This is long overdue:

Ald. Ric McIver is bringing forward a notice of motion at Monday’s council meeting seeking a review on the posted speeds on multi-use pathways to ensure public safety.

Cyclists riding on city pathways are limited to a speed of 20 km/h, and violating that can result in a $50 fine.

McIver said he heard from hundreds of cyclists that the speed limit is too low and they should be able to go faster when the path is clear.

“That seems perfectly reasonable,” he said.

Perfectly reasonable is right! And the 20 k.p.h. bylaw is perfectly unreasonable, just one more deterrent against commuting by bicycle in this city (same with bridges that require cyclists to dismount to cross, bike paths that remain uncleared of snow and so on).

 … Read More

Does anybody actually read this stuff? Drew tells me he does, so here's the fifth Yuletide recipe from Bob Edwards:

Roast Turkey

Save up for months until you have price of good big bird. Then take money and send to Maple Creek for half a dozen bottles of Scotch. You won't want any turkey.

— Bob Edwards Summer Annual, 1923 (as found in Irresponsible Freaks, Highball Guzzlers and Unabashed Grafters: A Bob Edwards Chrestomathy, edited by James Martin.)

This is the last recipe in this series. If you want more Bob Edwards goodness I can post more but for now that's it. To recap, here are the previous recipes in this series: bread pudding, stewed chicken, pudding a la reine and rabbit stew.

Animal rights types won't like this one, but here goes:

Rabbit Stew

Take a good fat cat and give it a bat over the head in the cellar. Remove skin and dismember with sharp knife. Put in pan with a little water and allow to simmer slowly for a couple of hours. Season to taste.

— Bob Edwards Summer Annual, 1923 (as found in Irresponsible Freaks, Highball Guzzlers and Unabashed Grafters: A Bob Edwards Chrestomathy, edited by James Martin.)

First recipe is here, second is here and third is here.

Had enough of Bob's recipes yet? Here's the third installment:

Pudding a la Reine

Take down flask from shelf and pour stiff horn down your throat. Whip five or six eggs into a fine lather and pour in a quart of milk. Add cupful of sugar. Have another drink. Add a little minced onion and the contents of a can of strawberries with pepper and salt to season. Flavor with vanilla and set away to cool. If the guests are not satisfied with this, tell them to go to hell and throw the pudding out of the window. Finish the flask.

— Bob Edwards Summer Annual, 1923 (as found in Irresponsible Freaks, Highball Guzzlers and Unabashed Grafters: A Bob Edwards Chrestomathy, edited by James Martin.)

The first recipe is here, and the second one is here.

OK, here's the second recipe:

Stewed chicken

Take the varicose veins of an aged chicken and wind them around the bones. Lay the flesh of the bird aside for private consumption the next day. Stick veins and bones in shallow pan and allow to simmer for a while, then serve in white sticky sauce. The latter can be procured in desired quantity from the Calgary Bill Posting Company Limited.

— Bob Edwards Summer Annual, 1923 (as found in Irresponsible Freaks, Highball Guzzlers and Unabashed Grafters: A Bob Edwards Chrestomathy, edited by former Fast Forward columnist James Martin.)

You can find the first recipe in this series, bread pudding, here.

Alright blog readers, you're in for a Yuletide treat. Each day this week I am going to post a recipe from that venerable Calgary foodie and newspaperman, Bob Edwards. (For those that don't know about Bob, he's the best journalist this city ever had.) I don't know that ol' Bob intended these recipes specifically as Christmas dishes, but regardless, they'll do.

Please note that Fast Forward Weekly isn't responsible if you retch or spew or croak after consuming any of the forthcoming recipes. I'm not responsible, either.

So with that nasty business out of the way, here's the first recipe:

Bread Pudding

Gather up all the chunks of bread that have been leftover on the plates for the past week and dump them into a bucket of water. Let them soak … Read More

A city council committee has spiked a weak pesticide bylaw that anti-pesticide activists described as an "unbylaw." You'll remember that a ban on cosmetic pesticides never made it into the bylaw — why? Because aldermen who campaigned on a ban turned around and voted against the very thing they pledged to support. (Specifically: Jim Stevenson, Ray Jones, Joe Connelly, Andre Chabot and John Mar.)

This morning I asked Connelly about his about-face. To recap, here's how Connelly responded when the Coalition for a Healthy Calgary asked him if he would "support a bylaw phasing out the cosmetic use of pesticides on private and public lands in Calgary" (he answered that question with a "yes"):

Calgary is generally a very safe and clean city … Read More

Yesterday I wrote about aldermen who say one thing and do another. Here's another example of another politician doing the same thing. It's one of those stories that speaks for itself:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged journalists to "shine light into dark corners" of government affairs during a speech late Saturday, but wouldn't take questions from reporters covering the event.

Harper, who is known for his sometimes prickly relationship with parliamentary reporters, made the comments during an ethnic media awards dinner in Markham, north of Toronto.

...

"Our government does not tell journalists what to say, or attempt to intimidate those with whom it disagrees," he said.

"Instead we believe strongly that Canadians' freedom is … Read More

A number of aldermen and anti-pesticide activists are ticked at Ald. John Mar after he voted against a city ban on pesticides on Monday, giving opponents of the ban the eight votes they needed to spike it.

"He gave every indication that he was going to support the committee recommendations, and then he bailed," said Ald. Joe Ceci, who added Mar was "flip-flopping."

Ald. Brian Pincott was also steamed. "We had the recommendations before us, and in the end, John Mar — who said he would support them — voted against [the ban]," he said.

I spoke with Mar this morning, and asked him if that's correct — that he'd changed his mind last-minute on the pesticide ban. "Never," Mar answered.

"In every discussion that I’ve had with anyone on it, I said, 'Listen, I’m not up for an … Read More

An odd YouTube video is making the rounds on Facebook and Twitter. Someone decided to mouth off some peace officers on a C-Train platform (Officer: "Pull out your ID." Self-described drunk guy: "I'll pull out my cock!") earlier this week and got maced and hauled down for it.

The incident was caught on tape, but the video is edited so you can't see what happens before the officers start grabbing the drunk guy — likely a key omission in the story.

Now there's apparently going to be a rally in December "to address abuse by City of Calgary police and peace officers." Organizers are using the video to support their cause.

Here's one take on the incident, posted on Twitter last night: "Calgary Transit 'peace' officers beat up and mace innocent teenagers on … Read More