American politics are so fucking annoying. This election will pass and then in another year they'll start campaigning again.
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Toronto-Age |OT2|
- Thread starter EvilMario
- Start date
American politics are so fucking annoying. This election will pass and then in another year they'll start campaigning again.
Zagat sucks. Check out their "Most Popular" places in Toronto.
You got a problem with Spring Rolls.
BladeWorker
Member
I don't think any rating system is without its flaws; Yelp is full of pretentious self-described foodies who don't think that haute cuisine should cost any more than they have in discretionary income, if they have any at all.
The point is to read through the reviews and find people who appreciate the same kind of stuff that you do in a restaurant and weight those reviews more heavily. Higher Zagat ratings can be an indicator of reliability, but shouldn't be the be and end all of restaurant selection.
90% of their users like Burrito Boyz. Just another foodie site I can't trust with anything. You have to just try everything, because you can trust no one.
edit: Looks like the users enjoy Chippy's too. Gulp. Like Blade says, good for reference on places to try, but it's nearly impossible to trust an entire userbase. Follow people you tend to agree with.
edit: Looks like the users enjoy Chippy's too. Gulp. Like Blade says, good for reference on places to try, but it's nearly impossible to trust an entire userbase. Follow people you tend to agree with.
AlphaTwo00
Member
I was looking for a place to sell the Horse Head Mask, and EvilMario has pointed me to two possible places downtown: "Theatrics Plus" and "Laughing Stuff". Anyone else have suggestions?
Well for dessert, my gf loves these places:
Wanda's Pie in the Sky in Kensington, Future Bakery in the Annex, Soma Chocolatier on King or Distillery.
Oh and Cappriccio in North York is nice too
FTFY.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
Hey! I'm spreading the gospel of the Maple Leafs and preaching Bishop Burke's words down here. Though the people here Prefer talking about the Blue Jays more.
You also like that crappy place on Queen! Your opinion is Is even further on the wrong! >+(
Wtf with the Euros here sitting all around me on an empty couch smoking...
This is Raptor's season, son! We're coming for the 8th seed and a first round sweep.
What a fucking scary mess. This happened one block away from me this morning.
http://www.cp24.com/news/woman-was-walking-home-when-she-was-murdered-police-1.1006639#ixzz2A8iDYyrL
http://www.cp24.com/news/woman-was-walking-home-when-she-was-murdered-police-1.1006639#ixzz2A8iDYyrL
Fucking hell, Toronto's latest homicide, women stabbed to death about 5 mins away from my place. =(
http://www.cp24.com/news/woman-was-walking-home-when-she-was-murdered-police-1.1006639
*beaten by a min! Where you at, Fifty?
http://www.cp24.com/news/woman-was-walking-home-when-she-was-murdered-police-1.1006639
I walk down that street almost every day, often times early in the morning on my way back home from my night job, and there's a school literally right there. It's completely unnerving.
*beaten by a min! Where you at, Fifty?
I live just east of there. My girlfriend (that I live with) is understandably nervous. I guess I'll be escorting her for the near future. It's just so weird that it occured at 7 am. You're right, that's a few feet away from a school which is especially unnerving.
The neighborhood is kind of bizarre in that you'll have a rooming house full of rowdy drunks right next to a house valued at over a million dollars. You have public housing right next to fancy townhouses. Until recently the balance has been OK but there's no question there are some unstable people in the area.
The neighborhood is kind of bizarre in that you'll have a rooming house full of rowdy drunks right next to a house valued at over a million dollars. You have public housing right next to fancy townhouses. Until recently the balance has been OK but there's no question there are some unstable people in the area.
PalaceBrother
Member
I'm not making light of the situation, but you've reminded me that I need to finish playing Blood on the Sand. Need my crystal skull back.
Ah, I see. That's good of you, and I bet many people will be doing the same until they find this suspect.
And yeah, it's definitely a weird mix down there, which is typical of this entire area. I'm up by Howard and I'm bounded by these huge million dollar homes down in Rosedale and yet also a few mins walk away from the sketchy public housing up by Wellesley/Bleecker. Totally opposite sides of the spectrum.
ChosenPredator
Banned
usually when i go into the city and walk around there is always weird ass demented people who don't look exactly stable, personally whenever i went there when i was younger i always saw some crazy crap going down..had a horrendous experience back in the day going to "Gspot" lets say after that i stop going to clubs completely.
Wellesley between Jarvis and Parliament is right sketchy. Sure you've got some home owners there but those buildings are no joke plus there are shelters and other at-risk homesteads on the likes of Bleecker St. Definitely have to be careful at night.
On the plus side the Mr. Jerk on Wellesley is world class. Jerk chicken and pork, fried chicken, rice and beans - all amazing. They make beef patties fresh there! They are twice as fat as any others you will find around. Best food makes the neighbourhood worth the risk.
Let's say more than that.
Whoa. I just got home and got take out from Mr. Jerk! I was eating some jerk pork as I read this post.
It annoys me to no end that the government has spread all the social assistance shit across the city/province. Put them all in some shitty location well on the outskirts of the city and keep all the losers/welfarites/addicts/homeless in one location. Toronto has all these pockets of shit that you must be cautious of as a normal citizen. This government really needs to drop a pair and deal with these social issues head on. I'm sick of paying income tax so welfarites can drink beer and watch TV all day.
One is better than several smaller ones. Keep all the shit in one pile.
No it's not.
1. It's pretty offensive to suggest putting people on welfare in a ghetto because you think everyone abuses it. In reality it's only about 3% the last time a study was conducted.
2. How are you going to tell the homeless where to live when they don't have homes? Are you going to put a fence around this ghetto and prevent anyone from getting out?
I am being a bit extreme but when you read posts like this:
People can't feel safe in their own neighbourhood? "Rooming house full of drunks" and "public housing beside fancy townhouses"? How is that fair? And I realize that not everyone in these situations is "bad", but I doubt many people would jump at the chance to live next door to a subsidized housing project. I live near 2 other low rise apartment buildings. One of the 2 buildings is a lot cheaper than the other and accepts applicants on social assistance (yes I know you can't legally discriminate against this but landlords do). Guess which building has the most noise/fighting/screaming/police all hours of the day? 3% off the people surely couldn't cause this much annoyance. But this just anecdotal evidence I guess.
You live in downtown Toronto. It comes with the territory. Sucks? Sure, but the poor, gang bangers, and crazies get to live here too. This happens in every major city in the world, but on a much larger scale.
What you suggest is very extreme. We should be focusing our efforts on helping these people, which our government struggles to do. People are going to slip through the cracks. Shit will go down.
No, that's not entirely what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting with "This government really needs to drop a pair and deal with these social issues head on" is that we have several issues. We have made welfare too cushy for many. For those with no marketable skills or education, depending on their situation, it just doesn't make sense for them to toil away at a minimum wage job. Welfare is easier and in some cases more lucrative. And that is if they could even get hired as there are barely enough jobs to go around. Why? Because we have moved all our manufacturing jobs overseas (or if we haven't already, we are in the process of doing so while screwing the former employees out of anything they may have had (see: GM)). So without some form of fairly compensated, meaningful employment for the person who doesn't want to pursue post secondary or didn't graduate high school, we are left with an abundance of social and economic problems. But historically, the government and corporations have attacked unions who have embraced some of these values. I have no problem with mothers and their kids, the disabled (as long as its legitimate), or someone temporarily down on their luck receiving assistance. My issue is with the lazy and criminal. And I have news for you, studies or not, it's more than 3%. And no, I'm not suggesting a homeless holocaust.
I've been lucky in my life that the jerk chicken and all other west indian food is made for me on a regular basis by my mom and aunts.
Can't be the authentic stuff, mmm.
Just be thankful you dont live in Detroit.
I meant more along the lines of the cubans in Miami and some places in Africa. We dont need to jump to killing, and i never meant for that link.
BladeWorker
Member
Please provide evidence to your assertion that the lazy and criminal recipients of welfare account for more than 3%.
The idea that welfare is cushy is neoconservative bullwark. An individual with no dependents would get about a $600/month allowance from the City.
A minimum-wage job ($10/hour) would gross you that amount if you worked 15 hours a week.
And a recent Auditor's report reveals that roughly 1% of welfare recipients in the city are abusing the system.
Here's what I've observed:
There is absolutely a welfare wall, but people don't fail to surmount it because they're lazy. Not everyone can pull up their bootstraps and suddenly solve all their own problems. Particularly not if they're all shoved into an urban ghetto intended to house all the so-called "miscreants". That's not how you increase property values, that's not how you advertise to gain business investment, and that's not how you solve problems. You can't shove them in a corner and pretend they're not there. Opportunities need to exist for people to achieve their potential, and shoving them into a ghetto because they haven't yet assumes that they never will, and we've given up trying.
As far as shipping jobs overseas goes, those jobs are gone and they're not coming back. Wages and other economic factors mean that the workforces of China and India will probably outpace us in production of manufactured goods when given the opportunity. Economies of the future are going to rely increasingly on innovation and technology, and rather than lamenting that the government isn't doing enough (FFS, what do you think the shift to wind energy and investments in re-training were intended to do?) perhaps we should be asking how we can best adapt to a new economy.
I don't think the answer is beefing up unions, "cracking down" on welfare recipients, or shoving those who are unsuccessful into a ghetto. Lest we take those who are in a temporary slump and extend it into a chronic state of being, let us first offer equality of opportunity - and one way to do so is to integrate social housing.
Is Apache actually good? I'll be in that area tomorrow, I might try it out. How late are they open?
The king.
This doesn't explicitly state any stats other than:
This is just a easy comparison they can make, welfare recipients vs. municipal business license holders.
I'm not going to argue this anymore because there seems to be some animosity about this issue. While I agree with some of what you stated, it seems very idealistic. As the divide between the rich and poor grows, and middle class is wiped out, consider asking exactly how the government spends money.
added_time
Member
Absolutely not.
Bailaos arrest followed time spent with casino lobbyists
Back door lobbying, hammered. Good show. I like this girl.
Back door lobbying, hammered. Good show. I like this girl.
Zomg, casino has already caused drunk driving.
I'd say that the middle class being wiped out and the divide between rich and poor growing has a lot to do with social safety nets fraying wouldn't you? I don't see how further reducing them and/or shoving all the poor people into one area of the city would arrest the decline of the middle class or hell not accelerate it.
It seems like a somewhat American approach, a country which has a much worse situation in terms of the gap between rich and poor.
I know this post is going to cause more anger and I realize my argument is all over the place, but again, we have eliminated many production jobs (auto industry for instance) and that is the core problem. People would rather drive Hondas, shop at Walmart, and purchase low quality, inferior products, than keep their own domestic companies in business. Yes I'm aware this isn't the entire solution, but it is part of the puzzle. And yes I know honda assembles cars here, blah blah, but where do the profits go? I think as a society, we need to remember that if your neighbor does well, so do you.
Ask anyone who has ever collected unemployment. All you have to do is answer a questionnaire about whether or not you are looking for work. It's almost completely done on the honor system. That's where the government gets these low abuse stats. If you believe the numbers they push out, you are beyond naive.
And yes, I'm a tax payer and voter, therefore I do have a right to an opinion regarding how our money is dispersed.
Yeah, I can confirm the EI part. It's five yes/no questions. Answer yes, yes, yes, no, yes in that order to receive your money.
The only thing they really track is if you've left the country. I left for 6 weeks and came back and was able to reinstate my claim and continue receiving money starting the day I came back.
Agreed, but I don't know what the solution to that is. It's extremely difficult to convince anyone to purchase homegrown products when, a lot of Canadian brands are still owned by international and primarily US conglomerates; Other products don't even have a viable Canadian alternative like your car example since there isn't a Canadian owned car company. And lastly, a lot of Canadian companies are just inferior to foreign ones; say what you will about Walmart, but Zellers was a far inferior store.
As a result, a lot of Canadian companies are forced to outsource things like manufacturing offseas in order to price their products competitively with foreign competition. On the other hand we also can't lock out foreign competition or else we doom ourselves to horribly oligarchies like Rogers/Bell.
I think this is just a reality that we need to accept and adapt to, rather than trying to fight it.
Yes it's difficult to measure how often fraud occurs, but that is not how they get their stats at all. The various Ontario welfare programs conducts 30-50 thousand investigations into recipients each year. Toronto itself performs 12k investigations itself. Of those, only a few hundred wind up facing convictions. Even independent analysis from third party analysts like the one done by KPMG have concluded that it is only about 3%. You should read this entire report:
http://dalspace.library.dal.ca/bitstream/handle/10222/10299/Mosher_Hermer%20Research%20Welfare%20Fraud%20EN.pdf?sequence=1
Frankly, I would rather trust numbers reported by studies backed up by evidence than anecdotal observations riddled with confirmation bias.
The KMG report even address the stereotype of the lazy welfare collector you're perpetuating:
Did you notify them that you were leaving the country? One of my friend's acquaintances went to visit someone on Pennsylvania for a weekend without knowledge of that rule and they caught her. Not only did they cancel all her future EI money, but they also took back what they had already given her.
Canadian Hondas are mostly made in Alliston, Ontario and the profits go to Honda Canada.
Good points. It's a tough topic one way or another. There's no easy solution. I know some may have perceived some of my points to be extreme (which they are), but they aren't completely unfounded.
Where do you think a majority of the profits go? Because it certainly isn't Alliston. Or Ontario. Or Canada. Or North America. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad those jobs exist but I would still prefer people purchase domestic(North American) vehicles (and products).
added_time
Member
To Honda Canada. It's a separate company.
Nah. I just didn't fill out reports for the periods I was gone, then resumed doing so when I was back. They did audit me and took back a days worth of payments since I was technically not available for work that day (I arrived back in the country the same day, which makes it hard to work), but I continued to receive payments until I was employed again without a problem.
It probably helped that I was employed by the time they audited me, and that the trip was planned prior to the initial layoff (which I offered to prove, but never had to - they basically send you letter stating why they're auditing you and asking you to confirm that the information they have is correct, and to provide an explanation if so). I'd imagine that if you started planning a vacation while receiving EI that it would be kind of problematic.
Assembly generally means put together. Parts are made overseas. It's cheaper.
Wake up. A lot of the profits are going back to Japan.