Hmmm…how about the absurdity of arguing that that the difficulty we are all having commuting and walking through the snow and ice in Vancouver right now is in any way the fault of Gregor Robertson and city council (www.citycaucus.com Dec 30).

“Ok Andrea, you dig out the Drive! Cadman, you want more responsibility? Grab a shovel!
Anton, I told you to put chains on all the bus tires! Don’t tell me its not municipal jurisdiction, get out there! If anyone needs me, leave a message with Maria, I’ll be pushing the B-Line around all day.”

Give me a break. The reason it’s so hard to get around is because a lot of snow fell and because this is Vancouver and we don’t have a lot of snow plows. Yes, we temporarily need more snow equipment during the olympics, although I should hope that Vanoc thought of that a while ago. Now if the City refused to pay snow clearing staff overtime because of the depleted contingency fund, that would be news. If this upstart City Caucus blog wants to be taken seriously they can’t just throw slush like this and hope it will freeze.

Sad to see that the CBC participated in such a tactless hit job.

“So how do you think the new city government is handling this problem Daniel Fontaine, former chief-of-staff to the previous mayor from
the other rival party?” “Badly!”

Despite laughing out loud when Mr. Fontaine was introduced as “one Vancouver resident” distinguished only by possessing “his blog” I was compelled to write this:

“I’m very sorry that my first letter to the CBC is a complaint, I usually am very proud of your network’s quality and objectivity. However, the next time a “resident” is selected to make local commentary about a situation which might reflect on the level of competancy of Vancouver’s mayor and council, perhaps the CBC could select someone who was not the former chief-of-staff to the previous mayor
who held power under a rival political party to that of the current mayor and council majority. This was not commentary, it was a hit job
by one party on another, and a news program shouldn’t allow itself to be used so easily for such purposes. If the CBC was bent on voicing Mr. Fontaine’s opinions it should have introduced the guest as the former chief-of-staff to the recently defeated mayor, in which case people would have treated his words with the mounds of snow-salt they deserve. I’m thinking of going to the ombudsman for the lack of disclosure on this one actually, please respond.”

And it could backfire for, as what happens on some of the larger American right-wing blogs (the few that allow comments that is), Vision-leaning commenters might perform political jujitsu pointing out absurdities if the arguments aren’t sharp.