Morning Brew: April 29th, 2008

Kinn (should be tossed out on his ear)
can't stand the very sight of him!!!!
we are not just passenger$ but paying customer$
how dare you suck off the union wages you make me sick

Stinks that the Raptors are toast.
Awell, I really hope Sam Mitchell stays, what a great personality to have in toronto !

"won't be issuing an apology to riders"?

HELLO KINNEAR??? You do owe us an apology! You lied to the riders/taxpayers about a 48 hour notice of a strike.

Your credibility went down to the sewer for lying. You inconvenienced the millions of commuters for what? Your EGO?

iPhone launch day 0: pandemonium
iPhone launch day +1: news cycles filled with stories about multi-thousand dollar data usage bills

I find that the iphone is the most intuitive phone I have used to date (i've gone through about 20-25 phones over the years). Now if I didn't own the unit, and wanted one, I still wouldn't purchase it from Rogers. Never in a million years. I'd still go across the border to pick one up I can unlock.

20-25 phones? Wow. I've gone through 6 and feel bad for my mark.

technically it's a slack rope.

Here are my "predictions" for the iPhone based on absolutely nothing:

1. $600-$700 with 3 year contract
2. $40-$60/m for pretty limited data plan
3. $10/m for visual voice mail
4. first born

Basically, Rogers will make sure that any pricing on it is as ludicrous as it can possibly be and still have people buy the fucking thing.

I like the iPhone, but where it excells in almost everything, the weakest component is the phone itself.

Perhaps my hands are too big or something, but I have a similiar problem with my iPod. When scanning through songs with the touch sensative wheel, I have trouble sometimes landing on a specific song.

With the iPhone I had found myself accidentally pressing the wrong buttons on the touch screen. I had trouble getting used to the lack of tactile feedback. I thought it was just me, but most people I've talked to seem to have the same problem. They have to focus more when dialing a number than they would on a normal phone.

While I don't know if I'd go so far as to say I feel *bad* for Kinnear, it does sort of seem like the rest of the union (and even the city) is using him as a scapegoat.

Kinnear negotiated the deal with the city last weekend, and it was the union members who voted it down on Friday -- and possibly largely because they wanted Kinnear to look bad / eventually get ousted. So I don't know how we can hold Bob Kinnear personally responsible for what happened this weekend. It seems to me that by not apologizing, and defending the union's actions, he's actually continuing to be loyal to them, even though the whole thing's turned into a crazy political mess. I wouldn't really describe that as 'passing the buck'.

Jerrold,

I approximate that, yeah, over the last 10 years, it's been about 2-3 phones a year. I've gone through local models, japanese models, etc etc. Buying, getting disappointed and selling it soon thereafter. I've never quite found the unit I liked, one that fit my technical requirements. The last 2-3 years I've searched for the perfect 'wifi' phone, and iphone has been the only phone so far that has worked exactly the way i wanted it to. It's the perfect size, and is functional..I'm sure it has flaws, but it works for me.

I don't have a problem with the keyboard. I find that I can type almost twice as fast as I could with a tactile BB keyboard, and my fingers aren't exactly thin. It just took a week or two of getting used to. Maybe it's just me, but for the other 2 guys that I bought the phones for, they also agree that it's much faster after you get used to it.

Also, let's not forget that there is an enormous amount of support in the community for the phone in terms of patching, software, tweaks..etc. It's a geek's wet dream.
Heck my ISP even has an applet i can use to reboot my server from the phone if needed.

I think he's only giving the impression he's loyal to them because he wants people to think he's still in control.

Kinnear accepted a contract that the majority of his members (and a good portion of his union executive even!) didn't support. If his blaming Giambrone (for having downplayed the threat of a strike after the tentative deal was penned) isn't passing the buck, then I don't know what is.

Furthermore, loyalty to his members shouldn't be a reason to deflect responsibility to 1.5million transit users.

I really hope the city/province looks into the allegations that this was all because of an internal union dispute.

If they find this to be the case, they should take the Union to court to retrieve the money they lost as a result of the strike.

While any investigation is likely to cost more money than it should, I think it's important for the public to know. I can also see how this knowledge could help the management/city in future negotiations with them.

Well, my understanding of the Globe article is that the deal WAS supported until other members of the union executive started a misinformation campaign that was meant to scare and confuse the members into voting against it.

Which seems very scapegoat-ish to me.

I do agree that the union in general has been very unfair to the city, I just don't hold Bob Kinnear ENTIRELY responsible for that. It makes me much more angry to think that the union would screw a deal and take advantage of 1.5 million transit riders just for the sake of their internal office politics.

Spacing had an entry on the possibility on internal union politics a day or two before any other news outlets started reporting it (and before the public knew about what happened in the meeting)

a href="http://www.thomaspurves.com/2007/04/09/canada-worse-than-3rd-world-countries-when-it-comes-to-mobile-data-access/">Canada (and Rogers in particular) has some of the highest mobile data prices in the world.

"I would like to say that Canada is a 3rd world country when it comes to Mobile ICT, except you can clearly see from this chart that even *Rwanda* has orders of magnitude better Mobile Data service than Canada."

I can't really hold Bob Kinnear entirely responsible for this. The Union is an organization like any other, with leaders, and chains of responsibility. An organization must deal with its strife internally as much as possible if expects to be taken seriously at all. Their internal politics stranded a whole city because of a series of poor communication decisions.

I simply don't understand why they need a union when I look at the figures below. Admittedly I work in a profession where the concept of life-long employment in a single job is completely alien, but our work per wage ratio isn't any better. I'm sorry but I can't cry for the TTC when I see the pay chart in this article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080429.wttc29/BNStory/National/home

Blaming all of this on one man is just going to postpone the key issues to the next (and frankly inevitable) TTC strike. The Union needs to resolve their internal issues immediately or lose any iota of public trust they have left. Once that is accomplished, City Hall can get off their collective asses and take action that to prevent this from happening again; marking the TTC as an essential service is only the start. I thought we were desperately trying to improve transit services in this city, if the union can't get on board to help that in some way, I don't see how we're going to progress.

I think we need a new contest - Toronto's Next Top Douchebag (TNTD).

Competitors will include the incumbent top douchebag, Rob Ford, and up and comer Bob Kinnear. Other nominees? Russell Oliver? Roberto Alomar circa 1996?

That would be a seriously tight race.

Every time I think that Kinnear shmuck can't drop lower in my esteem, he finds some new way... "people were drinking! so it's better to leave them alone and stranded in the middle of the night than risk them getting on a subway in a bad mood!" He should be tried for reckless endangerment of human life.

Sucks that Rogers got the iPhone... Looking forward to ending all of my service contracts with them ASAP. No handset is worth dealing with their stupendously incompetent call centre staff...

The other part of the iphone problem equation is Comwave Iphoto VOIP service. I wonder if that has been resolved yet.

Matt, good luck finding competent call centre staff with any other Canadian wireless service.

@Adam @ 11:27am
---------------

Have you forgotten Mel Lastman and most of the staff of CFRB? Oh yes, and most of the people at the Sun and National Pest.

But, really, after all the stories we've heard this weekend, to call Bob Kinnear an ass hole for not apologizing really would be doing a disservice to anyone who has ever been called an ass hole.

Which is not to let Dalton McGuinty off the hook for still underfunding it, David Miller for suffocating the life out of this great city, and Adam Giambrone for working on his knees in front of Mr. Miller, but seriously, we're far beyong pathetic at this point. Dropping from 12th to 54th in desirability of where to live?

If it's true Mr. Kinnear's daughter was out after midnight Friday, as he said was the case, then not only is he an ass hole, he's the worst father ever. Which one, I suppose, could expect from a man who ascends dirt to a level of royalty.