Toronto's next Mayor - what is at stake on October 25

Toronto will elect its next mayor on Monday October 25, 2010. There are 3 head line candidates, of which only 2 have a chance of winning. I have heard all of them speak live and these are my conclusions.

The 2 candidates with a chance of winning are Rob Ford, a current councillor, and a Liberal Party insider, George Smitherman.

Rob Ford - you get what you see. Someone hard-working, committed to his word with rough edges. He plays hockey and gets into fights on the ice, drinks beer and has smoked weed. In other words, a typical Canadian, which has not go down well with the media elites in Toronto. He is not a great speaker, but his content is clear and straight-forward, and always attempts to do what he says. You may not like his ideas (I do actually), but like Margaret Thatcher, there will be no ambiguity about what he aims to do.

And Smitherman, who should be regarded as the Liberal Party's poor choice to support when they had Rocco Rossi. However, it is all about internal connections on that front. When speaking, Smitherman came off as smug, mouthed some platitudes and like a good career politician simply did not answer the relatively easy questions asked, but went off at tangents. It was surprising because the questions were right along his sweet spots of art & culture, Pride and transit, and the audience was probably most skewed towards him at the outset. All candidates were asked about Toronto funding for the gay Pride parade in light of the inclusion of the anti-Semitic QAIA group, yet Smitherman was only concerned with the effect on the gay community, not the fact that city money was supporting hatred of a minority. Because some in the gay community happen to be racist, the issue of funding became complicated for him and even though they are taking tax-payers' money, it is up to the gay community to sort out. I cannot imagine Smitherman thinking that a homophobic group wanting to join the Santa Claus parade that receives city funding should be allowed to do so in the interests of free speech, nor that the determination of the homophobic group should be left to Santa Claus, his reindeer and the elves. Rob Ford, to his credit, said the issue is not complicated and that property tax-payers money should not go to any group, parade or institution which includes hate-speech in its programs.

It seemed to me that Smitherman thought he had already won the election from the way he spoke. He had an air of arrogance about his pseudo-intelligent responses befitting a career politician. So I looked into his background achievements and I just don’t see a track record of competency.

When Smitherman was the Minister of Health, there was the eHealth fiasco over which he had control and cost Ontarians approximately $1 Billion for a system that does not work. On October 21, the Ontario Auditor-General released a report finding great fault with the sole-sourcing of contracts at the Ontario Ministry of Health, leading to over-priced and inefficient service when Smitherman was Minister of Health. When he was in charge of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission, we had numerous scandals with the lottery sellers stealing prizes from the rightful winners and no investigation, never mind action, was ordered by Smitherman. Smitherman was Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's deputy, a man who promised no new taxes in his manifesto and literally on the day he took power instituted a health tax of nearly $1,000 per year per person. He called it a fee, not a tax, so that was alright with the electorate when re-election came round. It was also alright with the electorate when a winning campaign that bordered right on the edge of racism was used to attack equal school funding for minorities. We also have Smitherman's time as Ontario Energy Minister pushing for green energy with solar energy rebates to big businesses who can afford to put in such panels (i.e. Ikea) at approximately 5.5 times the cost of current electricity costs. I must admit, I do not know much about Toronto's time with Barbara Hall as its mayor and Smitherman as her deputy, but I do hear that she was not missed when she went. That is also reportedly a time when Smitherman was a "party drug" addict for 5 years, whatever a party drug is. Whilst we may forgive that faux pas of 5 years, do we really need to forget that someone who represented the city's interests during that period was high?

In summary, Smitherman has proved his incompetence at various levels of provincial and municipal politics. He is a career politician and has had no accountability for his failures. To me, he appears to have rightfully earned the nickname of "Slitherman". Can Toronto afford another incompetent mayor for 4 years and still retain a decent quality of life?

That is what is at stake on October 25.

$Wayne$ $Rooney$

Not much comment needed on this saga. As I mentioned before "it is purely about money for him and his agent". Either way, his gangster related agent wins. A transfer fee commission now, or a bigger transfer fee commission later as a longer contract has been signed together with a renegotiation fee.

Still worry about Rooney losing it completely and doing a Gazza.

Spoke too Sooney

Looks like I spoke too soon regarding Wayne Rooney's travails, and it has emerged that he wants to leave the football club that has nurtured the raw talent acquired from Everton. If he wants to leave Manchester United for footballing reasons, then it is incomprehensible, although common sense is not one of his strong-points. He has won more trophies in a few years at United than most top-flight professionals win in their whole careers. There are only a handful of top class, truly great global clubs, these being Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan. At this time, only Real Madrid could afford his wages, yet he would not fit into their current playing system. Inter have Benitez at the helm for the moment, so that is not a good idea if one wants to have a successful footballing career.

So, we are left with the conclusion that he needs to leave the UK for an undisclosed reason, or more likely, it is purely about money for him and his agent. Agents earn more from transfers than renegotiating contracts. Who can afford his wages? Probably 3 clubs only... Real Madrid, Chelski and Dubai City. Who could he possibly win things with? Only Real Madrid and Chelski. Yet he could still earn phenomenal sums of money as the figurehead of Manchester United and win more European Cups and Premier Leagues.

At only 24, he should have his best playing days to come, although he has already been a professional for 8 years, so he could have already peaked. Yet there is a tragedy waiting to happen if he is guided by persons who do not have his footballing career at the forefront. Whilst it is true that he will only have a short career and money is a consideration, failure and being a bit part supporting player at another club will not provide extra income in the long term. It is hard to analyse what has happened and what is going through his head now, however, the danger is that he will end up being a Gazza, who thrilled for a short time but ultimately wasted his talents at smalller clubs than his skills deserved.

Hopefully, Wayne will come to his senses, but in the current football world where money corrupts, I fear not.

Boston Red Sucks take over Livepoo Football Club

This is great news... for followers of Manchester United. Following the takeover of Livepoo Football Club by the Boston Red Sucks ( I used to be neutral about them until this purchase), Jamie Carragher has committed to another 3 seasons at Lovepoo. I am very excited about this contract extension because Carragher is now an appalling player, who is slow and prone to panicking when put under pressure. May Lovepoo also suffer at least 86 years between championships.

A poor purchase in a militantly union town that has permanently scared away industry, leading to a terminal decline in spite of the make-up desperately being daubed on its facade.

Wayne Rooney

Wayne Rooney is doing well in his sexual rehabilitation. No scandals for nearly 3 weeks now. Keep it up, Wayne (so to speak).

Fight Time - anti-Semite galloway visits Canada and threatens Immigration Minister

That thug and terrorist enhancer and enabler, george (POS) galloway visited Canada to spew his vile lies and hatred this weekend. It was so sad that the Canadian media chose to treat the evil man with kid gloves and repeat his filthy slurs. A man whose history is littered with cozying up to dictators and terrorist sponsors. Anyhow, not only did galloway do his normal racist gig, but he threatened to sue and to fight the Immigration Minister, Mr. Jason Kenney, who previously acted in a correct manner to keep this hater of the country.

Well, I would like to volunteer to fight galloway on Minister Kenney's behalf, although with this being Ontario, I would like to fight under recently licensed Mixed Martial Art rules, so that I can kick the Shiite out of galloway. Given that galloway is such a BIG FAT LIAR, someone may need to replace me who is in the Super Heavyweight class.

Obama's beliefs

Although 18% of Americans erroneously believe Obama to be a Muslim, and 43% more are confused as to his true beliefs, one thing without question is that in foreign policy thought and deed, Obama is an Arab. Everything else he professes to believe in is mere commentary. Watch this space for 2011 to be an aggressive year of acquiescence to the threats of Syria, Hamas/Hezbollah, Iran and Turkey (S.H.H.I.T axis).

New flags of convenience

Latest trick of the anti-Semites running the Israel is apartheid campaign is to target the later grades of high school children so that they can hit the ground running with the hatred crowd when they get to university. No need to lose a term indoctrinating them at university with the revisionist and false histories. Out of this is a new attack on Israel. The logic is that because some non-Jewish people live in the sliver of land that represents the sole Jewish country and claim in the globe, the Jewish country should not be allowed to have a flag with a Jewish symbol, or a national anthem that refers to the 2,000 years of yearning to return to Zion as a free people. So, let's leave on one side the hypocrisy of the haters supporting and funding theocratic, homophobic, misogynistic, terrorist tyrannies against a fully functioning democracy, and examine their latest act which came to fruition with a Grade 11 (17 year old) kid in Canada getting her hatred published in the national newspaper. Perhaps the Grade 11 kid's only defence is ignorance, but I doubt that she wrote the letter to inspire or learn, merely to attack.

There are 82 nominally Christian countries and we have not seen any complaints about Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Finland, Dominican Republic, Scandinavian countries…etc. having a cross on their flags, or on the sports shirts of Portugal and Brazil. When Mohammed became the most popular boys’ name in London, England and Wales, why was this kid not complaining that the Cross of St. George and the Union Jack should be scrapped? Where are the complaints about the 56 Islamic countries flying a crescent or including green on their flags. I wonder how the Bahai and Zoroastrians feel about the Iranian Islamic flag?

Surely the provision of equal rights to all citizens of Israel, Jewish or not, gives the lie to the truly offensive apartheid claim. It is not surprising that not all the inhabitants are Jewish and yet the percentage of Jews is high, especially if one factors in events of recent centuries which included the slaughter of Jews, the Ottoman Empire oppression of the Jews struggling to survive in the Holy Land and Perfidious Albion preventing Jews fleeing the Nazi horror to the remaining 22% of the League of Nations area that was mandated for the Jewish homeland before Britain gave more than 78% to the Hashemite clan as a pay-off, then one can presume that the Jewish population of Israel should have been much higher than it is today. It is amazing that in only 60 years, nearly 50% of a people of just under 13 million have returned from 107 countries to their ancestral homeland after being dispersed for nearly 2,000 years.

Israel is hugely accommodating of all religions and one can visit Christian, Muslim, Bahai and Jewish sites unhindered. The Druze and Samaritans worship as they like without oppression. In comparison, the Church of the Nativity and Joseph’s tomb have been desecrated under Palestinian Authority rule. Transjordan barred Jews from the Wailing Wall and Hebron after they made captured areas Judenrein in 1948 and destroyed the 68 synagogues in the Jewish Quarter. I may just be a person who knows a little more than what is taught in the 11th grade, but I feel very strongly that one should not impose a separate standard, based on ignorance, upon the single Jewish country. The grade 11 kid, Darci Bloom Bertrand ,should get a failing grade.