The Antisocial Socialist

It's dangerous driving again, though this time, with a shocking twist: It turns out that the Honourable Wife-Beater can actually read.

Sgt. Tim Burrows proves himself to be one of the few decent cops out there with the following snark:

On behalf of all the citizens of Toronto that value road safety, Mr. Mayor ... please get a driver. It is obvious that you are busy enough to require one and no amount of money you are saving by not having one is worth the life of one of your citizens.

The less fun cops made him change the statement to end at "please get a driver."

On behalf of all of the citizens of Toronto (particularly us vulnerable pedestrians), Toronto police, please arrest this man before he kills someone. Seriously, I might be an ex-anarchist but I strongly believe in traffic laws. Like, even in my perfectly harmonious utopia, there would still have to be some sort of law enforcement around hurtling death machines. Apparently a driver must commit three separate offences before being charged under the Highway Traffic Act (really? Because just one can get someone killed) but according to this same article, Ford has committed at least three this year.

Wait, have I already written the entry proclaiming Ford to be the worst mayor in the history of ever, even though he only recently took office? I can't remember.

Anyway, Ford is the worst major in the history of ever.

First, he pandered to his base—selfish motorists—by cutting Toronto’s $60 vehicle registration fee. Keep in mind, guys, he was elected to "stop the gravy train." He's all about fiscal responsibility. Cutting the fee cost Toronto $64 million dollars.

"Oh no!" cries Council, "From where can we make up this money?"

"Ah," proclaims Ford (no doubt kicking a puppy and eating a pancake made from a flattened cyclist), "We can just hike the TTC fare by 10 cents a ride! After all, it's been almost a year since the last time transit riders had a fare hike. And then we will cut buses going to poorer, remote areas, because screw the poor."

"This will only generate $24 million," murmurs the media, rather shyly.

"I wish I could afford a car," sob millions of transit riders.

As the sodden, filthy masses quietly fume, the mayor performs a magic trick! From out of a hat (well, out of Miller's surplus, anyway), he produces a surprise $16 million, calling off the fare hike. He won't say where it came from (fucking budgets, how do they work), despite the fact that it is kind of his job to know these things, and they just did a line-by-line review of city operations.

The bus cuts? Probably still happening. No one will raise a stink because only downtown people protest.

I'd like to think that Torontonians would not be so stupid as to fall for this bullshit, but Torontonians were stupid enough to elect the son-of-a-bitch.

ETA: Technically, the TTC came up with the stupid cuts and the hike idea, not Ford. But they wouldn't even be making cuts if the city hadn't ZOMG NEED MONIES NOW because of the vehicle registration fee. But in the service of intellectual honestly, I shall add that apparently Ford was also surprised by the hike. Though he shouldn't have been.

SUVs suck, octopuses rule, and Bush likes killing Arabs.

It's nice to know that the world never changes.

(Hat tips: rackletang for the octopuses, uberbitsch for the Camus.)