The yogurt bar known as Yeh! Yogurt at 1617 Bayview Ave. has closed. It is a sad end for a franchise which started with much promise, opening on a warm September 1, 2013. Today brown paper covers the windows and a for rent sign is on the window. This building is the north half of the double store belonging to the the owners of the Tru Value Hardware outlet at 1615. That portion of the store is also for rent,. 

The Toronto Star has paid $5,000 to unidentified parties for a video which shows Rob Ford in a fit of drunken bravado ranting against an unknown individual who is not present.  The location of this incident has not been revealed and it isn’t clear what anyone at the Star knows about it. The newspaper took the precaution of recording the transaction but will not release that video. As to the video purchased by the newspaper showing Mr. Ford, it appears to have been taken without the knowledge of the mayor from a low position. The deputy mayor, Norm Kelly, said it  looked like “a set-up.” It is very early in the public phase of this video and there may be some as yet unknown reason why the newspaper is keeping secret the circumstances under which it was purchased, and from whom. Mayor Ford told reporters that the video was”very embarrassing.” He said he was “extremely, extremely inebriated” when the video was taken. CP24 has broadcast a transcript of the mayor’s remarks on the tape. He is said to be denouncing someone with whom he has an issue. The mayor says “Ill ‘kill him” among other threatening things however the sense of Mr. Ford on the video is that his words are bravado.  

It’s come to this. Bill O’Reilly and Piers Morgan sitting with psychoanalysts and others to try to explain Rob Ford.  Some will consider it funnier than late night comedy. Surely the only thing left now is a question for Jay Carney as to what the president will do about the mayor of Toronto. The migration of our mayor’s pig-headed behavior to “analysis” at Fox and CNN was low on enlightenment. It centred mainly on the puzzlement of those at these all-news juggernauts to understand how such a thing could happen. “Can’t they get rid of him?” Bill O’Reilly asked reporter Martha McCallum. It did cause a cringe to hear Piers Morgan remark that one doesn’t often hear a man say he smoked crack cocaine while in a drunken stupor.  This is a vulgarity some will say is uniquely probable from the mouth of our embattled chief magistrate. Listen, maybe the president does have a solution.  It would be a nice break from the Obamacare shambles.

Wal-Mart sold kayaks for about $11 and computer monitors for about $9 on its website Wednesday. It appears the online sales site had a fit of technical  price-cutting that was totally unauthorized. The online store has now been shut down. Wal-Mart says that an error caused a number of products to be priced absurdly low or high. “We’re working quickly to correct” it, said Ravi Jariwala, a Wal-Mart spokesman, adding that there would be “intermittent site unavailability” until then. Jariwala said the company hasn’t decided whether it will honor prices for items already ordered. 

Josh Matlow (Ward 22) has called for Mayor Ford to resign. Mr. Matlow’s news relesase to this effect may been seen here

Rogers Communications has laid off 94 employees across its media division as it reworks operations to react to lower advertising revenues. The cuts are spread across the country at the broadcast TV divisions of Citytv and OMNI, as well as radio stations and magazines like Maclean’s and Chatelaine. Maclean’s 

No snow yet but something much better. Twin snow leopard cubs, a boy and a girl, are now on display at New York’s Central Park Zoo. They were born this summer and are making their first full-time public appearance this week. Officials say they’re the first snow leopards to be born at the zoo. The twin cubs weigh 30 pounds and were born to mother Zoe and father Askai. The cubs will eventually weigh between 65 and 120 pounds. The cubs have not yet been named.