I used to think John McCain being the American president wouldn’t be too bad, but between his continued support for the Iraq war and his recent statements about overturning Roe v. Wade, he’s become as unpalatable as the other candidates. OK, maybe not as unpalatable as Sam Brownback, but unpleasant nonetheless.

And I, like most people, am shocked to find myself agreeing with something that Newt Gingrich said:

“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Friday said the early kickoff to the 2008 presidential race was ‘stupid’ despite a recent poll putting him in third place among Republican candidates.

‘I think the current process of spending an entire year running in order to spend an entire year running in order to get sworn in in January 2009 is stupid,’ Gingrich said at a news conference for his new book, ‘Winning the Future.'”

Amen. Or something.

.:.

Once again, the topic of a congestion charge for driving in downtown Toronto has been raised.  This time we get the hilarious input of CAA spokesperson Faye Lyons:

“In our view, this is just another tax on the already overburdened motorists.”

Absolutely. Overburdened motorists are tragic figures in today’s society, what with how they’ve been forced to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a comfortable vehicle in which they can ride to work alone. I mean, c’mon, what do you expect them to do? Car pool? Work closer to home? Take public transit? I ask you, sir, have fascists taken over? Is that what’s happened?

Ahem.

Obviously I’m all for this idea. I do think you have to be careful about how you charge people living downtown but still have legitimate needs for a car (families, for example) but if you make the charge a flat fee — say, just over twice the price of two TTC metropasses — I think that’d be fair.

[tags]john mccain, sam brownback, newt gingrich, toronto congestion charge[/tags]