vic.gedris.org Never mind the blogs, here's the website.

Mondial Du VTT Descente de Venosc caméra embarquée
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I've just sent this to my MP and cc'ed the finance minister, in response to and article regarding the potential sale of government assets:

Hello, Mario Silva,

I am a constituent of your riding and I do not support the privatization of crown corporations. There is a long history showing that this course of action generally benefits a rich minority in the long term, and benefits the public only in the short term.

Minister Flaherty should remember a similar situation when the 407 was sold under the Harris Government. This was not advantageous for the people of Toronto, who have seen increased tolls, while they amount paid for the highway is many times what is estimated to be worth.

Similar case studies of selling government assets can be seen if you look at the reform of the Chilean government in the 1970s or the reform of the Russian government in the 1990s. In both of these cases, there was a "shot in the arm" for the government coffers after selling government assets, but in the long term the people ended up paying more for the services which were privatized (and sold for much less than they were worth).

The privatization of the CBC is a particularly ghastly notion. This Conservative government seems hell-bent on depleting Canadian culture.

Please do not support these actions.

The Human River (2008):

1. Hillcrest Park is nice. I'd never been there before.
2. Some houses on Shaw are built on top of the filled in Garrison Creek (pictured). The fill that was used is still compacting, so many of these houses are askew.
   
3. Kids aren't great at riding in groups. Hopefully they had an educational good time. When I was a kid, I would have hated it.
   
4. In terms of cycling, St. Clair is worse than Bloor - Yorkville, both in terms of road repair and the amount of courtesy you are afforded by motorists.
5. Listening to the LEAF person describe what it would have been like here four or five hundred years ago was cool. He obviously cared a lot about the issue and was an evocative speaker.

Redacted: It turns out that my joke about the van falling into the harbour was in bad taste, since both people died. The article I read originally said that the person in the van got away. :-(

From wikipedia's preamble about Toronto, Ohio:

Toronto is a 2nd largest city in Jefferson County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 5,676 at the 2000 census.

The area was first settled in the 19th century, when it was known as Newburg's Landing. When the railway was built, however, the area's name was changed to Sloanes Station. In 1881, after a vote, the town was incorporated under its present name. This was taken from the much larger Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which civic leader Thomas M. Daniels felt was a place worth emulating.

Thanks, Thomas M. Daniels.

Autodidact: "An autodidact is a mostly self-taught person, as opposed to learning in a school setting or from a tutor."

Video from today's incredible car free day parade on Queen West. The critical mass ride was smaller than usual, but still a lot of fun. There were lots of newbies.

From City News:
It's that kind of pronouncement that angers drivers, who will now be forced to wait a lot longer at the lights, increasing their already simmering impatience and their feeling that City Hall is at war with the car.

"You've got to keep traffic moving somehow, and to hold up traffic just so a few pedestrians can cross wherever they want doesn't make sense," moans motorist Bryan Lawrence about the four way stop. I love their choice of words, particularly "moans" and "simmering impatience." The hyperbolic words clash with the triviality of the situation and make the motorist's concerns seem entirely inconsequential.

Last night was the 5th anniversary of the blackout. I was not living in Toronto when the original blackout occurred. The event wasn't a celebration of the lack of electricity in the city; it was a celebration of a day that people were in general nicer to each other. The fact that it coincided with a day of greatly decreased energy usage is just a bonus.

Check out everyone's friend Martino's photostream Blackout Anniversary Party.

I just biked home from an office barbq north of Sheppard. I took the right lane for almost the whole way home and "biked vehicularly." (Note to VC advocates: your jargon is awkward.) I had a very smooth ride home with surprisingly few interactions with asshole motorists.

I am still an advocate for bike lanes, of course. VC is great if you are comfortable doing it, but n00bs and couriers alike prefer bike lanes. VC extremists hate bike lanes, but extremists are always wrong.

I also broke a personal speed record on the way home, clocking 59 Km/h. If only I could go so fast on an even grade...