Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The mind... it boggles


This is utterly unconscionable. Stevie Harper and his minions ride again. How dare they! Harper seems to be taking a page from his mentor Dubbya's book.

Because it seems it's much cheaper safer than to actually build containment ponds.

Not that any other government would be better, probably. Bottom line - it's so much cheaper for big business to kill a lake than take their responsibilities.

============================================================================

Meanwhile in Montreal, St. Catherine street between Bleury and Papineau (i.e. the gay village) will be pedestrian only during the summer.

And the president of the commercial association has sold exclusive rights to all alcohol served on the terrasses to Labatt, as set out here (sorry it's in French only). So it would seem the only available alholic beverages will be Bud Light and Stella Artois.

And each restaurant/bar is obliged to buy x cases of the beer. Even Kilo, which sells cakes and sandwiches.

Smacks of totalitarianism to me.
.

10 comments:

ticknart said...

That first one is totally disgusting. The people who want to reclassify the lakes should have to drink the water after the mining companies ruin it.

Em said...

What a stupid, short-sighted political move. The people ruining those lakes should have to live on the water's edge and raise their children and grandchildren there. Then they would stop this insanity!

Cycling Goddess said...

I briefly saw something on the news last night and thought, what a stupid thing to do... Amazing what goes on quietly behind the scenes isn't it?

As for the other one, well, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the president of said association had something to gain from Labatt.

VioletSky said...

a deliberate, secret plan to destroy one ever regenerating natural resource for a temporary finite one.

not exactly spoiled for choice, eh?

both results of limited imagination and too little input from the actual participants

pierre l said...

Clearly, dumping junk into lakes is not good, but others have commented on that already.
I find the second item interesting; according to the article, the cake and sandwich place is going to have to apply for an alcohol license. What happens if they get turned down? I haven't lived in Quebec for a long time, but I am pretty sure that getting "a license to sell intoxicating beverages for consumption on the premises" (or maybe off in this case) is easy in the UK (and I suspect it takes longer than six months). So you'll have people walking around the street with their bottles of beer and their cakes.
This also reminds me of a time (probably in the fifties) where the bar attached to the (live) theatre could only sell alcohol with a meal - unfortunately, someone had forgotten to specify the type and size of meal so my parents would get a saucer with a tub of salad of a size suitable for ketchup and some very dry "meat" being the meal (this was, of course, passed on to the next customer untouched).
Sorry for the very long comment...

Jo said...

Jazz, I had not heard about that. Thanks! Defiling those beautiful lakes is disgusting. Time to get rid of Harper and his cronies.

Also, with all the wonderful beers and ales in the world, why would anyone want to drink Bud Light? It looks, smells and tastes like pee. I thought Montreal was more cosmopolitan than that. Money must be crossing someone's palm somewhere.

pierre l said...

sorry typo: getting a liquor license is NOT easy in the UK.

Anonymous said...

Could somebody PLEASE call an election? (Also…mmmmm Stella)

Big Brother said...

Why does it surprise you lil sister... Politicians have always been at the beck and call of companies, after all who is going to give them a post on the board of directors when they retire? As for the beer, I wonder how they are going to force people to sell Labatt. What happens when someone decides to sell Guinness? Really weird...if I was the owner of a restaurant, I'd surely tell the association to F**K off.

Jazz said...

Ticknart - now THAT sounds like a plan.

Em - What a stupid, short-sighted political move. And that my friend sounds like an oxymoron.

Animal - Something to gain? Ya think? I'm sure his pockets are really well lined by now.

Violetsky - Obviously the Stevie and co. wouldn't ask the opinion of the people who fish in those lakes.

Pierre - welcome to my blog. As for the meal thing, i used to go to a bar in Montreal where you had to have a meal. So they gave you a saucer of baloney for $0.05 or something along those lines. And this was in the 90s.

Josie - d'you really think someone else and his cronies would be any better? If so, you're way less cynical than I.

XUP - the REAL Belgian Stella is ok, but c'mon not ONE Quebec microbrew is going to be allowed. And we have damn good microbrews here. It's utterly ridiculous.

BB - you'd tell the association to fuck off and end up with shattered kneecaps, or at best a trashed restaurant.