I have a loved who has been targeted by one of the ACTION teams the Spec article talks about.

The table below contains a rundown of the fines he got over a period of time. In 2010 he was 17 years old. In 2010 he became the victim of a serious illness.

Notices of Fines and Offence Dates from the Ontario Court of Justice
Date	Offence	Amt. Due.	Total
March 31, 2010	LIQUOR ILLEGAL PLACE	$130.00	$130.00
March 31, 2010	UNDER 19 YEARS HAVE LIQUOR	$130.00	$260.00
March 31, 2010	SOLICIT NEAR TRANSIT STOP	$70.00	$330.00
April 6, 2010	ENTER PREM WHEN PROH	$70.00	$400.00
April 10, 2010	ENTER PREM WHEN PROH	$70.00	$470.00
October 4, 2010	ENGAGE IN PROHIBITED ACTIVITY	$70.00	$540.00
November 8, 2010	SOLICIT NEAR PUB. TRANSIT STOP	$70.00	$610.00
July 22, 2012	SOLICIT NEAR VEH/IN PARKING LOT	$70.00	$680.00
November 15, 2012	ENGAGE IN PROHIBITED ACTIVITY	$70.00	$750.00
November 15, 2012	DISOBEY SIGN	$115.00	$865.00
November 15, 2012	SOLICIT NEAR VEH/IN PARKING LOT	$70.00	$935.00
April 6, 2013	SOLICIT NEAR PUB. TRANSIT STOP	$70.00	$1,005.00

What interests me about the Spectator report, is not that the police officers might have been writing ghost tickets, in which case I sympathize with them for having the clarity of thought to understand that the entire enterprise was a total farce, typical of the kind of policy horseshit that the government of Hamilton is so stunningly good at performing, but that these officers are being penalized for refusing to waste their time, assuming the allegations are true.

Why risk confrontations with the targets of city policies (the homeless, the addicted, the lost,) many of whom are mentally ill, and could become agitated in confrontations with police, and end up dead in the street, all over the issuance of tickets that will never be paid? Why bother with the performance of meaningless rituals? (Then again, that is 99 per cent of what government is all about.)

If the allegations are true, these cops should be given medals.

Even one of the police supervisors could see that this whole campaign was nothing more than a bunch of political posturing designed to make the politicians look like they were "doing something." They are doing something alright.... they are fucking up everything they touch. Look at what they've done to our streets with all of their pro-idling traffic disruptions! (two-way street conversions, artificial potholes (A.K.A. speed-bumps), buffer zones, crackhead bike lanes and retarded snail-paced speed limits.)

Sgt. Michael Dunham, Team One's supervisor in 2014, testified to the seemingly pointless exercise of issuing tickets.

It "was going nowhere" and was mostly for the public to see police doing something about problems downtown.

"But, you know, there's nothing going to happen to them (the panhandlers, drunks and loiterers). They weren't going to pay the tickets. They weren't going to court."

"Unfortunately, we dealt with the same 25 people day in and day out, 365 days a year."

Yeah. He got it right. It was "mostly for the public to see police doing something about problems downtown." Political posturing.

Real problems get swept under the rug. The homeless and mentally ill targets of these policies need help, not tickets. And when they are not sweeping real problems under the rug to hide their impotence, they are manufacturing fake problems, and outrageously proclaiming that they can effectively solve them. Like "climate change."

It reinforces my belief that most politicians are a bunch of flaming charlatans. They are not interested in solving real problems. They are only interested in the optics.

Guess what? I think a lot of other people are starting to come around to my way of thinking. They are starting to see through the phony problems politicians wring their sweaty, grubby, ambitious hands around, and they can't miss the real problems, because those are the ones that directly affect them.

No. They are not terribly concerned about allegedly vanishing polar bears. Not rising sea levels. Not racists lurking around every corner planning their next move to oppress people of colour. Not Christian bakers refusing to serve gay couples. Nor trannies who get upset about the limited array of bathroom choices.

They are more concerned with the problems that they can feel. The problems that affect them on a day to day level.

Like their sky-rocketing hydro bills, their declining standard of living, depressed sons and daughters rendered hopeless by unemployment and tales of doom unless they turn out their lights and freeze in the dark, public school "education," Islamic terrorism (a real problem) and even their freedom of speech and thought.

Yep. I think people are starting to see things the way I see them.

As evidence, I offer the election of Donald Trump.

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This rant was inspired by the following article from the Hamilton Spectator. By the way, it pisses me off that the Spec has apparently chosen to disable comments for this report. What's up with that?

Nearly 300 tickets, none paid: panhandler tells trial.

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Oh, and one final thought.

It concerns the popular vote in the recent election.

One source I googled had Clinton ahead.

"Clinton now leads the popular vote by 1,152,016 votes and 47.8% to 46.9%."

Now, considering that half of the population have an IQ of 100 or lower, where would you guess the IQ level of the people smashing windows and electrical boxes, beating up "suspected" Trump voters, and burning garbage in the streets is?

I'm just wondering.

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Uber and the Surveilance Society

Yeah, this is just great.

As we move headlong into the total surveillance, totally cashless, and eventually private-car-less, driver-less, computer-controlled, collectivist transportation network so loved by crypto-communists, anti-human climate change hoaxers, and their parasitical corporate donors and beneficiaries....

..... Uber unabashedly promotes itself by bragging that its marvelous technology allows its zombie acolytes to,

"5. Retrace your steps

Classes, practices, clubs, parties—it’s a lot to keep track of. Luckily, your Uber receipts provide a record of everywhere you’ve been and what time."

For one thing, who cares about "keeping track" of the stuff you've ALREADY DONE?

The NSA?

Before local governments mandated spy cameras for all non-Uber taxis they were fairly private conveyances. Since these cameras are only accessed in response to reported incidents, privacy in cabs is still very secure, especially for those who pay with cash.

What happens in taxis, stays in taxis.

In a sane society, the fact that Uber boasts about its collection of all of the classes you attend, the bars and parties you go to should be enough to convince most people to avoid Uber like the plague.

But instead, in this day and age, privacy is becoming a dirty word.

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." -- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)

And for those boneheads (you know who you are) who, at this point say,

"I don't need to value privacy. I haven't done anything wrong," I recommend you read, "Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent" by Harvey Silverglate and Alan M. Dershowitz,

and get back to me.

From the description,

"The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior. The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions to stick on their hapless targets. The dangers spelled out in Three Felonies a Day do not apply solely to “white collar criminals,” state and local politicians, and professionals. No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch, and nothing less than the integrity of our constitutional democracy hangs in the balance."

Another book I recommend is "Battlefield America: The War On The American People" by John W. Whitehead for a nightmarish account of where we are heading.

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The only flaw in the following video is the last payment option which, of course, would not be available at all in a cashless society.

Update: April 26, 2017 see "Uber Secretly Tagged User's Phones."

Update: March 12, 2020

Laura Loomer might have an opinion on this subject as well,

Laura Loomer on Big Tech Censorship: ‘People Need to Wake Up’

Alicia Machado

As I watch this interview (at 7:12 right now) I am wondering what, if anything, the CBC has "reported" about this Alicia Machado thing.

When I finish watching the interview I will check the CBC website and report back. (I expect the usual CBC infovomit, by the way. Let's see if I am correct.)

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Ok. So now I will check what the CBC has to report on the matter.

Well, lookee here. Right off the bat we get this headline...

Trump shames ex-beauty queen for sexual history

Yep. Just as I expected, and I am only on the second paragraph and I am already puking. Get this fucking line, " USA Today broke with its tradition of not taking sides in elections with an editorial that said the Republican candidate is "unfit for the presidency."

Greg Hunter at U.S.A Watchdog.com has been pointing out just how disgustingly one-sided U.S.A. Today's reporting has been for some time now. The claim that U.S.A. Today has only just now "broken with tradition" is complete horseshit. But it's typical of the kind of effluent that is common on the CBC.

"The outburst was an extreme reminder of how Trump has seemed unable to restrain himself from veering into unhelpful territory, even with the election less than 40 days away." it says further down the page, even though it was Crooked Hillary who intitially veered into "unhelpful territory" during the debate.

And the CBC pukefest goes on.

So yes. It turns out that the "information" provided by the Candian Government's Complete Bullshit Channel is as irrelevant and useless as ever, unless the CBC has also suddenly "broken with tradition" of "not taking sides" and come out against Donald Trump. Ralph! (No offense to guys named Ralph.)

Funny that this news report should come up today!

Earlier this week, I was considering ordering one of Trump's red "Make America Great Again" baseball caps. Then I thought better of the idea by realizing it might turn me into a lightning rod for verbal or physical abuse by diversity-loving tolerant leftists.

The same thought applied earlier in regard to getting a pro Trump bumper sticker for my car.

Remember that scene in one of the "Die Hard" films where Bruce Willis found himself in a ghetto neighbourhood wearing a sandwich board?

That was pretty funny twenty years ago.

Fast forward to today and all you have to do is visit that same neighbourhood with a sign saying, "All Lives Matter."

.... or even a "Make America Great Again" baseball cap.

Is this what we call "progress?"

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Can you spot the Samuel Jackson character in this video?

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"The SA was also used to intimidate any opposition."

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15 Questions White People Have For BuzzFeed Racists

The City of Ottawa, Uber, and Unbridled Political Sleaze

On August 12, 2016, the Ottawa Citizen reported that "Ottawa taxi drivers launch $215M lawsuit against city." ^[Source.]

The suit was launched in response to Ottawa's decision to allow the global taxi company, Uber, to set up its taxi operation the city without having to jump over the barriers to entry that the city had set up fifty years earlier and which all other taxi providers were required to overcome.

On September 16, 2016, the CBC reported that Ottawa had filed a defense in the taxi industry lawsuit. ^[Source.]

In the opinion of this author, the taxi industry lawsuit is entirely justified. It is also the opinion of this author that the industry's lawsuit is hopeless. Western mixed economy welfare states have given up on pretending that justice has any role to play in political outcomes. The astute observer of the contemporary political scene is already familiar with that simple truth. Economic outcomes are not decided by cumulative decisions made by consumers. They are determined by money and politics. As Democratic presidential nominee, the ailing Hillary Clinton, has so aptly demonstrated during her amazingly successful criminal career, it's "pay to play." And Uber has the means to pay. (See "The Companies That Are Funding Uber and Lyft," ^[Source.])

While it is my opinion that the outcome of the Ottawa taxi industry lawsuit is a foregone conclusion for reasons stated, I would still like to comment on one or two of the reasons the city of Ottawa has used to defend its transfer of the Ottawa taxi industry to Uber.

To keep it brief, I shall use the CBC report's synopsis of the City's defense rather than delving into the nuts and bolts of the formal legal defense.

In its statement of defense against the suit filed in August by Capital Taxi and Marc Andre Way, whose family owns the largest number of taxi plates in the city, the city says it has no responsibility to protect the taxi industry from any financial losses that might arise from the regulatory changes.

Because the city allows a limited number of taxis on the streets, new taxi plates are hardly ever issued. For decades, the only way to enter into the city's taxi business was to buy a plate from a current holder — a practice which the city has been aware of and has done nothing to stop in its 50 years of regulating the industry.

Observe the misleading wording of the CBC's report, "a practice which the city has been aware of and has done nothing to stop in its 50 years of regulating the industry."

Not only has the city been "aware of" this practice. The city created it. The reason the city "has done nothing to stop in its 50 years of regulating the industry," is because the city created it in the first place. And over that 50-year span, the city was perfectly content to allow the market in taxi licenses to function until Uber blew in and "opened their eyes." Then it did an about-face without any regard to the financial destruction their sudden adoption of a two-tiered taxi system would have upon local citizens who had invested their lives and fortunes in the city's own taxi license franchise system.

Yet, the city claims it has "no responsibility to protect the taxi industry from any financial losses that might arise from the regulatory changes." That's like a hangman saying he has no responsibility for the broken neck that occurs after he releases the trap door on the scaffold.

If there were actually any intelligence behind the city of Ottawa's decision to give Uber a fast-pass to its taxi market one could reasonably argue that the whole taxicab regulatory system was a set-up from the beginning. That the city would now claim that it has no responsibility to protect the financial losses it exposed industry participants to in the first place is laughable.

But that is how politics works.

I have been writing about it for years. Much of my work can be seen at my blockrants website.

Then there is this gem,

Buying and selling those taxi plates "created a speculative and artificial secondary market for time-limited taxicab service licenses" that the city had nothing to do with other than register the plate transfer, according to its statement of defense.

Since the city created the market in taxicab service licenses in the first place, the claim that they had "nothing to do with it" is gut-wrenchingly nauseating.

Yet, they will probably get away with this incredible horseshit once they present it in a government-run court.

Just when you think I am finished, I get to the best part under, "Taxi industry failed to 'innovate'."

Blame the Victim

It added that the taxi industry failed to "innovate" to compete against Uber, even though it had "historical" advantages.

"Rider preferences showed generally that taxicab service providers were incapable of matching the transportation service experience provided to users of the Uber Apps," said the statement of defence.

Let's start with, "Rider preferences showed generally that taxicab service providers were incapable of matching the transportation service experience provided to users of the Uber Apps."

The main "preference" that Uber riders have when choosing between taxi providers is this one: price.

And the reason Uber is able to charge a lower price is, not because the taxi industry "failed to innovate" when it came to service pricing, but because taxi rates are dictated by the local government. Any other taxi operator who tried to "innovate" by charging rates other than those mandated by the government would be fined and/or shut down.

Blame the victim?

Uber has also introduced several other "innovations" into the taxi business that have a lot to do with its ability to charge a lower price than competing taxi service providers.

Uber hires unlicensed cab drivers. If another taxi brokerage were to employ this "innovation," they would be fined. So there's that.

If a traditional taxi brokerage were to match riders with drivers by signing up a fleet of private, unlicensed taxicabs, this "innovation" would run afoul of the city's regulations. The brokerage would be fined and/or shut down.

If a traditional taxi brokerage started to dispatch fares to people driving their own personal cars without proper commercial insurance the city would not only frown on such an "innovation" but would act swiftly and decisively to put an end to the practice, unlike their response to uninsured Uber taxis.

Another Uber "innovation" is to save money by ignoring certain mandatory "innovations" that traditional taxicabs are required to adopt, such as spy cameras, amber 911 lights, identification numbers and markers, roof lights, strict vehicle age limits, regular inspections, trip sheets, tariff cards, accessible vehicles and a plethora of other impositions that all have an impact on the price of non-Uber taxi services.

It can not be argued that the alleged failure of the traditional taxi industry to "innovate" is the fault of an industry that has had to operate under a government mandated straight-jacket since before most current industry stakeholders were even born.

For the city of Ottawa to adopt the defense that the taxi industry failed to innovate while simultaneously being subjected to a spectrum of costly and, often idiotic, government regulations exemplifies the depths of the criminal mentality that imagines the city of Ottawa has any "defense" at all in response to its disgustingly preferential treatment of the Uber bully.

Conclusion

Predicting the weather remains fraught with uncertainties, as my good friend Harvenut Puritan has pointed out in his most recent guest rant. I have never been much good at predicting the weather. There are too many variables.

On the other hand, I have been astonishingly prescient in my ability to predict political outcomes. It is derived from my ability to accurately assess the character of most of those who enter the field of politics as a vocation. Politicians buy and sell human beings. They lie and cheat while pretending to act out of a concern for justice. Many would kill their own family members for political advantage, as history clearly shows. (See Henry VIII, Peter the Great, Hitler and Stalin and countless others.)

And many more will not shirk from destroying people who they don't even play golf with.

Like taxi drivers.

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While he was a member of Hamilton's Taxi Advisory Committee, it was my opinion that Mr. Butt was driven by nothing more than a mad desire to see the license owners and brokers suffer.

Though he posed as a representative of the rank and file drivers, it was obvious to me, that he would be willing to sacrifice their interests as long as it damaged the brokers and owners.

At one of the meetings, a vote was proposed. The resolution was whether the City of Hamilton should impose a 100% accessibility mandate upon the city's taxi owners, at 100% their expense.

Ejaz was ecstatic. He clapped and cheered when the vote was announced, declaring, "Accessible transportation is not a privilege, it is a right," along with other less enthusiastic members.

I voted against the mandate.

To me, it seemed unjust to saddle the taxi owners of Hamilton with tens of thousands of dollars in additional compliance costs, just to make those moral hypocrites at City Hall and Queen's Park *look like* they cared about the disabled.

His exact motives were unclear to me, but what was clear, was that he was driven by a white-hot hatred of those who had achieved relative success in the Hamilton taxi industry.

And then after those caring political hypocrites encountered the Uber invasion, their phony "compassion" collapsed in an instant. They did an about-face on the disabled lobby in order to "accommodate" the sexier Uber mania. Politically, it seemed to them, that it would be easier to abandon their activist supporters in the disabled community than it would be to accommodate Uberlegislation.

Just in case anyone gets the mistaken impression that I have an obsession with former religious leader, ousted union leader, failed mayoral candidate and now, enthusiastic Uber "partner," let me just say this.

I use Ejaz Butt as a perfect example of the kind of person who runs for political office in Canada. In fact, it would not surprise me if someday in the future he tries to run as a candidate for the Liberal Party.... and they accept him. He'd fit right in with the McGuinty-Wynne model of governance.

Secondly, Ejaz loves publicity and is obviously a proponent of the claim that there is no such thing as negative publicity. I am testing that idea.

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Why The Disabled Oppose Ride Share Services Like Uber And Lyft

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Comments have been disabled in the TO Sun article (see link) so I will comment here.

"People are putting themselves in charge more often -we have more people owning businesses, more people moving into self-employment... and don’t want anybody, whether it’s a company or a union telling them what to do.”

What a pile of BULLSHIT!

How do I know that?

Try purchasing "ridesharing" insurance for your own personal car without signing on to be raped by Uber's 25% fee or *tax.* In other words, try setting up your own "ridesharing" operation.

Uber, in obvious collusion with the government, cleverly rigged the insurance regulations in Ontario so that insurance is ONLY AVAILABLE to those who become *taxpaying* citizens of the Uber system.

How can anyone who doesn’t "want anybody, whether it’s a company or a union telling them what to do,” possibly applaud such a rigged system?

Fuck Uber. Fuck the shills who falsely herald Uber as "People putting themselves in charge more often."

And most of all, fuck the governments at all levels whose absolutely LAST PRIORITY is in allowing people to put themselves in charge of *anything* more often.

Man. I need some gravol.

Can the labour movement survive in the age of Uber?

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As I have been writing for many years now, most politicians are rampant sociopaths. I don't require evidence of bags of cash being passed under tables, nor shady hitmen lurking in shadows. All I need to is listen to what comes out of their mouths and compare it to their actions.

When it comes to the dirty, underhanded treatment of the small taxi operators in Ontario, by politicians at all levels of government, the willingness of politicians to facilitate horrendous injustices in order to shunt Uber to the front of the line in the taxi business makes my assessment blazingly clear.

There is only one other possible explanation for the politician's response to Uber in Ontario that is only slightly less flattering than my first, ignorance and stupidity.

Perhaps, if enough politicians actually understood the damage they are doing, it would be easier for people like me to determine the exact ratio of sociopathy to ignorance and stupidity.

The impact that current political shenanigans are having on members of the taxi industry, therefore, should be made as clear as possible to that segment of the decision-making classes who suffer from the lessor evils. It should not be swept under the rug.

Financial stress the #1 cause of mens’ suicide.

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An Uncle Block Public Service Announcement