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You are here: Home / Ford Has a Better Idea

Ford Has a Better Idea

by | 37 Comments

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One of the weird things about crack smoking Rob Ford’s crack smoking video is that he uses some crackhead logic about “getting it back”:

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told senior aides not to worry about a video appearing to show him smoking crack cocaine because he knew where it was, sources told the Star.
Ford then blurted out the address of two 17th-floor units — 1701 and 1703 — at a Dixon Rd. apartment complex, to the shock of staffers at a city hall meeting almost two weeks ago, the sources said.

If the video was taken on a cell phone, it’s probably somewhere on the Internet by now, yet this whole scandal has treated it like a MacGuffin, a single thing that could be found and destroyed.

In other Ford news, the Mounties have made a second arrest in the murder of one of his crack-smoking buddies. There’s no evidence that either of the two guys arrested are tied to Ford, but you won’t see my shocked face if they are.

I like to read the Canadian papers to get my daily dose of Ford, but Comrade Mary thinks Gawker has better illustrations.

Reader Interactions

37Comments

  1. 1.

    EconWatcher

    I always thought of Canadians as very wholesome and very boring. Maybe that’s what this is all about: Ford is just trying to give his country the edgy, bad-boy image that all the girls go for. A patriot, really.

  2. 2.

    the Conster

    Silly me, but I thought crack heads were all wasted away hollow eyed skin jobs. He looks like he smokes crack then drives directly to Tim Horton’s on the way to KFC.

  3. 3.

    max

    If the video was taken on a cell phone, it’s probably somewhere on the Internet by now, yet this whole scandal has treated it like a MacGuffin, a single thing that could be found and destroyed.

    No cellphone, no IMEI, no ID for the embedded data in the cellphone video, no evidence. Just an unsourced video, defenses to which range from ‘It ain’t me’ to ‘Photoshop’. Thus, no evidence of crack smoking, so no felony.

    Not that blurting out the address appears to be helping him.

    max
    [‘Silly business.’]

  6. 6.

    James McEnanly

    what happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet. There is no power that can remove it.

  8. 8.

    Tone In DC

    Somewhere, a certain former DC mayor is wondering why this idjit isn’t in custody.

  9. 9.

    cbear

    Hilarious link in one of the stories:

    · Toronto needs a new style of mayor:

    Ya think?

    My suggestion: Go for a meth-head next time—-they don’t eat much and they’re very energetic.

  10. 10.

    Svensker

    I love Canada. You got your HGTV shows made right here, you got your fresh maple syrup, you got your citizens standly politely in line, you got your government offices that call you back when you’ve got a problem*, you got your free health care, and you got your batshit everydayisanewcrazyIcan’tfriggingbelievethis mayor to read about on the tubes. Is this a great country or what? ! ?

    *True stories.
    #1. I was importing our American car and didn’t understand some of the paperwork so I e-mailed the Can. gov’t office that was handling it. They didn’t e-mail me back. Instead, they called me and walked me through what needed doing.

    #2. When I was setting up our sales tax ID number I got confused on the paperwork so called the gov’t tax office. Not only did I get to talk to someone who helped me with my problem — he called back the next day to make sure I had been able to complete the application OK.

    #3 Forgot this! My husband’s Permanent Resident renewal got stuck on a bureaucrat’s desk for some reason. The bureaucrat called him at home to personally apologize for the delay.

  13. 13.

    Todd

    @Chris:

    And then there’s Wolverine…

    At one time, I was the proud owner of the first issue of Captain Canuck – he had no superpowers and was sort of Bruce Wayne-like. Bought it on a newsstand during a scout trip.

    Shame the thing disappeared decades ago. It would probably be worth money nowadays.

  14. 14.

    Rex Everything

    MacGuffin, a single thing that could be found and destroyed

    Dude that’s not what the word means.

  15. 15.

    Walker

    @Svensker:

    The flip side of all this is Air Canada. Hands down worst customer service I have ever had of any airline, including the US.

    I was trapped in Vancouver in the great December snow storm a few years ago (2008?) trying to catch a plane to New Zealand. It was clear enough to make it out, but the lazy ramp workers had called in their sick days all at once and their was no one to clear the snow off the runway.

    I was trapped in Vancouver for four days (even when snowing stopped) because the municipal snow plows were smaller than my neighbors pickup. And Air Canada forced me to sit in line for 18 hours to rebook.

    I eventually got a plane on December 24, and arrived across the dateline in December 26. So Canada literally stole Christmas from me that year.

    I refuse to connect international flights through Canada ever again.

  17. 17.

    Violet

    @Walker: A friend of mine had a similar experience. Was flying to Nairobi on Air Canada. Got stuck in Canada (forget which city) for something like three days while they sorted out some mess with the plane(s). Disaster for her as she was taking medical supplies that needed to stay cold.

  19. 19.

    feebog

    Not sure how this moron thinks he is going to keep his job. the video is coming out eventually, he must know that. Can’t wait for the press conference that follows the release of the video.

  20. 20.

    Redshirt

    @Svensker: Ha. I’ve spent a good amount of time in PEI. On my first visit, I wanted to recycle. Looking at the incredibly complicated calendar (on the third day of each second week cardboard and plastics number 3 and 4; on the second Tuesday of every other week paper and plastics 5 and 6, etc), I gave up, and put all the recycling in one bin, hoping they’d just take it.

    Went away for the day, came back. The trash guy had picked through my barrel and taken what was accepted, left everything else, then wrote a very nice, polite note explaining the schedule. I was awestruck a trash guy took such care and consideration.

    I love Canada.

  22. 22.

    CASLondon

    Aw, isn’t that cute, Canada trying to out-Chicago politics Chicago with hints of political cover murder, prohibition-era kingpins in government roles, arrogant stand-offs with the press.

    Its like they saw Boss on Starz and thought it was reality-based.

    You’re cute, Canada! Aboot time, eh?

  23. 23.

    Redshirt

    I’m reading “Brave New World” right now, so I like the use of the name “Ford” in the news these days.

    Holy Ford!

  24. 24.

    Janet Strange

    @NotMax: A colleague told me years ago how to remember the exceptions to the i before e rule, “Seize the weird protein!”

    At the time our students were doing a lab to separate caseins from milk, so I expanded it to “Seize the weird casein protein!” Not that the average person has much call to spell casein very often, but the rest of it is very useful.

  25. 25.

    Seanly

    Was the video the MacGuffin in Pulp Fiction? I know that took place in LA 20 years ago, but time travel argle bargle…

    EDIT: Speaking of Toronto, does everyone make $1M a year there? I get fed up with all the HGTV shows about people lamenting the lack of space only spending $700k on house gets you. I thought white Americans (like me!) where privileged a*sholes but those folks on the Toronto-based HGTV shows are a step above.

  26. 26.

    Janet Strange

    Ooooh, I see Canada has another good scandal going with Mike Duffy. Kind of overshadowed by Ford’s awesome entertainment value, but still I do love to see Conservatives get caught at this kind of stuff.

    Seems he was a typical right-wing TV talk show host:

    In 2008, a panel of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that Duffy had violated broadcasting codes and ethics during the 2008 federal election.

    So Harper rewarded him thusly:

    On December 22, 2008, Duffy was named a Prince Edward Island representative to the Senate of Canada on the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, sitting as a Conservative.

    And now:

    In 2012, Duffy was one of four senators accused of claiming primary residency outside of Ottawa in order to claim living expenses for work in Ottawa. Duffy, who has lived and worked in Ottawa for decades, has claimed his primary residence is in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island and claimed $42,802 in living expenses for the national capital region from November 30, 2010, to November 30, 2012. Duffy may have also claimed $40,333 in the two years after his Senate appointment in December 2008. When the Senate Standing Committee on Internal Economy investigating the expense claims requested health cards and other evidence of residency outside Ottawa, Duffy applied for a PEI health card and asked for the card to be fast tracked in time for the audit deadline.

    Not to worry, Harper’s got this covered:

    Duffy originally expected the Prime Minister’s Office to cover all expenses he claimed improperly. In late February 2013, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former special counsel and legal adviser Benjamin Perrin drafted a letter of understanding between Chief of Staff of the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada, Nigel Wright and Duffy. Perrin denied involvement in a May 2013 statement. Wright then wrote a personal cheque to Duffy for $90,172 to cover past residency expenses claimed as part of the agreement with the PMO.

    My favorite tidbit about Mike:

    In March 2010, Duffy criticized the University of King’s College and other journalism schools in Canada for teaching Noam Chomsky and critical thinking. He went on to say that journalism schools in Canada were churning out leftists who thought private enterprise was bad.

    Love it.

  27. 27.

    Tonal (visible) Crow

    Why should I care about this issue, other than for the reason that the War on Drugs is insane?

  28. 28.

    RedKitten

    I tell you, if nothing else the Ford Fiasco and the ClusterDuff have gotten me interested in Canadian politics again. And I don’t think our media has had this much fun in years.

  29. 29.

    Svensker

    @Walker:

    I said nice things about the Canadian government. Don’t ask me about Air Canada. But if you’d like to talk about Porter Air, I could get VERY enthusiastic. Srsly, folks, if you ever have the opportunity to fly Porter, take it. A lovely lovely airline. I mean, they give you all-you-can-eat shortbread…!

  31. 31.

    Comrade Mary

    I like Porter well enough (based on everyone’s accounts: I haven’t flown on them). But they should think twice before assuming that everyone is OK with lengthening the runway and bringing jets to downtown Toronto.

  33. 33.

    Comrade Mary

    Back to Ford: policy advisor Brian Johnston has just resigned. That’s four staffers in two weeks.

  35. 35.

    KevinNYC

    If the video was taken on a cell phone, it’s probably somewhere on the Internet by now, yet this whole scandal has treated it like a MacGuffin, a single thing that could be found and destroyed.

    I’ve taken plenty of cell phone videos that did not wind up on the internet. Also why I would put someone on the internet, when I’m trying to sell the publishing rights for $200,000?

    A MacGuffin is a false clue, so I don’t think your usage is correct. If this video file has never been copied, yes you can easily destroy it. Hitchcock’s definition was

    It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says “What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?”, and the other answers, “Oh, that’s a McGuffin”. The first one asks “What’s a McGuffin?” “Well”, the other man says, “It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands”. The first man says, “But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands”, and the other one answers, “Well, then that’s no McGuffin!” So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all.

  37. 37.

    Bettencourt

    A McGuffin isn’t a false clue — it’s the item that a spy thriller’s plot hinges on, like the “solex agitator” in The Man with the Golden Gun, or the microfilm in the statue in North by Northwest, or the bottle of wine with hidden uranium in Notorious, or the glowing suitcase in Kiss Me Deadly/Repo Man/Pulp Fiction.

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