It is a garden-party for Ontario elementary school teachers as they announce “job action” of an unstated nature later Friday (May 7, 2015) They do not have to worry that their employer will do any of the things that most bosses would do when faced with staff who want to take the money but not do the job. Like a lock-out. That’s because the teachers (heh heh) have your children. The Canadian Press reports with straight-faced decorum that “the wait is creating anxiety among students and parents over what will happen Monday and anger among opposition parties who are calling for the Education Minister’s resignation.” It’s an awful time to be striking,’ says one mother outside an Ottawa elementary school.
UK Tories win 327 seat majority, opposition leaders quit
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David Cameron’s Conservative Party squeaks to a 327-seat majority in Parliament, an outcome totally unseen by election polls. Mr Cameron’s rivals Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage have all resigned after election disappointment. BBC
New IVF method “Augment” delivers healthy baby
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Toronto parents Natasha and Omar Rajani have delivered an apparently perfect baby, the first in the world to be conceived through Augment, an IVF treatment that could help more couples overcome infertility. But Augment is not yet approved in the United States and at least some doctors are concerned about unknown genetic implications. Augment is used in cases of poor egg quality, one of the most common reasons for infertility. In the procedure, a small piece of the woman’s ovarian tissue is removed, and then egg stem cells are taken from it. The mitochondria from those stem cells are then added to her eggs to improve their quality. Natasha and Omar had previously tried fertility drugs, IUI and traditional IVF, which eventually resulted in a miscarriage. But after the Augment procedure, the couple was able to conceive and freeze two embryos for potential future use. Baby Zain was born this April, which makes him the first baby born after being conceived through Augment.”We see Zain as a symbol of hope for all couples struggling with infertility,” Natasha said. “While the process is long, emotional and physically draining, there is light at the end of the tunnel—and that light for us is Zain.” Some experts are seeing this as a huge leap for IVF. They believe Augment can considerably increase the success rate, which right now is about 38 percent for women in their late 30s and 18 percent for those in their early 40s.”We could be on the cusp of something incredibly important,” Dr. Owen Davis, president of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), told Time. “Something that is really going to pan out to be revolutionary.”But there hasn’t been testing yet to conclude that IVF using Augment is more effective than IVF without it. Plus, the treatment raises some ethical questions, and it’s not available in the U.S. yet, since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates gene therapy methods. Parenting
Small fire on York St. streams smoke across City skyline
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A small fire on York Street set up a classic trail of smoke across Toronto’s skyline this evening. The fire (right) was outside the ICE condo at 12 York Street. Skyline is shot from Humber Bay. No one was injured.
Cameron CP heading for government, Labour takes licking
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Prime Minister David Cameron appears headed back to office with a substantial caucus of MPs which will ensure he will be able to form whatever type of coalition he wants in order to govern. The election has delivered a blow to the venerable Labour Party, home of countless famous prime ministers including most recently Tony Blair. The party has lost almost all its seats in Scotland to the Scottish National Party. Reuters
As they counted votes, BBC recalled election oddities
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Leaside Garden Society plant sale Saturday, May 9, 2015
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The Leaside Garden Society Plant Sale is this Saturday, May 9, 2015. It is a nice way to get the morning going because it starts at 9 a.m. and ends at noon. As always, it is at the Trace Manes Community Centre, 10 Rumsey Road
Rogers cutting OMNI news and 100 jobs at TV operations
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OMNI satellite farm on Lakeshore Rd roof
A stunning collapse in revenue in just a year or two at Rogers Media has put OMNI-TV in a financial crisis The foreign language-newscasts once watched so faithfully by diaspora populations in Toronto are being knocked out by the digital invasion of broadcasts from “back home.” About a 100 positions from conventional TV operations, many at CITY TV, will be cut. CITY has gone from being the darling of local news addicts to something of a forgotten man among Toronto television stations. The proud cry of Everywhere! has been silenced by the CTV takeover of an all-news license now known as CP24. Things are apparently no better in the west. The multilingual stations air news in Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi, and Italian. They have faced increasing pressure from newscasts originating abroad. The Rogers Media unit of Toronto-based Rogers Communications Inc. lost $85.8-million before interest and taxes in its conventional TV operations last year, according to documents filed with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. That was more than half of the $138-million in total losses suffered by Canada’s privately owned conventional TV stations last year, up sharply from $2-million in losses in 2013.
McDonald’s said to be testing kale despite the sneers
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New Hamburglar is your Dad in disguise
Britons vote in most unpredictable election in decades
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Uber taxi: The problem is not the technology, it’s Uber
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Ann Hui writes Thursday in the Globe and Mail that two former strategists for Mayor John Tory have been hired by Uber Taxi to advance its position in Toronto. They are Nick Kouvalis and John Duffy. It is not clear what should be made of this although it is worth knowing. Uber has now said it will apply for a taxi license in Toronto. If Uber got the idea from Kouvalis and Duffy good for them. It makes the point however that Uber couldn’t figure this out itself. Uber must also deal with legal action from the city requiring it to obey the law. And this is exactly the issue. Everywhere it goes around the world, Uber leaves a trail of disregard for the law and an apparently insatiable need to operate like some sort of privileged Ubermensch. Drivers who are not trained, cars not insured, fares that can leap into the stratosphere when it rains. Uber even tried to pretend that it wasn’t selling a taxi service. What bunk. Mayor Tory’s remarks seem to focus on the inevitable march of technology. But the problem is not technology. It is Uber. Technology is just technology. Uber has left an international trail of anger and resistance that makes trust almost impossible. It’s not the imagination of Councillor Jim Karygiannis and others that there is a problem.