Slowing in the school zone

So, the province is going to amend the Highway Traffic act to allow for reduced speed in signed school zones.

It didn’t allow for this already?

In theory, I don’t think anyone would have an issue with this.

In practice, does anybody think this is anything except giving the city/prov (’cause prov gets a portion of ticket revenue) the opportunity to set up more speed traps? How much do you wanna bet that one of the first reduced speed zones ends up on Pembina by St. Maurice school ( private, entrance is not near pembina, no catchment area) or on St. Mary’s near Varennes ( entrance is on St. Anne’s.)

On a related note, the city is thinking of giving free parking to Veterans..

I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea, but find it puzzling for a few reasons:

When the city removed individual meters, they gave up substantial parking revenue since Winnipeggers have no idea how to park properly.

This would mean no parking revenue

And yet the city’s parking department wants to increase the time frames in which they charge for parking and the amount charged for parking.  

Oh right, those measures aren’t to increase revenue, they’re to increase turnover and parking availability.

Yeah, sure.

 

 

 

So Transit, is it Rapid?

So the new Rapid Transit system started this week. In some ways I was underwhelmed – two plus years to lay 3km of roadway? And where is the bike path that goes alongside? Sure there is one to Ft. Rouge station, but there is no reason why it could not have been extended the length of the route ( it didn’t need to be part of the tunnel, it could have crossed the tracks)

Anyway, I took it most of the week, and I’m impressed. Not so much by the additional speed – I think on most days there didn’t seem to be much of a lineup through confusion corner, but by the schedule and route changes.

Prior to RT, my bus (the 62 / 37) was the ONLY bus servicing south Winnipeg-Downtown route that did not stop anywhere in the block of Fort-Portage-Main-Graham. Instead, it was a hike to Citiplace, and actually Portage Place if I wanted a seat. Now, the bus stops in front of the Cargill building on Graham, so I’m now a block from Portage and Main – nice!

The other improvement comes form changing the timing of the buses on my route. I like the additional route 37 buses running in the am. However, the big plus is the addition of buses between 5:00 and 5:30 in the evening.Prior to RT, there was a 37 at 5:09 ( which meant leaving work early to hit that one) and then nothing till 5:30. Now there are 4 buses in that time between 5:00 and 5:30.

Improvements that could be made? Sure, add one more 37 outbound ( 5:03 is kinda tight), and fix the voice announcing the stops – I know that the street is called Jubilee, but listening to the stop, I’d swear it was pronounced ” Jew Boy”!!!

 

They Like me ! They really Like me!!

Well, not really. I don’t post anything profound or interesting enough to garner lots and lots of page views. But yesterday was my best day ever!

So I looked at the stats:

75% of the views came from Bulgaria. I’m not sure why people in Bulgaria are looking for images of “facepalm” via google images, or why they would end up here. I guess I better prepare for an influx of spam comments over the next few days?

The Moderation ( or lack thereof) of commentary

For those that follow various blogs, you’ll see differing levels of commentary and moderation of comments allowed. I personally believe that if you are posting your opinions (especially on things political) it does a disservice not to allow comments, and/or to moderate comments you don’t agree with. We learn and expand our horizons through debate and discussion. My personal rule on comments on my webpage is that as long as they are not clearly spam or totally unrelated, they will be allowed.

So why am I writing this? Well, I noticed a few months back that one blog I follow moderates comments, and has in past not posted comments I have made. Okay, their blog, they can do what they want. But on the other hand, this blogger has blogged several times on the importance of wikileaks and his support for Bradley Manning. An advocate of free speech and transparency, yet comments are moderated.

But what really made me post this was a posting from another blogger relating to comments I made on one of their blog postings. The interesting thing? I posted a response to that blog post and it wasn’t posted ( nor was a second comment on the original posting). Hmmmm…posting to attack and dish it, but can’t take posts rebutting your argument, huh?

Seems to me if you are blogging on politics or other highly charged discussion items and you allow comments on your posts you should have some moderation policies that are a little better than “rebuttal with facts not allowed”

The first thing they don’t teach you in journalism….

I thought the 1^st lesson they would teach you in journalism would be to check the reliability and credibility of your sources. It appears they don’t. I find this surprising as this always seems to be an issue whenever you see a TV drama involving a reporter.

Or perhaps when you work for the Free Press, they just tell you not to check out the credibility of your sources when you work there.

Case in point is an article by Mia Rabson from today’s free press:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/bogus-election-robocall-made-in-winnipeg-centre-140682933.html

Now before I go on, let me say that I find the allegations disturbing to say the least, but at the moment, they are just that – allegations. One thing you have to be careful about with political scandals is opponents coming out of the woodwork riding the bandwagon with fabricated stories to gain traction or try to defeat a gov’t in power.

I’ve already taken Dan Lett to task for not spending 5 minutes looking into the credibility of a story or a witness. Looks like it is Mia Rabson’s turn.

To summarize the article above, a complainant, one Mr. Gerald McIvor, a resident of Pat Martin’s Winnipeg Center riding,  is alleging that he received a call on election day indicating that his polling station had moved.

Now, I don’t know about any of you, I might be getting a little old, but the chances of me remembering a specific automated call from 9 months ago are slim to none. But hey ,that may just be me.

These seem like some pretty serious allegations, and it’s not like they have written copy or an answering machine tape; So I would think that a writer would look into the credibility of the person making the allegations. So I thought I would take a look. Here’s what 5 minutes got me:

From Mr. McIvor’s twitter feed:

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his regime are nothing but COUNTERFEIT CONSERVATIVES. They are really an OIL CARTEL POSING AS GOVERNMENT!!”

“Harper + his caucus are all incompentent. They r too stupid to realize they r stupid…they show why we need recall laws..”

“THE HARPER REGIME REMIND ME OF PRIESTS IN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS. THEY BLAME THE VICTIM BY USING “COGNITIVE DISTORTION” LIKE SEX ABUSERS DO!!”

“THE HARPER CONSERVATIVES ARE A BIG INTERNATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT.THE BLAME THE VICTIM TACTIC IS COGNITIVE DISTORTION. THE CONS ARE NOT HUMAN!! « 

Hmmm…..seems like some pretty strong opinions there.

Now let’s take a look at his facebook:

‘TOUGH ON CRIME SHOULD BE IMPOSED ON THESE CONSERVATIVE CROOKS….STEPHEN HARPER AND HIS DISCIPLES HAVE HIT AN ALL TIME LOW BY TAMPERING WITH OUR FEDERAL ELECTIONS…..’

‘The plot thickens..Conservatives are trying to do damage control by having Fat Con MP dean Del Maestro say he was also victimized……a tory is a tory is a tory..the only good tory is a suppository and we all know where those go….’

‘GO BOB GO….GET RID OF THOSE SCUMMY CONSERVATIVES…..’

Now what I find interesting is that these opinions were posted prior to the news piece, yet no mention on either his twitter or facebook that he had been robocalled.

Is it possible that Mr McIvor received the call he claimed? Sure, it’s possible. Given the above, and no written or recorded evidence, I think credibility could be an issue though.

And as for Mia Rabson? There is no way this should be the only subject in the story. Use him as backup to support a more credible complainant, but to have him as the only subject of the story?

Just shows that either Mia didn’t so her job, or ignored the obvious red flags about credibility. We should expect more from our media, but should we really be surprised coming from the Freep?

Nope.

Because perception = reality

We hear over and over again how dangerous Winnipeg’s downtown is. How crime ridden it is and that you shouldn’t  venture there at night. But is it?

In the end it really is only  personal experience that matters – so let me tell you my personal experience.

Winnipeg’s downtown is ugly. There are far too many smokers and cigarette butts everywhere. Panhandlers are everywhere, and most of them have been drinking. And yes, most come from a specific ethnic background. And let’s not forget that most of the bus shelters smell like piss.

But dangerous? I’m middle age, and I have only ever been the victim of crime twice. Both were crimes against property (vehicle break ins), and neither happened downtown (one was in Edmonton). Oh, and I have lived here all my life.

So dangerous? Not for me. But it’s ugly, and unfortunately that leads to a perception of danger and crime. Clean it up and that perception should disappear as well.

Resolutions? No, but a word.

I’m a little late for the resolution thing. But that’s okay seeing as how resolutions always get broken anyway. I mean I could do the standard resolution thing “Go to the Gym more”, “Spend Less”, blah, blah, blah…

But this year I’m thinking something a little more all-encompassing; something that transcends one or two resolutions. Perhaps a word to describe how I should, nay intend to live my life this year.

That word is Productive.

As in being more productive in every sense of the word.

Financially – well, making more money is always more productive, but I am going to consider myself more financially productive if I make better choices with respect to money. Notice I didn’t say spend less, because it’s not about efficiencies (although that’s definitely a part of it), but more about spending wiser.

Physically – I’m probably one of the fittest people I know my age. However, I still think I skip too many lunch hour workouts and too many training sessions for my sport. I have an out of province tournament coming up at the end of March, so in order to be productive, I better be training as much as I can.

Professionally – This doesn’t mean working like a madman. It means setting realistic goals and walking out of work each day knowing that I’ve accomplished at least as much as I wanted to accomplish that day if not more.

Spiritually – Well, I guess any improvement there would be more productive than last year  ;)

Overall – spending time doing stuff that matters. If not now, then it will matter in the future. Of course I’m not going to forget to relax and take time. But the 4hr COD sessions? Don’t think we’ll be seeing any more of those for a while.

We’ll see how it goes. I’ll update infrequently to report how productive I have been.

Development on Portage Ave / Randoms

 

( Credit Winnipeg Downtown places for the Picture)

As I was walking to work this morning I noticed a sign on Peace Hills Trust indicating that they will be moving to Grant Park Festival. For those that don’t know, Grant park Festival is the mall located at Taylor and Nathanial ( Dollarama / Sobey’s / Boston Pizza). What makes this interesting is the notice on the empty space next door (240 Portage ave – the space with the DTZ sign on it). That notice is an application to turn the property into muti resident facility ( Condos?), I guess that might have something to do with the new coat of bright white interior paint in the hallways at the other end of the building.

Along with the Avenue Building condos, looks like a lot of residents will be springing up within a couple of blocks of Portage and Main if this goes through. Which brings up a topic that quite often rears its head. What does the downtown do for groceries ( and gasoline for that matter)? Now add the Fairmont into the mix. That’s a significant amount of permanent / transient residential. We had business contacts staying in the Fairmont for three weeks in the fall, and the question I couldn’t ask was where do you go at 9pm in the areas for munchies ( convenience store) or food (grocery store). So I think there going to be a lot more pressure int he near future for a small grocery / convenience store within walking distance of Portage and Main.

================================================================

A few random thoughts:

• The Winnipeg Sun is bitching about a $200 grant for carolers at the remand center.

Really? That’s just a very slow news day or Brodbeck has identified every other “innappropriate” of city dollars over $200

• To continue the bitching, they are also pissed about Ross Eadie donating $3000 of his travel budget for bus tickets. Now I’m not a big Ross Eadie fan, but a) it’s his budget, and b)it goes to transportation. Of note is the fact that Eadie takes the bus to City Hall (and I think he is the only one), not taxis like Harvey Smith or cars like the majority of councillors. Now, this does need to be approved by council – and I hope they approve it. If I was Eadie and they didn’t? I’d start taking cabs – that’s a lot more expensive than his bus passes and the donations ( and well within his perogative as to how to spend his budget) How do you like them apples, Colin Craig?

 

• I can think of few more appropriate responses to the above than the video below:

 

• Why are the lights at Pembina beside Pembina Chrysler operational? Those went in as part of Rapid Transit. That doesn’t go online till April, and in the meantime, it just causes much congestion

• With headlines like these, it’s no wonder people look at Winnipeg as Canada’s Detroit.  Shot in the eye, but that can of Minhas Creek, was just too appealing. Sheesh!

• Here’s a question for the ladies – when you go to the gym, do you spread your gym bag and stuff all over the benches so nobody can sit, or is this just a guy thing? On that I used to belong to a small downtown gym. Quite often there was nobody in it. One day, I’m the only one in the locker room, I’m using the sink, my locker is open and I have a chair in front of it. A guy comes in, and does he take one of the six stacked chairs beside the lockers? Nope – grabs the one in front of my locker. WTF?

• City of Winnipeg – fix the 62 and 37 bus routes. These are the only routes that go to south Winnipeg that don’t stop within a block of Portage and Main – why?

• A post in a winnipeg based forum that hit’s the nail on the head with respect to the Winnipeg Free Press:

“My journalist friend put it perfectly: The Winnipeg Sun is not a real newspaper but unlike the Winnipeg Free Press it does not pretend to be a real newspaper.

The sad part is that it is getting worse.”

• That’s it for now.

The demise of journalism in this city

We’ve all laughed at the Sun for years now. It’s tabloid format, the sunshine girls, the overt right wing slant. Thank god we still have the Winnipeg Free Press,. and its journalistic integrity.

Except we don’t.

For years they had the hyper partisan columnists writing op-ed pieces, columnists like Frances Russell and Gordon Sinclair Jr. But now we no longer know the boundary between reporter/columnist/blogger. Dan Lett and Bartley Kives are apparently reporters and yet the post blogs and columns that show under the opinion header. What they have accomplished by this is made it clear that you can be one or the other, but never both. If you post ( especially on political issues) as a blogger or a columnist and those posts reflect your opinions and political leanings, it is impossible for you to be objective when you report the news or more accurately CHOSE what to report or DECIDE what spin to put on the news. Case in point is this recent ‘opinion’  blog by Dan Lett in which he intends to lay any responsibility for the cost overruns at the CMHR not at the feet of Gail Asper, the bord of the CMHR, the friends of the CMHR, but at the prime minister:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/no-one-could-see-this-coming-136218833.html

Nice try Dan, but most can see through this. If you want to throw mud at politicians involved in this, how about the city forgiving the tax arrears and penalties of the CMHR? Or how about the province, who decided that instead of funding the CMHR from the taxes of Manitobans would direct MPI, Hydro and MLCC to fund it?

And speaking of throwing mud at politicians, I remember at least 3 columns from you and Bartley chiding the Mayor for not appearing at the Remembrance Day ceremony this year. Strange, I have yet to hear a peep from you regarding the fact the our premier left our ‘acting’ finance minister to answer questions regarding the health care funding announcement from Ottawa, and to answer questions regarding additional flood expenses that will raise the deficit to almost $1 Billion. Is it because Sam Katz is a ‘Conservative’ and not NDP. If you are going to (laughably) call yourself reporters, at least try to act like one.

I was under the impression that part of the mandate of the media was to hold the government to account. The Freep loves this role when it’s a conservative government that is being held to account, but to nobody’s surprise they are dead silent when it comes to questioning the lies the provincial NDP feed out on items like BiPole, and their election attack ads.Perhaps Bob Silver should change the Free Press color from blue to orange. At least there would be no confusion that way.

But it’s not just newspapers, look at the TV reporting as well. Ideally, you should see the identical top 5 stories on CBC, CTV and Global. But how often does that really happen? CBC no longer describes the appearance of individuals involved in crime reports since they were using the term aboriginal too much. And they skip important information in favour of fluff pieces or pieces that are little more than a 30sec infomercial for the person featured in the story.

One would hope that in this age of faster and more immediate information, it would be easy to find fact unbiased information. Just the facts. But it seems like the opposite, it still takes the same amount of time to get correct information as it did 20 yrs ago, but now we have to weed through multiple sources in order to develop a picture that may be semi accurate. We have to dig into sources that some consider overly partisan or fringe just to find FACTS that aren’t being reported in the mainstream media.

I’d love to have a single information source that I can go to for unbiased FACTS in this city. However it looks like that won’t show up anytime soon.

 

Someone get the soap for Pat Martin’s mouth…..

Some selected tweets from the Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Center:

PatMartinMP Pat Martin MP

“@amyminsky Ha! I know. But this may be worst movie ever… Rene Z and Harry Conick Jr. My f’ing oath. Makes ‘Zombies’ look like high art.”

PatMartinMP Pat Martin MP

 ”This is a fucking disgrace…closure again. And on the Budget! There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot shit”

PatMartinMP Pat Martin MP

“@LettingSmokeOut fuck you #ndp #cdnpoli“

And bloggers chiming in:

http://bcblue.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/potty-mouth-ndp-pat-martin/

Not to forget the newspapers:

http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3372190

I’ve said in the past that the man is an embarrassment. He’s proving my point.

I guess he was never told there is a time and place for everything?