Month: September 2014

Having bounced American Express as it’s exclusive credit card, Costco Wholesale has said it will replace AmEx with Capital One MasterCard. Note however that Reuters today is also saying  that MasterCard Canada has entered into an agreement with Costco Canada to open credit card acceptance to MasterCard cardholders. That seems to say MasterCard cardholders of any MasterCard. Reuters 

Police in Australia have arrested about 15 people, many teenagers, who were taking orders from a witless “top terrorist recruiter” named Mohammad Baryalei. He is said to be somewhere in the middle east plotting what police called “demonstration killings” of ordinary Australians. The police had apparently hoped to see if there were more people involved but Baryalei was on the phone to one of the accused in recent hours and authorities feared someone might get hurt. This was all planned by the Islamists to go down on video with much terrorizing talk.  Once again the sensible person says put away fear and do what we must do to restore civilized behaviour among us. 

Exit polls in Scotland are showing a trend in favour of No. Results so far run No 54%, Yes 46%. Financial Times — counting of huge 90 percent vote underway  Rolling blog

Early district to declare in Scotland votes No to independence says CBC. 

Now that Toronto Emergency Medical Services has changed its name to Toronto Paramedics Service (TPS) let’s see who else might need a new name with initials that match the Toronto Police Service. We already discussed the TTC, which would be much better at Toronto Passenger Service. You know, it just makes sense. How about Toronto Power Service? Hydro is so 20th Century.  Hey, we got a million of them. Toronto Planting Service gets the sense of the Urban Forestry Branch and Toronto People Salvage is really what the Street Outreach program is all about. Toronto Payment Squeeze only tells the truth about tax collection and Toronto Picked-over Sweepings will suitably dignify the labours of sanitation workers, too. Please. City Council. Get busy.

Mayor Ford has released an audio tape (below via YouTube) in which he thanks people for their support, vows to beat the illness confronting him, lauding his brother, Doug, who has jumped into the mayor’s race as a replacement for Mr. Ford and extolling his wife Renata.

Many will wish to know the earliest information in the Scottish referendum results. As this is posted at about 5 p.m. EDT, the polls are closing in Scotland where it is 10 p.m. The media descriptions of voting suggest that it might take four hours from the start of counting  to a get a clear sense of where the referendum has gone. At a maximum, that would suggest useful results between 9 and 10 p.m. EDT. That’s about 2 a.m. GMT

The Toronto Emergency Medical Services is changing its name to Toronto Paramedic Services, according to a City of Toronto news release.  If the paramedic service uses the initials TPS, the new name should cause a fair amount of confusion with the Toronto Police Service, It may be something officials wish to review. Later the same day, as they say, NOW jumped on this story and has some reaction from Josh Matlow (Ward 22). He thinks it’s a little nutty too. Other councillors were saying it would have been nice if the City-owned EMS had passed these changes by — ahem — City Council. We’re guessing the TTC wouldn’t be changing its name to Toronto Passenger Service without asking for permission.  Release

It’s a quite a turnaround. American Express has gone from being the only credit card accepted by Costco Wholesale in Canada to being totally not accepted, no thanks, get lost. The popular warehouse-club chain says it will stop accepting all American Express cards in Canada on January 1, 2015.  Why? We’re not sure but the Canadian arrangement seems to have differed from the U.S, Costco-AmEx deal.  It may be that the expiry of a 2010 plan in Canada has set the two companies at loggerheads. American Express is very popular for those who want it’s special offers but its reputation with retailers is more like notorious. The practice of holding funds due to retailers for several days has caused more than one company to cancel acceptance of the AmEx card. The release said: “The credit card relationship between American Express and Costco Wholesale Canada will not be renewed when it expires” on Dec. 31. The message was attributed to Lorelle Gilpin, vice president of marketing and membership for Costco Wholesale Canada. Costco has 88 stores in Canada, compared with 468 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, according to its website.  In the U.S. the Walgreen drugstore chain stopped accepting AmEx and found that this was an effective way of getting the arrangement it wanted. It now accepts American Express.