Count Ziggy Layton

- GH ... Exactly! And I should mention that I attended The Southside Shuffle Blues Festival in Port Credit on Saturday where Hazel and Lincoln Alexander were the guests of honour at the ribbon cutting and spoke briefly with Hazel and watched as she led the marching band, stopping frequnetly to dance and to chat with bystanders, the three blocks of the parade route and back again. I can tell you without reservation that McCallion remains in simply astoundingly good physical and mental shape so that there is no basis for excluding her from a final term because she is 89. Sadly, Lincoln Alexander who is 88 and used to be an 6'4" giant of a man with a booming voice who dominated any space he entered is now confined to a wheelchair, thin and shrivelled up, and speaks mostly in a whisper. But he's not running for anything and at least he is still reasonably alert mentally.

Yes, GH, we in Mississauga are lucky to have this Hurricane in full force for four more years! ----------------------------------------------------------- - 89 year old Hurricane Hazel McCallion, mayor of Canada's sixth largest and best managed and only major debt free city and who was voted three years ago in an on line global poll as the second best mayor in the world, Wednesday officially registered to run for her 12th consecutive term as mayor. - Hazel remains as sharp as a tack, full of energy and enthusiasm for Mississauga and for being mayor, is more knowledgeable than any politician in the country concerning municipal issues, trends and developments, and is a living legend among Mississauga residents of all ages and backgrounds. - Once again, Hazel will not actively campaign other than attending the all candidates' debates against her nine opponents for mayor, will spend not a dollar on her reelection, and has requested that anyone who wishes to financially support her campaign should donate the money to a registered charity instead. - McCallion normally wins reelection by 90-95% of the vote, leaving the other 10-13 candidates to lose their deposits. But since she is 89 (90 next February) and has had a few difficulties this year primarily orchestrated by councillor and disgraced former Liberal MP Carolyn "Psycho" Parrish (who is still too chicken to run against Hazel even though she wants to be mayor so badly she is rumoured to spontaneously start drooling when she see the chain of office), I expect that Hazel may slip badly to as low as 80% of the vote. - Sadly, our marvellous common sense conservative mayor says that this will be her last four year term as mayor which will finish up as twelve terms and 36 straight years as the mayor of our city. - Anyhow, Hazel is a deserved living legend and such an inspiring change from those weasels who go into politics for the money and who will say and do anything, and then later do the opposite, just to get elected.

Not His Brother's Keeper - Smitherman's Own Brother Opts For Ford! - After starting out with a big lead of roughly 35% of decided voters six months ago and with none of the other candidates into even the 20s, George Smitherman started to slowly loose support as Rob Ford gained in the polls, lost the lead to Ford by a couple of points three months ago and now trails Rob Ford by 34-22% as a distant second. - Tuesday was to be a Smitherman Day because Slippery Smitherman in classic Lieberal fashion had figured out that the public was pissed with Toronto's high taxes, new fees, high spending and big debt and wanted a conservative solution to this economic and fiscal crisis. - So Slippery Smitherman decided to channel and even echo Rob Ford, promising voters that he would invoke a tax and fees freeze and a hiring freeze and consider also a spending freeze in Toronto for at least his first year as mayor. - This, the Lieberal Smitherman team calculated, was something that would finally get George rising in the polls again instead of slowly declining in public support. - But alas, George's big day of momentum building turned out to be his big day of embarrassment. - Turns out that Slippery Smitherman's only brother Arthur is running for Toronto council and is endorsing Rob Ford for mayor. Arthur says its not a family feud, he simply doesn't subscribe to left wing policies as the way to extricate Toronto from its fiscal fiasco and he met Rob Ford at a barbecue a few weeks ago, they hit it off like gangbusters, and he is suitably impressed by Ford's conservative credentials and approach to the city's problems. - Now there may be some element of a family feud in this bizarre situation in that he and George have barely spoken to each other since the early 90s when their father died and George was a coke addicted gay sex enthusiast hitting all the bars and bathouses in Toronto's gay district. - But I think that it is primarily because Arthur is wisely, as he says, un impressed with left wing approaches to the problems the city faces, believes in Ford's integrity and his determination to aggressively tackle the waste, inefficiencies, corruption and entitlement culture at Socialist Silly Hall, and doesn't trust his brother for a nanosecond to keep his promises anymore than when he was Premier McGuilty's deputy and they broke their promise not to raise taxes by introducing the biggest single tax hike since WWII. - Anyhow, this latest development should put the last nail in Smitherman's campaign coffin. - Meanwhile, Rob Ford's older brother is working his ass off as campaign manager for, naturally, Rob Ford and also running for council to be part of the new Ford team at City Hall. - Its great when a family comes together like this! - As for the horse race overall, Ford and Rossi will finish 1-2, probably with Ford slightly ahead, Smitherman 3rd, Thompson 4th and the Miller and monopoly public sector union apologist Joe Pantalone running dead last where he belongs.