Daily Archives: 2 December 2010

Wikileaks brings out government psycopaths, boot-licking media

– Rep. Peter King: WikiLeaks Should Be A ‘Terror Organisation’

– Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and ex-Pentagon official KT McFarland were among those claiming the guilty party should face execution for putting national security at risk by leaking the inflammatory information.

KT McFarland, who held national security posts under the Nixon, Ford and Reagan governments, backed the calls, saying Private Bradley Manning – the chief suspect of leaking the files – should face treason charges and possible execution. (Read more from telegraph.co.uk)

– Glen Greenwald: “there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to serving, protecting and venerating government authorities than the U.S. Indeed, I don’t quite recall any entity producing as much bipartisan contempt across the American political spectrum as WikiLeaks has: as usual, for authoritarian minds, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon.” (Read more from salon.com)

– Jack Hunter (via facebook): “umm… What was worse for national security? Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby blowing Valerie Plame’s CIA cover to get back at her husband? Or ANYTHING we’ve seen from Wikileaks? Just saying…”

“thinks its weird how certain conservatives become obsessed with “exposing” Obama’s supposedly secret socialist or Muslim background, but freak out when Wikileaks exposes actual government shadiness. I guess conspiracy theories are only fun so long as they remain theories.”

– “That’s why the Establishment of both parties, and pundits on the neocon right and the Obama-ite left, are out to knife Assange and bring down WikiLeaks. They may fight about how much to raise the retirement age, and how to divide the tax loot, but when it comes to defending the Empire – and the cult of secrecy that su…stains it in a ‘democratic’ Imperium such as ours – they stand united, both red and blue.” (Read more from antiwar.com)

– Why I Love WikiLeaks – For restoring distrust in our most important institutions.

Why Toronto’s street food program is in shambles

open quote“Anybody asks me about this program — I feel like I’m going to vomit,” Pinder declared one sunny day last week in front of several customers lined up at her silver cart at King and Bay Sts.

“The city — à la Cart — bankrupted me.”

The retired mental health worker is not alone. Just one of the eight vendors selected for the pilot program is certain of returning next summer for the final year. Others have given up or are demanding concessions from the city to return. Several haven’t paid their 2010 location fees.

he ethnic food program — offering everything from bulgogi to souvlaki — is in a shambles.

So, how did a well-intentioned effort to reflect the diversity of Toronto through street food go so sour?

. . . .

Vendors say the health manager assigned to help them had no experience in hospitality or small business. Menu changes had to be approved by the city’s medical officer of health.

“When we asked for other changes, with the cart or location, we were told council would get a report once a year,” Bonivento says.

Hot dog vendors are overseen by municipal licensing and standards.

Filion, who in January 2009 predicted the vendors would earn “a very, very good income,” says public health was capable of running the program but acknowledges there were problems with the execution.

. . . .

From day one, vendors were wrapped in red tape. The original 15 in the program were reduced to eight after many balked at rigorous requirements, including the requirement that anyone who already held a hot dog licence had to give it up to participate; no signs allowed on the “uniform look” carts; a preference for “locally sustainable produced foods”; and a requirement that owners personally work the cart at least 70 per cent of its operating time (later reduced to 50 per cent).

. . . .

Above all else, vendors say, they failed because of the $30,000 cost of the carts and many other limitations. Instead of considering existing cart models, staff drafted a thick list of specifications and tendered for a custom-built version. Only one firm, Crown Verity, bid. The result was a cart that weighs 360 kilograms, is not towable, has a small countertop, a malfunctioning freezer and takes two people four exhausting hours a day to load and unload from a truck or trailer.

“You’ve told us we need to run a mobile business and you’ve provided us with a cart that’s immobile,” Bonivento says.

. . . .

“The biggest obstacle to success is the cart itself. You can’t fight that.”

Noorullah Iman, a father of five with a three-bedroom apartment and debts that threaten to bankrupt him, says he quit the program after realizing kebab and samosa sales would never cover his $1,500-a-month cart loan.

. . . .

Vendors complain they were given bad, unresearched locations with fees of up to $15,000 a year that had no basis in reality.

Last summer, Andnet Zere tried to sell Eritrean injeras at Roundhouse Park, south of the CN Tower, while mud flew from construction around her. Two authorized moves later, she quit.

. . . .

Sperling says the sites were chosen by a staff committee that considered “perceived pedestrian traffic.” Vendors were told the city did not do pedestrian counts or market research, and were encouraged to do their own homework.close quote (Read more from thestar.com)