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OT: American Politics

Re: OT: Canadian Politics

Ross Vaughan said Ford is making the unprecedented bid to buy a 2,600-square-foot grassy parkette, with three trees and a hedge, out of security concerns.
It's a nothing plot of land that is utterly useless to the city.

To suggest that "park land" hasn't been sold to a citizen in 20 years is nonsense. I doubt there are many triangle shaped parkettes hanging around.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

It's a nothing plot of land that is utterly useless to the city.

To suggest that "park land" hasn't been sold to a citizen in 20 years is nonsense. I doubt there are many triangle shaped parkettes hanging around.

I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse and reductionist or just not very thorough, but, from the horses mouth...

“I’ve been with the authority for more than 20 years,” said Jim Dillane, the TRCA’s director of finance and business services. “I can’t remember one [case] where we’ve actually given over a piece of parkland.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/fords-bid-to-buy-parkland-to-be-reviewed/article2422974/
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

And I wonder how many comparable requests have been made for a lone piece of land sitting unattached on a corner.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

That article mentions times where land is sold due to encroachment....so what is it?

Does the director of finance not recall those times?

The TRCA, which owns more than 16,000 hectares of land in the Greater Toronto Area, has occasionally sold slivers of parkland to private citizens who’ve unwittingly encroached on TRCA property by, for example, building a swimming pool that extends a foot or two past their property lines.

Can someone clear that up for me? I must be missing something.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

nope, don't think you're missing anything. especially the part about the city having done this on occasion for other private citizens. but because the star has a hard-on for ford, it's suddenly watergate, teapot dome, adscam, and the pacific scandal all rolled into one.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

A serial over reactor, over reacting to the Star's over reaction about Ford's over reaction?

Oh, the Tri-rony.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

And I wonder how many comparable requests have been made for a lone piece of land sitting unattached on a corner.

I also think that it has more to do with the average person not being able to afford any public land in a city as large and expensive as Toronto, than any other mitigating factor.
 
Honestly, you are the most idiotic poster on this forum. You can't even have a civil discussion without using your gay little nicknames.

No one takes you seriously.

here is Korea's hoped for US foreign Policy

1) Israel does no wrong, we must support their desire to bomb Iran even if there is no evidence of a threat.

2) Attack Iran.

3) Attack North Korea

4) Tell Russia to **** itself.

5) Hate and cut off all Arab countries.
 
i guess you took your "crazy pills" this morning too, HA. you have to be a lunatic to suggest hopeychange's russia policy is a disaster if top generals are talking like that.

can you tell me how Russia talking tough is different from Israel planning to bomb Iran because of a perceived threat?
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

Semantics is allowing people to say this is a "rare" move.

The city sells chunks of land all the time - they don't sell park land often, if ever. However, this section of land isn't much of a park. It's a small triangle of nothing mostly attached to Ford's existing property than anything else.

It should be sold to him, for fair market.

Two things: 1) The property is owned by the TRCA, who rarely sell off property (and by rarely, I mean "once a decade" rarely); and 2) The property is within the TRCA regulated area, meaning that it is within the Humber River valley system, albeit the top end of the valley corridor. Add it up, and it's strange why anyone with Ford's contacts would even consider wasting their time asking about it.
 
can you tell me how Russia talking tough is different from Israel planning to bomb Iran because of a perceived threat?

please identify for me where or when:

-the american president hosted an "international conference" denying the slaughter of tens of millions of russians before and after WW2
-any american military or political leader called for the violent destruction of the entire russian race
-any american military or political leader talked about "turning the baltic sea red with the blood of the russians"
-the US spent lavish amounts of cash and diplomatic capital in the post-cold war era propping up states or organizations entirely committed to the destruction of russia

since you can't, you can take your russian rhetoric vs. israei rhetoric analogy and put it where it belongs- in the trash.
 
here is Korea's hoped for US foreign Policy

1) Israel does no wrong, we must support their desire to bomb Iran even if there is no evidence of a threat.

2) Attack Iran.

3) Attack North Korea

4) Tell Russia to **** itself.

5) Hate and cut off all Arab countries.

wrong.

here's my foreign policy:

1) israel is a proven friend, a vibrant liberal democracy, the only one in the entire region, who grieved with us and supported us 100% after 9/11, and as such, deserves our wholehearted friendship and support. if the highly, highly competent israeli intelligence and military infrastructure identifies iran as an existential threat that must be stopped, we need to support them against a nation that has for the past 30 years done everything in its power to damage our vital interests in the region

2) keep the military option on the table, but use it truly as a very last resort. attacking iran has tons of potential problems attached to it, so it should only be attempted if we can be reasonably sure of a successful mission and if we can with confidence establish that they have or almost have WMDs and the desire to use them or transfer them to someone who wants to use them

3) south korea is a proven friend, a vibrant liberal democracy, one of the only ones in the entire region, who grieved with us and supported us 100% after 9/11, and as such, deserves our wholehearted friendship and support. they have suffered direct, deadly attacks from a north korean neighbour that also is now clearly jailing and exterminating millions of its own people. north korea needs to be contained and isolated at all costs, and the days of clintonian diplomacy, giving north korea concessions and support for playing nice for a few months and then going crazy again to blackmail us for more, are over. hopefully the most rotten, psychotic regime on the planet decays and destroys itself without doing damage to any other nation in the region.

4) don't bend over for russia and give it something for absolutely nothing.

5) support any and all arab countries that want our friendship and that don't support our deadly enemies, while persistently pushing them to liberalize and become more democratic. steadfastly oppose and isolate any arab nation that supports terror, or that actively works to destroy our allies, or that actively butchers its own people
 
In response to number five, why is it that you consistently degraded the regime change in Egypt if you feel this way? That was a popular democratic movement that removed a despotic dictator and yet you were foaming at the mouth because Mubarak's ouster purportedly threatened the West's interests.
 
wrong.

here's my foreign policy:

1) israel is a proven friend, a vibrant liberal democracy, the only one in the entire region, who grieved with us and supported us 100% after 9/11, and as such, deserves our wholehearted friendship and support. if the highly, highly competent israeli intelligence and military infrastructure identifies iran as an existential threat that must be stopped, we need to support them against a nation that has for the past 30 years done everything in its power to damage our vital interests in the region

2) keep the military option on the table, but use it truly as a very last resort. attacking iran has tons of potential problems attached to it, so it should only be attempted if we can be reasonably sure of a successful mission and if we can with confidence establish that they have or almost have WMDs and the desire to use them or transfer them to someone who wants to use them

3) south korea is a proven friend, a vibrant liberal democracy, one of the only ones in the entire region, who grieved with us and supported us 100% after 9/11, and as such, deserves our wholehearted friendship and support. they have suffered direct, deadly attacks from a north korean neighbour that also is now clearly jailing and exterminating millions of its own people. north korea needs to be contained and isolated at all costs, and the days of clintonian diplomacy, giving north korea concessions and support for playing nice for a few months and then going crazy again to blackmail us for more, are over. hopefully the most rotten, psychotic regime on the planet decays and destroys itself without doing damage to any other nation in the region.

4) don't bend over for russia and give it something for absolutely nothing.

5) support any and all arab countries that want our friendship and that don't support our deadly enemies, while persistently pushing them to liberalize and become more democratic. steadfastly oppose and isolate any arab nation that supports terror, or that actively works to destroy our allies, or that actively butchers its own people

I like your use of the word "us"
 
In response to number five, why is it that you consistently degraded the regime change in Egypt if you feel this way? That was a popular democratic movement that removed a despotic dictator and yet you were foaming at the mouth because Mubarak's ouster purportedly threatened the West's interests.

an excellent question

getting my popcorn ready waiting for the answer
 
because some of us recognized very early on that this wasn't really a "democratic uprising", and that it almost certainly would strengthen the hand of the islamists and bring them closer to power in a nation that was one of our most dependable, stable allies in the region.

hosni mubarak in charge was infinitely preferable for us (and probably large segments of egypt's people too, truth be told) than having islamists in charge. do you think what's going on in egypt right now looks like "democracy"?
 
because some of us recognized very early on that this wasn't really a "democratic uprising", and that it almost certainly would strengthen the hand of the islamists and bring them closer to power in a nation that was one of our most dependable, stable allies in the region.

hosni mubarak in charge was infinitely preferable for us (and probably large segments of egypt's people too, truth be told) than having islamists in charge. do you think what's going on in egypt right now looks like "democracy"?

I think the fact that the Egyptian people have quite literally never not lived under a dictator since the time of Narmer and Menes, whom ushered in the institution of the pharaonic state in the Pre-Dynastic Period 5,200 years ago, means that they might have to go through just a wee bit of growing pains before they get the hang of governing themselves, don't you think? You're talking about one of the most politically oppressed, uninvolved constituencies on the planet who have been used as puppets for powerful despotic domestic and foreign rulers for five plus millenia. This recent home-grown democratic movement was virtually unparalleled relative to entrenched political culture out of any country in the world.

And you know what? Given what they have put up with in the past, it's going to take decades for them to institute a non-corrupt, open, and transparent system in which all people are equal participants. And that's fine. The fact that it inconveniences us should not even be taken into account. From a moral perspective it's the best thing to let them make their own mistakes and learn from them. Foreign powers getting too involved in their domestic political affairs since the time of Herbert Kitchener was the problem in the first place.
 
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