Picture of the day: Tory Skytrain Ads

NationalNewsWatch had a story up this morning about Tory ads on Go Trains in Toronto – $42,000 to promote the economic action plan.

So it wasn’t a surprise to see this on the way to work:

Two of the cars idling at the station had those ads.

Translink’s advertising is run by a company called ‘Lamar Transit Advertising’.  The ad you see in the picture is called a ‘Sky Wrap’, and cost $5,150 per car.  So sitting at that one station was at least $10,000.

Absolutely pointless – though it does kind of lead to an interesting comparisson.  Walk anywhere in Metro Vancouver, and within 2 or 3 blocks you’ll find a sign for the provincial stimulus plan – one of those “Every Job Counts” signs*.  The difference is, the provincial sign is on an actual construction site, or new homeless shelter, rebuilt seawall etc…  etc …

Can’t say I’ve seen a federal stimulus sign on anything other than a billboard, or in this case, a Skytrain.

Religious women suffer from battered wife syndrome

I don’t think it’s true, but I do enjoy how offensive it is:

Last week, a new study confirmed something essential about women, something that refuses to budge, even though many say it’s long past time. Professors at Trinity College in Connecticut analyzed the numbers of Americans unaffiliated to any religion. While the number of male nonbelievers was rocketing, the overall totals were slowed by women hitching themselves to the anchor of faith: “Gender difference is a brake on the growth of the No Religion population,” says the study, which found that 19 percent of men were no longer denizens of a religious America, while only 12 percent of women live outside the faithful fold. In the past, one could say that women tended the hearth, and men participated in the marketplace. But today?

… It’s hard not to compare women sticking with faith to wives confined to bad marriages: They’re so committed to the institution that they’ll willingly shrink under mistreatment just to maintain their own status quo.

Canada’s Top 25 Blogs October, 2009

… will not be appearing.

I’m too busy.  The system needs tinkering and I don’t have a minute to do it.  I’ve got a new business, it makes money, it’s fun, I just opened our downtown office etc… etc…

If I have a spare minute, I try and spend it at home with Cathy, catching up with old friends, or more likely than anything else – drumming up new business.

So until I do eventually find some time (or interest) to re-launch that list thing – it will be on indeffinite hiatus.  If you are wondering who was on the list for October – I don’t know.

Picture of the day: drug deal on Google Street View – Vancouver

Google picked what was easily the most boring day in the history of the city to do their street view photos.  There are some good views of the city – like this one of West Vancouver from the Lions Gate – but no prostitutes on the streets (excepting these Liberal candidates at a pr event), no heroin shooting galleries, most importantly, no one on the beaches.  The only “gem” I was able to find was this one photo of a drug deal behind the library at Main and Hastings (in the back by the pole).

If you’ve never been to Vancouver’s downtown eastside, now’s your chance to take a tour.  Just click on the photo:

Conservatives force Team Canada to use Tory party logo

Vancouver’s own Hedy Fry has spotted it again – no, not more burning crosses – but the pernicious meddling of the Conservative party.   They have, it seems, coerced the Canadian Olympic Team to ape their party logo for the Canada ‘Olympic Retail’ logo:

Opposition MPs are alleging that “crass politics” have resulted in a Canadian Olympic retail logo that mirrors the federal Conservative party logo.

Vancouver Liberal Hedy Fry told the House of Commons that a new logo for February’s Winter Games “bears a striking resemblance” to that of the governing party.

Gary Lunn, the minister for amateur sport, responded that the federal government was “not involved in any way, shape or form in the design of any of the Olympic clothing.”

The clothing and logo was developed by the Hudson’s Bay Co., in consultation with the Canadian Olympic Committee and an athletes panel, and the minister says he first saw it on Wednesday this week.

The logo, unveiled Thursday by HBC, includes a red Maple Leaf surrounded by a black C-shaped arrow.

The Conservative party logo is a red Maple Leaf surrounded by a blue C.

Fry accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of “trying to politicize” the Games.

Lunn shot back that Liberals seem to delight in undermining Canadian retail institutions such as Tim Hortons and the Bay.

New Democrat Charlie Angus said outside the Commons that the two logos are very close.

“It is very clear, if the Conservative Party had nothing to do with this, then it would be suing the Olympic team for trademark infringement,” he said.

And they have a point – just take a look at the Conservative logo (boo, hiss) and compare it with the Olympics logo at the top of this post.  Here it is:

Oops, that’s the logo for Cypress Mountain – venue for the freestyle ski and snowboard events during the 2010 Olympics.  Here we are – the Tory logo:

Very similar-ish.  A ‘C’ and a leaf  – who would ever think of that?  How unique in a country that begins with a ‘C’ and has a leaf as its national symbol.  They’re right, the only way for them to have come up with that logo is if the Tories forced them to do it.

Well, either that, or some lazy designer took the old airforce logo and added an arrow to it.  It is after all, like the identical leaf, and the relative proportions are virtually the same as in the old airforce roundel:

A private word from the ‘Old Duff’

I’ve heard it said that politicians are like shit.  I.e. – a small minority of people are fascinated by them, but the vast majority would like to flush them down the toilet and never see them again.

When it comes to senators, I’m with the majority.

I don’t want to see those hacks, I don’t want to hear them, and most of all, I don’t want them popping up – Mr Hankey like – and saying ‘hiddey-ho’.

Case in point:

The new personalized Tory ads staring ‘The Old Duff’ (Senator Mike Duffy) are so totally creepy and cringe inducing.  First off, isn’t the party suppossed to be embarassed by the appointed senators?  As part of the disaffected base, I know I don’t like to be reminded that these people exist.  Second, the Romper Room antics of personalized messages is c-r-e-e-p-y.  Don’t you remember how all those Jewish people got freaked out when the PM sent them personalized Hannukkah cards?  Finally, ‘the Old Duff’?  Are you sh*tting me?  The Old Duff?  What were you* thinking?

As I’ve said before, death is too good for the Tory tech team.  Their lame pooping penguins, their yabbering senators and their embarassing party homepage.  You people suck so much.

You can see the full ad here.

[* FYI - I mean 'you' the idiot communications team, not 'you' the Senator, who had my favourite politics show.]

Canada’s Top 25 Political Blogs – September 2009

This is the second anniversary of this list thing.  I may procrastinate, but you can’t say that I’m a quitter.

The summer has ended with about 50 fast rising blogs just barely above an Alexa rank of 1,000,000 – meaning that at least 3 or 4 of them are set to crack the list next month, which should give a bit more diversity to what we see here.

Anyhow here is the list – feel free to steal the graphics etc… .  FYI – I suspect I’ll be revising the methodology for next month.

1. Michael Geist PR7      Alexa:173,171
2. Matthew Good PR6      Alexa:250,715
3. The Shotgun Blog PR6      Alexa:263,670
4. James Bow PR6      Alexa:318,218
5. Colby Cosh PR6      Alexa:732,022
6. Steyn Online PR5      Alexa:106,044
7. Ghost of a Flea PR5      Alexa:158,225
8. Calgary Grit PR5      Alexa:217,868
9. Ezra Levant PR5      Alexa:249,144
10. Five Feet of Fury PR5      Alexa:271,748
11. Warren Kinsella PR5      Alexa:367,467
12. GenXat40 PR5      Alexa:404,529
13. Blazing Cat Fur PR5      Alexa:468,891
14. MADinosaur PR5      Alexa:470,894
15. SlapUpsidetheHead PR5      Alexa:487,091
16. Quebec Politique PR5      Alexa:631,390
17. Stephen Taylor PR5      Alexa:649,059
18. Canadian Cynic PR5      Alexa:669,488
19. Jay Currie PR5      Alexa:747,995
20. BeneDiction Blogs On PR5      Alexa:847,534
21. Vive Le Canada PR5      Alexa:850,069
22. Dr Dawg PR5      Alexa:870,782
23. Law is Cool PR5      Alexa:882,802
24. David Akin PR5      Alexa:937,333
25. Free Canuckistan PR5 Alexa:965,165
26. Small Dead Animals PR4      Alexa:150,055
27. Chinese in Vancouver PR4      Alexa:382,940
28. Maple Leaf Web PR4      Alexa:416,980
29. April Reign PR4      Alexa:599,998
30. StageLeft PR4      Alexa:765,009
etc…

Canada’s Top 25 Blogs ‘Back to School’ Edition Coming Saturday

Canada’s Top 25 Political Blogs are coming out on Wednesday Saturday.  I’ve got a list of new blogs to check out – but as always I totally suck at finding blogs east of the Ottawa River – so if you know of any sites that I’m missing out on please let me know in the comments section to this post.

FYI – this will be the second anniversary of the rankings.

Bloggers joining the MSM

In the Canadian blogosphere there are … 2?  Maybe 2 examples of bloggers joining the mainstream media (MSM) – Raphael Alexander and Steve Janke – both co-opted by the National Post.  There might be more.  But those are the only ones I know of.

Were I a bored MSM reporter in late August – I suspect I’d see a trend.  The Toronto Star’s David Olive saw one, and elaborated on it in one of the dumbest newspaper reports:

A funny thing happened on the way to blogosphere dominance of the global conversation. Many of the most prominent bloggers have hitched their wagons to the traditional mainstream media (MSM). Yes, the same MSM that bloggers, or Internet diarists, ceaselessly ridiculed as slaves to conventional wisdom.

If the struggle to “monetize” online readers is the chief priority of MSM proprietors from Rupert Murdoch to the Sulzberger family of The New York Times, venerable newspapers and TV networks are at least deriving some revenue from their online products, despite the current, unprecedented advertising drought.

Yet even the best-read bloggers, the ones who break news and whose analysis is of must-read value to specialized audiences, are in far more dire financial straits. And they are coming in from the cold.

So who are these needy Canadian bloggers who have so long scoffed at the MSM?  According to the Star – Andrew Coyne, David Frum, and Mark Steyn.  Andrew Coyne, former member of the Globe and Mail’s editorial board, former columnist for the National Post, current editor of Macleans and mainstay of MSM chat fests like the CBC’s regular ‘At Issue Panel’.  David Frum, Bush administration speech writer, spawn of ‘the Journal’s’ Barbara Frum, and long time columnist for the National Post.  And Mark Steyn, best selling author and columnist for – well, if it’s in English, he wrote for them.  The last at least has some credible claim as a blogger.  But the other two couldn’t be further from the caricature of the pajama-clad, MSM hating, political blogger.

Besides money, what could have tamed these wild-eyed renegades?  Numbers – the massive numbers you get writing for a big Canadian MSM outfit:

It turns out that traditional media remain unrivalled in audience reach. More than anything, bloggers and other “opinionators” want a vast audience. But blogs reach their saturation point quickly, a big audience being 2,000 or so. There is little “stumble upon” factor in blogs – strangers who come across a website by accident and become fans. You won’t stumble across the website of prolific blogger Mark Steyn at the dentist’s office, as you will Chatelaine. Opinionators want to change the world, and only a tiny fraction of it is tuned in.

That phrase ‘unrivaled audience reach’ is dubious … I put a post up on this last year- comparing the relative traffic of blogs with the opinion pages of Canadian newspapers:

Interesting fact – 37% of Canadian newspaper readers read the editorials.  If a political blog is like anything, it’s like the editorial section of a newspaper.

This blog gets an average of 564 hits per day – or 3,948 per week.  Seeing as this is editorial only, that would be the equivalent of a newspaper with a readership of 10,670.

In other words, this blog gets more editorial readers, more politically engaged readers than the Flin Flon Reminder, or the Whitehorse Star.  Hah!

Ok, I admit, that’s not that impressive.  But I run an HR firm, not a newspaper, so I think it’s respectable for a hobby.

But some blogs out there are impressive.  For example, Kate at SDA is Canada’s 36th largest newspaper, beating out Montreal’s Le Devoir.

Darcey at DustmyBroom beats out Fort McMurray Today and comes within a hair of overtaking Conrad Black’s first newspaper, the Sherbrooke Record.

It’s totally pointless time wasting, but what the hell – have a passably successful blog?  Which newspaper’s ass do you kick?

Newspaper circulation numbers are here.

Outside of maybe the top 10 or 15 English Canadian dailies – it’s not all that hard to beat them out for traffic, influence and quality.

So, are Canadian bloggers being co-opted by the MSM for money and influence?  We wish.  99% of us would sell out in a heartbeat.  But I suspect that 99% of us also believe that it’s a racket and our ‘work’ isn’t deserving of the pay cheque.

In my mind, the criticism that I, and many other bloggers have for the MSM is not that they’re ’slaves to conventional wisdom’ (who isn’t?) it’s that what they do isn’t a real job.  Excepting no more than a dozen reporters on your average mid-sized daily, there’s next to nothing on there you can’t get for free from a hobbyist blogger.

…………………

FYI – Slate.com put this to the test recently – the MSM vs. the web.  It’s an interesting debate, available as an MP3 here.  [fyi - it's Parkinson's.  When you hear the podcast, you'll know what I mean.]

Mounties’ chicken sh*t solution to the homelessness problem

Literally.  They solved homelessness with chicken sh*t – or ‘leavings‘ if you will.  How innovative:

The City of Surrey and RCMP lined a Whalley social service building with chicken dung to keep homeless and vagrants away, The [Surrey] Leader has learned.

On Aug. 14, witnesses saw City of Surrey staff pull up to the Front Room Drop In Centre in the 10600-block of 135A Street and line the building with putrid poultry manure. The desired effect was to create a smell so repugnant that it would repel vagrants who were hanging out around the building.

Keith Smith was touring the drop in centre and surrounding services on Thursday as part of his schooling in drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

He was astounded to see and smell the chicken dung around the building. And he was shocked to hear from front line staff that it was city crews and RCMP that put it there to deter the homeless from settling.

“The stench of the chicken manure in the surrounding area is unbearable,” Smith said in a letter to Mayor Dianne Watts.

“If the South Fraser Community Services (which runs the Front Room) were located strategically as a front line service to aid recovery of people in the active disease of addiction, why would the City of Surrey spread chicken manure along the perimeter of the vacant, rock covered lot, which separates the two South Fraser Community Service buildings?” Smith asked. “Our neighbors in Vancouver seem to have a little better approach to the problem of dealing with the disease of substance abuse.”

One local on 135 Street said on Saturday that there were at least two visits by city trucks dumping the manure in the area. There is also evidence of the same substance on the base of large trees in the park west of the Surrey Food Bank on 135 Street.

Coun. Barinder Rasode said the manure plan was hatched by the Mounties.

“Our understanding is the RCMP initiated it,” said Rasode, who was “deeply troubled” by the strategy.

An e-mail to the mayor from Deputy City Manager Dan Bottrill says that “Surrey RCMP initiated this in order to dissuade individuals from loitering against the buildings bordering the lot.”

Rasode insists elected officials did not know about the initiative.

Besides just dealing with addiction – this building they’ve bathed in chicken sh*t is a drop-in centre for homeless people to take showers and do laundry*.  If you’ve ever been in an enclosed space like a bus or train with homeless people you’ll know that anyone who helps them clean up is doing God’s work.  Of all the places they could bathe in chicken sh*t – and gosh is that fun to say – of all the places, why the showers?

Finally, and most importantly, where did the Mounties get the chicken sh*t?  Did they spend taxpayer money on it?  Seriously, did they?  I mean think about it – your hard earned money spent on some Mountie’s chicken sh*t project?  As an occasional rate payer, I’m offended.

Also looking at my stats – one other thing …

I`ve had a bunch of hits on this site for `Mexidog`Vancouver.  I don`t know why, I`ve never posted on them before.  But for the record, they`re at Burrard and Georgia – and they are awesome.  Get the ‘Mexi’ – it has guacamole, homemade salsa and baked tortilla slices [ici].

So much better than Japadog – for example, you can eat a Mexidog in an enclosed space without fainting.

Help, I’m getting links from pedophile blogs!

Back during the election, I put up a post about a gaffe Stephane Dion made. In French he said that he had dreamed of growing up to be a `naturiste`- he meant `naturalist`and not `naturist` (i.e. nudist) . It was funny, but the title of that blog post: “As a young boy Stephane Dion dreamed of being nude in public” – has attracted the attention of pedophiles.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but I looked at my stats today and I got 14 hits in to this one obscure and irrelevant blog post. A post like that on my site should get about 200 hits total and dissapear. This one has had about 1,500 so far.  I clicked through to the referrer blog and discovered a wordpress.com blog that features a lot of pictures of nude boys.

Gross. So very gross.

The reason Im getting links from there is because of a WordPress Plugin that links to similar blog posts.

There’s no way in hell I’m going to say the name of the blog in question – because A. by doing so, I could be libelling them & B. I’m not linking to a pedo site on my blog. But if anyone from WordPress would like to send me a comment I’d be happy to reply with the blog URL.