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[Mongrel]

I didn't even know that was on!

Also, Toronto has a great habit of destroying what classic architecture it did once have (intentionally or otherwise), so I'm not sure I have too many great suggestions for buildings that aren't normally open and accessible anyway.

[Smiler]

Milwaukee started doing this 2 years ago, and it's actually really neat. My suggestion would be to just look at what just sounds cool and then start there, and then just hit every building that's open. Of course that doesn't really help you with your Toronto problem, but honestly you never know what's going to be really cool and what's going to be meh. The big spots to see in Toronto are probably just open all of the time like Mongrel said. The cool thing about this event (at least in Milwaukee) is to see the cool bits of buildings that you never get to see otherwise.

[Mongrel]

Holy christ this story is becoming AMAZING.

First off, Gawker stated that the drug dealer disappared sometime after last weekend, leading to Ford finally calling a press conference on Friday to smugly deny everything, making it pretty obvious to even the dumbest idiots that a: the dealer's been paid off (I'd give that a 90% chance), or been "taken care of" (I don't think the Ford's are competent enough to hire someone who can take care of things quietly, but I'll give them a 10% chance there). But whatever happened, don't tell me Mayor McCheese didn't have the phone # for his own freaking dealer. He knew exactly how to get ahold of the guy.

Then the Globe and Mail broke a story this morning, which they say they've been working on for 2 years, that claims Rob's brother (and close political ally) Doug was a hash dealer for ten years during his teens and twenties. And his sister was in the KKK and was once shot in the face. The brothers called another press conference today and most of the replies are flat-out AWESOME:

"they're talking 30 years ago, when I was 16, 17, 18 years old."

I didn't do it. Also was a long time ago.

Doug Ford on the Globe's editor in chief: "John Stackhouse: You're a disgusting human being, in my opinion."

When asked if he would sue the Globe for defamation:

“Can you afford.. after all these cases… there has to be a point… enough is enough… I’ll never rule out anything.”

“Can I go up, little David and Goliath, try to sue a media organization that drags it out for five years?”

"You're up against the big money,"

"I'm not even going to be in politics five years from now"

Soooo... no.

(Dougie has repeatedly said he's running for the provincial conservatives in the next election, and the provicial con leader had been saying they'd welcome him.)

Doug Ford: "I have no agenda." LeDrew: "Well, you have a political agenda." Doug: Well, yes, sticking up for the taxpayers.

Doug: "You'll never see us involved in any MONEY scandal, I'll guarantee that."

“Our family has hosted 100,000 people in our backyard.”

"These journalists in Toronto are scums!"

Yes, he actually used the plural.

They also went on and on repeatedly about how this story - now being broken by THREE separate papers, a dozen journalists, and several years work - has been entirely fabricated as a plot to bring them down.

I talk to criminals on a daily basis, no word of a lie, this interview sounded exactly like those conversations.

Even better, noted filthy Liberal Andrew Coyne was calling this "the best interview ever".

[Brentai]

I didn't do it. Also was a long time ago.

al-Sahhaf, is that you?

[Mongrel]

So now Ford's entire press team has resigned

But wait, there's more! The story takes a not-entirely-unexpected darker twist: Several Ford staffers spoke to police recently, concerned that we've gone from blackmail to homicide

Appropriate YouTube link

Also, the blame-the-media spin is getting pretty funny, given that even The Sun is now hounding the mayor.

[Mongrel]

The notion that Canada is losing money because our oil is landlocked is at least partially bullshit and may in fact be totally bullshit

[Mongrel]

Huge wave of busts across Toronto, by the Toronto Police Service, the Ontario Provincial Police and other regional police agencies.

Addresses targeted include (but are not limited to) the infamous apartments where Ford is supposed to have said the video was present, as well as the house in the photo of him with the two kids (and which in recent weeks was revealed as a longstanding den of a drug-dealer family).

Chief Bill Blair has a press conference at noon. In the past he's been able to take wonderful advantage of the Mayor's idiocy to the advatage of the Toronto Police, but he doesn't seem to suffer fools or people who abuse their authority either, so this really could go any which way. Could also be nothing more than some drug dealers who thought their association with the mayor would shield them got sloppy and got caught.

Stay tuned...

[Mongrel]

Lots of things said, but these are the biggest ones and pretty well sum up the non-information we got:

Police Chief Bill Blair: We are not able to disclose methods or evidence obtained.
Police Chief Bill Blair: All the evidence has been secured and all the evidence will come out in court where it belongs. Not Now.
Police Chief Bill Blair: He won't comment on whether there is a criminal investigation involving the mayor's office.
Police Chief Bill Blair continues to be prodded by media, but he refuses to comment on whether there is any link between this investigation and Mayor Rob Ford.

[Mongrel]

Oh wow, Vic Toews resigned. Good fucking riddance, let's hope his replacement isn't any worse.

[Mongrel]

I'm sort of half-sticking this here as a bookmark to myself, but someone else here might be interested: In-depth and detailed study tries to wrestle the question of just how overpriced and at-risk the Canadian home market really is

[Mongrel]

Lawyers for the Conservative Harper government argue in court that "[the government] has no social obligation to soldiers".

No matter how shitty a government treats its soldiers in practice (and this recent gang has been pretty fucking terrible already), I don't think I've EVER heard of ANY government ANYWHERE EVER actually say something like that out loud.

Forget selling their own mothers into slavery for a ten-spot. At this point, I'm not even sure if cannibalism is off the table.

[Brentai]

Wow.  Uh, wow.

Have fun becoming a US protectorate I guess.

[François]

The difference between soldiers and mercenaries is that soldiers accept that a significant portion of their total recompense will be paid in honor and respect. If Harper only wants mercenaries then he should come out and say so.

[Friday]

Honestly, a group of highly paid and highly trained mercs working for a country/city/government has historically been very effective. Generally more effective than conscripted warriors, in fact.

I'm not sure you could actually get it to fly in today's climate, though.

[Classic]

Isn't the purpose of an all volunteer armed force that they don't have the disadvantages of conscripts. Even though they're not... career fighters? Is that the term?

[Brentai]

I get the feeling "highly paid experts" is exactly what Harper DOESN'T want.  Or at least the first part.

[Büge]

Honestly, a group of highly paid and highly trained mercs working for a country/city/government has historically been very effective. Generally more effective than conscripted warriors, in fact.

Only if that country/city/government can keep paying them the best.

[Friday]

Actually, despite what every action movie ever has told you, mercs tend to at least fulfill their contracts with their current employers, because switching sides in the middle of a fight because they paid you more literally only works once in your career as a merc, because afterwards nobody will fucking hire you, including the people who paid you to switch sides.

It is true that mercs tend to be less loyal and won't fight in what they view as a hopeless cause. But, well, being professional warriors, they tend to be right about the cause being hopeless so you'd have lost whether they stayed or not.

Or I guess you can just go MERCS ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH WHO WILL SWITCH SIDES AT THE DROP OF A DOLLAR BILL AND EVERYONE HATES THEM DESPITE HISTORY SHOWING THEY'RE ACTUALLY PRETTY VIABLE TO HIRE.

That's certainly how feudal Japan viewed them, despite literally constantly hiring them to great effect and most sideswapping being done by non-merc conscripted armies in exchange for better treatment at the hands of the invading warlord.

Don't get me wrong. I don't have my lips firmly wrapped around a Soldier of Fortune magazine. It's just that mercs get a bad rep they don't really deserve. Sure, mercs have switched sides before. But you'll find that it's a lot easier to bribe guards who are NOT being paid than it is to bribe a guy whose entire career and reputation revolves around the fact that he gets paid to not do that.

Isn't the purpose of an all volunteer armed force that they don't have the disadvantages of conscripts.

Yep. Volunteers make the absolute best soldiers, because they have the loyalty and patriotism you're looking for that mercs don't have AND the training and professional edge that conscripts lack. My point is that mercs are better than conscripts, generally, since conscripts tend to not be much more loyal or patriotic than mercs anyway.

I wasn't really responding to the issue here (which is treating your volunteer soldiers like shit) at all. I was just saying something offhand about mercs.

[Mongrel]

There have been some times when mid-campaign side-switching was done, like during Italy of the Borgias. But I think the perception of guys constantly switching sides comes more from having dudes who finish one campaign and do sign up with a rival for the next one. Technically they did fulfill their contract, and a government would have few qualms about rehiring such men, but the militia - be they conscripts or volunteers - may not take it in as businesslike a manner as that. To use an American example, just think of how reviled (and vilified) the Hessians were.

That's where the trouble comes in. If you're using mercs, it's better to use them alone. If professional volunteer soldiers get pissed about working with untrained fodder, just think how mercs feel working with them. But the last 200-odd years of warfare have been on a massive scale - total wars that marshals a nations total resources. Mercenaries have been pretty marginalized ever since the first Levée en Masse.

Of course, more recently, we're seeing SOME smaller actions and situations where mercenaries may theoretically be more attractive, but elite modern warfare requires such expensive equipment and such vast support for each individual soldier that even though army sizes have greatly shrunken the resources they consume has only grown. I'm not sure it's possible for a stateless gang of sellswords to offer services at the highest levels of warfare. Imagine a group of modern mercenaries trying to bankroll their own medivac. Even if you argue that the merc is just a highly-trained body and the government in question would supply the heavy equipment, most of that equipment is considered sensitive government property ineligible for "sharing". And all armed forces have different enough setups that the merc would have to retrain using the particular host nation's choppers, or tanks, or whatever (or train alongside them, if they're to be used as infantry and not given access to heavy weapons). That's why the main job for modern mercenaries is to be hired by corporations to do dead boring crap like guard duty, or trolling unarmed/untrained locals.

[François]

For the record, when I mentioned mercenaries, I wasn't disparaging them. (Heck, I'm writing a novel featuring a company of Renaissance-type mercenaries in a positive light, I'm aware the word doesn't have to be synonymous with scum.) I'm just pointing out how the Harper government wants to have its cake and to eat it too, to have military personnel they can cut loose once they are no longer useful, without paying the higher premiums demanded by skilled professionals who are aware before going in that they will be forgotten once the contract is up.