Quotulatiousness

September 1, 2009

Cyclist dies in horrific accident with former Ontario Attorney General

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:02

The Toronto Star reports on a gruesome death for a cyclist in downtown Toronto last night:

The crash occurred on Bloor St. near Bay St. around 9:45 p.m. when witnesses said a male cyclist in his 20s collided with a black Saab.

Witnesses said the cyclist hung onto the driver’s side of the car, which had its convertible top down, while the driver allegedly yelled at him to get off.

The vehicle then veered onto the eastbound lanes and mounted the curb, brushing against trees and poles, witnesses said.

“He was driving on the wrong side of the street and up on the curb trying to knock him off the car for about 100 metres,” said Ryan Brazeau, a worker with a crew laying sewer pipes on Bloor.

“Lots of people were watching and they couldn’t believe what was happening.”

As the car approached Avenue Rd., the cyclist fell off and he and his bike were dragged before being run over by the rear wheels, witnesses said.

The Toronto cyclist was taken to St. Michael’s Hospital with severe head injuries and died around midnight, police said.

I expect to hear a lot about this over the next few days. Either that or it’ll be quickly shoved down the memory hole . . .

Update: The Canadian Press report is careful to avoid directly stating that it was Michael Bryant at the wheel:

Toronto police Sgt. Tim Burrows said charges are expected to be laid, but the identity of the person in custody will not be released until then.

“We are anticipating that charges will be laid against him this morning, but at this point, the police are not willing to confirm the male’s identity as he has not yet been formally charged with anything.”

August 28, 2009

Chilling the news, Toronto style

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Law — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:45

Matt Gurney risks being sued by taking a stand against Toronto city government’s latest brain fart:

Setting aside the oddity of Toronto’s politicians suing their cheerleaders at the Star, there are serious issues at play here. Despite having recently voted down a proposal that would have let city councillors sue citizens on the taxpayers’ dime, it is still permissible for the city to fund lawsuits approved by various officials at city hall. What could be more chilling to free speech than a thin-skinned politician or bureaucrat with a taxpayer-financed legal team? Remember, folks — even asking reasonable, fair, and completely valid questions might bankrupt you, if you can’t afford to pay for your defence.

Beyond that issue is a more philosophical one. When does criticism of a government program become an attack on those running it? Depending on how broad an interpretation the courts choose to settle upon, opinion journalism and political reporting in this country could grind to a halt. Is a criticism of Ottawa’s handling of the isotope shortage an attack on the bureaucrats involved? Imagine a reporter discovering that a department was blowing millions or billions of dollars on a program with almost no practical benefit (Think long-gun registry). Would that reporter dare report it, and risk a ruinous lawsuit filed by the people running the program? Where does political commentary end and defamation begin? I don’t know, but the Toronto city government seems determined to find out.

These worrisome legal and philosophical issues might pale in comparison to the sheer logistics of such a regime. If the Toronto government, or any other, can go after anyone who criticizes it, how long until there is an entire cadre of bureaucrats whose job it is to seek out and bankrupt critics? It might sound paranoid, but remember this is government we’re talking about.

H/T to Elizabeth for the link.

August 23, 2009

Toronto’s recent brush with tornado weather

Filed under: Cancon, Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 17:29

I was deep in downtown Toronto when the storm started to move in, and listening to the professional pants-wetters at 680PanicNews was initially disturbing, but eventually hilarious. Not to minimize the genuine damage caused in Vaughan and the town of Durham. This is how I summarized the weather-related experience in an email to Jon:

I barely made it home before the storm hit . . . it chased me all the way, with the ProfessionalPantsWetters at 680Panic Radio getting more and more excited as the time went on.

I got out of the truck, picked up my laptop, walked to the door, and less than a minute later the storm hit. The power went out about five minutes after that (and didn’t come back on until about 3:30 in the morning).

No obvious damage around the house, thank goodness, although the gazebo tried to go walkies around the yard. It wrapped itself around the patio set, which will take several pairs of hands to disentangle and find out if it’s still usable.

From a follow-up email, specifically about the radio coverage:

At first, they didn’t seem too bad. I turned on the radio just as traffic came to a stop on the DVP just south of the Bloor Viaduct. By the time I got as far as Lawrence, the woman reporter who got all verklempt over the TORNADO ON JARVIS!!!!! wasn’t able to draw a breath without sounding like she was panting or gasping. I was starting to laugh at them by that point.

The meteorpanickologist who started to repeat (several times) that everyone should get into the basement — or lower — or into a closet (aren’t most people’s closets on the upper floor if they’re in a house?) or cower in a bathtub (aren’t they usually upstairs too?) . . .

I also found amusement in the repeated definition of the terms “tornado watch” and “tornado warning”, where almost every time, the description of “tornado warning” was to “_watch_ out for imminent tornado formation”. They just don’t listen to themselves, do they?

I thought it quite telling that one of the better reports was from their entertainment editor, who reported from her car on the way up Victoria Park Avenue. She, at least, sounded calm and reported only what she could see for herself.

Chris Taylor brings some actual data to the discussion of tornado frequency and writes “It can be tempting for Torontonians — who generally think of themselves as an island of tranquillity free of severe weather — to overreact a little.”

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