LRT lines. That's about 5 years per line. The original Transit City plan called for 9 LRT lines. We could build 8 of them in the time it takes to build out 4 subway lines.
Really? Ten years? Aren't you just pulling numbers out of your ass?
Well, as they say in any financial document, past performance is no indication of future performance, then maybe. I'm just looking at the history of building transit stuff. From the moment the province and feds promise "no kidding, we're really giving you money", it takes about 10 years to build a subway line or an extension. To build an LRT line it takes 5 years. Something else to consider. When we build subway lines we tend to build short lines with only a few stations. When we build LRT lines we build longer lines with a larger number of more useful stops. Of course, maybe, this time thing will be different. We can build a new subway line in under 10 years or we can build two lines concurrently. Yeah, maybe this time things will be different. Keep hoping!
A short history of building subways in the modern era of Toronto
On the Yonge/University line the North York station was added in 1987. Nearly 10 years later it added Downsview. One stop north. In 10 years.
The Sheppard and Eglinton lines were funded in 1993. A decade later, Toronto got half of what was funded. Basically a 5.5 km four stop subway. Eglinton was killed off.
The University line extension was funded in 2006. Ten years later five new stops will come on line.
Over on the Bloor line, Islington was opened in 1968. It took 12 years to dig it one stop to the west, to Kipling. Likewise, Warden was opened in 1968. 12 years later they extended it one stop to the east, to Kennedy.
Bottom line: it takes about 10 years to build or extend a subway line. The only time we tried to build two subway lines concurrently we ran out of money quickly and killed off one line.
A short history of building LRTs in the modern era of Toronto
We've had better success with building LRTs on their own dedicated lines. The St Clair line was done in 5 years. It's 7 km long.
The Spadina LRT was green lit 1992 and came on line 5 years later. It's 6.6 km.
Conclusion
If you're looking for something you might enjoy during your working career, LRTs are the way to go for a number of very fine reason. First, Herr Förd hates them. Second, they can be built quicker. Third, the lines can be longer and can accommodate more stops (more stops, less walking, your property is more valuable closer it is to an LRT station). Fourth, no station politics. Building a subway line is a heap of politics but then deciding where to build the station, what to name it, who gets a station, who doesn't, can slow shit down a lot.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
We wuz robbed!
Here are the unofficial results.
No Good Assholes
| Rob Ford | 380,201 | 47.098% |
| George Smitherman | 287,393 | 35.602% |
| Joe Pantalone | 94,840 | 11.749% |
| Rocco Rossi | 4,973 | 0.616% |
Crazy Third Party Guys
| George Babula | 3,242 | 0.402% |
| Rocco Achampong | 2,781 | 0.345% |
| Abdullah-Baquie Ghazi | 2,746 | 0.34% |
| Michael Alexander | 2,452 | 0.304% |
| Vijay Sarma | 2,233 | 0.277% |
| 1,876 | 0.232% | |
| Jaime Castillo | 1,862 | 0.231% |
| Dewitt Lee | 1,685 | 0.209% |
| Douglas Campbell | 1,420 | 0.176% |
| Kevin Clarke | 1,400 | 0.173% |
| Joseph Pampena | 1,308 | 0.162% |
| David Epstein | 1,198 | 0.148% |
| Monowar Hossain | 1,186 | 0.147% |
| Michael Flie | 1,178 | 0.146% |
| Don Andrews | 1,023 | 0.127% |
| Weizhen Tang | 885 | 0.11% |
| Daniel Walker | 795 | 0.098% |
| Keith Cole | 794 | 0.098% |
| Michael Brausewetter | 791 | 0.098% |
| Barry Goodhead | 736 | 0.091% |
| Charlene Cottle | 730 | 0.09% |
| Tibor Steinberger | 729 | 0.09% |
| Christopher Ball | 690 | 0.085% |
| James Di Fiore | 649 | 0.08% |
| Diane Devenyi | 627 | 0.078% |
| John Letonja | 587 | 0.073% |
| Himy Syed | 576 | 0.071% |
| Carmen Macklin | 565 | 0.07% |
| Howard Gomberg | 472 | 0.058% |
| David Vallance | 442 | 0.055% |
| Mark State | 433 | 0.054% |
| Phil Taylor | 425 | 0.053% |
| Colin Magee | 397 | 0.049% |
| Selwyn Firth | 392 | 0.049% |
| Ratan Wadhwa | 288 | 0.036% |
| Gerald Derome | 249 | 0.031% |
Quick Analysis
As predicted by nearly anyone with two brain cells to rub together, none of the Crazy Third Party Guys finished in the top three. Surprisingly people no longer even standing for mayor outpolled the Crazy Third Party Guys. None of the Crazy Third Party Guys even managed to get half a percentage of votes. George Babula did the best at 0.4% Props for getting the five-pin bowling crowd out to the polling stations. Wonder if the Big Babula Machine can pull it off in 2014?
Alas, the 11th hour endorsement of Daniel Walker didn't manage to get him to out poll Don Andrews, pride of the white community. Andrews got 0.127% this year but in 2003 he got 0.17% of the vote. Did Förd rob him of 18 angry white men votes? Or are Andrews' constituents dying off of lung and liver cancer, as one would expect.
Most surprising was John Letonja's homeopathic numbers. 587? Really? The guy invented his own ball game, for christ's sake! He totally worked the blogs too, popping up hither and dither. A big deal was made out of Calgary's surprise mayoral victory and the power of social media. I guess Toronto just hasn't caught on.
Phil Taylor, despite having a very nice red tie, the endorsement of some guy in the Filipino community, and a playbook pulled right out of his ground breaking self-help power book Set Yourself on Fire, managed just a bit more than half of a half of a percentage. Phil, what's your secret? Self-help talking candidate Diane Devenyi bested Phil by a couple hundred votes.
Michael Alexander who had no web site, no social media presence, no platform, and even no known photograph of himself beat Diana and Phil's votes combined, winding up in the top 10 and even ahead of non-candidate Sarah Thomson. A stunning victory for people who come in at the top of the ballot order. Yes, there are over two thousand people walking the streets of Toronto that remain undecided until election night, still show up at the polls, and eventually just vote for one of the first names they see as they scan down the ballot.
Monowar Hossain whose platform had something or another to do with horses and ruling ideologies got comfortably over 1,000 votes. The Manowar fans truly turned out this election cycle.
I'm greatly saddened Ratan Wadhwa, the last man in the world to be sporting a Hitler moustache, fared so badly, coming in second last. It would appear Toronto is not ready for a 3P economy (porn, prostitutes, and pot) and it won't be ready for quite some time.
Finally, Vijay Sarma, who thinks feminism is a global conspiracy and 9/11 was an inside job and coffee enemas are a crackerjack treatment for cancer and...well there is no end to his inanity… got multiples of a thousand in votes, even if that multiple is 2.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Why vote for a crazy third party guy?
The 2003 mayoral race had a 38% voter turn out and Miller got 43% of the vote. In other words, Miller was elected by a minority of a minority. When a politician sees numbers like that, the very real take away is he/she only has to get his/her core constituency out to the polls. That can mean you just have to get the angry white men out to the polls to win and the rest really don't much matter as they certainly won't drag their ass away from Halo to vote.
So, for those who are gob smacked a guy like Ford (a guy who just makes up numbers on the fly, wants to close Toronto to immigrants, etc.) can be a couple short weeks away from being mayor, well, you should not be so surprised. Ford knows who will turn out to elect him. The rest of us simply don't matter because we don't make ourselves matter.
It's ironic that the level of government that really does have the most power over our day-to-day happiness is the level of government most ignored by the voter. It can be something as simple as putting a traffic light with a left hand turn light at the end of your street. Instead of now having to wait 10 minutes to hang a left on your drive to work, you can get through that light in 2 minutes. This is the level of government that can put, say, an extra express bus that gets you to work/home 15 minutes faster. How much is 15 minutes of extra sleep worth to you? It's the level of government that can get the cops to put an extra patrol car in your neighborhood every night. Or take those patrol cars away.
I'm of the personal opinion that a mayor can't turn a down economy into a booming economy. Toronto's economy is bottom up. It's the sum total of all the small decisions we all make. However, a bad mayor and bad city council can certainly get in the way of an upswing in the economy or make a downturn more miserable for all of us.
Businesses move to cities and remain in cities not just because of taxes. There's a reason Bill Gates moved Microsoft from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Seattle. He couldn't get talented programmers to move to Albuquerque. There's nothing there for them. But he could get the best people all around the world to move to Seattle. It's the same reason William Shockley, the inventor of the transistor, moved the locus of transistor development from New Jersey to Northern California and started Silicon Valley. A livable city -- full of art, culture, great restaurants to match any taste, and good transportation -- is a city talented programmers, engineers, lawyers, investment bankers, scientists, etc. want to move to. And guess what? Business owners also want to move to these kinds of cities too and will pay a premium in taxes if it means their family is happy, their workers are happy, and they can get the best talent.
Guess what? These are elements a good local government can have control over or screw up royally.
But if we're not participating at the ballot box, we're telling candidates their best bet to getting elected is lining up their special interest, be it angry white men, unions, developers, conspiracy nuts, whatever. Angry white men don't want brown people opening their funny smelling restaurants next door. Unions want to price public transit out of reach. Developers want to fence off water fronts. Conspiracy nuts, well, conspiracy nuts just kind of entertain us all. Don't they?
Now, many people will argue they don't vote simply because the top candidates are so piss poor. And in my opinion this election cycle is a great example. In my 25 years as a legal voter, I've never seen such a pack of do-nothing idiots asking for my vote. But I will vote. Because I don't want to contribute to the low voter turn out. But Ford, Rossi, et al. aren't worth the bit of graphite used to put an X next to one of their names.
My suggestion is keep the voter turn out rate up but vote for a crazy third party guy. At the same time, I'm not sure I want to give an anti-vaxxer or a neo-nazi my vote. "Well, at least there are 983 visionaries in Toronto who recognize the need to for a final solution for the Tamil problem!"
Anyway. Enjoy.
So, for those who are gob smacked a guy like Ford (a guy who just makes up numbers on the fly, wants to close Toronto to immigrants, etc.) can be a couple short weeks away from being mayor, well, you should not be so surprised. Ford knows who will turn out to elect him. The rest of us simply don't matter because we don't make ourselves matter.
It's ironic that the level of government that really does have the most power over our day-to-day happiness is the level of government most ignored by the voter. It can be something as simple as putting a traffic light with a left hand turn light at the end of your street. Instead of now having to wait 10 minutes to hang a left on your drive to work, you can get through that light in 2 minutes. This is the level of government that can put, say, an extra express bus that gets you to work/home 15 minutes faster. How much is 15 minutes of extra sleep worth to you? It's the level of government that can get the cops to put an extra patrol car in your neighborhood every night. Or take those patrol cars away.
I'm of the personal opinion that a mayor can't turn a down economy into a booming economy. Toronto's economy is bottom up. It's the sum total of all the small decisions we all make. However, a bad mayor and bad city council can certainly get in the way of an upswing in the economy or make a downturn more miserable for all of us.
Businesses move to cities and remain in cities not just because of taxes. There's a reason Bill Gates moved Microsoft from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Seattle. He couldn't get talented programmers to move to Albuquerque. There's nothing there for them. But he could get the best people all around the world to move to Seattle. It's the same reason William Shockley, the inventor of the transistor, moved the locus of transistor development from New Jersey to Northern California and started Silicon Valley. A livable city -- full of art, culture, great restaurants to match any taste, and good transportation -- is a city talented programmers, engineers, lawyers, investment bankers, scientists, etc. want to move to. And guess what? Business owners also want to move to these kinds of cities too and will pay a premium in taxes if it means their family is happy, their workers are happy, and they can get the best talent.
Guess what? These are elements a good local government can have control over or screw up royally.
But if we're not participating at the ballot box, we're telling candidates their best bet to getting elected is lining up their special interest, be it angry white men, unions, developers, conspiracy nuts, whatever. Angry white men don't want brown people opening their funny smelling restaurants next door. Unions want to price public transit out of reach. Developers want to fence off water fronts. Conspiracy nuts, well, conspiracy nuts just kind of entertain us all. Don't they?
Now, many people will argue they don't vote simply because the top candidates are so piss poor. And in my opinion this election cycle is a great example. In my 25 years as a legal voter, I've never seen such a pack of do-nothing idiots asking for my vote. But I will vote. Because I don't want to contribute to the low voter turn out. But Ford, Rossi, et al. aren't worth the bit of graphite used to put an X next to one of their names.
My suggestion is keep the voter turn out rate up but vote for a crazy third party guy. At the same time, I'm not sure I want to give an anti-vaxxer or a neo-nazi my vote. "Well, at least there are 983 visionaries in Toronto who recognize the need to for a final solution for the Tamil problem!"
Anyway. Enjoy.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Know Your Crazy Third Party Toronto Candidates
John Letonja
http://supermagnetics.com/JohnLetonja.htm
This guy is so independent he's not even willing to let someone take his photo for his campaign site. He'd rather just stick the camera at arms length and snap the photo himself than, say, owe his sister a favor. His references to Dalton McGuinty as an "asshole" I find refreshing in a milieu where candidates stick to the sound bites and rarely, if ever, try to explain our system of direct taxation in terms of anal sex and lubrication for anal penetration.
He'll also get dangerous IQ-lowering substances out of the drinking water, aka fluoride. Personally, anyone worried about the dangerous effects of fluoride in the drinking water I'd be happier if the city just issued them a tinfoil hat. But then I'm not running for office.
Oh, and when you get tired of his other various brilliant ideas, he provides a set of rules for his own ball game called Happy Mr. Fun Ball. Or something like that. He suggests it should be an event at the PanAm Games. Sure, John. Sure.
Collin Magee
http://mageeformayor.ca/
Collin has a great slogan. "Magee for Mayor". Better than Ford's "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Förd Führer." The dude also loves the CENTER tag. A centrist if there ever was one. There are some good free template sites he might want to look into for his next mayoral run. Alas, he seems to have built his actual political platform from a standard "candidate for change" template.
George Babula
http://parkdaleparty.com/
He tells us he's "The Mayor Toronto Deserves". Alas, he does not have enemas for hands. So I think it's a bit of hyperbole. His site has an intriguing button that says "A Plan for Municipal Reform Today". But he does not appear to be aware a button needs to be clickable. You can click on it, surely. But you can click on anything. There's this nutty a href tag in HTML that makes things clickable. Maybe his plan is laid out in his Youtube video but it's done in rhyming verse and I can only get past the first two or three couplets before I throw up in my mouth a little and go watch Youtube videos of Vegas showgirls in bikinis firing machine guns. If Babula's plan is anything other than building more bowling alleys in Parkdale, or Parkale, call me. K?
Himy Syed
http://himysyed.com/
http://himysyed.com/peoples-mayor-himy-syed-vision-2020-another-toronto-is-possible-pamphlet-short.pdf
I like a guy with a name where the vowels and consonants all seem vaguely in the wrong place. I like he only seems to want a single street named after himself, not a whole public square like Mel Lastman.
And you have to admire a candidate that doesn't mind posting a Youtube video of him being pwnd by a bunch of scruffy skateboard rats. The fisheye lens is so Adult Swim circa early 2000s.
Christopher Ball
http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100831/20100831-mayoral-ball/20100831/?hub=CP24Weather
The CP24 site's image of Christopher makes him appear young. Youthful. The very kind of candidate that should be all over that wacky social media stuff. But he seems to have no blog, no web page, no Twitter, and no Facebook. Is he aware the Internet even exists? He's been a registered candidate since July. Is he trying to parallel the George W. Bush political trajectory where all you have to do to be successful in politics is show up? Is he thinking he'll pull an all nighter election eve and clinch it?
The Toronto Observer site's tags on this guy comes up empty:
http://www.torontoobserver.ca/tag/christopher-ball/
Wasn't Barbara Hall accused of being Toronto's Stealth Mayor? Christopher seems to be following in that tradition. His platform is a blank slate. This easily makes him the third most qualified candidate for mayor based on this election cycle's deplorable crop of contenders.
Andrew Barton
http://twitter.com/ActsofAndrewB
http://actsofminortreason.blogspot.com/
We do not have enough candidates who are trying to bring back the motorcycle goggles look. Barton's chief qualification seems to be he's a sci fi writer. Barton, when you win a Hugo, come back and ask for my vote. On his Twitter he rages mayoral candidates should not be able to call themselves visionaries. Since he is a candidate himself, he'd agree he should not call himself a visionary. ("Advertising affects people but not me of course.") So. A sci fi author who is not a visionary. Yeah, can't wait to read your stuff.
Oh. Wait. Looking at his blog, it appears he's moving out west where he's certain the winters are better. I mean, they are. So I think we should elect him just to make him move back and endure Toronto winter.
His blog is one huge whine fest. He strikes me as the kind of guy who is still sore that his grade 8 class didn't stage their end of year play the way HE wanted it staged. "Sorry, we can't have jedi in Annie Get Your Gun." And he's been a bitter cynic ever since.
BREAKING - Barton dropped out of the race months ago. I guess I should cross reference the wiki candidates listing with the, you know, official city list! Still, offer stands, I'll vote for you when you win a Hugo.
Ratan Wadhwa
http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100602/100531_mayoral_ratan/20100608/?hub=CP24Weather
Don't let the Hitler moustache fool you. Ratan is a swinger. He's all about the 3P economy: pot, porn, and prostitutes. Technically I'm a consumer of only ONE of those P's but I'm all for legalization of all three. Now, bike lanes, well, he seems rather wishy washy about bike lanes. A topless bike lane he might go for. Now if we can just convince him to annex Mississauga (suggestion, swing through Brampton and come at them via the north).
Rocco Achampong
http://roccoformayor.com/Default.aspx
Barack Hussein Guderian Obama famously quipped once it was hard for a guy with a name like his to get elected. But he did. Mayor Achampong has a nice post-Obama ring to it, in my books. And Rocco Achampong (or as Rob Förd keeps reminding us "Rocco Kusi Achampong"...as if another weirdo ethnic name would make us fear him) should be elected just on his web design skills alone. No CENTER tag abuse. The guy is a lawyer. If his Flickr page is to be believed, he really gets out in the community. And DAMN if he doesn't surround himself with highly tappable ladies. Move your saggy flat ass over Olivia Chow! The only thing that makes me suspicious is this guy appears to be a former SAC president of the U of T. He's got career politician in his DNA.
Don Andrews
http://www.natparty.com/DA4mayor.htm
You think Förd hates the boat people? Andrews probably has plans to turn the Toronto Island into a little work camp complete with "Zyklon-B delousing showers" for them. We can't have the non-whites causing Toronto to commit "racial suicide". The race for mayor is about the white race to Andrews. I'm kind of glad Rocco Kusi Achampong is in the race, just to be the first name on the ballot above Andrews. The top spot on the ballot customarily captures 2-4% of voters too lazy to become a decided voter even in the voting booth. Amazing but true. Anyway, I'd hate to think Andrews would assume getting anything more than 0.9% of the vote is attributable to the silent (white) majority.
Miller I think got in some trouble last election by a campaign slogan that claimed he looked like a mayor. Andrews looks like a guy who would take your parking spot at the mall as you were about to back in and then yell at you.
Douglas Campbell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Campbell_(Ontario_politician)
Have we ever had a mayor die while in office? This codger might. He's kind of the Arthur Meighen of local politics. (Arthur who? Oh go read your Canadian history!) He's always running for something or another but gets a homeopathic amount of the vote and dutifully runs again next election cycle. Anyway, don't look for a web site. His wiki page might have been done on a dare by a U of T poli sci frat. This guy is strictly low res. Any photo of him looks like he's afraid this devil machine will capture his soul. Still, this cat might have swung in his older days (1968). He introduced sex ed into the Newfoundland school system (insert Dildo, Newfoundland joke, insert joke about inserting a Dildo, Newfoundland joke). He firmly believes capitalists are out to kill your children. Ownership is theft. You know the stuff. All the crap that led the communist world into bankruptcy and environmental nightmares.
Kevin Clarke
http://www.childrenfirstworldleader.com/
Most of us suspect when we give money to homeless people, they're really going to buy booze and not food. Clarke, I gather, uses it to pay his candidate filing fee. You have to love a man whose election web site features a photoshopped image of a purple-winged angel baby scampering over a graffiti strewn rock. What would fellow candidate Don Andrews make of this? Could we just put some of these fringe guys in an octagon, lower a cage over it, give them Vulcan lirpas, charge admission, and give the proceeds to the homeless?
His "Letters" page appears to be nothing but all caps rants mixed in with novel uses of the comma. I guess he means it literally. It's a page. It has letters.
Selwyn Firth
http://selwynformayor.com/
Finally a candidate that boils down all the problems of Toronto into a simple, solvable engineering problem. Förd might have started a business and coaches football but did he ever develop a single step electrochemical process to manufacture stannous sulphate? YOU SUCK, FORD! Still, not sure I can vote for a guy with a 404 error on his site.
And he doesn't appear to know how to spell "congestion". I think the first step in defeating a problem is knowing how to spell it.
Still, something I like about this guy. Oh wait. Let me take that back. I just noticed his global warming nuttiness. Part of being mayor is deferring to the consensus opinion of your experts when you're a non-expert. I'm sure he made stannous sulphate his bitch but he's not a climate scientist. If 95% of climate scientists are saying AGW is real and might be pretty bad or 95% of your city's law team are saying doing X will get the city sued, it behooves one to listen to the experts. So, let me restate and say I at least like the idea we should have more trained scientists on council.
And, alas, Firth gives Campbell a run for the "candidates most likely to die in office" Lady Byng type trophy.
Vijay Sarma
http://whatyouwanttobelievein.com/11401.html
A 9-11 troofer! Running for mayor! And he thinks the Terry Fox run is in the grips of Big Cancer. Yeah! He's a cancer denialist too! John Letonja is a crank who wants kids to have rotten teeth but Sarma is a dangerous crank who thinks worthless, discredited cancer "treatments" like Gerson Therapy (read "coffee enemas") can cure or treat cancer better than scientific medicine. And of course he's an anti-vaxxer. We all get to live to be dinosaurs on city council because of vaccines. A vote for Sarma is a vote to basically kill us all.
Oh yeah, and feminism (you know where women were tired of being property) is a global conspiracy blah blah.
But, hey, a guy like Sarma needs a past time. Maybe we should deal with the issues. Stop with this mud throwing. Great. Let's look at his well developed mayoral platform. The issues:
Good to know!
*head shake* A man with his head this far up the ass of the tinfoil hat crowd, I wonder how he even trusts the fairness of the voting process. If a vast all powerful conspiracy can coordinate thousands of people to pull off 9/11, surely they can fix a hogtown election so that a jackass like Förd can win, and then inject us all with the flu vaccine?
Monowar Hossain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3UFDaABtE4
Web info on Monowar is pretty thin on the ground. So I'm simply including an image of LARPcore heavy metal band Manowar. Manowar claims to be one of the loudest bands in the world. Monowar wants to rescue people from shrinks and experimentation (according to the wiki write up on his 2006 bid for mayor). His Youtube video seems to be him trying to forestall some "birther" type conspiracy that will no doubt emerge when he's elected mayor. His platform, as best I can make out, has something to do with a horse and (here let me quote directly from the video) "the ruling ideology YOU'RE OUT OF TIME MR. HOSSAIN."
Charlene Cottle
http://twitter.com/mayorcottle
http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100831/20100831-mayoral-cottle/20100831/?hub=CP24Weather
I don't like she is already calling herself mayor on her twitter page. She's sort of putting the cart before the horse. Although, maybe she takes the mayor title from her Foursquare checkins and it's just coincidental she's also running for mayor of something actually real.
I do, however, like Cottle has a picture of an egg as her Twitter image. She seems to think people perish for a lack of knowledge. And it's a bible truth. Sure. And a stopped clock tells the true time twice a day. I don't doubt the bible sometimes manages to include some handwaving that sounds like widsom. Let me add a Twitter account dies for a lack of, you know, ideas. Cottle seems to have run out of anything worth saying back in the summer.
Battlestar Galactica fans might want to vote for her purely on the basis she shares the same last name as the doctor on Battlestar Galactica.
Her CP24 interview makes it appear she's confused over the "transit city" issue. When asked, she talks about how she's been driving for decades. As an afterthought she claims she'd like to see more buses. But not big buses. Small buses because, as a driver, she seems to have this idea Toronto buses are always empty. Ummm. Tell that to the people packed on the 60C at 7:30 am.
Michael Alexander
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_municipal_election,_2006#Information_on_minor_candidates
http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/23875--unusual-candidates-vie-for-mayor-s-chair
Michael Alexander has the most to lose from Rocco Achampong's candidacy. Alexander is no longer at the top of the ballot like he was in 2006 and actually came in fourth place, carried to the Miss Congeniality slot by the good citizens of Toronto who view the actual act of voting a formality. They just simply like to cue up for paper ballots and score free golf pencils. I think these are the same people who, in surveys of favorite airline seat, are part of the 3% who check "middle seat between a fat guy oozing over the hand rest and a fat snoring guy".
Alexander seems to have no web site, no social media presence. Even the CP24 site just has a black and white placeholder image for him. Maybe he's ride sharing with ex-candidate Andrew Barton out to the left coast?
A CityTV story from last election describes him as a 42 year old filmmaker that ran because he was all raw assed about Miller. Yeah, well, you and 2.5 million other people. I guess we can divine he's 46 years old now. IMDB does list a Michael Alexander working in the Toronto film biz as an animal trainer. He's worked on such illustrious projects as Detroit Rock City and Eight Below.
I can see a certain similarity between his IMDB head shot and his CP24 head shot. So maybe that's our guy.
David Vallance
http://www.provinceoftoronto.ca/http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100831/20100831-mayoral-vallance/20100831/?hub=CP24Weather
Vallance is grabbing for two brass rings. He wants to be both mayor and premier. As mayor, he'll turn Toronto into its own province and then also become its premier. I don't think this is some skeezy attempt to double dip like those Bloc Quebec asswipes. He's a tax fighter so we can be certain he'll only try to draw one salary.
Questions remain. Will we be able annex Queen's Park as a legislature. Without a fight? Are we going to start giving the legislature pages paramilitary training as a defense force? Would it be like that Tom Cruise movie from 1981 called Taps? Where would we locate the new provincial capital? Windsor? North Bay? Avignon, France? Is anyone surprised this candidate looks like an Identity Christian mountain man?
Now I'll grant you both the federal and provincial levels of government view giving a single tax dollar to Toronto as 10 lost votes outside of Toronto. At the same time, we're our own worst enemies. The liberals can always count on seats in Toronto so they don't have to do jack shit for the city and can work on cracking the conservative parts of the province/country, or at least poaching NDP seats. The conservatives well know they'd have to do more than pay for an extension of the subway line to York U before they get Toronto seats. They'd have to pretty much finance maglev lines across the city to get us to swing right.
I do like Vallance's reality based answers to his CP24 interview. For example on the crime question, he notes crime stats are going down. True. We're not a dangerous city but how many politicians get votes by telling you you're safe and maybe we can reduce the police payroll?
Rev. Daniel Walker
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133417870022417&v=photos#!/group.php?gid=133417870022417&v=wallhttp://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100831/20100831-mayoral-walker/20100831/?hub=CP24Weather
Don't let the Reverend part scare you off. At least not until you've read further. Not all reverends running for office are young earth creationists who want to pass laws based on the parts of the bible that let them justify their hate for gays (a frightening prospect given the bible has no amending formula). Walker is a reverend with the Church of the Universe which, without looking on wiki, I'm pretty sure requires you to worship the Cthulhu pantheon. I could be wrong. If I'm wrong, I think they probably should worship the Cthulhu pantheon.
Walker also seems to be your "legalize it" candidate. His Facebook fan page's Info section is a well written outline of his platform and doesn't betray the mind of someone who might be half baked every waking moment. But when you turn to this wall, his stream of consciousness writing style shows a slightly different story.
"MARIJUANA IS THE BEST MEDICINE FOR AIDS."
No. Actually that would be the cocktail of anti-retroviral drugs that lets HIV positive people live nearly a natural life span. He's also another anti-fluoridation candidate. What's up with crazy third party guys and their fetish for people with bad teeth? Come on people. The poison is in the dose.
Diane Devenyi
http://www.mayordiane.comhttp://twitter.com/DianeDevenyi
 |
| If I can be your pool boy, I'll vote for you. |
Devenyi is the underpants gnome candidate. She has a simple, multiple step program.
Step 1: Self actualize our genius to meet the synergistic challenges presented by the "glocal" exigency underpinning the 21st century hermeneutic paradigm shift.
Step 2: Get some green paperclips and trade up.
Step 3: Dance.
Step 10,987: Thriving economy!
What are steps 4-10,986? Anyone? Anyone?
Devenyi has mastered the jargon of the self-help Oprah set, certainly. Her verbose and plentiful web pages are dense with jargon but light on actual substance. Although next to Kevin Clarke's all caps word salad and Förd's red-faced loutish chav rantings, I do like her grammar is nearly flawless. It just reads like the Sokal affair for local politics.
Phil Taylor
http://www.philtaylorformayor.com/
Taylor is another candidate that seems to think self-help book jargon can translate into votes that aren't better attributed to sampling error. Though it's no surprise Taylor speaks the language of the self-help set as he actually wrote his own self-help book with the rather "don't try this at home-ish" title Set Yourself on Fire!
Wearing his self-help author hat, Taylor's claim is that you can achieve nearly anything, if you follow his "secret to taking your life to the next level". Like, oh, becoming mayor? Let's check who is leading the polls. 1) Förd. 2) Smitherman. 3) Rossi. Hmmm. I guess you can't achieve everything following Taylor's secret knowledge. Taylor's fail kind of reminds me of people trying to sell you their SEO services that will allegedly put your web page at the top of a Google search return yet their own web site is no where to be found in the first 8,000 results. A classic doctor heal thyself situation.
The SEO snake oilers, I think, assume you'll never check. Does Taylor think we wouldn't notice either? And does he think we won't notice 1) he doesn't know how to tie a tie properly. Pro tip: tip of the tie goes to the tip of the belt 2) he only appears to have one tie. 3) His book has 3 reviews, all five star reviews, 2 by people who seem to have only ever read one book they found worth reviewing on Amazon.com. Looks. Suspicious. I'm just saying.
So what is the secret to setting yourself on fire? Make it in Manila!
For some reason Taylor is big in the Filipino community. Or maybe he's just big with one Filipino blogger/writer. In any regard, over on the Mabhuay Radio page, we're told Taylor describes himself as a man of "honesty, integrity and truth". This self assessment is repeated by Taylor over on the Currents & Breaking News blog. I have no reason to believe Taylor is not a man of honesty, integrity, and truth. However on both blogs a woman claiming to be his wife offers a slightly different assessment:
Phil Taylor is a married man of 16 years, I am his wife, I have been raising our son alone for the past 15 years. He refuses to grant me a divorce or support his child, this doesn't seem to "match up".
You have not seen your wife or child in 12 years and when we finally speak a couple of weeks ago you tell me you will not divorce me? Please explain this Philip, you tell me I am never to contact you again, yet I am to stay married to you? You are not transparent nor honest nor do you have an ounce of integrity!
Dirty tricks by another crazy third party guy candidate? (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, KEVIN CLARKE!) You just never know. The race to not end up as a double digit in the standings ("I came in 9th! Suck it, Charlene Cottle!") can be pretty cutthroat. Let me tell you.
Anyway, I am curious about the amazing self-help secret Taylor has discovered. I'm doubly curious why self help authors always say "discovered" when they mean "obvious advice I pulled out of my ass". Taking a look at Taylor's motivational web site we can see, maybe his secret. It's seven easy steps but can basically boil down to pick a goal and get off your fat Rob Förd ass and do something. If I only knew!
7 Steps to Goal Setting the GoalAchievers’ Way
1. Write down your goal. (I want to be mayor.)
2. List the benefits of achieving this goal. (Money. Power. Someone to help me buy a new tie.)
3. List existing obstacles to be overcome. (Angry estranged wife.)
4. List the people, places, or things that can help make your goal a reality. (The Filipino community. And. Umm.)
5. Identify any specialized knowledge or skills you need to acquire or reach your goal. (I'm good at selling the "secret" that to be successful you can sell people the secret to being successful...)
6. Write out a specific action plan to achieve your goal. (Make a Youtube video. And. Um.)
7. Write down the date the goal will be achieved. (October 25!)
Anyway, okay maybe Taylor's secret method for setting himself on fire needs some tweeking based on his run for mayor. I'm sure he didn't write his book expecting people to actually follow it to political office. I'm sure it was aimed squarely at MonaVie distributors trying to figure out why their $80 bottles of snapple aren't flying out the door.
But at least he can follow his own secret, get off his duff, really do some shoe-leather campaigning. So lets peek in on his blog for a daily, blow by blow, take out double double and gimme a dutchie please no time to sit around with crazy people I gotta press flesh with the Joe and Betty Lunchbucket Toronto on the campaign trail and…
Oh. He hasn't updated his blog since August 2. And he wrote exactly two blog posts himself before he "crowd sourced" the last two items. Hmmmm. The secret is give up before you even start trying? Kids, if it's not easy, it's not worth trying.
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