Blackberry sucks: an update
Downloaded that Blackberrry 10 update yesterday, before leaving for Ottawa. Device has not worked since. Dead as a doornail.
In case you’re wondering, did this wee post on my iPhone. There’s a moral, there.
Ottawa tonight: me and my brother Bernie, for Israel
Over 300 tickets have been sold, I’m told. See you tonight!
The girl who has been with me for 30 years
Thirty years ago, in Ottawa, a guy walked into the place where Chris and I were sitting. He handed me a Joan of Arc medal, and walked out. I’ve been wearing the medal around my neck ever since.
Joan was murdered by the English nearly 600 years ago in Rouen – for looking like a boy. Her story is here.
Why have I worn her around my neck for so many years? Because I admire strong women, that’s why.
Here she be:
Rob Ford crack video exists: source
…and the source, as it turns out, is none other than Rob Ford.
His talking point: there is no video, but I know where the video is. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, etc.
Link here. The Star:
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told senior aides not to worry about a video appearing to show him smoking crack cocaine because he knew where it was, sources told the Star.
Ford then blurted out the address of two 17th-floor units — 1701 and 1703 — at a Dixon Rd. apartment complex, to the shock of staffers at a city hall meeting almost two weeks ago, the sources said.
The mayor cited “our contacts” as the source of his information, according to insiders familiar with the unusual May 17 session in his office.
Staffers were alarmed by the implication of hearing so precise a location, sources said.
This report is based on accounts given by those privy to what was discussed the day after the Star and the U.S. website Gawker published news of the crack-cocaine video shot on a cellphone.
Ford has called news of the video “false” and said: “I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine. As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist.”
Around the table at city hall on May 17 were operations and logistics director David Price, then deputy chief of staff Earl Provost, press secretary George Christopoulos and others. Missing from the meeting was Mark Towhey, then Ford’s chief of staff. Also not in attendance was communications special assistant Isaac Ransom.
Towhey was fired last Thursday after counselling Ford to seek help for his health. Christopoulos and Ransom resigned “on principle” Monday, and Provost is now chief of staff.
Sun News: fair’s fair
If I were still an investigative reporter, this is what I’d be asking
(And, yes, I was one at the Ottawa Citizen and Calgary Herald, many moons ago.)
- If Rob Ford was indeed heading out to Dixon Road to get really f**ked up periodically…
- …and since he’d be unable to drive himself afterwards…
- …and since he’d repeatedly refused even a police plea that he use an official driver (for reasons you can now surmise)…
- …then he’d need a driver post-binge, and not one who was a Somali drug lord or a cab driver. One (a) he trusted with his life (b) one who knew the culture (c) and one who would therefore end up knowing the exact address of where the video was shot, and who shot it.
Ipso facto, my question: anyone got footage/pix of the “beat-up beige compact” or a certain Range Rover out near 320 Dixon Road, referred to in this NOW magazine story? Or, has anyone yet matched the private vehicles of Ford staffers to the address in question?
If you do, you’ve got something almost as good as the video: you’ve perhaps got evidence that Ford was indeed there, and that a member of his staff/circle drove him there.
Boom!
The place where the Rob Ford crack cocaine video was shot, and people were shot
The seventeenth floor at 320 Dixon Road, in Kingsview Village. Bullet marks can be seen on a door on that floor, above.
The Sun has more:
Toronto Police won’t talk about the video or the shooting, so it’s unclear if the two are connected.
This is what happens when Rob Ford is your mayor
Globe: “someone had killed him for the Rob Ford video”
Just out now in the Globe:
Mr. Towhey asked Mr. Price not to attempt to find the video, according to the source.
Can Rob Ford survive this, which is now officially the biggest scandal in Canadian political history?
Who knows. But Anthony Smith didn’t survive it.


