Another Disaster in the Making

http://www.montrealgazette.com/vision+Turcot+Interchange/2727142/story.html

Turcot interchange, built in the 60s, started disintegrating in 2007. Now, three years later, they still haven't come up with a plan to rebuild the darn thing. But, some brilliant minds at Concordia came up with a wacky idea, thankfully still in the conceptual stages only.

Possibly due to increased pressure by environmentalists and other special interest groups, the people in charge seem to be interested by Concordia University urban studies professor Pierre Gauthier and architect Pierre Brisset's idea of building a smaller interchange will somehow cause people to take public transit, reduce pollution and generally be better for everyone.

Here's why I find their idea utter bullshit, on a certain level.

Let's start off with the purpose of a highway. Why do we build hundred-feet-wide paved expressways? Because there are so many cars on the road, ordinary two lane roads are no longer sufficient to efficiently funnel traffic from A to B. The number of cars on the road are still increasing, and yet, they want to make a new expressway that's smaller than the one before? I agree the environment is important too, but let's focus on the essence of things and take things one step at a time. Let's start with this one:

If you're going to spend millions of  taxpayers' dollars on something, can you please make sure that that something does what the fuck it is supposed to do? How is spending that much money on a smaller expressway going to accomplish the task of moving traffic more efficiently from A to B?

Their answer is that, by reducing the expressway's size, and thus making it more of a pain to get around, people will ditch their cars and go with public transit, and this reduction in traffic will in turn make it more efficient to go from A to B, as well as saving the environment.

My God, if you want to save the environment, good for you. I admire you for your noble belief. But, fuck man, don't do it by wasting money to build something inadequate for what is required of it. Illogical is the only word I have for it. And, believe it or not, their entire plan depends on public transit options like the tramways, shuttle buses, new metro lines etc,  that are as of now, not even close to coming to the drawing board, let alone reality. With this many variables still undecided, and knowing how city hall works (or how it doesn't) it's just another disaster waiting to happen.

At best, we're going to have astronomical cost overruns. At worst, we're going to have astronomical overruns, and a clusterfuck of a transportation problem in this city.

DDO gets the fail award.

http://www.thepassinglane.ca/2010/03/say-it-aint-so-man-fined-for-playing-street-hockey.html

Father and kids play street hockey in a quiet residential street.

Neighbor complains to the police.

Police shows up, following the city's bylaw, issues 75$ tickets to the players.

Epic fail.

Here's when you notice some people lack fucking general knowledge and personal integrity.

For one, the neighbor should not have complained to the police. The kids are outside, with adult supervision, instead of at some park getting wasted, or inside glued to the tube, getting fat. That's already enough to earn the parent and the kids a medal in this day and age. They're on public property, and can't possibly be making some enough noise for you to cry about, especially since I know for a fact that AIRPLANES buzz DDO all the fucking time! How the fuck did he see the need to bother the po-lease with that, taking them away from more important tasks, such as cracking down on actual crime?

For two, the cop, once there, should not have done what he did. Yes, he should be enforcing all laws in place, but issuing a ticket was not his only option. Maybe he was an immigrant or something. (See, the propaganda is getting to me.) I find it unlikely that somebody from Canada doesn't know that street hockey is like, I don't know, essential to a kid's mental and physical (not to mention social) development. Street hockey is played fucking everywhere! The cop could have given them a warning, kindly asking them to relocate, on the count of some loud-mouth neighbor complaining. This way, he does his job, doesn't get into trouble with his supervisor, and the kids are not penalized more than they need to be. But no, he had to make a scene. (And what a scene it is. It's on the news, there's protests, petitions, and they've organized a 200 player hockey game on the streets. Nice move, idiot.)

For third, the seal of fail goes to the dumbshit at city hall who drafted/passed the stupid bylaw. You think you need a law to keep street hockey players off major roads? Who's the idiot that's going to play hockey on the highway? It's not highway hockey. It's street hockey. Or do you think street hockey can impede traffic on a road which has none?  A quiet residential street serving a few houses ain't going to be of much use most of the time anyways. It's just sitting there. Let the kids have fun on it. Sure beats the hell outta the kids growing into the couch, doncha think?


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Oh, on a separate note, walking home, I crossed two girls walking side by side... not talking to each other! And yet they seemed to be friends. You know what they were doing? They were texting. And not just for a moment. Saw them way down the street. Never raising their heads, they shuffled and dragged their feet over the ground, texting furiously, barely watching where they were going. Jeebus, I can't believe I'm saying this, but TALK, GODDAMNIT. You are fucking sad. 

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On a lighter note, beavers are mostly from Canada. This one is no exception.

Argh, the french reading test made me want to barf. It just became predictably, progressively, inexorably a piss-off of the worst kind.

Putting aside the fact that it was a sorry excuse of a test, for it was taken out of a exercise book by the looks of the small print saying copyright Graficor, it was once again crammed with subliminal and not-so-subliminal messages promoting french, separatism, and similar topics that are so tedious and expected of in every test we get in french class nowadays.

For us, the government's childish attempts at—for lack of a better term—conversion,  isn't so bad. It's just some crap that needs to be endured through, and since exams are generally not pleasant, it's not bad enough to cut ourselves over. However, think of the poor bastards in Chicoutimi or Rimouski, who're 100% french, and getting brainwashed by never-ceasing propaganda. It's sad. What will happen later in their lives? What if they become narrow-minded a**holes who hate the rest of the world? Clearly, the Quebec government doesn't mind this, as long as we're all a nation of a**holes, all speaking french.

Back on track, after the first two or three questions that were moderately exciting (a.k.a. difficult) it promptly became repetitive and boring, until, reaching the end, it was, in keeping with past exam formats, downright crap. The last three questions are great examples:

Question: Do you believe that the French language will disappear from Quebec in the distant or not too distant future.

Possible answers:

Yes. We're all going to die someday, from a great extinction brought upon by some deadly virus or from the impact of a huge mass of frozen shit and rock hurtling from space among numerous other possibilities. By extension, as any child would know, the French language will also disappear from Quebec.
OR
No, the Quebec government has shown time and time again their outrageous ability to create more and more laws that protect the French language by violating the fundamental rights of others. This tendency does not seem to be abating. Therefore, the French language can be reasonably expected to still hang around Quebec for many years to come. (I answered this.)

Question: Do you think it would be a shame if the French language were to disappear from Quebec?

Answer: Yes, of course it would be a shame, especially considering that the French spoken in Quebec is very particular ( in the sense that swears need to be employed in every sentence). The loss of a language  is the loss of world heritage. It would be a shame to lose a part of our world's cultural, linguistic and historical heritage. (I meant it, surprisingly) On the other hand, it would also be a shame to hear the English language butchered by francophones.  (I also meant this just as much as the previous part.)

Question: Do you think a higher standard of spoken French in Quebec is necessary to Quebec's survival?

Answer: No. Geographically speaking, the land currently called Quebec will still exist, regardless if the residents speak French, English, Arabic or Whale. Linguistically speaking, (haha, a pun! sort of...)  the quality of the French spoken will change the existence of the Quebec as we know it. Depending on whether French is spoken properly or not, Quebec can be known to the rest of the world as France—with poutine instead of snails, or Quebec can be known as the Texas of France, and Quebeckers known as the rednecks of the French world. 

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And fucking A, what a coincidence. My friend just sent me this link. Texan conservatives managed to get the curriculum changed and imposed a questionable version of their social studies textbooks to their students, much like the QC government has done. HAHAHA! My Quebeckers-being-rednecks link is now even more substantiated!
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So as you can see, I was fuming towards the end of it all, and believe it or not, I did write the above answers (more or less) on the exam. I figure it's my opinion, so they can't possibly give me a bad grade for it, but you never know with those people...although if it happens, you can bet I'm going to start a freaking war.

D-Day

This is what D-Day looks like. Look at all those people lining up to be freed. Pity, they don't know that they're heading towards their deaths.