Try imagine an alternate universe...

...where former Conservative Premier Mike Harris kills a guy with his car on the busiest street in Toronto... and then writes a book portraying himself as the victim...

“What really attracted me to this book was the unflinching description of one man’s descent into a kind of hell,” Turbide said. “He has been humbled by what happened, but more important, wants to rededicate himself to public service and to overhaul the justice system.

What's life without a dream, huh?

He’d also served as minister of aboriginal affairs and attorney general — where he famously banned pit bulls from the province — and was considered a serious contender to succeed Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Prosecutors dropped charges against Bryant in May 2010 after deciding there was little chance of convicting him.

That's funny... it sure didn't stop them from going after David Chen. Or Ian Thomson.

I guess you gotta go big-picture here. If Toronto was willing to give Dalton a third at-bat... why wouldn't they embrace Michael Bryant in 2015?

Let the rehabilitation begin.

Where's my "Breathe-Rite" nasal strips?

Maybe Western Civilisation... doesn't deserve to survive...

The sheer artistry that is "News at 11"

I'm sure it's nothing Peter & Lisa can't solve... with a few "creative" camera angles...Hmmm, here's a thought... let's have some more social commentary from the folks who brought you lead-painted baby toys.

-- BEIJING (AP) -- China's foreign ministry said Monday the Occupy Wall Street movement highlights issues that are worth considering, but that debates generated by the protests should promote global economic growth.

"We feel that there are issues here that are worth pondering," said Liu Weimin, a foreign ministry spokesman during a regular briefing in Beijing.

Just don't ponder them anywhere near you or the Politburo puppy-pile, right Liu?

Earlier in the year, anonymous online calls for protests in China inspired by those that have swept across the Middle East and North Africa spooked the Chinese government into launching one of its broadest campaigns of repression in years.

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RELATED: Special rules for special people

"Why pay for parking and risk getting a ticket on King St. when you can just park in the park? In fact one “poor” protestor’s $30,000 truck is in the middle of St. James Park and has been there for three days."

"No yellow ticket though."

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LAST WORD: You wanna really shake things up?

From our voluminous, unceasing...

..."If I had a Hammer" file...
Okay, folks... nothing to see here... move along...

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RELATED: I did not have sex...

...with that airline...

The Spark

You can choose to sit behind a desk... you can choose to skydive...

Or you can choose to roll the dice at 225 mph.

I think, for most of us... (Albert Einstein et al excepted)... a career is mostly background noise. Some of us just choose to crank up the volume more than others.

Just this summer, a newfound friend of ours... a smart, funny, multi-faceted guy... was told he had pancreatic cancer.

Three months later he was dead.

He was 40 years old.

This was a man who embraced the people around him, who made smart choices, who absolutely radiated humanity. I keep thinking... "I wish we had known him longer... known him better."

Life. Death.

So many imponderables, so little time.

Anyway, his name was Andre... and we think of him fondly and often.

Maybe that's the mark of a life well-lived.

Bright lights, big city

The aunt of Christopher Rookwood — the city’s 39th and latest murder victim — is now reliving the nightmare of grieving over another family member.

Rookwood’s cousin Nate Thompson was lured to a Jane-Sheppard townhouse complex and shot in the head in August 2010.

At the other end of the city, Toronto Police are continuing to piece together why a 19-year-old was shot in a stairwell of an east-end apartment high-rise.

Here's a little experiment you can try...

...go get a bunch of your buddies and set up blockades on the nearest highway... and, oh yeah, don't forget to bring along some guns...
Make sure you get your nose outta joint if the cops have the temerity to get involved in your "business"...

Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said he was offended to learn that native activism is considered “threatening to national safety and security” in Canada.

Native "activism"? Is that what we're calling it these days?

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RELATED: We're not hurting anyone

"Hydro One has been powerless to complete a $116-million transmission line upgrade for five years because Caledonia “warriors” won’t allow workers to wire the last towers."

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LAST WORD: The best and most lucrative defense...

Of course they do... the two organisations...

...are practically interchangeable...

“The Liberal Party of Canada recognizes the profound importance of the CBC's role in our society. We will fight to ensure our national broadcaster receives the support and resources it needs to continue to do its vital job.”

That's a billion taxpayer dollars per year. You ever wonder where all that money goes?

"In the fiscal year ending in March 2009 — a month when 61,000 Canadians lost their jobs — the top 10 executives at CBC split a performance bonus kitty worth $888,699."

"The individual bonuses ranged from $4,300 at the bottom end to $165,090 at the top end, which is almost 3.5 times greater than the average Canadian salary, according to Statistics Canada."

And guess what? They're fighting to keep those facts from folks like you and me...

This week, CBC/Radio-Canada lawyers went to court in Montreal to plead that their Crown corporation not be subject to the Access to Information Act (AIA) like all other federal institutions.

Just a little something to think about... while you're writing out that big cheque next April.

2b

Would our economic, environmental, and energy challenges best be solved by “funding a Manhattan-style project or by funding 100,000 garages across America to encourage the kind of industry and innovation that developed Silicon Valley?”

Planet Chaz

Hey, Peace Moonbeam, I'm no tyrant... you wanna turn yourself into a vague approximation of a member of the opposite sex... knock yourself out.

Heck, why stop there? The stars are, well... Krypton, to be precise... the limit.

Just don't expect me to pay for it...
Hey, Dalton... are you listening?

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FROM THE COMMENTS: Or maybe "KIPEEPEE"...

"Kind of a swap meet page for organ donors? Could call it Switch-Gear or some such."

**********

RELATED: More special rules for special people

Project Empowerment runs its job skills training courses on three-week cycles and helps roughly 1,000 D.C. residents per year, according to Jones. The city's first transgender-only class enrolled in mid-September and graduated 17 people last Friday.

The program is run through Project Empowerment, an $11 million-a-year program paid for with D.C. tax dollars that helps hard-to-employ city residents such as ex-convicts and ex-addicts find work.

More Community Clinics?

I dunno... what would Jack say?

"TORONTO - At least one city councillor is fuming over plans by a consultative committee for suggesting on Tuesday that permits for body rub parlours be increased tenfold or more from the existing 25 to 'several hundreds' by early next year."

"'This will make us the biggest pimps in North America,' an outraged Giorgio Mammoliti said on Wednesday. 'These clubs will be springing up in strip malls and residential areas across the city.'"

Damn... that sounds so familiar...
Chalk up another one... for the center of the compassionate, intellectual socialist universe.

More Rainbows and Unicorn Farts

“It is incumbent upon Canadian officials to investigate, arrest and prosecute former president Bush for torture when he arrives in Canada a week tomorrow,” said Alex Neve, Amnesty Canada's secretary-general.

Torture, huh?Say, Alex... is there anything else you might be leaving out of your little initiative here?

No... of course not.

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RELATED: Yup... there's a difference alright

"The obsessive need of this president to apologize for American exceptionalism and our defense of freedom continued recently when Barack Obama's State Department (run by Hillary Clinton) contacted the family of al-Qaida propagandist and recruiter Samir Khan to "express its condolences" to his family."

Wow... that must make for an interesting workplace environment...

"Were there any other Americans or targets on that list?"

Hey, buddy... kiss 'em or kill 'em... but, sheesh, make up your mind.

What's a life worth?

Apparently... there's some sort of sliding scale...
Middle East math... just something else I can't understand about that particular part of the world.

Tale of Two... well... you be the Judge

Door number one...

"An altercation likely escalated to gunshots, said Det. Sgt. Pauline Gray. Gray would not comment on whether he was 'known to police'."

"'He has a lovely family here in Toronto,' Gray added. 'They’re devastated. We’ve had a lot of contact with them and they’re very supportive.'"

Door number two...

"A 27-year-old gunned down in the city’s east end over the weekend — just steps away from a memorial event for another Thanksgiving murder victim — was allegedly among a group of thugs who kidnapped, tortured and held a man for ransom last year."

I swear... I'm just thankful... I don't live in Toronto.

It's one thing to flap the ol' Dorito hole...

...another entirely to take action...

"U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an announcement today that the plan was "conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran" by a faction of the government and called it a "flagrant" violation of U.S. and international law."

Let's see whether President McDreamy actually has "the right stuff."

**********

RELATED: Stacking the deck

"The bundlers — Mark Gallogy, co-founder of investment firm Centerbridge Partners, Penny Prtizker, president and CEO of Pritzker Realty Group, and Robert Wolf, chairman of UBS Americas — have raised as much as $2.7 million for Obama in 2008 and 2012 combined, according to estimates provided by the Obama campaign."

Police death squad targets seniors?

Shouldn't the headline actually read... "Professional journalist attends meticulously-scripted homage to knife-wielding mental patient?"So... seriously... what's the deal here?

You're the owner's idiot nephew... and they saved the headline job just for you?
Vex? Vex? Forsooth, I fear a touch.

I don't get it.

Fast, furious and...

...irrevocably final...

-- TORONTO -- One man is dead and another is in hospital after a street race early Monday resulted in a horrific crash that left a sedan sliced in two.

Hmmm... not exactly like you see in the theatre. Apparently that everlasting loyalty, blood-brothers meme... just evaporates at the first dead body.

Police said the passenger ran off, leaving the driver trapped in the car. When paramedics arrived the driver wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a heartbeat.

The driver of the other car in the race, believed to be a black Infiniti G35, sped off.

Police aren’t releasing the name of the deceased until his family, who don’t live in Canada, are notified.

But don't you worry Toronto... the Liberal Party will make everything alright...

Jim Karygiannis, MP for Scarborough-Agincourt, released a statement Monday saying he will introduce a federal bill on limiting speed.

Yeah, Jim... if only there was a law, huh?

**********

RELATED: Bright lights, big city

Scarborough... it's a happenin' place...

Police are looking for three or four suspects after a man was shot and killed near Victoria Park Ave. and O’Connor Dr.

Police and EMS responded to a call around 11:15 p.m. on Sunday night. A man in his early 20s was rushed to trauma centre in critical condition with several gunshot wounds to his chest.

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FROM THE COMMENTS: Neo bad. Toronto good.

He's baaa-aaack!

Get all the skinny from, er... Skinny.
Speaking of "fast & furious"... what's today's take?

Posted by Skinny in Toronto to halls of macadamia at 10:16 AM, October 11, 2011
Posted by Skinny in Toronto to halls of macadamia at 1:15 PM, October 11, 2011
Posted by Skinny in Toronto to halls of macadamia at 1:29 PM, October 11, 2011
Posted by Skinny in Toronto to halls of macadamia at 1:48 PM, October 11, 2011
Posted by Skinny in Toronto to halls of macadamia at 4:18 PM, October 11, 2011
Posted by Skinny in Toronto to halls of macadamia at 5:15 PM, October 11, 2011

Amazing.

Imagine the output if I actually let all of this stuff through.

It's like apples and kumquats

-- TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- An Iranian military commander said Sunday that the protests spreading from New York's Wall Street to other U.S. cities are the beginning of an "American Spring," likening them to the uprisings that toppled Arab autocrats in the Middle East.

Yes, of course, you knucklehead... it's exactly the same thing.

**********

RELATED: Compare & contrast

Conspicuously living among the politically active in the makeshift village in Zuccotti Park are opportunistic junkies and homeless people - making the most of the free food on offer.
Where are the protests happening?

Also present and infuriating the hard core of activists are a number of teens looking to turn the gathering into an urban rave.

Among the banners and flags are now discarded packets of condoms, cigarettes and bottles of spirits, while naked youngsters happily get together with just sleeping bags covering their modesty.

Hope, change and...

...license to thrill...Remember, it's only evil... when Bush/Cheney do it...

"So scrupulous was the by-the-book Obama OLC about targeting Americans that they gave the okay to hit Awlaki before they’d even done the research into whether it was legal."

Thinking...

...outside the XBOX...
Get folding...