It has come to this: we are now officially issuing “Rainfall Warnings“.

We’re gonna get some rain today, and by golly, be warned! You might get wet!

Give me a break.

Ottawa radio host Lowell Green was reprimanded by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Counsil for “abusive and discriminatory” remarks to Muslims in a show he did in December 07. The show was a reaction to the story of a British teacher who had named her teddy bear “Muhammad” and was effectively chased out of Sudan. Of course, a show of this kind brings out the most vocal of Muslims, as it has many times. And all it takes is one complaint.

One example of the silly ruling:

In one instance, Green responded to a Muslim caller with the word “Baloney!” and, in another, told the sympathetic, apparently non-Muslim, caller she had “abandoned common sense” and was being “silly”.

If you know Lowell at all, you could substitute the read more

The Ottawa Citizen has a story today about how teenagers do not wear boots, toques or mitts, even in -32 degree weather. Quoting a grade 10 student walking down the street in the Glebe, the story tells us that teens do not want to wear toques because of the potential to mess up the bed-head hair-do, and do not want to wear gloves or mitts because they cannot operate their iPod with them. And wearing boots, well, that’s just, like, not cool. Throw in a transit strike, and what you have is thousands of freezing teens shivering by the glow of their cellphone screen, trying to look cool (but not cold).

I probably did the same thing when I was a teen. Of read more

Looks pretty good right now, doesn’t it Mr. Cornellier?

Ottawa’s Amalgamated Transit Union voted against the city’s latest offer yesterday, prolonging their strike indefinitely. They claim it is not about money, but about their ”quality of life” eg. the scheduling.

Right now, scheduling is in the hands of the drivers (union). They can pick their own shifts based on their seniority, currently resulting in $8 million dollars a year in overtime pay because senior drivers pick the lucrative shifts, some booking more than 60 hours a week (resulting in about 30 hours/week of overtime pay) while junior drivers are sitting in the garage waiting for work (and being paid). Some workers are now being paid for 12 hour shifts while they only work for 6 or 7. The city wants the read more

Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien has sent a letter to federal labour minister Rona Ambrose to throw a wrench into the ol’ boys club that is the ATU and force the ATU to allow their members to vote on the “second offer” as it has come to be known. Of course, this is perfectly within her rights as labour minister, but it is unprecedented and I am sure the MSM will have a field day with this one.

In a strange twist of facts, Mauril Bélanger, Liberal MP for Ottawa-Vanier said that the proroguement of parliament may have had a role to playin the length of the strike, leaving no unfortunate incident unused to push the liberal cause. Thanks, you’re really helping there, Mauril.

Court decision lets limited number of OC Transpo drivers picket at the World Junior Hockey Tournament in Ottawa. The picketers are allowed to hand out flyers. I am sure a hockey fan from Kazachstan will be very interested to read about the plight of the Ottawa Bus Driver. “Just hang in until next week, then the Hockey comes to town” said local ATU official Andre Cornellier a few weeks back. It seems that was what Andre was trying to blackmail the city with and he was hoping the city would be panicked enough to cave in order to “save” the tournament.

He was wrong.

With Christmas over, a limited picket at the tournament, and people getting used to car-pooling, walking and living down town, read more

About 400,000 people in Ontario are just about to lose their jobs. And that is in the auto sector alone. Thousands upon thousands of people are worried that they’ll be jobless within the year. I myself am worried if I still have a job (or a company for that matter) at the end of next year, since our company supplies, amongst others, GM and Chrysler (I am btw disappointed the government has a bail-out plan for the big three AMERICAN companies operating in Ontario–throwing money at a bad company isn’t going to save it, they will have to change structurally first, starting with the unions).

Against this depressing backdrop, several unions are currently on strike for things ordinary people would only wish read more