From Cork to Toronto

Toronto's assumption of a land transfer tax places the city's financing doubly dependent on the peaks and valleys of the property market. The take looks attractive given the strength of a booming market in the City at present. It looked attractive in Cape Coral, Florida too : (The Mayor) was keen to build a new high school. He hoped to widen roads and extend the reach of the sewage system, limiting pollution from leaky septic tanks. He wanted to add parks. But then the US property crash happened, and property revenues crashed with it. What's it like in Cape Coral now? Last month, the city eliminated 18 building inspector jobs and 20 other positions within its Department of Community Development. They were no longer needed because construction has all but ceased. The city recently hired a landscaping company to cut overgrown lawns surrounding hundreds of abandoned homes. “People are underwater on their houses, and they have just left,” Mr. Feichthaler says. “That road wid...

From the Daily Times in Lahore, Pakistan, Farrukh Saleem addresses the murder of Aqsa Parvez in Mississauga, Ontario by her father. Here's an excerpt from a stunningly direct analysis: Honour killing is our export to Canada. Women who do not wear hijab are not virtuous. Hijab is a Muslim woman’s identity. Hijab is religion. Hijab is the sixth pillar. Hijab symbolises sexual modesty. The West is conspiring to crush Islamic identity. Fact or fiction? Here’s a fact: Aqsa has been murdered. For us, denial is not an option. According to the United Nations Population Fund more than 5,000 women worldwide fall victim to honour killing. Denial is not an option. According to the UN’s Special Rapporteur “honour killings had been reported in Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey and Yemen”. Egypt is 90 percent Muslim, Iran 98 percent, Jordan 92 percent, Lebanon 60 percent, Morocco 99 percent, Pakistan 97 percent, the Syrian ...

When the OHIP "Premium" was introduced with a name designed to spin the impact of an extra tax, many people noted that unions with collective agreements retaining a provision to pay the old OHIP Premium would make claims. The Liberals said "we don't think that will happen" but declined to outlaw the possibility. Now TTC (among others) is paying the OHIP Tax on behalf of their unionised staff, at a cost of $6 million annually to the Commission (that's over two million TTC tokens, Dalton). Before the last election, the Liberals promised an extra holiday - Family Day - in February, which will cost Toronto taxpayers $2.3 million but some private sector workers are finding out that they will lose a non-statutory holiday in August in return . Typically, the Labour Minister's response is a shrug - "no big deal". "I think it's a terrific initiative and 83 per cent of Ontarians agree it's something this province should be doing," ...

The Red Hot Chili Peppers recently launched a lawsuit against Showtime's show " Californication " claiming that they had lifted the title, a character name and some dialogue. The Register notes some possible icebergs on the horizon : Showtime Networks is expected to argue that the band did not coin the word, a portmanteau of California and fornication. It first appeared in print in Time Magazine in 1972, in an article called The Great Wild Californicated West. Time reporter Sandra Burton wrote: "Legislators, scientists and citizens are now openly concerned about the threat of 'Californication' - the haphazard, mindless development that has already gobbled up most of Southern California." Kim Walker, head of intellectual property at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said the band should have registered Californication as a trademark. Instead, the only trademark application was filed in April in the US, by Showtime Networks. The mark has no...

I am grateful to Bob Tarantino for directing me to John Lorinc's feature, " Deadly Lesson " in this month's Toronto Life. It points out the central problem with some Toronto schools - that political considerations have led to some of Toronto's schools being largely uncontrolled and that students with serious behavioural problems are being left in those environments with foreseeable consequences to their peers. Shuffling problems from place to place didn't work for paedophile priests and it doesn't work for disturbed and criminal teenagers either. To be in control of a school you must know who is on the premises and be able to quickly eject interlopers. It's not enough to have conduct standards - they have to be taken seriously, enforced and action taken when they are breached. I can't help but think that the "progressive educators" who refuse to admit that leadership and security are the cornerstones of winning back our troubled camp...

The New York Times have an article on " How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads " by Daniel Cassidy regarding how many American slang words appear to originate either phonetically or via translation from Irish. (Hat-tip Slugger ) The word “gimmick” seemed to come from “camag,” meaning trick or deceit, or a hook or crooked stick. Could “scam” have derived from the expression “’S cam é,” meaning a trick or a deception? Similarly, “slum” seemed similar to an expression meaning “It is poverty.” “Dork” resembled “dorc,” which Mr. Cassidy’s dictionary called “a small lumpish person.” As for “twerp,” the Irish word for dwarf is “duirb.” I think a few of those listed in the NYT are a stretch but still aren't as bad as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where Gus explains the Greek roots of the word "kimono".

Found this from Paul Wells' blog . While I fully subscribe to the failings generally inherent in a hereditary monarchy, there is no question that the King of Spain has brought his country successfully through a potentially disastrous post-Franco transition to democracy, and that he would know a fascist if he saw one. The advantage of not having to worry about election cycles means you can face down bullies in a human rather than calculated, nuanced, triangulated way. Here he is in Santiago, Chile, telling the ludicrous, anti-democratic, puffed up on his sulphur laden petroleum leader of Venezuela to "just shut up" . Chavez, having accused the recent prime minister of Spain, Aznar, being a "fascist", continued to rant with his microphone off as Prime Minister Zapatero reminded him that he was in a democratic forum and that some respect wouldn't go amiss. ¿Por qué no te callas? Sadly the following day Nicaragua's Ortega gave some of his time to back up C...