Spiderfish

The relevance of the two statements are equally minimal. I agree with you on this point, saying Dale was assaulted is ridiculous. I'm no fan of Menzies, but it appears he was just trying to expose the obvious double standard that exists. Not saying it was tactful, but an assault is an assault. What would we be talking about right now if Ford had tried to slap the phone out of Dales hands and instead connected with his head...likely Ford's bail hearing. How so? I think even Menzies would have no problem following the rules if there were only one set of rules for everyone and they were clearly defined. From the article: I agree, the call by the officer in Menzies' case was the wrong one.

I’m willing to concede that while Menzies had every right to take pictures on the street, when he was asked (actually told) to stop, the courteous thing to do would have been to put the camera away. Just as I am saying that although news reporters have the right to poke around behind someones house and take pictures of their property, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the owner of that property likely would not appreciate the intrusion, and if the reporter had any discretion at all, should respect that. The similarity with Menzies and Dale, is that they are both exploiting the limits of their legal rights in order to make a point. Everyone has these rights, and you can’t just pick and choose who is protected under those rights and who isn't. The police officer involved in Menzies incident made the judgment that the assault on him was justifiable. By this measure, Ford would have been justified in giving the reporter a slap upside the head for taking pictures of his home against his wishes.

The basic facts (Dale taking photos, Ford chasing him off) are not in question; there's no evidence of assault. As I pointed out:

There were 2 eyewitnesses who confirmed the allegation was true. Whether he was assaulted or not is irrelevant to the point; Menzies claimed to be struck by a woman who felt her privacy was being invaded, and Ford raised his fist and chased off a reporter who he felt was invading his privacy. One cannot say that one action is justified, but the other is not.

The same thing could be said about the position you are taking.

Can you not see the hypocrisy in your position? You claim Menzies is a "social moron" and a bad role model to his son for invading privacy and taking pictures in the presence of women in burkas in a public place, yet Dale taking pictures of Ford's yard against his wishes and invading his privacy is perfectly acceptable because he has the right to take pictures in a public place. Menzies was assaulted by this woman which is perfectly acceptable to you, but Ford chasing this guy away from his yard with a fist in the air is over the top.

Maybe he felt bad the poor chap dropped his phone and was just trying to give it back. When the frightened fellow ran off, maybe he tried calling the last number called to see about getting the lost property back to him.

Some little punk comes rummaging around my property line freaking out the neighbors and family, we definitely will see what happens. He'd get his phone back, but he may have to do some digging to retrieve it. And the only thing I find funny is the interpretation of what allegedly happened as a mugging. I don't think this is a joke at all.

:lol: ...Oh I'm sorry, you were serious.

Exactly! It would obviously be considered provocation to send one of their reporters over to his place to check out real estate in the area. Prove he didn't. He was the only one back there, and the neighbors apparently keep pretty close track of who's messing around out behind their property.

I'm not the one dragging it out trying to define positions, both your own as well as mine. But carry on (as I know you will)...

What's unbelievable is your inability to comprehend how someone who's privacy is being invaded would upset them. I thought the frightened little victimized reporter dropped the phone (sounds like that's not all that was dropping). Yeah, that's exactly it.

At any rate, what I'm saying is that instead of skulking around out behind his house in the bushes, they simply could have let him know as a courtesy that they were doing a story on the potential purchase,and were sending someone over to check out the property. Not that they had an obligation to do so, just saying if they had nothing to hide, might as well avoid any potential misunderstandings. It's obvious that someone building a cinder block platform and peering into his backyard is a little more than checking out the scenery.

I wasn't aware that one could purchase land in a public park in Toronto.

If they were only interested in checking out the land, could they not have given him a courtesy call to relay their intentions, rather than skulking around freaking out him and his neighbors?

And unlike yourself, I am absolutely willing to confirm that is indeed my viewpoint.

Okay, let me simplify it a bit for you. You claim to be "an agnostic on the issue". I don't believe you are, I believe you have a very strong viewpoint on the matter and big words and sarcastic speculation can't hide it. Conjecture by definition is an unproven proposition that is thought to be true.

Laughing and belittling someone for being fat is not considered an attack? You must be a fun guy to hang around with.

Laugh it up, but I don't think you'll be laughing too hard when the last of the gravy train packs it in and moves on to greener pastures. What will you do then, stomp your feet along with the Quebec entitlement crew demanding higher transfer payments? I've been in Manitoba long enough to see a lot of the corporate head offices and private corporations be squeezed out of the province by punitive provincial tax schemes. The only thing left here is government. I saw a statistic a few months ago that Manitoba has the highest percentage of civil jobs in the country...By a large margin. This leaves very few private companies left to contribute their tax revenue. There's only one other source of tax revenue, thanks NDP government. As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

Thanks Scribblet...oh wait, never mind.

It's amazing the personal attacks from this board towards Mayor Ford. Fatass, lardass, McCheese, I haven't heard some of this garbage since elementary school, it's ridiculous not to mention against the forum guidelines. Regardless of what you think of this guy, it seems to me he's caught no matter what he tries to do. Either let the biased media invade his privacy and harass him trying to dig up a story on him or confront the media be accused of over reacting. The fact that he's overweight should have nothing to do with anything, and personal attacks against him for this only shows the inability of some to control their own reactions, making them guilty of the same thing they are accusing Mr. Ford of. This goes for the Star as well, attacking him for eating at a KFC tells me that they have no concept of sound journalistic practices, and gutter journalism such as skulking around his backyard looking for garbage falls on the same level as far as I'm concerned

That thought crossed my mind when I was responding, but I didn't want to open that can of worms. It's no wonder the unions are endorsing and supporting these protests.

Since you framed one side of the argument with conjecture, I assumed you would hold to that conjecture. The "bizarre formulation" I can see is your enthusiastic willingness to concede your point, indicating either extreme fence-sitting, or more likely, the obvious attempt to make your point indirectly through false-conjecture.

What, you can't interpret the meaning of your own comment? Really?

The word hooligans comes up a lot because that's exactly what they are. You seem to be reading a lot into the use of a word.