CTV on Walmart / Russ Wyatt on Ski Doos

Well, let the knee-jerking begin. Somebody died, therefore we must change laws regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

Look, I'm not heartless. I actually have a bigger heart than most people, as I upgraded several years ago to a water buffalo heart on a visit to a Africa thinking it would make me better at golf. I'm not sure what this heart thing has to do with compassion, but I'm pretty sure I have that too. I also have logic. It's important to have both, otherwise you end up saying things like Russ Wyatt.

Wyatt today announced several things:
1) he wants to ban snomobiles in areas within city limits where they are currently allowed.
2) he wants to be able to seize the snomobiles if they are caught driving in said areas.
3) he wants to increase the minimum driving age to 16.

Let's discuss:

1) All we're doing is creating more law breakers for no apparent reason. People are going to do it anyhow, because there is really no reason not to except that, um, some guy who was driving in an area where it was prohibited hit somebody who was walking in the dark in the middle of a field near a Hydro right of way. Ya, that makes perfect sense. No logical fallacy there.
2) If you think it's hard to catch a car thief, try catching a snomobile driver that's afraid of having his $16,000 MX-Z 800R confiscated. Good luck. Maybe you can deploy the police helicopter to track snomobiles in a field instead of car thiefs in the middle of the city.
3) Makes sense, right? Older ... more responsible ... But is this really going to help? Driving a snomobile for 10 years before I got my drivers license helped make me a better driver. In fact, I would almost recommend that we make it mandatory.

Russ continues his silliness with this quote:

"10, 20, 30 years ago we didn't have snowmobiles that can go 160 miles per hour"

So, the reason for changing things now is because snomobiles can go faster? The olde power toboggans of yore didn't go fast enough to run somebody over? The old Jag 340 I used to drive could go 60 miles per hour, and that was probably one of the slowest snowmobiles in town. Russ is just grasping at straws. There is probably lots of straw in that field where Ken Stammers got run over. He can go there ... as long as he wears something reflective.

***

Another thing that I saw on CTV this evening was that Walmat was going to build "supercentres". They're like centres, only they're super!

This was one of the lead stories, and I thought to myself: why is this a lead story? Actually, why is this a story? Do other stores get news coverage when they expand their product line? The advertising execs at Walmart are no dummies. How do we let people know we're expanding our grocery area? Buy TV advertising? Buy billboard space? No .. just send an email to CTV. They'll broadcast it to the province for free.

I am left wondering if there was some sort of real local news that I missed. Wasn't there some kind of meeting at city hall? There must have been, because they mentioned in passing that the councillors voted to approve the 58 new cops. Is that all they did? Anything else I should know about?

I would dare to say that the things our elected officials decided today is a little more important than the fact that Walmart will start selling meat in 4 months. Mind you, after looking at the "most views" list on the Free Press web site, I might be mistaken there.