#Mayor Chow

[lighthousedann]

Who Gets The 40 Million?

The Department of Public Works are paid full-time employees. Removing the paint and whatever else is involved in removing the bike lanes is conducted by government employees.  I do not understand where these politicians are getting these figures from.

[hotgirlmeg]

this entire province is such a joke

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The latest public opinion poll in Toronto's mayoral race has Anthony Furey gaining ground, with the longtime conservative newspaper columnist even edging out several high-profile rivals.

A Forum Research poll released Monday shows Olivia Chow expanding her lead among decided voters, with 38 per cent saying she's their top choice compared to 13 per cent for her closest rival, ex-police chief Mark Saunders. One point behind Saunders is city councillor Josh Matlow at 12 per cent. 

It also puts Furey's support among decided voters at 10 per cent, up a percentage point from the week before and ahead of former city councillor Ana Bailão (eight per cent), former Liberal MPP Mitzie Hunter (seven per cent) and sitting councillor Brad Bradford (five per cent).

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

In good political news today, Toronto elected Olivia Chow as mayor and I'm super stoked to have her back in City Hall.

From this CBC Article:

Olivia Chow was elected Toronto's next mayor in an unexpectedly close race Monday, promising to bring a more progressive approach after more than a decade of conservative leadership at city hall. The former downtown Toronto NDP MP and city councillor bested a record field of 102 candidates that included about a half dozen established contenders. Among those rivals was second-place finisher Ana Bailão — a past deputy to former mayor John Tory, whose shock resignation in February triggered the byelection. Chow, who was born in Hong Kong and came to Toronto at age 13, will become the third woman and first racialized person to serve as mayor in the city's history. She steps into the top spot as it grapples with a massive budget shortfall, an affordability crisis and public safety concerns. "If you ever doubted what's possible together, if you ever questioned your faith in a better future and what we can do with each other, for each other, tonight is your answer," Chow said in her speech to a crowd of cheering supporters. "Thank you to the people of Toronto for the trust you've placed in me and the mandate for change as your new mayor." [...] Among her headline commitments is a pledge to get the city back into social housing development and an annual $100 million investment in a program to purchase affordable homes and transfer them to non-profits and land trusts. [...]

Chow campaigned from the left, promising to boost rent supplements by introducing a "luxury home tax," an expanded land transfer tax on homes sold for $3 million and over. She also said she'll triple the city's existing vacant homes tax to three per cent. Chow will inherit largely untested strong mayor powers, however she has repeatedly said she wouldn't use them to override "majority rule" in council. In theory they would allow Chow to pass budgets with just one-third council support, veto bylaws and unilaterally shape the city's top-level administration. She did not release a fully-costed platform, and repeatedly declined to say by how much she would need to raise property taxes to pay for her suite of commitments — a focal point of criticism from her main rivals throughout the campaign.

The last week of the campaign saw Ontario Premier Doug Ford all but formally endorsed Saunders, warning at an unrelated news conference that a Chow mayoralty would be an "unmitigated disaster" and that she would raise taxes at an "unprecedented rate." Saunders finished third with 8.4 per cent of the total vote share.   Ford's pointed attack raises questions about Chow's relationship with Queen's Park as the city faces a $1.5-billion budget hole that will almost certainly require provincial help to fill. In a statement Monday night, Ford struck a conciliatory tone, saying he will "work with anyone ready to work with our government to better our city and province.  "Throughout Olivia's life, she has proven her desire and dedication to serving the city that many of us call home. While we're not always going to agree on everything, what we can agree on is our shared commitment to making Toronto a place where businesses, families, and workers can thrive."

Chow has long been a fixture of Toronto politics. She became a school board trustee in 1985, served 12 years on city council representing Trinity-Spadina and eventually became a New Democrat parliamentarian alongside her late husband and former federal NDP leader Jack Layton. Some of her notable policy stances include supporting an anti-homophobia curriculum in the 1980s, helping bring nutrition programs to Toronto schools in the 1990s and fighting against exploitative immigration consultants in the 2000s. For much of the last decade, she has run the Institute for Change Leaders at Toronto Metropolitan University where she trained community organizers.

The city being in basic bankruptcy position that will require provincial bail-out support is going to be contentious because Doug Ford is a nasty piece of work and vindictive as fuck - especially against Toronto Mayors - so we will see what she'll be able to get out of him (if anything). The Federal level will be able to help some, but it's really a municipal-provincial issue.

[elliscraddock]

Here's my #8thRocksShuffle #8thRocks dance video w/#CanadianJazz song called A Moment by #CaityGyorgy.

(w/heavy rain sound effects/high tone version). I don't own this song but enjoy. This tap dance video is pay tribute to the #MayorofToronto, #OliviaChow #MayorOliviaChow #鄒至蕙. #Toronto #Canada #Canadian 🇨🇦🍁🇨🇦

[studentprotests]

Olivia Chow paints a bright future on election night..

After a tumultuous year in municipal politics, the people of Toronto have chosen progressive change.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Lies, damned lies, and Uber

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in PHOENIX (Changing Hands, Feb 29) then Tucson (Mar 10-11), San Francisco (Mar 13), and more!

Uber lies about everything, especially money. Oh, and labour. Especially labour. And geometry. Especially geometry! But especially especially money. They constantly lie about money.

Uber are virtuosos of mendacity, but in Toronto, the company has attained a heretofore unseen hat-trick: they told a single lie that is dramatically, materially untruthful about money, labour and geometry! It's an achievement for the ages.

Here's how they did it.

For several decades, Toronto has been clobbered by the misrule of a series of far-right, clownish mayors. This was the result of former Ontario Premier Mike Harris's great gerrymander of 1998, when the city of Toronto was amalgamated with its car-dependent suburbs. This set the tone for the next quarter-century, as these outlying regions – utterly dependent on Toronto for core economic activity and massive subsidies to pay the unsustainable utility and infrastructure bills for sprawling neighborhoods of single-family homes – proceeded to gut the city they relied on.

These "conservative" mayors – the philanderer, the crackhead, the sexual predator – turned the city into a corporate playground, swapping public housing and rent controls for out-of-control real-estate speculation and trading out some of the world's best transit for total car-dependency. As part of that decay, the city rolled out the red carpet for Uber, allowing the company to put as many unlicensed taxis as they wanted on the city's streets.

Now, it's hard to overstate the dire traffic situation in Toronto. Years of neglect and underinvestment in both the roads and the transit system have left both in a state of near collapse and it's not uncommon for multiple, consecutive main arteries to shut down without notice for weeks, months, or, in a few cases, years. The proliferation of Ubers on the road – driven by desperate people trying to survive the city's cost-of-living catastrophe – has only exacerbated this problem.

Uber, of course, would dispute this. The company insists – despite all common sense and peer-reviewed research – that adding more cars to the streets alleviates traffic. This is easily disproved: there just isn't any way to swap buses, streetcars, and subways for cars. The road space needed for all those single-occupancy cars pushes everything further apart, which means we need more cars, which means more roads, which means more distance between things, and so on.

It is an undeniable fact that geometry hates cars. But geometry loathes Uber. Because Ubers have all the problems of single-occupancy vehicles, and then they have the separate problem that they just end up circling idly around the city's streets, waiting for a rider. The more Ubers there are on the road, the longer each car ends up waiting for a passenger:

https://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Uber-Lyft-San-Francisco-pros-cons-ride-hailing-13841277.php

Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. After years of bumbling-to-sinister municipal rule, Toronto finally reclaimed its political power and voted in a new mayor, Olivia Chow, a progressive of long tenure and great standing (I used to ring doorbells for her when she was campaigning for her city council seat). Mayor Chow announced that she was going to reclaim the city's prerogative to limit the number of Ubers on the road, ending the period of Uber's "self-regulation."

Uber, naturally, lost its shit. The company claims to be more than a (geometrically impossible) provider of convenient transportation for Torontonians, but also a provider of good jobs for working people. And to prove it, the company has promised to pay its drivers "120% of minimum wage." As I write for Ricochet, that's a whopper, even by Uber's standards:

https://ricochet.media/en/4039/uber-is-lying-again-the-company-has-no-intention-of-paying-drivers-a-living-wage

Here's the thing: Uber is only proposing to pay 120% of the minimum wage while drivers have a passenger in the vehicle. And with the number of vehicles Uber wants on the road, most drivers will be earning nothing most of the time. Factor in that unpaid time, as well as expenses for vehicles, and the average Toronto Uber driver stands to make $2.50 per hour (Canadian):

https://ridefair.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Legislated-Poverty.pdf

Now, Uber's told a lot of lies over the years. Right from the start, the company implicitly lied about what it cost to provide an Uber. For its first 12 years, Uber lost $0.41 on every dollar it brought in, lighting tens of billions in investment capital provided by the Saudi royals on fire in an effort to bankrupt rival transportation firms and disinvestment in municipal transit.

Uber then lied to retail investors about the business-case for buying its stock so that the House of Saud and other early investors could unload their stock. Uber claimed that they were on the verge of producing a self-driving car that would allow them to get rid of drivers, zero out their wage bill, and finally turn a profit. The company spent $2.5b on this, making it the most expensive Big Store in the history of cons:

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/infighting-busywork-missed-warnings-how-uber-wasted-2-5-billion-on-self-driving-cars

After years, Uber produced a "self-driving car" that could travel one half of one American mile before experiencing a potentially lethal collision. Uber quietly paid another company $400m to take this disaster off its hands:

https://www.economist.com/business/2020/12/10/why-is-uber-selling-its-autonomous-vehicle-division

The self-driving car lie was tied up in another lie – that somehow, automation could triumph over geometry. Robocabs, we were told, would travel in formations so tight that they would finally end the Red Queen's Race of more cars – more roads – more distance – more cars. That lie wormed its way into the company's IPO prospectus, which promised retail investors that profitability lay in replacing every journey – by car, cab, bike, bus, tram or train – with an Uber ride:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1RN2SK/

The company has been bleeding out money ever since – though you wouldn't know it by looking at its investor disclosures. Every quarter, Uber trumpets that it has finally become profitable, and every quarter, Hubert Horan dissects its balance sheets to find the accounting trick the company thought of this time. There was one quarter where Uber declared profitability by marking up the value of stock it held in Uber-like companies in other countries.

How did it get this stock? Well, Uber tried to run a business in those countries and it was such a total disaster that they had to flee the country, selling their business to a failing domestic competitor in exchange for stock in its collapsing business. Naturally, there's no market for this stock, which, in Uber-land, means you can assign any value you want to it. So that one quarter, Uber just asserted that the stock had shot up in value and voila, profit!

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-twenty-nine-despite-massive-price-increases-uber-losses-top-31-billion.html

But all of those lies are as nothing to the whopper that Uber is trying to sell to Torontonians by blanketing the city in ads: the lie that by paying drivers $2.50/hour to fill the streets with more single-occupancy cars, they will turn a profit, reduce the city's traffic, and provide good jobs. Uber says it can vanquish geometry, economics and working poverty with the awesome power of narrative.

In other words, it's taking Toronto for a bunch of suckers.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/29/geometry-hates-uber/#toronto-the-gullible

Image: Rob Sinclair (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Night_skyline_of_Toronto_May_2009.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[hotvintagepoll]

Charlotte Greenwood (Oklahoma, The Gang's All Here)—gotta submit Queen of the Dancing Scrungle charlotte greenwood! she was a lovely very tall lady, but when she gets dancing you know there's gonna be some scrungle on the floor 2nite

James Cagney (Yankee Doodle Dandy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Public Enemy, White Heat, The Strawberry Blonde)—Whaddya mean I've gotta SUBMIT Cagney? You look up scrungly in the dictionary and there's a picture of him RIGHT THERE. He IS the scrungle. -SHORT KING 5'4 3/4 (1.65m) I could put him in my pocket -When he rolls down his car window (in Mayor of Hell) sticks his head out and makes some snarky comment (which I didn't hear because I was way too distracted) it's like struck by lightning, let me tell you -His hair is so wavy and sometimes it falls over his forehead and then I die a little -He plays The Public Enemy number one, everyone thinks of this as "the one with the grapefruit scene" but it is SO SO much more than that, it's also the one where he wears little striped pajamas -Multilingual (Yes, I'm the same person who submitted EGR and listed this earlier. Yes, this is a big thing for me.) He spoke Yiddish, guys and you can hear him speak it in a movie (Taxi) AND when the Warner Bros. tried to discuss him without him knowing they used Yiddish not realizing he'd understand everything -He talks so fast. Like. Staccatto. It's so fascinating -Loved animals & owned CHOW CHOWS (that's a very scrungly dog, c'mon) -Plays Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream, that's the guy who gets turned into a DONKEY, nobody else could've played it like he did -Messed with Warner Bros. all the time, threatened to quit, told them he was going to go be a doctor instead -He does this little nose scrunch thing oh my god -Boy Meets Girl is a supremely underrated screw ball comedy and he has lots of silly little outfits in it and acts ridiculous the entire time -Was fascinated by farming and just puttered around on his tractor, like he's just a little guy! -There's a movie where he has a silly little mustache (I haven't seen it yet though) -They've dressed him up as bellhops, sailorsn cowboys and itty bitty gangsters [in movies] and frankly that should be enough -His first show biz job was a female dancer on the chorus line

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Charlotte Greenwood:

James Cagney:

James Cagney is such a scrungler. He could dance, he could sing, he embodied the gangster role, he was a short king, he had curly hair, what more could you possibly want?? Something about his face just feels so Looney Toons to me. He's like a little bug and I'm observing him through my magnifying glass. I'm obsessed with his hair and his scrunging demeanor!!! He's the most guy to me of all time. I tried to draw him once and completely failed. You could crumple him up like a tissue and watch him float away in the breeze.

Fanvid

A second fanvid

A third fanvid

He is the SCRUNGLIEST of gangsters, it’s the role that made him famous, and by god that’s for good reason. He also plays a peculiar little guy in musicals and occasionally westerns, all with a particular flavor of scruffy city rat energy that you can’t help but adore!  

[thesituationroom]

who else is serving cunt like toronto mayor olivia chow

[serendertothesquad]

Seren's Studies: Odd Squad UK -- "The Other Ozzie" Episode Followup, Part 2

Look, I'm not gonna lie...whoever said this episode was good is someone I'm gonna smack. Because my lower body is screaming from dashing to McDonald's, but my hands are primed.

I kid, I kid. I will not smack anyone. But let's see what happens after the break anyway.

Okay, when I said in my followup for "Oddtober the Thirteenth" that this was gonna fuck with the timeline, I said it with "it's not actually gonna happen, right?" confidence.

WELL GUESS THE FUCK WHAT IT'S FUCKING WITH THE TIMELINE AND FUCK YOU JON. KA-CHOW YOUR WAY INTO THE CANNON.

Halfway in, I'm getting the unsettling feeling that, much like Marty Marmalade was previously, Oz is meant to be an audience surrogate for all the kids who can't figure this shit out. Not as strictly as Marty was, but the sentiment is still very much there.

Sorry, Orli, but this episode you're getting dethroned.

"Without a script, I'm useless."

"But you're...you're reciting lines from a script right now."

"No, no. I need the script in my hand. That's how this works, I'm afraid."

"You know what I'm going to say, don't you, Agent Onit?"

"Can I just tell you the name of the place? Without giving you the coordinates?"

"I understand you need to tell them for the math lesson, but give me the name of the place first."

"...The writers are breathing down my ne-"

"JUST DO IT."

No no no. If you were green, you'd be de- stop. Stop it. STOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHP-

In which Oz finally learns about autonomy as a member of the Homo sapiens species.

And still botches it up anyway because...uh...

I dunno, can I headcanon him as autistic? Is...can I do that? Because the more I think about it, the more I start to do an "oh my God, I can relate" DiCaprio point.

This "I'm not good with faces" bit isn't really funny to me. Again, you can have a gag, but there's a difference between spacing it out and using it for everyone. When you do the latter, it's a very irritating inconvenience.

Wh- since fucking when? He's cartoonish, sure, but that doesn't exactly translate to being fast.

Jon, my guy, you're going up there with the ranks of Omar and Tasha and I don't like that.

So if he gets a bunch of ideas at once, will he get a migraine? Will his head and brain explode in a big gory mess?

Yeeeeeeeeah, an exciting chase to catch the villain! ...That will only last for less than a minute.

Won't get fooled again...until I'm fooled again.

Now, see, this portal effect is cool. It looks like glittery slime. I like it.

Timetastrophe? Jon's never heard of he.

Seriously, I devised better rules in The Odd Squad Council and yes that is a shameless self-plug and no I don't regret anything.

Ahhhhhh, here it is. The famous blooper reel of the episode. The blooper reel that we really should have gotten for the entire franchise.

Honestly, we should have gotten this dramatic announcer guy a good 8 years ago when they were advertising the first movie.

Okay, I was half-expecting this, but my attention's really more on how Orby is just Orli with glitter scrunchies. (And Oz is just Ozzie with sunglasses, but y'know, that's a little bit besides my point.)

Like I said, this is the blooper reel we should have gotten for the franchise, but instead get tacked onto the end of a decent-but-also-terrible episode.

If you're willing to film BTS content, you're willing to share the blooper reel. Make that a hashtag!

EVEN THE ANNOUNCER GUY IS FUCKIN' FED UP WITH THIS SHIT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh God...I wasn't expecting to cackle but this was an absolutely beautiful cherry on top.

Guy who knows autonomy, meet a girl who doesn't.

And your credits for this episode. Real shame they didn't give the Mayor a name like with Mackelmore, but I call him Ryan Lewis and I'm fandom founder so you have to listen to-

------------------------------------

Overall, this was...a hard pill to swallow. Between the board of villains and...well...Oz, this episode is not one I'm particularly fond of. I feel like if they explored a bit more of the Movie Star Dimension instead of staying in the world we know, it would have been better. The way it is now, it seems more like they're trying to shove a unique concept in there but failing to make it actually unique aside from Oz himself.

And speaking of Oz...enough with the damn Math Lady memes. I'm like the "stop talking about Among Us" guy but it's "stop doing Math Lady". Get with the times, boomers.

Well, now that that's over, we've reached the finale, kicking things off with "Three is the Oddest Number", which will introduce the Terrible Three. Confidence not inspired in me, but I have a small sliver of hope. Just a small one.

Seren out!

[jeppiner]

This is ridiculous. This is terrorism against children who live nowhere near Israel. You are doing this just because they are Jewish. You are a bigot; an antisemitic, violent, bullying piece of trash. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

There was a solidarity protest in Toronto last night I believe. Muslim & Indigenous women were horrifically attacked by Toronto’s terrorist cops and denied access for medical treatment. Shame on Olivia Chow for allowing this to happen. Our right to protest is being violated by spineless mayors and the thugs of the state. Soon enough, we’ll all be targeted by municipal policies that rather give raises to the police rather to public services. Never mind that, it’s already happening…

~~~~

[beedlemania]

what are some of your favorite Monkees scenes and/or episodes?

Oof, loaded question 😳

My favourite episodes; Monkee See, Monkee Die Mostly because of the scene where they’re all in the bed together, it’s so cute. And so is them in their jammies :3 Everywhere a Sheik Sheik, Too many girls, The Success Story, The Chaperone, Monkee Chow Mein, Monkees in the ring, Fairy tale, Some like it lukewarm, and wild monkees (all the davy centric episodes… shocker)

I love the scene in art for monkees sake where they’re tying Peter up so he can “suffer for his art” and then again when the guy tries to charge Micky for the “masterpiece” on his shirt. Maybe it’s just cuz I’m an art student that I find that episode so amusing.

I also love the scene in red shoes where she wants Peter because of his face and Micky turns the gun on her and Davy’s all like “oh god no!”

In find the monkees (i think) where Davy’s playing the (idk brass instruments my apologies everyone) the horn and he’s like “what’s the racquet?” And mikes like “your playing”. I love all their little banter moments where you tell they’re genuinely laughing like in monkees at the circus where mikes giving the farm report and peters losing it.

Hitting the high sea where Davy’s delivering the food to the captain and he’s pretending to be all wobbly on the boat, i dunno why but its so comedic to me

Lastly, I think the scene In Monkee Mayor when Mike goes through the complaints door and ends up outside is the funniest thing ever 😭

[dtlfacts]

The Meadow Gate

The Meadow Gate is one of the only know locations cut from the original Drawn to Life. It was originally intended to be the fourth gate, between the Beach and City Gates. According to an insider source who has asked to remain anonymous, Chow Chern Fai and Karina Lye See Mun were responsible for the vast majority of art related to the Meadow Gate.

Thanks to a different anonymous source, we know the intended plot of the Meadow Gate in it's entirety, paraphrased below:

After the defeat of the Angler King and the rescue of Count Choco, the village began to be invaded by Shadow Pests (presumably Shadow Walkers), who were infecting the water supply. After a few levels of unrelated tasks, the Hero is tasked with sounding an alarm and rounding up the Shadow Pests. After this attack, many villagers are given the poisoned water on accident. The Mayor then sends the Hero into the Meadow Gate again to defeat the cause of the infestation, Rata, Tat & Tat, a trio of rats acting as the boss of the gate.

After being defeated, they would have transformed into the Three Blind Raposa, who would have given the Hero a key to a Village Hatch, possibly the Secret Gate.

As for rescued Raposa and Templates in the preceding levels:

Rescued: Fortune Cookie (rival to Chef Cookie) Template: Fish

Rescued: Indee Template: Mechanical Scarecrow

Rescued: Bob Row (Mike) Template: Messenger Bird

Rescued: Unagi Template: Kaorin Berry

The Hero attachment for this gate would have been the Pet, a dog-like creature who could run faster than the Hero and could have been ridden around.

10 enemies were also planned for the gate and sprited, but were removed.

From top to bottom, left to right, these enemies are:

Flea Fly

Stun Sun

RockFist

Boomaphant

Fyre Fox

Helipod

Leafy Green

Mew Pod

Yote

Ssslizzz

For more information about the Meadow Gate, feel free to visit the Unused and Removed page on the DTL Wiki: https://drawntolife.wiki/en/Unused_%26_Removed_Features/DTL1

[elliscraddock]

Here's my #8thRocksShuffle #8thRocks dance video w/#CanadianJazz song called A Moment by #CaityGyorgy(w/heavy rain sound effects/high tone version) on YouTube to pay tribute to the #MayorofToronto, #OliviaChow #MayorOliviaChow #鄒至蕙. Also click the like, share, subscribe, & hit a notification button on my YouTube channel. #Toronto #Canada #Canadian 🇨🇦🍁🇨🇦

[thesuburbanerd]

Just current Toronto mayor Olivia Chow attending a science fiction convention in Toronto in the early 90s, accompanied by her husband, the late Jack Layton.