[TOperson]

I'm beginning to get the feeling that all of this isn't going anywhere. I have this weird gut feelin that this guy is going to ride this out until the polls next year. I'm going to guess that the vote count will be a record setter and he won't get in, all this is really doing is helping people wake up a bit.
Maybe the three year thing is a good idea.

I think that is a definite possibility. I should prepare myself for it.

 

[pattycakes]

www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toront...ckhandles-his-way-to-the-front/article559083/

Sorry misremembered that -- it looks more like they were business partners in the (very shady looking) Vaughan deal.

Quote from the Globe article on GFL, and the quote wasn't from a competitor:

“You wonder how much money they can make off it,” said Mr. Gibson. “Obviously, the guy who won [the contract]has significantly lower operating costs or a lower profit margin.”

 

[ParkdalePetunia]

It's 8AM. So I assume there was no big revelation in the Star as presumed?

I'm going to guess that they scrapped their big story when they realized it was the same big story the other news organizations were covering. TV scooped newspaper and now we're back to the problems with the newspaper industry. For a while the tv news had been largely ignoring this, just reporting what the newspaper journalists had uncovered, now they're finally doing their own investigative work. It's about time.

I think it was probably a good call for them to scrap the story so it's already been done.

 

[zang]

You're assuming that the mayor is the big fish. It's possible that the mayor ordered a hit from someone seriously connected. Or that he made phone calls with Lisi where he discussed other people's business. Or a number of things. Busting the mayor would send everyone deep underground. Maybe they have wires on a bunch of people we don't even know about. Right now it appears that only the Toronto Police are working this case, and that they don't have anything on Ford. For all we know the RCMP and OPP are involved, and they're using this whole fiasco to "heat the wires" basically putting pressure on the weakest link (Ford) hoping that it'll cause other people to talk or and make a mistake.

This has been my thinking of late. Why Doug always jumps in to defend him, why his family still refers to him as the diminutive "Robbie", etc. He is a weak link for the family, at the very least in their eyes.

<my wild imagination>

The following is all circumstantial (and I have my own doubts) of course, but the following made me wonder:

The sheer number of Italian names in all of this made me start to ponder mafia ties. Lisi, Basso, Belissimo and others.

Frankly, the clothes, gold necklace and (sometimes) bracelet that Doug wears outside of council makes him look like he walked right out of an episode of the Sopranos.

The mafia is still present in Chicago, home of Deco US.

Having knowledge of the printing industry it always seemed an odd place for a printing company to set up shop. Paper prices are far more competitive in areas like Pennsylvania, closer to the hardwood forests and paper mills of the US north east (and now imports from Quebec); precisely why "the Office" was set there.

My mind then began wondering if they do any serious amount of shipping between Deco US and Deco TO, and whether it's at least partly a front for smuggling drugs and guns cross border.

</wild imagination>

All conjecture aside, "outing" the video did seem to keep focus on Ford, rather than connections to Project Traveller. As to whether that's intentional or not, we'll find out eventually.

 

[runningnowhere]

I'm going to guess that they scrapped their big story when they realized it was the same big story the other news organizations were covering. TV scooped newspaper and now we're back to the problems with the newspaper industry. For a while the tv news had been largely ignoring this, just reporting what the newspaper journalists had uncovered, now they're finally doing their own investigative work. It's about time.

I think it was probably a good call for them to scrap the story so it's already been done.

But if the Fifth Estate episode is so important in the greater context of everything here, I don't see The Star scrapping their story. Hell, they still probably know things about the topics last night that nobody else does. They've been on this since day one, and very blunt in letting people know they know more than they are telling.

 

[requiem]

I live on King West too. I moved here knowing full well that on weekends we have this shouting, fighting and puking show but then in the morning it's all cleaned up like it were just a bad dream. I love Sunday mornings on king west. It's like an entirely different city.

A bunch of those dressed shirt, hair gelled idiots got arrested after shouting "fuck the police". Thought that would give you some satisfaction as it did me.

I live on King West too. I've learned to do a beeline around Bathurst-Spadina on a weekend night.

 

[DSC]

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Dec. 19, 2011) - Two of Southern Ontario's leading waste management companies are making industry history today.

Green for Life (GFL) Environmental Corp. and Turtle Island Recycling (TIR) Corp. have announced the merger of their operations, creating Southern Ontario's largest waste management company.

GFL, already one of Canada's fastest growing full-service waste management companies, announced today that it has officially purchased TIR, one of Southern Ontario's largest recycling and waste management companies.

From: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/GFL-Environmental-Buys-Turtle-Island-Recycling-1600070.htm

 

[ParkdalePetunia]

But if the Fifth Estate episode is so important in the greater context of everything here, I don't see The Star scrapping their story. Hell, they still probably know things about the topics last night that nobody else does. They've been on this since day one, and very blunt in letting people know they know more than they are telling.

True. Michael Cooke also said they were working on the story, but didn't have it yet. Maybe they weren't able to secure enough evidence to run with it?

 

[Adaax]

Turtle Island used to have the Etobicoke collection contract. Also, a merger between them and GFL was discussed a couple of years back. Read all about it: http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2011/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-42534.pdf

 

[Steviewonders]

You need to come to the rally next Wed at noon.

I'll be there. But this guy has balls. If there is no legal way to get him out of office, he isn't going anywhere.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Got into a slanging match at a dinner party last night with a friend's sister after too many drinks. Ashamed of myself, but Ford Nation now has me totally disgusted. Better to laugh it off, but really, really tough to do.

At least you didn't threaten to rip her throat and poke her eyes out. I call that restraint.

AoD

 

[pattycakes]

zang

"All conjecture aside, "outing" the video did seem to keep focus on Ford, rather than connections to Project Traveller. As to whether that's intentional or not, we'll find out eventually."

I think that's where Blair wants people to look for now. Perhaps the drip, drip, drip is needed to get rid of Ford, first that he smoked crack and then hit him with the gang/crime element. I know is there is a lot of blacked out information in the ITO, and the information we can read shows Ford doing lots of things he didn't want others to see.

 

[runningnowhere]

True. Michael Cooke also said they were working on the story, but didn't have it yet. Maybe they weren't able to secure enough evidence to run with it?

True. But I was expecting at the very lease a followup to the CBC story this morning on TheStar.com, but not even a mention.

 

[stendhalian]

True. But I was expecting at the very lease a followup to the CBC story this morning on TheStar.com, but not even a mention.

calm before the storm?

 

[jje1000]

I didn't realize how high tensions are between those pro and anti Rob Ford until tonight. There were a bunch of idiots arguing loudly on King St just now about how "Rob Ford is gonna take care of you lefty liberals downtown". It got into an actual physical fight and the cops broke it up. One guy all bloody faced started shouting "fuck the police, I still trust Rob Ford! You corrupt fuckers are just out to get him because he's busting up the unions!"
It was more than just one guy defending Ford. It looked like all the suburban douchebags who come downtown to party were pro-Ford. Somebody needs to save Toronto from itself. Sad.

It's the 905ers, I bet.