Ralph Everett Ireland posted this dash cam video to his Facebook page, showing a T-bone collision he and his wife survived a couple of weeks ago near Kenora. OPP say the driver of the pickup with trailer has been charged.  He appears to be on his cell as he rolls out onto the highway in front of Mr. Ireland. Local news report

Stephanie Smyth of CP24 has interviewed Doug Ford (Ward 2). She is good but she could not match Mr. Ford’s bombast. He followed his usual plan of ignoring right-thinking concern about his brother to repeat the “best mayor ever” rhetoric. It is the execution of a scheme to use his brother’s notoriety to get air time. The National Post explored this strategy a few days ago.  The Fords see the best chance for the mayor’s re-election to be the use of his “minor setbacks” to get on television and then change the subject. It is not a new trick but it has probably never been used in the face of such widespread public disgust. Any other politician would long ago have crept off in shame and disgrace. But for the Fords, the embrace of  the international ridicule dispensed by Jimmy Kimmel is seen as their lifeline. No doubt we should expect more of these abuse opportunities from U.S. television programs as the Toronto campaign ripens. Ms. Smyth’s interview is proof positive that it has the result the Fords want. She and others follow on the Americans to offer the Fords more chances to try to change the subject. Photos: Smyth, Doug Ford, Kimmel 

Radio Shack Corp. in the U.S. plans to close as many as 1,100 stores after a poor Christmas and a long cold winter. After that, it will still have some 4,000 storefronts across America. Radio Shack has long since ceased to exist in Canada although it once ruled the pre-digital electronics market of the 60s and 70s in this country. But the company split and the Canadian firm lost the right to the name. Now called Source Electronics, it is owned by Bell Canada. Radio Shack suffered a drop in sales over the holidays that left it with a $400 million loss last year. What does the future hold for the Source franchise in Canada? Every sign indicates that it is onward and upwards as far as Bell is concerned. As The South Bayview Bulldog reported recently the company is moving to larger premises in the Sunnybrook Plaza. It is an analyst’s exercise as to whether the Source would do better with  more or fewer locations. What the Source has that Radio Shack does not is a flush corporate parent, less overhead and in all probability business locations that are on average superior to Radio Shack.   

The big job of wiring homes for Bell’s wireless TV service Fibe has landed at the corner of Bayview Ave. and Millwood Road. Pedestrians making their way around this blockage outside epi bread may or may not have asked what was going on. But the big billboard atop the Bonnie Byford Real Estate building was a tip off. “Fibe — TV You Can Move”. Unfortunately we can’t move the construction and workers today were moaning about how frozen solid everything seems to be.