February 19, 2008
U-Pass Nearly A Reality, Pakistani Election Changes Things, Castro Steps Down
TTC "U-pass" close to passing for students, possibly also hotel workers. If the scheme passes, the TTC will suddenly be crowded once again, rendering all those recent fleet upgrades essentially moot. Hooray for public transit!
Jack Layton calls for Family Day to be named a national holiday. He then asked for a pony and all the candy he could ever eat ever, on the basis that it was about as likely that Stephen Harper would give him these things.
Opposition parties ahead in Pakistan vote. Now, you might think that this means that the crazy Islamists are going to take over Pakistan just like everybody threatened they would if we didn't support Pervez Musharraf, but it turns out that their popular support in Pakistan actually tops out at about eleven percent and the opposition parties thumping Musharraf in the polls are actually relatively secular and liberal political parties. Go figure!
Fidel Castro steps down as leader of Cuba. This officially makes George W. Bush the winner in the "which American president will finally outlast Castro" sweepstakes. A ticker-tape parade is planned for next week.
Barack Obama in "scandal" over "plagiarism." Apparently a speech he made last week was really similar to a speech made by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick two years ago. The Hillary Clinton campaign bent over backwards to say that lifting the phrase calls Obama's entire campaign into question, while kind of not mentioning that Deval Patrick doesn't have a problem with it and doesn't think he needed to be credited. Will this keep Clinton from being obliterated in the Wisconsin and Hawaii primaries tonight? Who knows.
Finally, progress continues on the cleanup of the massive train derailment in Burlington. GO and VIA service is unlikely to resume this morning, or indeed for the rest of the day. Enjoy your buses, people.
Photo by bomb_tea from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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actually, Layton might be onto something here although he might not agree with my solution.
At present we in Ontario get Good Friday but Feds (government workers, Canada Post, etc.) get GF *and* Easter Monday. If the Feds drop the EM holiday in favour of Family Day, no extra holidays and it removes the irritation of some people being off when others aren't, at least in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta.
But it's unlikely this will happen, why? Because QC observes the Monday rather than the Friday and god forbid we ask them to synchronise with the rest of Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_in_Canada
Re: Plagiarism
Oy. It's even worse. The Clinton campaign *won't* certify the Hillary herself hasn't cribbed parts of other politicians' speeches. Somehow, apparently because she isn't a very inspiring speaker (ie. even though she plagiarizes too, she sucks at it), it doesn't count with her, though...
But it's unlikely this will happen, why? Because QC observes the Monday rather than the Friday.
That's not quite right. In Quebec employers may give their employees either Good Friday or Easter Monday off, at the employer's discretion. Many businesses just close for the whole 4-day weekend. If I remember right, universities do, too.
But it's unlikely this will happen, why? Because QC observes the Monday rather than the Friday.
That's not quite right. In Quebec employers may give their employees either Good Friday or Easter Monday off, at the employer's discretion. Many businesses just close for the whole 4-day weekend. If I remember right, universities do, too.
There's a Con government in need of a good old fashioned toppling, and Jack's fighting for a new holiday.
I don't get the point of U-Pass. How's about making it cheaper for EVERYONE!