It's Dangerous To Cross The Street

It's bad enough that just about half the planet couldn't survive a winter here, that many of our homeless actually die every year, we can't even trust our snow plows to not run us over when crossing the streets anymore.

That's right: in two separate incidents involving trucks making a right but in which pedestrians had right of way, an elderly couple and an elderly man died just by crossing (or at least attempting to cross) a street. We can't even trust the people who shovel our fucking snow (for comfort, yes, but mostly for security issues) to not run us over.

I had a conversation the other day when me and the Lady Of The House saw a race on a two-lane heavy-traffic street between two tow trucks going at least three times the speed limit to answer a call, ultimately ending with one of them ramming the other into a street post and fearing for his life. The conversation went like this: the most dangerous drivers in this city are, in order, cab drivers, snow plows, and tow trucks - all Service Vehicles, whose job it is to provide the population with a service, and that service being to drive others and help others to drive, yet very few follow the law (they all run red lights, go the wrong way on one-way streets, make a mockery of the speed limit...) and most are a danger to those on the road at the same time as they are.

It surprises me that, as a species, we keep finding new stupid ways to off one another.

Of course, the mayor is saddened by these deaths, and urged drivers to be more careful - and pedestrians to be careful too. I would recommend he hibernate instead of having his PR team come up with such lame bullshit.

Election Fever?

First it was a federal election which proved useless because the conservatives remained a minority. So we spent $300M (yes, three hundred million dollars) to end up just about exactly where we were, which is at a stalemate, with much more interest in the American federal election.

So the American federal election happens next week. We'll know just how fucked our neighbours to the South are, and whether they intend on fixing themselves up or want to wait until they get even worse.

So the fashionable word these days is election. Since our provincial government can't make their own minds up and would rather follow trends rather than set them, they want in on the fun. Those bastards know how fed up we are with the whole process, they know that chances they will remain a minority government, they know it'll be wasted money in harsh economic times, and they know how sick we are of seeing signs and billboards all over the fucking place.

But they don't care. And not in a George W. Bush ''my balls are bigger than my brain'' way, either, no, in a ''I don't give a shit, I have a budget I'm allowed to waste and I'M fucking wasting it'' kind of way that reeks of self-importance and seems to be the complete opposite of what public service actually means.

But that was expected, right? I mean, we're talking about a leader who has crossed party lines just to win and sit on an easy throne, who tried to sell a fucking mountain (is anything any MORE public domain than a fucking mountain???) to his condo-building friends; a party whose ranks just grew with other party-line-crossers (crosseurs?); a party that tries to privatize everything public and that does its best to work illegally...

A party that'll stay in power because people are unsure about the PQ's new program of not holding a referendum in the near future but that still brought, historically, equal pay for women in the workplace, affordable babysitting programs, facilitated unionizing, increased minimum wages and is vowing to keep post-secondary education fees as low as they can. Who the fuck do these commies think they are, Barack Obama?

Anyway. Elections. Yay.

I hear the Canadian Army is working on super-smart environmentally-friendly bombs that kill all humans but leave trees standing. Can't they work on one that eliminates politicians and corruption instead?