Did You Know This

Here are more stories that you may want to consider:

HOW CAN WE BUILD CANALS NOW

Oh of course, I forgot. We have to build now for our future. Won't that be the rationale. We cannot afford just to sit back. Canals, airport hubs, Greenlinks, who cares....let's build them all. Taxpayers' wallets are bottomless in Windsor.

We won't hear much about financial problems when the mind's eye vision of Edgar (aka Eddie) is brought forward again:

• "These are difficult times for members of the corporation," said Francis. But he said the changes are required given the economic pressures Windsor is facing and that they are part of a "well thought-out, comprehensive" plan.
  
  "I'm not going to sugarcoat it -- certainly people are nervous, and I'm concerned about that," said Reidel.
  
  But she said Windsor "is under tremendous fiscal pressures." Council was advised as recently as last week that it had to find almost $13 million in new savings just to keep to its goal of not increasing taxes next year."

OMG..I am literally shaking if that "well thought-out, comprehensive plan" was created by the same people who prepared the multi-page strike manual. I wonder which Chapter dealt with "near-riots" and CAO resignations?

WINDSOR STAR COMPETITION

Looks like Ron Stang, ex Melanie Deveau Windsor Now producer at CKLW, has started something up:

• "Hi Ed,
  
  Just want to inform you about my new online newspaper WindsorOntarioNews.com (http://www.windsorontarionews.com/) As you can see I'm seeking to publish stories not necessarily being covered by the rest of the local media.
  
  Readers can subscribe for free updates by clicking on the RSS button or similar readers on the front page.
  
  Ron Stang
  Publisher

MORE MINI-GORD HOOTERS

Poor Dave Battagello.......is he away on holidays or is someone punishing him. Mini-Gord got the big scoop re the DRIC bridge EA.

The leak had to come from the Province considering this line:

• "The approval also covers the new Brighton Beach plaza that needs to be built to service the bridge, as well as the six-lane, below-grade Windsor-Essex Parkway.
  
  Although a provincial road, the billion-dollar parkway project will be 50 per cent paid for with federal funds, so it required approval under a federal EA as well...
  
  The delay had critics crowing the new parkway would be a "road to nowhere" when finished."

That Infrastructure Ontario comment had to be about the stupidest ever!

Mind you, it still will be such a road considering the DRIC bridge is stalled again until the end of 2016 or later.

Mini-Gord must keep saying and hoping as the DRIC people do that the US Feds will pull this out for them:

• "Aside from cabinet approval of DRIC and the awarding of contracts, the only significant hurdle left before construction can start is funding from the State of Michigan.
  
  But even that hurdle is far lower than DRIC's opponents claim. How many times have you heard people say "the Americans can't afford" to pay for their half of a new publicly funded bridge?
  
  Well, maybe they can't. But that won't stop them from spending the money, any more than it has prevented them from printing trillions of dollars to stimulate the choking U.S. economy.
  
  Eighty per cent of the U.S. side of the bridge will be paid for by Washington, which has already approved its share of the funding. And it's irrelevant that Michigan is broke. Canadian federal officials expect the U.S. federal government will cover the state's 20 per cent, too, if necessary.
  
  Whether it's loans or bonds or Katrina-style emergency funding to help out a state devastated by economic disaster, "the money's going to be there," I'm told."

Sure, the Feds are going to put in money to help out the NAFTA-gate PM and beat back an American. If that is what you think, consider the latest Harper snub by Obama:

• "Harper not on Obama's Afghan call list
  
  Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not be among the world leaders briefed personally by U.S. President Barack Obama about his plans for a new strategy in Afghanistan.
  
  Obama will contact a number of leaders, including those of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, China and Russia. But despite Canada's lengthy military commitment to the troubled region, Vice-President Joe Biden has been given the task of relaying the president’s plans to Harper."

GREAT QUOTE ABOUT JOURNALISM

The traditional media has its problems as this remark notes:

• "I guess what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas, after all" may be the main lesson to be learned from Tiger's undoing, but the other is that no one is smart enough, connected enough, insulated enough to control the news any more.
  
  The camera-phone and the lawless jungle of the blogosphere have changed everything.
  
  Tommy-Lee Jones, Agent K in Men In Black, may have been closer to the truth than we knew when he pulled up to that Manhattan newsstand to check out the "hot sheets" for tips on space aliens living on Earth and bought a pile of supermarket tabloids.
  
  "Best investigative reporting on the planet," said K to his skeptical partner. "But go ahead, read the New York Times if you want. They get lucky sometimes." Not this time, they didn't.
  
  All of us conventional media outlets who were observing the old-fashioned rules of a game that is no longer recognizable got left miles behind on this story.
  
  As the lurid details emerge day by day, it now seems obvious to even the apologists - of which Woods has many among us in the golf media - that there is a fairly substantial trail of Tiger's mistresses/ girlfriends strewn about who are quite willing, for a price, to peddle their stories (and cellphone messages) to outlets like National Enquirer, US Weekly, TMZ, Radar Online and (your blog here).

WHO REALLY CRASHED THE WHITE HOUSE DINNER

There is an international incident brewing but it has been kept under wraps. Wait until the US Tabloids get a hint of who was really the couple involved

• "Guess who's coming to White House dinner?
  
  Throwing recession-era caution to the wind, Obama has invited an estimated 400 friends, political donors and — yes — even some Republican rivals to an extravagant soiree in honour of visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh...
  
  According to the Canadian embassy, Ambassador Gary Doer — a newcomer to the U.S. capital — is not attending the dinner.
  
  "In terms of a pecking order, there is one," says Lynn Sweet, longtime White House correspondent for the Chicago Sun-Times and a columnist for Politics Daily. "The first state dinner for an administration is always going to be a big deal, no matter who the president is, no matter what the party."

Notice as well that nothing was said about the PM and his wife......You read it here first!

DRIC EA INCOMPLETE

Please, the work was NOT done properly. Just consider the headlines:

• "Dig uncovers low-level radiation
  
  The soil was dug up by utility workers installing a fire hydrant at Hill Avenue and Russell Street.
  
  Windsor firefighters were called to the scene Tuesday morning after an alarm was raised by utility workers who were digging in the area of Sandwich Street and Hill Avenue to install fire hydrants, said assistant chief fire prevention officer Shawn Boutette.
  
  Soil from the dig site was transported to a scrapyard for backfill purposes.
  
  Boutette said the scrapyard has a radiation meter that tests trucks as they enter.
  
  When the soil from Tuesday's dig went through, "the readings were greater than zero," Boutette said.
  
  The scrapyard contacted the Windsor fire department's hazardous materials team.
  
  Boutette said the team would be studying the site with their own meters, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has been contacted about the situation."

Oh no, an environmental disaster for people using the DRIC bridge and who work there 8 hours per day. Remember why the Ontario Government would not put their new jail in the area!

• "Tooth fragment found along riverfront
  
  A tooth fragment was found along the Windsor riverfront Thursday morning near Alymer Avenue.
  
  A private company was doing soil sampling when the tooth was found about 13 feet underground, police said.
  
  Police were called but are not investigating because the tooth appeared to be old."

OLD!!!!! OMG.....heritage, artifacts...where is Ron Jones?