Saturday, June 26, 2010

Next Time, Let Calgary Host The Damn Thing

I'm safe in Ottawa, by the way. Wonderful city; I've dropped about $100 at bookstores I never know existed (Argosy, All About Books), and found that bar that served the wonderful raspberry beer (The Clock Tower).

19 comments:

Cliff said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Cliff said...

Thanks no, we already did the snipers on roof-tops thing when the shrub came to town. Toronto likes to be the biggest and best of everything - now you have the biggest tactical paramilitary response to citizen participation. Congratulations.

corrected the link

bigcitylib said...

Lethbridge,then.

Dave said...

Leduc!

It has.... historical significance.

CK said...

Antarctica, in the middle of some woodsy area surrounded by nothing but bush, trees and wildlife; on a ship thousands of miles away from any shore. Have it on a military base. Better still; teleconference/skype the whole thing

Looks like Steve and Vic got their wish

Gayle said...

WHere is that bar with the raspberry beer. We will be in Ottawa in August and my husband loves that stuff.

sharonapple88 said...

Maybe they should keep the G20 out of major cities. Huntsville didn't have any violent protests. Kananaskis was drama-free.

Took a short trip through the downtown core before the protesters went through it. There's no transit, but a surprising number of stores open (including the Eaton's Centre). Anyone else there today?

Marky Mark said...

Nobody here in TO asked for the G20-it has caused economic harm and inconvenience.

bigcitylib said...

89 Clarence. Actually they have a smoked salmon pizza thats rich, but good. Its one of the place in Ottawa that Michelle and I officially like. Also that French pastry place Obama went.

Gayle said...

Cheers!

dupmar said...

I note that the blogging tories, or at least some of their more zealous followers are defending the choice of Toronto as venue for the G20, despite the destruction and rampant anarchy, condemning the police restraint and calling for the death penalty for vandals and window smashers, that is summary execution without arrest and trial, offering their own services as a "vigilante" force which would show the police how to uphold order, preferably without recourse to existing laws, and lastly confusing anarchist vandals, and apparently even legitimate protesters not engaging in wanton destruction, with "fascists", that is their pet description of anyone they disagree with.

Quite often the same people who when discussing the Middle East express their contempt and indignation for medieval concepts of justice. And thus we witness the further morphing of the blogging tory periphery into the Edmund Burke Society.

Marky Mark said...

dupmar,

What many in TO are asking is why the policy, despite the massive security, seemed unprepared for what happened and/or didn't intervene. You can't drive 10K over the speed limit without being stopped at a speed trap but officers in numbers seem unwilling to confront criminals destroying people's livelihoods.

I expect today will be very different. I fear it will lead to real violence and loss of life.

dupmar said...

Marky,

I think you have a different definition of "retraint" from those I was referring to. From what I can follow, the police have been making arrests, what these overzealous blogging tories are calling for is unrestrained " extreme prejudice".

Marky Mark said...

OK-this clip is pretty revealing--it was left to private individuals and security guards to protect businesses and people-on Yonge Street:

http://watch.ctv.ca/news/latest/summit-protest/#clip318869

Shiner said...

89 Clarence. Actually they have a smoked salmon pizza thats rich, but good. Its one of the place in Ottawa that Michelle and I officially like. Also that French pastry place Obama went.

The flagship Clocktower at 575 Bank has a better selection of beer and usually has some Real Ale on tap.

Shiner said...

Does anyone know what the strategy is of leaving police cars in random spots around the city? Is it just a effort at winning the PR war? Rather expensive tactic I'd think.

sharonapple88 said...

Most of the police were positioned at the fence. The main objective was keeping the leaders safe. Keeping everything else in order was secondary.

Anyway, not a lot of businesses were prepared for it from what I saw -- only HMV had their windows boarded up and there weren't a lot of security guards out.

Tof KW said...

Shiner said...
"Does anyone know what the strategy is of leaving police cars in random spots around the city?"

There are some questions out there Shiner as to whether these 'Black Bloc' anarchists are real, or if they were in fact police.

This site has already found that the 'anarchists' are wearing the same footware the police were wearing during the G20 meeting...

The Toronto G20 Riot Fraud: Undercover Police engaged in Purposeful Provocation
At Tax Payers' Expense


Parking the random unattended police cruiser here and there for selected torching wouldn't be a far stretch.

I wouldn't put it past the upper levels to plan this in order to justify the outrageous security costs. Or for that matter to rationalize the overzealous actions of the police in arresting and beating nice, clean-cut middle class protesters who are just making the point that they don't agree with Harper's refusal to include abortion in his maternal health initiative.

Shiner said...

Parking the random unattended police cruiser here and there for selected torching wouldn't be a far stretch.

Seems to me that the only way those cars are there is if they're left on purpose. At no point during the weekend were police ever overwhelmed. There was no situation where police could have been chased away from their cruiser. Would have been interesting if people had left a car alone and looked inside to see if the radio, and all the other tools of the trade were there.