More About Doug The Slug

In my previous post, I wrote rather scathingly of Doug Ford and his refusal to put back into the building code a requirement for new home builds to have a plug built in to facilitate EV chargers. To clarify any confusion left by that post, the extra $500 charge to new homes would have been for the infrastructure, not the actual charger.  Unfortunately Ford, who takes his direction from developers, refused at their behest this simple requirement, disingenuously citing his desire to make life more affordable for Ontarians burdened by his benighted 'leadership.

Toronto Star readers, a generally perceptive group, were quick to point out the error of Doug's ways:

Setting homes up for EVs makes sense

Ford government won’t make electric vehicle chargers mandatory in new homes despite championing EV industry, April 11

The Ford government’s position on the inclusion of roughed-in wiring for EV charging stations in new homes is disingenuous and short-sighted. An additional $500 cost will not deter the buyer of a new home, with average costs approaching $1 million in major markets. It is literally a tiny percentage of the overall cost, and will be amortized over 25-30 years. In comparison, pre-wiring during construction would eliminate over half the cost of installing an EV charging station. It seems obvious that our government is happy to spend our money to entice EV component manufacturers, but totally unwilling to assist Ontarians in future-proofing their new homes, to reduce our carbon footprint and lessen the impact of our changing climate. Did past governments argue the same way against requiring electric dryer circuits in the building and electrical codes?

Doug Lewis, Clarington, Ont.

The Ontario Conservatives won’t make house builders install plugs for electric cars. Putting another plug in a million dollar house would have little or no effect on the price of the house. Builders put in plugs for microwaves, stoves, clothes dryers, et cetera. Putting in one more plug for an electric car charger is not a big deal. It becomes a bigger deal if the plug has to be installed once the house is built. The homeowner still has to buy a charger to plug into the plug but at least the house is not ripped apart to install the plug. Like many of the Ford government’s policies, this call does not make any sense.

Wolfe Erlichman, Godfrey, Ont.

Doug Ford's illogic and hypocrisy are manifest. The question, however, is whether enough of the electorate notices or even cares.

The Curse Of News Literacy

There are some days I almost wish I weren't a newspaper reader. That way I wouldn't be confronted  daily with the world's stupidity and perhaps not constantly haunted by a jaundiced view of humanity.

In my previous post I wrote at some length about the buffoonery that defines the Doug Ford government here in Ontario; while I briefly return to that subject now, I shall also take a look at my disappointment over Jagmeet Singh's recent pronouncements. Just bear with me, if you are so inclined.

First, a peek at our Pavlovian premier, Mr. Ford. The previous government, under Kathleen Wynne, mandated charging plugs for all new house and condo builds in 2018. Mr. Ford, in 2019, stripped that provision out of the building code. Despite his heavily investing in EV battery plants for Ontario, he will not reverse that decision.

... after lobbying from developers who said the plugs added $500 to the cost of a new house, Ford stripped them from the code. He also ended rebates of up to $14,000 for buyers of EVs and scrapped chargers from GO Transit stations and other public locations.

Why, when EV investment is so important to the Ontario economy, would he continue to hang tough?

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra, who tabled legislation modernizing the building code on Wednesday, warned that keeping new home costs low is more important than mandating EV chargers.

“Look, I think homeowners can make that decision on their own. If you’re wanting to buy a EV, we encourage you to do it — that’s why we’re making massive investments in that,” Calandra told reporters at Queen’s Park.

“But if that’s something that you want to do, then the homeowner themselves can undertake that. We want to keep costs of building new homes down,” he said.

The price of installing an EV charger in an existing home can be between $1,000 and $3,000 — much more than putting one in during construction.

 Green Leader Mike Schreiner said the Tories “are ideologically opposed to building the infrastructure we need for electric vehicles” and that has economic consequences.

“Is Ford Motor Company delaying the building of their plant and retooling their plant in Oakville because they know we don’t have the infrastructure in Ontario to facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles?” said Schreiner.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the 'soundness' of the government's 'thinking'. 

Things are not much better on the federal scene. I must confess to my surprise and disappointment with NDP leader Jagment Singh, who now seems to be waffling on the carbon levy and thereby succumbing to the siren call of populism.

The federal New Democrats no longer believe a consumer carbon price is necessary to fight climate change, Jagmeet Singh suggested Thursday.

The new position, which appears to break with the NDP’s previous support for the policy, was outlined in a speech Singh delivered at the Broadbent Institute’s annual policy conference in Ottawa on Thursday. In it, he distanced his party from the federal Liberals’ flagship climate policy, which has drawn criticism from across the country as the levy and its accompanying rebates increased this April.

Singh condemned the approaches of both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to the climate crisis, and said tackling it “can’t be done by letting working families bear the cost of climate change while big polluters make bigger and bigger profits.”

Sadly, this move lends legitimacy to the prattle of PP and the provincial premiers, who seem to speak as one in denouncing the levy as a burden on all of us, despite the fact that most come out ahead with the feds' quarterly rebate checks. 

I will give Singh credit for one assertion, however.

Referring to a March report that concluded industrial carbon pricing systems were far more effective than the consumer levy on fuel, Singh told reporters that the New Democrats “want more attention on the policies that are the biggest drivers of lowering emissions,” such as the industrial price on pollution and methane regulations. 

Industrial carbon pricing systems would be a reference to such protocols as cap and trade. Yes, the very same system that Doug Ford dismantled when he came to power, a move that led to Trudeau imposing the carbon levy on all of us. Interestingly, even as Mr. Ford and others rail against the levy, no one seems to have any interest in bringing back cap and trade. Why not? You would have to ask Mr. Ford and his friends in high places for the answer.

I also don't have a direct answer as to why the electorate cannot make the journey from A to B and connect the dots that would show the arrant hypocrisy of people like Ford when they indulge in the political theatre of fed-bashing.

Hence my jaundiced view of humanity.

Small Minds And Big Power

It will probably come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I have a rather low opinion of our species. There are too many small-minded people thinking they are the smartest people in the room, reflecting the classic Dunning-Krueger effect. Nothing can be done about this reality, as they seem wholly incapable of taking any semblance of instruction.

The real problem, however, is when politicians target that audience for their political support. We see it, of course, in the U.S. as Don Trump cultivates his MAGA morons. Unfortunately, the problem also occurs closer to home. We see it in PP's simplistic aphorisms like "spike the hike' and "axe the tax", his answer to climate change mitigation efforts. And here in Ontario, Doug Ford has no doubt provided sociologists and political analysts all manner of fodder when it comes to populism. Indeed, he has made an art out of promulgating the picayune.

Ford, our very own arrested development premier, has made a virtue out of small-minded policies at the expense of constructive, long-term ideas. As you know, thanks to his 'magnanimity', we no longer have to pay licence plate renewal fees, at an annual expense to revenues of $1.2 billion. Add to that the ongoing gas tax 'holiday', and you are left with a substantial gap in the provincial treasury. And perhaps you have heard of Ford's latest scheme to force the LCBO to bring back paper bags to spare the expense of having to buy a reusable one if you have forgotten yours at home, all in the name of making life more affordable.

One of the problems when you concentrate on the 'needs' of the 'little guy' is that you think you can fool everyone and ignore those who want real intelligence in decision-making. Take, for example, his latest scheme. Because his government is woefully behind in the goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031, Ford's solution is to count the rooms in Long-Term Care homes and dormitories. 

It's an idea being met with ridicule in the legislature. Rob Ferguson writes:

“What are they going to count next … jail cells?” New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles said Tuesday as she criticized Ford for fighting fourplexes as a way to improve the housing supply.   

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra — who on Wednesday will announce new measures to “cut red tape and help municipalities build” — pushed back at critics with his own argument.

“Obviously, student housing is very important,” he said.

“Every time we build new housing, or a college or university campus builds new housing, that is more housing that is available in the community. I don’t think that’s a very difficult concept to follow.”

Why such transparent fraud?

To meet its 1.5-million target, the province needs to build an average of 150,000 new homes annually.

But the last two years, the actual numbers were well below that, with 109,111 in 2023 and 80,300 in 2022. Soaring interest rates and higher building costs driven by inflation were factors.

 Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, a former three-term mayor of Mississauga, accused the government of “trying to prop up their numbers with dorms and retirement units because they’re not meeting their (housing) targets.”

“It’s misleading, and it’s just a shell game,” she told a news conference at Queen’s Park. 

“You can’t even have a microwave in a dorm room. My goodness, that is not a home,” Stiles said in an exchange with Calandra in the legislature’s daily question period.

 Green Leader Mike Schreiner mused whether the government might go further.

“At this point, the government is going to start counting tents,” he quipped.  

Stiles's, Crombie's and Schreiner's objections are based on an assumption that the electorate is not stupid. That is likely a miscalculation on their part. In any event, people who know things, read papers and keep up with events are clearly not the target audience the Ford government has in its sights. Quite the opposite, in fact.

 

On This Eclipse Day

The crazed populist and evangelical set is trumpeting today's eclipse as yet another indicator of the end times.  Marjorie Taylor Greene, never one to pass up an opportunity to display her moronic mentality, had this to say:

... the firebrand Republican congresswoman raised eyebrows with a tweet: "God is sending America strong signs to repent," she warned ominously, in a post alternately praised and mocked. "Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come."

However, here is a more realistic apocalyptic warning that all should heed:

UPDATED: "The Trumpiest Story Of All Time"?

Maybe. Maybe not, since there is still more time until the end of time. Nonetheless, the following story does seem to suggest that there is no end to the unbridled gall of Don Trump and, undoubtedly, it will probably be fully supported by the MAGA crowd who, we are told, are heavily invested in the stock of his company, which is currently cratering.

Former President Donald Trump's fledgling media business is losing its sheen among investors a week after going public, with a sharp reversal in the company's stock price lopping $4 billion off its value.

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, whose primary asset is the Truth Social platform, tumbled 21% on Monday, closing at $48.66, or below its opening price last Monday of $49.90 per share. It also represents a 39% plunge from the stock's high of $79.38 on March 26

Mr. T's reaction? Sue:

Donald Trump is suing two co-founders of Trump Media, claiming they should lose their shares of the company for mismanaging his social media site.

 In the lawsuit, filed on 24 March in Florida state court, lawyers for the former president say Mr Moss and Mr Litinsky were in charge of Trump Media & Technology Group's daily operations, but "failed spectacularly at every turn".

Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) is the parent company of Truth Social. 

"They made a series of reckless and wasteful decisions at a critical time that caused significant damage to TMTG and a decline in the stock price of its merger partner," Mr Trump's lawyers wrote in the filing.

All of which is standard operating procedure for the tattered Titan. Famous for his refusal to pay bills, often turning that refusal into lawsuits against contractors, painters etc., the inflamed Orange One doubtlessly thinks it will work again in his life-long practice of refusing to accept responsibility for anything. 

However, I shall leave it to MSNBC to set the record straight on this latest outburst of toddlerism:

It is said that Americans like their politics simple. At any rate, they now have a simpleton, however malicious, leading the charge.

UPDATE: This seems timely:

 

Truly, Irredeemably Bad

I take this blog seriously. In it, I try to offer informed aggregation and commentary, and hope that I am never needlessly cruel or uncouth. However, in order to make the point that American politics has clearly entered a new phase in its embrace of the theatre of the absurd, I must depart somewhat from those guidelines.

This morning I was reading, as I always do, The Star's Vinay Menon. A very entertaining columnist, he writes with wit and verve, often capturing the absurdities of life. In his latest piece, he writes about Don Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara. (Yes, the same Lara who recently became co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and instituted loyalty oaths for prospective employees, thus making the Trump takeover and makeover of the Republican Party complete.) 

Not surprisingly for a family that cultivates delusional thinking, Ms. Trump now fancies herself a songstress, belting out tunes to promote her father-in-law's 'vision' for America.  I therefore offer two of them for your consideration, although I strongly advise listening only to a few seconds of each to confirm how execrably tuneless the woman is. (My wife threatened severe retribution if I played any more than that.)

Just one more thing: in clicking on the following, you are accepting the disclaimer that I cannot be held liable for any psychic or aural damage you may suffer from your exposure to Ms. Trump's stylings.

Just in case you think the woman was having a bad studio session, here is one more for your abbreviated consideration:

I Am At A Loss For Words

 Some days, I truly despair, and words fail me.

“He’s definitely been chosen by God,” said Marie Zere, a commercial real estate broker from Long Island who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference in February outside Washington, D.C. “He’s still surviving even though all these people are coming after him, and I don’t know how else to explain that other than divine intervention.”

You can read the entire sad story here.

And if that's not enough, consider this from Graeme MacKay: