Some people seem to revel in apocalyptic scenarios.

Not me, as I’ve hopefully explained earlier.

I actually rather enjoy city life and, for the most part, my neighbourhood (and the city too). Toronto and its people can be pretty cool.

Worldpride 2014

As I stated earlier, I’m not against police or even government, per se. I’m just not happy with what they and their offspring have become.

If the government ever does something to benefit the people, that’s simply a side-effect of benefiting itself and its buddies first and foremost. Besides, they’ll get your benefits through all of their fraudulent means anyway, whether you like it or not, and they’ll publicize how they crushed you under their boot afterward (“for your benefit!”).

It’s Not All Bad

However, I’m not a “tear it all down” guy. For example, I think cities are the most environmentally sensible, as opposed to the vast wasted tracts of the suburban gated communities and sprawling strip malls (government planning). Cities take getting used to, but there are many benefits too.

And “progress”, in the old techno-oriented way, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s all in how it’s used, something that can can be said of any tool.

Government? Well, if this were a true democracy and the people had direct say into political affairs then I see no reason why government (or any other agency), can’t co-exist — as long as it’s actually selected by, and works for, the people. Same for the police, the military, etc., etc.

After all, there are some good politicians, and there are some good cops, so it’s not as if these institutions couldn’t be run effectively and in the interests of the citizens. It’s possible that no one would lose their jobs if they could justify their value to society. It’s conceivable, though doubtful, that things would stay exactly the same.

Yes, some communities might elect to have absolute government dictatorship. Others might be a bit more relaxed and vote to limit government influence. I imagine that probably there’d be a mix of the two, with a direct focus on the needs of the community (not the government).

This may also mean disparity between public works between communities (roads, water works, electricity, income, etc.), but could someone please explain how that is any different from what the government is imposing right now? I bet strong local advocacy, even direct government participation, would help to equalize the needs of all of Toronto’s disparate neighbourhoods (and way more efficiently).

Unworkable?

Give. Me. A. Break.

Electronic Voting

This is 2014!

Has anyone noticed that the internet is pretty much everywhere? And if not, it could/should be. Maybe not everywhere, yet, but in any major urban metropolis it seems doable (at least, I say, we shouldn’t let government failures dissuade us).

Online encryption-based voting systems have been well-studied over the past quarter-century, and numerous super-smart people are further exploring the field. Many of the comments against electronic voting include exactly the kinds of things a proper electronic voting system avoids (i.e. examples we’ve seen so far have been built by government, so…)

Because of the difficulty of breaking the underlying encryption, when properly deployed such a system would prevent even governments from being able to game it along with everyone else (which is a good indication of why government would never accept it).

The ownership of your decision would belong solely to you and could be verified as a valid, un-forgeable vote, along with being anonymous and inherently fraud-resistant (the “authority” would simply maintain the open-source voting software and public access points).

Perhaps a little prior testing might be nice too.

Here are some other stated goals:

1. Correctness:
   • Only authorized parties can vote, i.e. registered voters
   • No voter votes more than once
   • No voter can replace votes
   • The party in charge of tabulation cannot change the outcome
2. Verifiability: universal or private
3. User anonymity
4. Receipt-freeness

Consider how the current government system of paper-ballot voting compares:

1. Correctness: FAIL (Who verifies that the government’s count is accurate?)
2. Verifiability: FAIL (How do we verify what happens to our vote once in the box?)
3. User anonymity: FAIL (Voters must vote using real name, in person)
4. Receipt-freeness: PASS

The “receipt-freeness” part means that people don’t need to walk out with receipts to prove that they voted a certain way. This is a “PASS” for paper ballots, but overall the system gets a big “FAIL”.

While it’s true that electronic voting doesn’t necessarily prevent coercion, the current system in which government provides protection against your evil fellow man isn’t that great in preventing even itself from participating in the same problem.

The reliability concern is something that (in the “government doesn’t work for you” context), is something the state isn’t keen to deal with, and on a side-by-side basis it looks like electronic voting wins out anyways.

Also, let’s keep in mind which group has been tasked with bringing electronic voting into being: government. Would they really want to relinquish their monopoly? Seems unlikely. Would they promote its competition? Probably not. And who, exactly, is nay-saying electronic voting anyway? Yeah, the government, apparently comprised of no one who is able to read scientific literature.

Of course problems will exist, but with electronic voting the system can be verifiably fixed; with government voting we just have to trust them.

Again, the solution here really needs to be extra-systemic. It needs individuals to pool together and make it happen by slow insinuation.

And More

While government is keen to promote the negative uses of encryption (unless, of course, they’re doing it), what appears to be emerging from it is generally very positive — and it’s not all voting, privacy, and anonymity. It is, after all, a tool that can be wielded like any other.

As far as I’m concerned, evil intent regarding encryption as ascribed by government reveals more about the person (or organization) demonizing the tool rather than the tool itself.

The topics I’ve covered in this series aren’t as disparate as I might’ve implied, and individuals’ efforts are often broader than I may have hinted. And despite the negative aspects of this series, I think it’s always a good reminder that the insurmountable government systems of a not-too-long-ago yesterday are today the playthings of children, and that we can always depend on plenty of government incompetence, corruption, and old-fashioned red tape to get in the way of their own innovation.

The revolution will be hidden.

Sorry for the interruption.

Hopefully it’s at least revealing to know that even as I write these lines I’m in a precarious situation (whatever income I do have is entirely spoken for), so please don’t mistake me for some well-to-do bohemian philosopher. And I know I’m not getting that seized money back so now I have to decide which bills aren’t getting paid.

But let’s not dwell.

I’d like to explain what I was getting at earlier. Because I really do have faith in something, and that something is technology.

Oh, don’t get me wrong — I know my computer isn’t going to hug or feed me tomorrow. It’ll barely keep me warm in the winter. In the summer, it does a shitty job of keeping me cool. It never encourages me, and frankly, it barely acknowledges my presence. But it does provide access to something: digital privacy and anonymity.

Privacy

Of course government surveillance means that my expectations should be restrained, but based on everything I know about encryption, surveillance, and data collection, I believe that what governments are doing amounts to basically data warehousing — until they can figure out a way to crack some of the heavily encrypted stuff. And that’s proving very challenging.

So that’s a great place to start, for example, by learning how to encrypt your email. See if your friends can read them, just for shits and giggles. This took me a few moments to set up for the first time so I’d recommend giving yourself some time to absorb the instructions.

Don’t rush — misunderstanding is often as dangerous as sheer ignorance. The Khan Academy does a great job of explaining how you and another person can communicate privately when you’re constantly being listened in on (the ideas are initially explained using colours — no math!):

If you stuck around for the math in the second half, you may have noticed that this (the big number stuff), seems like something computers would be good at. Right? And the underlying concepts have many real-world analogues too.

One might opine that it’s almost as if God weaved these mathematical tidbits into the fabric of the universe for us to discover and use.

If you’re not really familiar with practical encryption, it’s a good idea to peruse the more general material. Take your time because encryption by itself isn’t enough. There are many ways that you can inadvertently reveal your personal information (stuff like writing your password on a sticky on your work PC), so an education in encryption is 50% technology and 50% human. Keep in mind that security is often also compromised via “rubber-hose cryptanalysis“.

So we’re also aiming for is anonymity. With everything now living in “the cloud” (a fancy term for “somebody else’s computer”), our anonymity can be ephemeral. If we can be both private and anonymous (eavesdroppers know neither what’s being said nor who’s saying it), then maybe there’s a chance that private exchanges between individuals (outside of the government’s gaze), are possible.

The privacy is done through encryption. Anonymity is provided by something like the Tor network.

Anonymity

Tor is the current crème de la crème of what is lovingly called “The Dark Net”. You know…

Yup, this stuff is out there. Big shock. I mean, don’t we know by now that when something is illegal, a black market will spring up? So law helps to stoke the fires, and government swoops in with a leaky, overpriced, corrupt bucket of water. And that such a market should exist online is equally as un-shocking. That doesn’t mean Tor is all bad — it’s all in how you use it. All it’s designed to do is to keep you anonymous.

How qualified am I to be dolling out Tor advice? Well, I wrote the library for controlling and communicating through Tor using Adobe Flash and AIR, so I’d say I’m fairly well qualified.

On this topic, I’ve written a pretty buggy and totally not-ready-for-public Tor application that you can play with (it launches whatever version of IE, Chrome, or FireFox that you may have installed in “Tor mode”): http://www.torontocitylife.com/downloads/BreakOutBox.exe

I’ll be releasing this as open-source as soon I’ve cleaned it up a bit. Feel free to write me to get your hands on it earlier, or with any of the obvious (or not so obvious) problems you encounter.

Update (July 1): I urge caution when using BreakOutBox at this point — it doesn’t correctly reset your browser’s proxy settings so you’ll probably have to reset them yourself after closing the program. I’ll try to have this fixed in the next version. Also, if you downloaded BreakOutBox before July 1st, it won’t work (I forgot to include the Tor binary!). Download and install again to fix.

Open-Source

What I’ve discussed so far is not that new. They’ve actually been around for a while, and they’ve been open-sourced for nearly as long.

That “open-source” thing is tossed around a lot, and often in totally bullshit ways.

All that “open-source” means is that the author has released the source code, the instructions they wrote to produce the software, for anyone and everyone to look at, use, adapt, and enjoy.

You have to teach yourself that particular programming language to use it, true, but you don’t have to depend on them telling you what their finished software does — you can build (and change) that software for yourself. Naturally, for any popular piece of open-source software there’s a community picking it apart to see if it breaks.

Proprietary or “closed-source” software, on the other hand, depends on you trusting the organization’s motives because they’re not about to share their “trade secrets” with you.

So it’s a choice between someone eager to share their work (in detail), and having equally eager people openly test it for stability and security — or what the corporation tells you is good for you. That’s how come open-source is so popular. It can be quirky — sometimes it takes a while to get used to a unique user interface and shortcuts — but it is, after all, made by individuals.

So what’s with open-source licenses? If you dig in, you realize that they actually turn the standard software licenses on their heads:

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without imitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

Translation: Our software MUST remain free  for you to do with as you damn well please with one exception; we will sic copyright law on you if you try to claim exclusive ownership over it or its derivatives. If you want to sell this software, even as-is, then as long as you include the copyright notice we’re cool!

Sounds a little strange, even contradictory, but what it actually means is that while you’re free to profit off of open-source work (in most cases), you agree that it is open-source and that you will not violate other’s access to the same open-source material. What you do with that material, as long as you give a little nod via the license, is up to you — just as it is for others.

Now that’s a software license I can get behind.

Such licenses are all pretty much the same, more or less, and that same philosophy applies to non-software too (that little Creative Commons tag at the bottom of this site, for example).

And this model (giving stuff away for absolutely nothing), runs directly counter to every inbred economic instinct, and yet has proven to be profitable in very standard economic ways.

So now you have privacy, anonymity, and a some discretion in software (etc.) choices.

Now it starts to get interesting.

Cryptocurrrency

Many people have problems with this concept, so don’t feel bad if you have been labouring under the same misunderstandings.

When we talk about Cryptocurrencies, we often talk about one big example: Bitcoin, but there are quite a few more out there.

The “coin” part of the name is unfortunate because there are really no coins involved, electronic or otherwise. Bitcoin is more of a massive, peer-to-peer, public ledger into which transactions between individuals can be placed and verified. The BTC (Bitcoin) unit is simply a representation of worth to the parties involved, and the Bitcoin network makes it possible for these transactions to be done securely and honestly using strong cryptographic techniques.

Sounds kind of arbitrary, but it’s really not. Let’s say I decide that 1 BTC is $1. Do you agree with that? Great — when I want to send you payment for something, and we both agree that that something is worth $20, I’d send you 20 BTC. As long as I honour the BTC’s worth, you can then use it to exchange for another $20-worth of goods or services. Think of it as an IOU (which is basically what money used to be).

That’s fine for the both of us, but what if Bob down the street wants in on the action? Well, we can agree that $1 is 1 BTC, or maybe we can re-jigger our values to make it more accurate for all of us. So Bitcoin — the unit representation of community-derived worth — is more or less what people make of it. The Bitcoin network enables them to do that, and then use that agreed-upon “currency” for exchange.

This is a bit of a simplification, but that’s the gist of it.

Ultimately, using Bitcoin isn’t much more different than using money, and there are plenty of places where you can do exactly that. The transaction isn’t unlike using a debit or credit card in many ways, but the big difference is that you own your own account (usually stored on your device). If you lose access to it or someone hacks it, tough titties; it’s very much like cash in that way.

Bitcoin is pretty easy to integrate with Tor but needs a little help to be safely anonymous. Your Bitcoin wallet address might look like random data (and it mostly is), but without Tor and some additional protections, transactions may still be traced directly back to you, and with enough such information it’s feasible that you could be discovered. You may not think that selling good old-fashioned lemonade would bring the wrath of government down on you, but yeah, it will — they’ll fuck your life over good.

So protect yourself from these criminals as best as you can.

You may have read about some large Bitcoin and Tor-related site busts which, despite the rhetoric, were done using old-fashioned detective work — the technology remains pretty solid. Just don’t forget about the human part of the security and anonymity equation.

Keeping It Real

Having the ability to purchase physical goods and services using a cryptocurrency is great, but most likely those are going to be delivered via the government-owned post office. “And why exactly do you need all these lemons, Mister Bay?”

Unfortunately, it’s not looking like I’ll be able to replicate a bushel of lemons at home any time soon, but there are many real-world, physical objects which can be transferred digitally (and privately and anonymously), and reconstructed on increasingly cheap devices like 3D printers (and they’re not just for plastic trinkets). Star Trek-style gizmos, it turns out, aren’t that far-fetched.

Now do you suppose that with these nifty new 3D printers people will just stop everything and say, “Done! No more innovation!”? I doubt it.

Of course, this technology also has questionable applications, but these come with the territory.

We shouldn’t minimize the import of such uses, but we also shouldn’t focus unduly on what amounts to a drop in an ocean. We also can’t become complacent because the state is constantly working to put us under their thumb, but at the same time we shouldn’t get too paranoid about their capabilities.

There are many good people working hard to make all of this a reality. Some of those evil hackers that the teleprompter readers warn you about are some of the same people building these systems — you’ll need to discern for yourself what their true intentions are.

And that, ultimately, is what it comes down to … freedom. Conscious freedom to choose who you talk to, who you do business with, and to do what you want to do. Of course, with freedom comes responsibility, though most of us probably know that. If only government & friends could get a hint. But forget those fools because there are even more interesting things out there…

We weren’t affected by the ice storm that swept over Toronto this past weekend. A couple of branches fell off the tree outside our building, and the sidewalks were frozen over, but unlike hundreds of thousands of people around the city we continued to have electricity throughout.

By hundreds of thousands, I mean around 300,000, or 12% of Toronto. As of today, that number is 50,000, about a 83% resumption but that’s still a sizable chunk left out in the cold and dark. That number fluctuates (and because it refers to “customers”,  i.e. billing addresses, that number is probably a lot higher), as additional repairs cause some people to lose power again shortly after they’ve finally gotten it back.

In any event, a number of 50,000 customers according to the specific Power Disruption (Electricity) Emergency Plan of the City of Toronto, is considered a “significant” power disruption emergency (according to all identifying characteristics).

A couple of people have somewhat carelessly died as a result of having to wait out the ice storm, but even being cognizant of the dangers wouldn’t have made this an ideal Christmas for anyone without power.

The fact that warming centers are currently used by about a thousand people per day (according to Robbie), would indicate that the vast majority of the remaining 50,000, or whatever the real number is, are making due otherwise. Many are staying in their homes (often those without the means to go anywhere else), but some will have moved in with relatives or are in hotels / motels. This is nearly five days after the storm, described as “catastrophic” by Toronto Hydro CEO Anthony Haines, declared “one of the worst storms in Toronto’s history” by Rob (what would classify as an emergency, I wonder … a worstest storm?), and we’ve had some snow fall since then.

Rob didn’t think it necessary to hand Norm Kelly emergency powers (or maybe it’s because he didn’t want to?), which would have allowed Kelly to ask for the province and feds for extra cash, which could have been used to hire private contractors to get the city back in order as quickly as possible. Instead, Ford has placated embattled citizens with the knowledge that some extra trucks had been asked to come in from out of the city.

Of course, despite the ongoing financial hostage-holding of the public by the Hydro monopoly under supporters’ public lines of old equipment not being able to withstand Toronto weather, among other things, for constantly increasing rates, and in addition to the outrageous sums being paid to unelected and apparently unaccountable Toronto Hydro execs, citizens are expected to shell out thousands for contractors to connect the final length of electrical lines to homes (assuming they can even find a contractor at this time) … and then await more government benevolence in the form of safety inspectors before even thinking about the welfare of themselves, their families, and their property (that kind of craziness is liable to get you in trouble with the law).

The fact that this is winter and it’s freezing outside makes this a vital matter — one of literal life and death. It’s why power companies can’t shut off your power in the winter — heat is considered vital and essential. Until everything is cleared, damage from the storm will continue to occur. Additionally, all those darkened neighbourhoods are good targets for vandals and burglars.

Tired, cold, frustrated people are getting pissed — at Ford — who maintains he can’t do more than he’s doing. But he says he understands the frustrations of everyone stuck in their homes; it’s not like he was able to take his family to a hotel or that, despite being hit equally hard,  his part of town already has its power mostly restored while others are still waiting.

According to Robbie, this is not an emergency because a “State of emergency is basically when the whole city is paralyzed, business can’t open, people can’t get out of their houses”.  Business not being able to operate, that’s an issue; people freezing in their homes, or having them vandalized / robbed / damaged, not so much (as long as they can leave).

In his path to cheapdom, Rob Ford seems to have abandoned his Scarborough constituency (subways! subways! subways!) most of all, but really all of Toronto; and it’s not like it’s his first time at bat either, and it’s not like people haven’t been warning him.

See, when I make headlines like the one above, I always get the feeling that new readers are going to immediately dismiss the accompanying posts simply because the headlines sound made-up. At the very least, they sound like hyperbole or some sort of truth-bending. The other option is that I’m just pulling the readers’ legs.

And yet, not only is the one-liner accurate, as is usually the case with the Fords, it actually doesn’t go nearly far enough.

The ethics thing comes straight from the mouth and hand of reprobascious Doug Ford who marched into a social housing project in his ward with a wad of cash and started peeling off $20 bills to hand out to residents. Such actions obviously prove, as they have since day one, that Rob and Doug are just two average guys like the rest of us — not the rich, privileged, “elite”, corrupt, greezee-haired, gold-chained mobster politicians that their “enemies” are (which basically encompasses everyone at this point). Obviously.

This obvious vote-buying isn’t a problem, apparently, since an election has not yet been called. But even if we were in an election period and something could be done (which it wouldn’t), it’s clear that there would be no consequences to the belligerent Ford reign. And, of course, it wouldn’t be Ford (either one, really), if he didn’t defend his vileness while simultaneously letting the world know what he thinks of morals and ethics:

It’s my choice [to grease palms]. He [Councillor Gord Perks] can think all the ethics he wants. It doesn’t even faze me.

The very same can be said of brother Rob who, as you may recall, is facing a libel suit for alleging that Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale is a pedophile, a claim made for no apparent reason in a now-missing Vision TV interview with fellow loquacious loser Conrad Black (Vision, part of rich media barron Moses Znaimer’s ZoomerMedia, is also being sued for the same reason). There’s absolutely no proof that I know of to back Ford’s claim — in fact, plenty to the contrary showing that Rob Ford is, as he always was, a lying, immoral, violent, crack-smoking jerkhole.

But, you know, he wouldn’t be Robbie if he didn’t stand by his bizarre off-the-cuff slander time and time again; and, of course, it wouldn’t be Doug if he didn’t defend his brother’s unconscionable bullshit the whole way.

From the stills below, you’d hardly think that Robbie was being as belligerent as he was being in his presser defense of his statements made in Conrad Black’s interview on Monday night. There’s a part in the interview in which Ford not so subtly claims that Star reporter Daniel Dale is a pedophile who was skulking around behind the Ford house roughly a year and a half ago to snap pictures of his kids in their home.

I’ve taken the liberty of adding some captions for posterity.

“…motherfucker…”

“Look, I already told you, dickweed…”

“…kiss my ass.”

“And if all y’all don’t like it…”

“…y’all can go fuck yourselves.”

“Uh.”

“Holy shit…”

“…is it getting hot in here?”

From Rob Ford’s archived 2010 election site:

Rob Ford is a lifelong resident of Toronto. The son of a former MPP, the late Doug Ford, Rob grew up with community service in his blood. Elected in 2000 as the Councilor representing Ward 2 in North Etobicoke, Rob has become one of the hardest working councilors in the city. His focus on ensuring transparency and accountability in public spending, setting an example for excellence in customer service, and his passion for making sure tax dollars are spent on the things people and families need most has marked him as a leader on council.

Prior to being elected, Rob spent 10 years building a family business into a multi-million dollar North American enterprise serving that now employs over 200 people with locations in Etobicoke, Chicago and New Jersey. Their clients include many of North America’s largest and most recognized brands.

Rob’s passion for promoting the positive development of youth and his own experience in playing high school and university-level football was the foundation for his efforts to bring football back to high schools in Toronto. He recognized that team sports, such as football, can provide a catalyst that helps engage at-risk youth, teaches teamwork and leadership skills, and provides a positive environment for teens to develop as healthy, productive citizens. In 2002, Rob founded the highly successful Eagles football program at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School in North Etobicoke where he remains as head coach of the Junior and Senior teams. To expand the benefit of this program to all youth in the city, Rob established the Rob Ford Football Foundation which has raised more than $100,000 to purchase equipment and establish football programs at high schools across Toronto.

Rob remains an active supporter of numerous community organizations and charities, including the Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal, Terry Fox Foundation, Heart and Stroke Foundation, Toronto Board of Trade and the Toronto West Rotary Club. Rob also donates each year to numerous charitable organizations and events.

Rob and his wife Renata live in north Etobicoke with their daughter Stephanie and son Douglas.

Campaign Address

245 Dixon Road
Toronto, Ontario
M9P 3T4

Phone: 416.628.8576
rob@robfordformayor.ca

Online campaign donation site: https://www.beanstream.com/scripts/payment/payment.asp?merchant_id=117580704

Some uniquely Canadian sentiments from recent anti-Ford protests at Nathan Phillips Square:

And the pièce de résistance:

So now that we’re on the cusp on RoFo’s dethronement, brother Doug has decided to tell it like it is and compare Rob to Jesus or perhaps some sort of white Obama — that’s the type of injustice being carried out here!

Hmm, I don’t remember reading about Jesus smoking crack or publicly lying over and over again, although he did hang out with prostitutes so maybe there’s a hint there?

It’s completely understandable that, with their man backed into a corner as he is, the remaining stalwarts of Ford Nation would start lashing out at their enemies which, as expected, now encompass everyone but themselves and the Fords.

I made the frankly idiotic decision to inquire about their thinking process in the dwindling “I Hate The War on Mayor Rob Ford” Facebook page with inflammatory questions like, “So you believe that 42 elected Councillors working together is the path to totalitarianism whereas one Councillor ignoring everyone else to do as he pleases is democracy?”

Well, of course that got me banned and my comments deleted, so none of the witty repartee survived, but I did manage to snag some of the high-caliber commentary that graces this and other social media pages (all public, so protecting identities is pointless):

Creative spelling, grammar, and punctuation aside, I was able to confirm that Ford Nation really does believe and accept as verbatim truth whatever their idols claim. For example, there’s the mind-bogglingly dogged “people hate Rob for his policies” rhetoric:

…mindlessly copied by dozy Fordites…

While having the threat of possible removal hanging over Councillors’ heads is something that Ford Nation pretty much demands, they simultaneously claim that this is completely anti-democratic and abhorrent (when imposed on the Fords). If you’re looking for an example of how hypocrisy is a form or irony, there you go!

Then, of course there’s the ever-present nonsense about the Fords saving the city money, or the taxpayers money, or anyone money, which I’ve gone over ad nauseum:

Then there are the fantasies about how many people actually support Ford (even more confirmation of the uncritical nature of Ford supporters), mixed with heaping portions of good old-fashioned slander:

Hey, Ford Nation, did you know that there’s this new thing called “Google” that will allow you to search for exact sentence fragments? No shit! This amazing new technology will allow you to verify the veracity of whatever it is that’s being quoted or, in this case, entirely being made up:

Ah, but why resort to facts when you can engage in otherwise heady debate?

While it’s true that I don’t exactly hold back on my criticisms of political (and other) figures, there continues to be that one dividing line between my statements and those put out by Ford Nation: supporting facts. So I suppose it’s not so surprising that despite the constant stream of on-camera lies, supporters somehow still believe that Rob is a stand-up guy:

Perhaps the most disturbing are the paranoid and delusional histrionics being employed by lead Ford Nation personalities (a term used very loosely):

In the “it would be amusing/clever/pun-ny if they weren’t actually being serious” category are the Ford apologists, such as the following I hate the War administrator who is talking about Rob’s recent cunnilingus comments:

Oh well, at least they can all agree about how disgusting this entire media circus is and how Robbie and Dougie just need to be left alone. Here’s a final example, exactly as it appeared on I Hate the War‘s Facebook page:

Classic.

Having just heard Doug Ford lashing out at the Chief of Police this morning (then discussing journalism law and ethics with a group of Ryerson students), demanding that the Chief be investigated for being in conflict of interest in making a statement about how he personally felt after seeing the crack video, I was about to let loose with a bunch of F-bombs and litany of lies-and-hypocrisy-exposing links. Seriously…conflict of interest?!

But then…

First came the news that a growing chorus on Council is finally getting in gear and making motions to effectively nullify the mayor’s and his deputy’s powers:

Second was the expected-but-still-shocking admission by Robbie: yes, he did smoke crack. Probably while heavily drunk, though surprisingly Robbie recalls both that it happened about a year ago and what the media were asking him in May of this year. The reason he didn’t answer media questions about his crack use honestly, says Ford, is not because he was lying but because they didn’t ask him the right questions. Apparently they just kept referring to alcohol.

Well, here we are. So should the cops now do as Robbie demanded a couple of days ago and arrest him? Will the Fords go down with some shred of decency, or will they go down as unabashed villains?