Why didn’t Toronto Police take this tip seriously? How could the video be online for days, and the authorities didn’t know, or care? How can web sites like “Best Gore” post such material with impunity, and without legal consequences?

Lots of questions. But one fact remains unchallenged: the Internet is where evil is preserved, and celebrated.

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As both a Catholic and an Ontario Liberal, I disagree with just about everything Adam has to say, here.  But I like the fact that he says with passion and, dare I say it, anger.

He should do so more often.

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Quote unquote:

“Questions are swirling as to why ORNGE officials sought to place a helicopter base at the Oshawa airport and if Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made an attempt to influence the decision.

…In June 2011, ORNGE was simply the air ambulance service for Ontario and not an issue of controversy, said Chisholm Pothier, Flaherty’s director of communications.

“Minister Flaherty — and other community leaders — were encouraging ORNGE to locate a hangar at the Oshawa airport, which is in the minister’s riding,” he said in an email to the Star…

Progressive Conservative MPP Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa), who is married to Flaherty, said she [asked an Ornge employee] what the status was of the helicopter base and she did nothing wrong. “It was a conversation we had at a social event. I was just inquiring on the status,” she said.

Elliott also sent a letter to Health Minister Deb Matthews on May 16, 2011, to “encourage” the ministry to bring a “crucial” emergency service to Durham Region.“

What’s it mean? It means, once again, that Cons were in this thing up to their necks.  They cooked up the idea of Ornge, they managed it, and they profited from it.  Ontario Liberals, meanwhile, were the one who called in the cops, called in the forensic auditors, and then flushed the Conservative-friendly executives who ran the whole stinking mess.

At this point, I sort of hope the Cons get their wish, and get the Legislative Ornge committee to continue hearing witnesses.  Every week brings new information that ties Ornge directly back to them, or the odd Tory witness that provides comedic relief.

Oh, and there’s much more to come about Con-Ornge links (and the NDP, too).  Guaranteed.

Full disclosure section: And, yes, that is my friend named in the story.  Given the fact that I’m now regularly reprising my Gomery Pyle-era role, do you think that should give the Cons pause?  That, you know, we’re not acting like people who are nervous?

Don’t worry, they’re too stupid to stop doing what they’re doing.  They’ll keep at it.

 

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So much for my concern that she needed to focus on herself, and not the band.  She obviously disagrees.

Guts like this you rarely see.  Amazing.

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You don’t see this gem too often in any of Frank Klees’ pious pressers: Ornge effectively started in at least 2000 (or sooner).

You know, when the Cons were the government.

[Ornge CEO and founder Chris] Mazza said the use of air ambulances really took off in 2000 after the provincial Ministry of Health became convinced air ambulances were effective.

“We convinced the ministry it was in the patients’ best interest around the province,” he said.

The St. Catharines Standard, January 20, 2003

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…by someone who knows whereof he speaks. Like he says: too little, too late.

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Promise to stop taking billions in taxpayer dollars. If you dislike what the government’s doing, stop taking government money, okay?

You’re welcome.

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The youth of Quebec doth protest too much, some say.

The protests have been going on in the streets of la belle province for more than 100 days. Thinkers and pundits have attempted to glean their significance, if any. Media from around the world have covered the demonstrations, which started out being about tuition and have now somehow morphed into something else.

Most of the older, conservative commentators don’t like what’s going on. It makes them grumpy. Columnist Andrew Coyne offered that the Quebecois students were interested in no less than “crippling democracy.” Said he: “(It’s) a crisis of democratic government, the most serious in a generation.” Over at the Globe and Mail, Jeffrey Simpson dismissed all of the students’ concerns as “completely bogus.”

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Quote:

Reeling from a drop in advertising revenue, Postmedia Network Inc. will axe dozens of newsroom jobs across the country and stop the publication of Sunday papers in several of its largest markets.

It’s the second time this month the company has announced layoffs, after cutting 25 out of 58 jobs in its Postmedia News division. It made the decision to close the wire service and go with Canadian Press content for “commodity news” that can be produced by a wire service instead of staff reporters.

The company told employees Monday afternoon that Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton would lose their Sunday papers and that the National Post would stop printing on Mondays through the summer for the fourth year in a row. The chain will also stop publishing on holidays such as Victoria Day and Canada Day.

I was at the Herald when they commenced publishing the Sunday magazine – they gave me my first break as a freelancer, in fact – and at the Citizen when the Sunday edition started up. So I find this all very sad.

You don’t have to be an economist to know where this is all headed: the end of broadsheets. It all seems like this inexorable downward spiral, which started when media organization themselves started to give away content online, and in commuter tabloids and so on. If you act like your stuff doesn’t have any value, nobody else will think it does, either.

They’re now fighting a rearguard action, and it’s too late. They can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

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