FIGHTING BACK ON YOUR GROCERY BILL
“I’m gonna take one.”
That’s all he said as he skated by the bench, the guy with the red armband on his striped referee’s jersey. But he was completely understood.
The game was getting out of control, scrums after every whistle, face-washes and high-sticks the most common features of the game so far that night.
What the referee meant in that short, four word drive-by, is that when the next post-whistle gathering occurs, he’s going to take a single player out of that scrum and give him a two-minute ticket to the penalty box, thus leaving his team with a player disadvantage for those two minutes. And in a crucial, hard-fought playoff game, where the stakes are at their highest, nobody wants to be the guy who ends up being the reason for your season coming to an end, the result of a game lost by giving up a power play goal while you sat and watched. It’s not fun being that guy in the dressing room after the final whistle.
It keeps teams honest and accountable
That referee skated by both benches and cautioned both coaches similarly, and they both took heed of the warning. There would be no more scrums, face-washing and needle work with sticks. Order would be restored, and the game would be won and lost on the merits of hockey talent and skill, and not on thuggery. Or so the theory goes.
As it works in hockey, so too might it work with grocery stores.
Continue reading “FIGHTING BACK ON YOUR GROCERY BILL”DONALD TRUMP AND THE CHRISTIAN CHALLENGE
This, in a word, is repugnant.
If you are a person of faith, particularly Christian faith, it smacks of the idolatry the Protestant denominations denounce the Catholic Church for.
And if you’re a Catholic, it’s theoretically a double whammy, since President Asshole has been spending a good chunk of his weekend slagging the pope.
That slagging the pope business is nothing new since dictators and autocrats, along with kings and emperors, have been attempting to exert pressure on the pope, any given pope, to see things from their point of view. It’s been going on for centuries.
But Donald J. Trump is not Henry VIII. This is not 1538. This is not Pope Paul III or Clement II. This is Pope Leo IV, none other than Robert Francis Prevost, and this is 2026. Ironically, the current pope is an American.
Continue reading “DONALD TRUMP AND THE CHRISTIAN CHALLENGE”DEPLETED COUNCIL CENSURES TWO MEMBERS
I’m a private citizen and, as such, am not shackled by the self-serving conditions of any so-called Code of Conduct as drawn up by the very class of people who wish to perform their collective duty in the shadows and remain impervious to outside observation and commentary.
As with most of what I have thus-far witnessed in municipal politics, we have a group of professionals who have the ability and the capacity, even the willingness, to draw up a set of rules that protects themselves from any meaningful scrutiny or complaint. They can set up a procedural regime that cloaks them from any criticism that may arise from their own handling, or even mishandling of a file, or a project within their area of jurisdictional responsibility.
I’m all in favour of professional respect and professional confidence. I know the full, yet often idealistic value of consensus. And I have seen governments and legislatures at work. Respect and confidence are two pillars that work with others to support the onerous, yet necessary, weight of democracy, local or otherwise.
But, does Council really speak with one voice? Can Council truly speak with one voice? For example, do they speak with one voice when Strong Mayor powers are employed, overriding the voices of everyone else in the room?
Continue reading “DEPLETED COUNCIL CENSURES TWO MEMBERS”MA-TE-WAY IS DONE. EXCEPT FOR HAVING TO PAY FOR IT
If you were looking for blood in the water, or a pound of flesh, then you’re likely a little on the disappointed side.
The Ma-Te-Way issue, the one where a construction project not just doubled, but essentially tripled in cost? It’s now officially closed, in all aspects, nothing more to be seen here, everybody move along.
And if you were looking for criminal culpability, put those desires away too, because the OPP has now announced that there will be no criminal charges levied against any of the actors involved in the biggest financial imbroglio to ever wash up on the banks of the mighty Bonnechere.
It’s done.
Continue reading “MA-TE-WAY IS DONE. EXCEPT FOR HAVING TO PAY FOR IT”
TERRORISM WITH A WHITE FACE
They were young, male, and unforgivably stupid, which works both ways, one way against us and the other for.
The downside is that every man-jack of these idiots were acting service members of the Canadian Armed Forces, all of them infantry soldiers. These are the boneheads who fight for our country, at least when the time comes, and as long as it doesn’t offend their ideological beliefs. They are professional soldiers, although the use of the term professional is entirely undeserved.
The upside is the fact that every one of these losers is a card-carrying idiot-stick, and so extremely easy to discover, reveal, and as of yesterday, arrest.
Continue reading “TERRORISM WITH A WHITE FACE”
NEWSMAGRENFREW 