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Tories Find Some Cash, Which Panhandlers Likely Want, And Farewell To Canada’s First Weatherman

By Christopher Bird

lunngary-cp-9461552.jpg
Natural resources minister Gary Lunn (left) announces a new $238 million green science fund for development of new energy techologies. Distributed over four years that’s a little less than sixty million dollars a year, which will totally be all that’s needed to invent fusion reactors, perfect hydrogen fuel cells and give us all the rocket-backpacks we’ve been waiting for our whole lives.
Defence minister finds the money to allow the navy to patrol our territorial waters. Presumably by looking under the couch cushions.
Executive director John Kiru of the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas comes out in favour of panhandling ban. In response, “Too Tall” Johnny McSlogger, executive director of the Toronto Panhandler’s Rebel Alliance And Recreation Hall, responds: “Wait, you mean business owners don’t like beggars? But we add so much local flavour. Is it maybe the profanity-laden tirades? We can try to work something out where we do less of those, if you give me a dollar.”
City Hall divided on the banning of plastic shopping bags. Former Tory MPP John Parker busts out the wholly predictable totalitarian-state argument for letting businesses continue to use plastic bags, because you know if you ban plastic shopping bags it’s just one more step to cloning Mussolini and then putting Clone Mussolini in charge of everything.
Canada’s first TV weatherman and the first person to ever appear on the CBC, Percy Saltzman, dead at 91. His trademark was tossing his chalk in the air – the same chalk he used to do the weather markings from memory for every weather report. You know what this proves? Modern TV weathermen are freakin’ wimps.
And finally, the Raptors beat the snot out of the Kings yesterday.
Image from the CBC web archives.

Comments

  • Ben

    invent fusion reactors, perfect hydrogen fuel cells and give us all the rocket-backpacks we’ve been waiting for our whole lives.

    Neither of the last two are exactly clean technologies :P . Also, I think that Canada missed out on the ITER thing (I think they are building it in France).

  • rek

    Jeez, why don’t they just skip to the end and make homelessness and poverty illegal?

  • http://null Val

    Why not spend the money on implementing existing green technologies and making a more immediate difference?? The whole thing just seems like a desperate cry of ‘Hey, vote for me, I care about the environment too!!’

  • rocco

    Rek,
    If only that were possible, but I think it would be hard to enforce. Still, it’s a great idea and worth looking into.

  • http://taylor.typepad.com Chris Taylor

    Many forms of panhandling are already illegal under the Ontario Safe Streets Act (1999). I have a hard time comprehending how passing another law to make it even more illegal is going to change the state of affairs.
    The rational thing to do is ask the police to enforce the laws that are already on the books — my bet is that they see it (rightly) as low-priority.

  • http://null Gerard

    Environmental ‘reasons’ given for banning plastic bags are based on junk science and half truths. Yes – plastic bags are found to tangle marine wildlife, but they are mostly trash bags associated with waste disposal at sea or illegal dumping. Records of entanglement also show other bag types – but few shopping bags. In any case the major source of marine entanglement is associated with the fishing industry. The total plastic bag (not shopping bag) contribution to the problem is quite small.
    Don’t be fooled by the Irish example. Their figures of plastic bag reduction and litter reduction following the introduction of their plastic bag tax are fictional.
    Gerard, Sydney, Australia

  • rek

    You can’t solve homelessness and poverty by banning the homeless from public places and kicking out beggars. But then shop owners and the tourist industry aren’t interested in fixing the problems, they just want it moved out of the way.

  • rocco

    Can’t we move them to the same place Giuliani did?

  • http://www.amyroger.com amy roger

    This kills me – why do Torontonians (sp?) often use such extreme language when bitching about politicians? I hear words like “Nazi-like” and dictatorship and now folks are comparing the grocery bag haters to Mussolini. That’s just silly. This is typical though, folks with petty things to complain about, use over-the-top references to express themselves. Just be happy people – you live in a beautiful place and your problems are relatively small compared to the rest of the world. See http://www.amyroger.com if you want to see how I express myself. Art is much more productive than whining!