North Korean’s Favourite Pop Group Creepier Than North Korean Regime, Gulags, Psycho Leader

The National Post has an article — with lots of creepy pictures — on “Kim Jong-un’s favourite miniskirt-sporting pop queens“, the Moranbong Band. The band’s described as

… [m]ore than merely a pop sensation, the Moranbong Band, said to have been hand-picked by Kim himself, has since its stage debut in 2012 come to be the softer, more hummable face of the new Kim regime, despite speculation at least one of its members had fallen out of favour in connection with the purge of Kim’s once-powerful uncle earlier this year.

I think the same thing happened to Destiny’s Child’s Kelly Rowlands. And doesn’t this kind of makes Kim Jong-un the Lou Pearlman of North Korea, except less horrible?

Fighting Everything-That’s-Not-Fire with Fire

Firefighters literally put their lives in danger to protect our communities. It’s rare to hear criticism of them, and it’s understandable why. We don’t want to go running into a burning building, nor do we want to be ungrateful to those who’d pull us out of one.

Toronto just decommissioned four fire trucks and closed one fire station, so people automatically think of the safety of themselves and their families. What if firefighters are just a minute too late getting to my home? A spokesman for the Toronto Professional Fire Fighters’ Association says the reduction in services will result in longer response times, but Fire Chief Jim Sales says they won’t be. Also, none of the 84 fire fighters affected will lose their jobs.

More importantly, the vast majority of calls firefighters respond to aren’t for fires — in fact, just one per cent are, down from 50 per cent in 1960. Thanks to better building materials and other fire-preventon measures, there were 2,239 fires in Toronto in 2010, compared to 3,700 fires fifty years earlier — and that’s while Toronto’s almost tripled in size.

What about the other 99 per cent? More than half are medical emergencies, and then there are false alarms, car accidents, rescues and a whole bunch of miscellaneous ones, maybe even cats stuck in trees.

So a lot of calls are for medical emergencies. Isn’t that what paramedics are for?

In fact, there’s a turf war between fire and EMS services in Toronto. Last year, the president of the Toronto Paramedic Association complained that firefighters are trying to horn in on EMS territory to protect their jobs, not because they’re the right ones to respond:

“… the reality is that what patients need are more paramedics and more ambulances to appropriately facilitate appropriate response in a timely fashion,” MacBride said. “Ultimately, what they (firefighters) are trying to do is save their budget, not help patients.”

Firefighters are often first on the scene thanks in part to the network of fire stations (with 81 across Toronto compared to just 45 ambulance stations) even though they often don’t have the skill set required for medical emergencies:

A paramedic speaking on condition of anonymity says the fire service is “almost invariably” first on scene at medical calls, thanks its superior resources. He compares the fire department’s role in medical calls to that of a lifeguard: “They do first aid, they do CPR and they put oxygen on somebody. And the lifeguards get paid a hell of a lot less than firefighters do.”

An anonymous OPP source in the same article has harsher words when dealing with a highway accident:

He complains to the two strangers whose cars collided minutes ago on Highway 401 of his frustrations with Toronto Fire, who are also on scene.

He accuses the department of rushing to highway accidents unnecessarily, clogging the roads with massive fire trucks while offering little concrete assistance.

“We’re in a war with the fire department,” he says.

There’s no logic to using expensive, unneeded fire services resources other than naked self-interest: fire fighters should be the ones to respond to non-fire emergencies so they can stay busy and justify their jobs. What about EMS services? “We should look at doing away with paramedics, and having fire-based EMS,” says Ed Kennedy, president of the Toronto Professional Fire Fighters’ Association. Meanwhile, municipalities across Canada are twisting their budgets in knots to accommodate $100,000-a-year fire fighter salaries.

Will politicians actually do something about these outsized fire departments? The union has the public’s admiration and respect for firefighters on their side, and it’s not above using raw, naked fear to scare the hell out of people, either. “Seconds count,” intones the voiceover in in a Toronto Professional Firefighters Association’s TV ad, as a baby cries and a grim firefighter emerges from the smoke holding a burnt teddy bear. The ad all but shouts, “Cut Toronto Fire Services’ budget and your baby could die.” An ad that appeared on Toronto radio stations warned ominously that, “public safety will be threatened.” and asked residents to ask their councillors to support fire fighters. Scared yet? 

Something’s gotta give, but there’s no pressure from the public to make changes, and plenty of pressure from the firefighters’ union to keep the good times going, so it’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Beyond the overly generous pay, fire fighting remains a dangerous job. Just a couple of days after the cuts were made, four firefighters were injured while responding to a blaze in a Mississauga factory.

Scientists: Monkeys Can Do Math

The next time you’re out for dinner and have trouble calculating the tip, think about monkey math and worry about Planet of the Apes.

Fair Elections Act Poll: Did Respondents Understand What “Very” or “Fairly” Mean?

From the Globe and Mail:

A new Angus Reid poll finds Canadians are most likely to support the Conservatives’ proposed Fair Elections Act if they know little about the legislation.

If you’re not familiar with the Fair Elections Act, do a quick Google News search and you’ll see that reactions to the bill’s been almost universally negative, including those of the (Harper-appointed) chief electoral officer, former auditor-general Sheila Fraser and a slew of other authorities and experts. How is it that this many people can support such a roundly condemned piece of legislation? Or maybe pollsters just need to say, “Are you sure you’re very/somewhat familiar with the Fair Elections Act? Like, really sure? It’s okay if you’re not.”

Masked Warfare, Resurgent Russia and Eastern Europe

Anne Applebaum on “masked warfare”, the shadowy, elusive style of military campaign being undertaken in eastern Ukraine by Russia, and how it isn’t something new, just something we haven’t seen since the aftermath of World War II:

In 1945, Soviet secret policemen, given the task of transforming disparate Eastern European nations into communist puppet states, also began by organizing local thugs and volunteers — criminals, war-damaged sociopaths, as well as people who mistakenly believed they were fighting for a form of benign socialism — into paramilitary and secret police forces, exactly like the ones operating in eastern Ukraine.

It’s a challenge to Western governments, unsure of how to respond:

But now Europe, the U.S. and above all the Ukrainians need to learn to cope with masked warfare — the Russian term is maskirovka – which is designed to confuse not just opponents, but the opponents’ potential allies. As I’ve written, the West urgently needs to rethink its military, energy and financial strategies toward Russia. But more specific new policies will also be needed to fight the masked invasions that may follow in Moldova or, in time, the Baltic States if this one succeeds.

We in the West see the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet empire as a victory for freedom and democracy. Vladimir Putin has called it “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century.” There are significant Russia-speaking minorities in a number of ex-Soviet states, and the Kremlin would no doubt be willing to engineer crises that it could use as cover for for maskirovka.

 

Toronto Election: Chow Leads in Mayoral Race, Tory Leads in Approval Rating

Olivia Chow maintains the lead in the Toronto mayoral race according to the latest poll by the Toronto Star, with 34 per cent support to Rob Ford’s 27 per cent and John Tory’s 24 per cent.

The poll’s accurate to within four percentage point, which — if my stats 101 knowledege from long, long ago is correct — means Chow’s share could be as low as 30 per cent, while Ford and Tory could be as high as 31 and 28 per cent, respectively.

John Tory has the highest personal approval rating with 65 per cent to Chow’s 60 per cent, so they’re neck-and-neck in that category. Interestingly, only three per cent of those polled say they would never vote for John Tory, compared to 25 per cent who would never vote for Chow.

Just about half (49 per cent) say they would never vote for Rob Ford, to which I say: That’s it? I mean, sure, I’d vote for Ford over a resurrected Hitler cyborg, were such a horrible creature to run for mayor, but from what I understand such a scenario is highly implausible.

Thought experiment: Where would candidate Cyborg Hitler stand on the Downtown Relief Line versus subways in the suburbs?

Toronto Transit Madness

“Just wait,” optimists said after Toronto’s transit planning took a sharp turn into the ditch under Rob Ford. “There’s an election coming up, and then we’ll get some new ideas, new plans and new funding models that weren’t hastily written on the back of a Steak Queen napkin.”

Now here we are! It’s an election year. There are serious and respected candidates vying for the key to the mayor’s office. They can’t wait to literally get people moving, though they’ll probably want to steam clean the carpets first.

At the provincial level, all three party leaders are talking about how important transit is to the city and its future success. We can finally get passed the debacle of the last four years, when one transit plan replaced another, which replaced another, which replaced another.

So let’s take a look at the offerings. I have my biases, but don’t worry. It’s easy to be non-partisan in assessing each of the players’ positions because there’s something awful about each of them.

First, there’s Rob “Subways, Subways, Subways” Ford. The incumbent continues to fight a) the scourge of municipal gravy and b) to keep taxes low by a) wasting money on a subway in the suburbs, where light rail will continue to make more sense for decades and decades to come, and b) raising taxes to do so. Ford wants to put a subway in Scarborough, followed by a line along Finch Avenue. At some point he’ll get to work on the “Downtown Relief Line” that will, despite the name, primarily serve folks in the inner suburbs commuting into the core. Ford hasn’t said how he’ll pay for these additional lines, probably because he has no idea. Bobbleheads, maybe?

Oh, and Ford’s “Scarborough subway” is really just a three-stop extension of the existing Bloor-Danforth line, will replace the existing Scarborough RT, and won’t add to the existing capacity of the city’s transit system.

But that’s Ford, the plucky village idiot who defied the odds to become a terrible mayor. What of Ford’s grown-up challengers? The competition’s taken the transit debate to the op-ed pages of the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun to stake out their positions with bold, definitive, actionable plans to ask others for the money.

Olivia Chow takes to the Toronto Star to ask that the provincial government

spell out a finance plan for Metrolinx and the TTC, including a viable plan to finance the new relief line. Senior levels of government keep the lion’s share of taxes paid by our city (92 cents of every dollar). They have a responsibility to invest in important priorities, just as the city has a responsibility to propose the right ones.

So basically, the province should pay. No mention of new taxes or other sources of revenue from the left-leaning champion of the little guy, although Chow would like to save some cash by cancelling the Scarborough subway extension and going back to a light-rail solution. To be fair, she’s right about the taxing power of the higher levels of government.

John Tory wants to keep building the Scarborough subway, rather than revisit the above-ground/underground debate. In the pages of the Toronto Sun, Tory cites the example of former provincial Premier Bill Davis supporting the Spadina subway line back in the ’70s and says that “…. where there is a will there is a way, and we should be using all of our energy to speed up completion of a [Downtown Relief Line].” I guess this means the province should pay, too? Yep. Tory’s told the National Post that “I think it would be an abdication of responsibility for [upper levels of government] not to assist us in what is identified by their experts and ours, and by people who travel each day, as the number one project.” Again, the province (and the feds) hold the purse strings, so he’s not wrong. But just saying a can-do spirit will get us there is doesn’t do much.

The mayoral landscape’s enough to make a rush hour commuter cry on the shoulder of the person next to them. And there’s no where else to cry, people are packed in so tightly.

But good news! Like a knight in shining armour, the provincial government is riding to Toronto’s rescue. And a knight on horseback is a apt metaphor, because riding the TTC would take too long and probably involve delays due to signalling issues or something.

Premier Kathleen Wynne has announced that the province will spend $29 billion over the next decade on transit, and that just over half will be spent in the Toronto-Hamilton sprawl-opolis. Specifics are to come in the upcoming provincial budget, but it’s good to hear the Liberals are going to pony up and spend some serious coin on transit.

Wynne’s been serious about transit since becoming premier last year, and she’s sought solid, expert advice. Now that it’s time for action, the premier’s boldly taking on the challenge by looking at that advice and all but ignoring it.

There’s also a huge provincial deficit to contend with, though, so while Wynne says there won’t be an increase in the gas tax or on the middle class, it’s not clear where the money’s to come from. Maybe there’s a gas-plant-cancellation contingency fund the Liberals can use.

Not that Wynne has all that much leeway, mind you. She’s leading a minority government, which could fall if she isn’t supported come budget time by one of the opposition parties. So if the Liberal government loses the confidence of the legislature and there’s an election, we could end up with a Premier Hudak or Premier Horwath transit funding plan.

Except neither one of them has a plan. Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak would carve out transit funding from existing revenues, presumably with some form of black magic. The NDP’s Andrea Horwath won’t countenance any new taxes for transit if they “hit middle class families.” I.e., Make the rich and corporations pay. Their plans are about as well thought out as Ford’s.

Not all’s doom and gloom in the Big Smoke. The reason we’re in such a desperate state of transit affairs? Toronto’s continued economic growth. People want to move here for jobs, for the quality of life, for the culture, etc., so that’s good. Just don’t expect your commute to get any easier unless you move to, say, Singapore.

More Left-Leaning Council Means Even Less Support for Ford to Lean On

It’s no surprise that Rob Ford’s unpopular among his colleagues at Toronto City Hall. Scandals, reckless behaviour and embarrassing incidents have even alienated the mayor from former supporters and fellow-right wingers like Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong. Unless there’s a wave of Ford Nation-friendly councillors on deck, Ford’s lack of authority within city council could continue if he’s reelected — something that remains a possibility.

So it’s bad news for the mayor as the Star’s Daniel Dale observes that while a lot of left-leaning/anti-Rob Ford councillors have either registered to run again or have signalled that they plan to run, the plans of a number of right-leaning councillors are still very much in flux:

There are 44 sitting councillors. Twenty-six have already registered to run. Seven others have signalled that they plan to run.

That group of 33 includes all but one of the people who have opposed Ford over the last two years.

The other group — 11 who have said they won’t run, don’t yet know, haven’t said either way, or couldn’t be reached — includes nine right-leaning people who were aligned with Ford before 2013.

In Toronto, the mayor has just one vote on council, same as any councillor. He or she needs to be able to work with council to get things done, or at least use the mayor’s office as a bully pulpit to reach out to Torontonians directly.

And thus we can offer Ford Nation yet another reason not to vote for their hero. He’s displayed an head-smacking level of inability to reach across the partisan divide and work with those who oppose him, and there’s no reason to think he’d change his ways if reelected.

Want a right-wing mayor? Fine – with John Tory, Karen Stintz and David Soknacki in the race, there are three high profile, right-leaninig candidates to choose from who haven’t lost all credibility after a variety of scandals and embarrassing behaviour. Let’s just not put the man-child mayor back in the ring with the same group of people who stripped him of his powers in the first place.

Stephen Takes Over for Dave, No More Colbert Report? (Updated)

Stephen Colbert, reportedly the front-runner to replace the retiring David Letterman, is hugely talented and definitely deserves the job. Colleague and host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart says of Colbert,

“He’s done an amazing job with just that very narrow cast of character, but he’s got a lot more he can show,” he told Vulture. “He’s got some skill sets that are really applicable, interviewing-wise, but also he’s a really, really good actor and also an excellent improvisational comedian. He’s also got great writing skills. He’s got a lot of the different capacities. Being able to expand upon [those] would be exciting.”

There’s literally no replacing Colbert on the Colbert Report, and not only because his name’s in the title. Who else could single-handedly do such an amazing job of satirizing right-wing American media night after night? I doubt a Colbert-led Late Show would have nearly the same edge. But then again, that was the whole point of David Letterman in his younger days, wasn’t it?

UPDATE: Well that didn’t take long. Colbert’s officially taking over as host of The Late Show sometime in 2015. So enjoy The Word, ThreatDowns, and outrage resulting from a misunderstanding of wicked satire while you still can.

Crack and ‘Roids Unite in Toronto Mayoral Race

From the Globe and Mail:

“’I’m excited to have [Ben Johnson and Trailer Park Boys actor Sam Tarasco] on our campaign team,’ Mayor Ford told reporters Tuesday. ‘We’re going to do a few events, and I just want to thank these guys for their support.’”

As per usual, Doug Ford later clarified the campaign roles of disgraced former Olympian Johnson and online weed-smoking show host Tarasco by saying, “… he was taken by surprise by the announcement,” and “that although Mr. Johnson and Mr. Tarasco are supporters of the mayor’s, neither one has official roles with the campaign.”

More importantly, who’s Jim Lahey gonna endorse?