The "Burden" Of Equalization

Ontario Premier Dalton McGinty is upset with Ottawa. You see he claims his province is unfairly burdened by the Federal Governments Equalization scheme. It seems Ontario's budgetary debt has suddenly risen to over 6 billion annually, shocking indeed. Now Mr McGinty's seems unwilling to deal with this problem, by either cutting back OR raising taxes because, well because its everyone else's fault. You see he feels the debt wouldn't be there, if only Ontarians didn't have to support the rest of Canada. Thats right Ontario, by the sweat of its brow is propping up all those lazy bastards in the rest of Canada. Who new?

Now if Mr McGinty has problems now, think how bad they would be if not for the fact of the tens of thousands of FEDERAL employees who live and work in his province.You see he fails to mention anything about that, perhaps he thinks its his god given right to hoard all those Federal employees, each of which pays substantial taxes into Ontario provincial government coffers.

I tell you what Mr McGinty. I live in one of those provinces that benefits from equalization benefits. You give us all the federal employees in Ottawa, and we will give up our equalization, if fact we might even throw a little back into the kitty. We could pay you some equalization, and we wouldn't even complain.

Why Does Talent Not Always Translate Into Success?

When Steve Marriot left The Small Faces in 1969 (to form Humble Pie) One could expect that that was it for the band. However, the remaining members replaced him with singer Rod Stewart (arguable to become rock's most recognizable voice)and Ron Wood, one of Englands most brilliant guitar players.

They changed their name to The Faces and set out producing some of the early 70's most facinating music. They changed their sound completly to a sort of sloppy hard driving rock and roll, rootsy, yet not as much in the boogie style as Humble Pie became.

Wood and Lane were both strong songwriters, and the band produced some of the best covers ever, Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" being a standout example.

Yet they were never terribly successful. there only real chart success was "Stay With Me" from there second album. It certainly didn't help that Stewart was pursuing a simulaneous (and wildly successful) solo career, even if the Faces did play on most of his best songs.

So why did it all self destruct? Was it really just Stewarts ego? Or was it that the record buying public just wasn't interested. 20 years on two brothers from Atlanta made millions by simply emulating them [well ok The Black Crowes were a damn good band] In retrospect I think that there might just have been a glut of great bands in the early 70's

Rhino Records has released, what can only be described as one of the best boxed sets ever in Five Guys Walk Into A Bar Produced by the bands keyboardist Ian McLagen this seeming random collection of album and rare tracks is masterful. And better then any of their studio albums portrays just what a fabulous band they were.

Preying On The Fear Of Crime

If one listened to the news, one could swear there is a murder on every street corner, a rape in every bedroom, and a terrorist around every corner.

Violence sells, so news reports show lots of violence, which convinces the public violent crime is on the rise, yet the fact remains it is on the decrease in North America and has been for many years. The FBI's Uniformed Crime Statistics show that violent crime in urban centers generally has been decreasing steadily for the past 15 years or so. But no police chief ever got a new helicopter by saying crime was on the downswing.

The actual problem is that Property crime is on the rise, mostly due to a lack of uniforms on the street. It would make more sense if what they were doing was to increase the actual number of policemen on the street, but that is hardly ever the case, Police Chiefs don't like Policemen, they'd rather a new toy, or form a new "Strike Team" to combat whatever flavour of the weak the press is touting, which does nothing but take more police off the street. Acronyms are the thing, but you know what, I've never seen a S.W.A.T. or a D.A.R.T. or E.R.T. prevent one burglar

Some of our American brethren may remember President Clinton came up with a federal "initiative" which was going to put 100,000 new police officers on the street nationally. IIRC the actual number of Policemen that ended up on the street was something in the order of 15,000.

There is lots of crime out there, but not as much (in most areas) as the evening news would have you believe. There are solutions to the property crime problems, but they would cost money to fix, unfortunately too many citizens would rather spend their money on a gun to keep under their pillow, or armed security guards.