Moose FM CFBG 99.5 - Muskoka

As far as I could tell, there wasn't a single comedian with a late-night talk show in the United States who wasn't cracking jokes about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his crack cocaine allegations.

In fact, it made international headlines, which is not exactly the best PR for the biggest city in Canada.

The media loves such stories and, while it was the website Gawker and the Toronto Star which claimed the "scoop," no one left it untouched.

Me? My middle name is Thomas. This is true. So I am continually doubting virtually everything until all the pieces fit and all bases are covered.

Such skepticism has rarely let me down.

And what I found odd in this particular scenario, and which I tweeted to little response on my Twitter account, is that the Rob Ford pictured on the front page of the Star last week looked about 40 lbs. lighter than the Rob Ford the left loves to hate.

How is that possible?

I know from personal experience, for example, that a camera put 10 lbs. on you faster than a continuous diet of doughnuts and double-doubles.

And then there's the fact that the takers of that alleged video were Somali drug dealers, one now dead, who wanted to ransom it off.

Still, it's a helluva story, but one that I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot crack pipe.

It's silly season again in Quebec.

Once more the province flaunts its insecurities.

It is escalating its already absurd war on the English language.

Internationally known names --- Walmart --- Home Depot --- Starbucks --- which have no problem in China or Russia, will be required to come up with a Quebecois name.

Add this absurdity to the already tough language laws in education, professional licensing and French in the workplace and you have something pretty close to totalitarianism.

How is it that the many minorities here in Ontario manage to maintain their own languages --- Mandarin--- Ukrainian --- Greek --- Urdu --- some 120 of them! --- without any intervention by government. Nobody at Queen's Park tells us what languages we can or cannot write or post or speak.

Yet Quebec, where the French are a majority, imposes these dystopian language laws.

Here in Ontrario many companies --- the banks are a good example --- put Chinese signs on their offices. There are Greek signs on Toronto's Danforth and Italian ones in Woodbridge. Nobody tells them to do it. It's just good business.

So why doesn't it work that way with French in Quebec?