The news is often nonsense. I will content myself with two diverse examples.

Today we are told that the oil sands (tar sands, actually) have lost $985KK CAD so far due to the fire (devastation) around Fort McMurray.
That’s like saying I’ve lost money because I cannot now withdraw it from the bank.

The oil is still tarrying in the ground, eh? It will eventually be pulled and sold, eh? So it’s a question of cash flow and timing, not of actual money lost.

That’s the first nonsense; the second applies to Toronto, Canada.

We are told that municipalities will be given the ability to tax. One reason for doing this is to pay for transit and roads. I submit that taxing me (retired) for property that does not drive downtown (pretty much never, eh?) to repair roads filled with cars coming in from Mississauga and beyond (and, I assume, in the East end, from Pickering, Ajax, et cetera.)

I have a simple solution. Add a tax to every vehicle parking space to be paid by the driver who parks there, every single time a car is parked. (Exemptions for disabled? Sure.)

A simple calculation shows that 200,000,000 or even 400,000,000 parking ‘occurrences’ happen in downtown Toronto every year..
So put in a surcharge of one dollar. Two hundred million dollars the first year. And, anyone driving downtown to a job can afford an extra dollar a day.

Then up it to two dollars, et cetera, until we find out what the traffic will bear. (This pun was intended also.)

Meanwhile, our city politicians blather about discussing revenue options.

Sigh. In another post, I’ll revisit the ‘bafflegab’ quotient idea: the amount of words that un-say or de-specify or make-vague what might have been an honest statement with real content. Later. OK?