The South Bayview Bulldog

Mayor Ford has denied that a video depicting him punching the air and blithering about wanting to kill someone should be taken seriously. He says he did not have his former brother-in-law in mind. The denials come in a  statement of claim against a lawsuit filed against Ford by the man, Scott MacIntyre. It alleges a jailhouse beating of MacIntyre was instigated by Ford to protect the mayor’s reputation from his brother-in-law’s revelations. But Ford says the video that appeared in the media last November was taken while he was “discussing and imitating, as a joke, the pre-match rant of a professional wrestler.” He said his “jocular” imitation was supposed to be a run-up to a planned charity event that the mayor was hoping to have with a famous retired wrestler. The inebriated Ford is seen on the tape in someone’s dining room vowing to “kill that f—ing guy.” None of his allegations have been proven in court. vertical-align: baseline;” None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Waiting to be cracked

Saturday, March 22, 2014 at noon Loblaws at 321 Moore Ave. will participate in another typically dubious — but invariably entertaining — stab at a Guinness World Record. No, they won’t be eating PC Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookies or zip-lining the length of the store. On this occasion Loblaws stores will attempt to crack 1,000 wheels of that rock-like but smacking good cheese known as Parmigiano Reggiano.  We presume there are some yet-to-be-revealed rules here and that there will a Guinness judge on site. Most such records require conditions on just how many people are going to try to break the record. It’s no good if Loblaws brings in every strong-back from its warehouses nationally to break this record as a team.  This can’t be like the orange juice consumption record for a football team at half time. It has to be more like the record broken by Loblaws associate Rudy Limeback’s son, Eric, who smashed the Guinness benchmark for single-handedly solving Rubik’s Cubes at university last October. We will be watching. There’s a chance for snacking! 

The detached three-bedroom home at 36 Donegall Drive, one street east of Bayview Ave., has sold for $1,240,614, some $151,614 over the list price of $1,089,135. There was a five-party bidding war during the brief six-days it spent on the market. The previous selling prices are surprising, not to say shocking: $550,000 (2002) and $155,135 (1993)

The search for objects which may be related to the  missing Malaysian Airlines jet has finished for the night. It will resume in six or seven hours at dawn in Perth Australia.  Perth is about 12 hours ahead of Toronto. 

Aircraft from many nations are swarming into a search area in the Indian Ocean where two objects have been found which might be related to the missing Malaysian Airlines jetliner. This after Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told the House of Commons that the objects has been spotted by satellite and verified as physically real. But the images are indistinct, the prime minister said. He stressed that they may not in fact be related to the missing passenger jet and that the objects will be hard to find in any case. One object is said to be as long as 24 metres (62 feet) with the other object smaller. They were first seen by the Australian Geo Spatial Service. The zone being searched is 1,429 miles from Perth on Australia’s west coast. The ocean depths at this location is said to be very deep, possibly as much as 13,000 feet.  

Joe Oliver

Joe Oliver, the MP for Eglinton-Lawrence, will be Canada’s new Finance Minister. Mr. Oliver will replace Jim Flaherty.   He has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and worked as an investment banker, starting his career with Merrill Lynch. Oliver, 73, has also served as the executive director of the Ontario Securities Commission, and the CEO of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada. Eglinton-Lawrence was created in 1976 from parts of Eglinton, St. Paul’s, York Centre, York South, and York West. Federally, it was represented by Liberal Joe Volpe from 1988 to 2011, and by Mr. Oliver since the 2011 federal election. On Toronto City Council, the western half of the riding is represented by Josh Colle (Ward 15) and the eastern portion by Karen Stintz (Ward 16).  w/Wikipedia

An early crowd of about 300 wandered along the parade of placards on tripods at the Metrolinx information meeting held Tuesday night in the William Lea Room at Leaside Gardens. The meeting was sponsored by John Parker (Ward 26) though it appeared to be a fairly standard Metrolinx meeting, much like the kind held elsewhere in the vicinity of South Bayview. Residents came to marvel and argue about the transit project known as the Eglinton Crosstown Light Rapid Transit. There were instructional cards on the pace of work, cutaway views of the stations at Bayview and Laird and point by point explanations of how Metrolinx will try to help us cope during the forthcoming mess. One catchy bullet-point from the provincial transit authority was that tunnel boring from Brentcliffe Rd. to Yonge Street will be completed by 2016. A few people thought this was nonsense but in fact it doesn’t seem too unlikely. The joker in the pack, as some might say, will be the station construction at Bayview and Laird (and Mt. Pleasant by the way). These structures will stretch hundreds of feet both above and below ground. It will be necessary to “cut and cover” everything built below ground at these sites. It is a process that will frequently bring traffic and commerce to a dead halt through these intersections. It was ever thus in such construction. As has been noted elsewhere in the Bulldog, the Bayview stop will have a main station on the site of the McDonald’s on the southeast corner. A second entrance will be built in the Metro parking lot. In a reversal from early planning, there will be no entrance from Sunnybrook Plaza. This change may reflect the desire of the plaza’s owner, Rio.Can, to keep its re-development options open for this corner. At Laird, both stations, west and east of Laird, will be on the south side. The main entrance will be on the southwest corner where the small strip mall housing the Great Canadian Bagel now sits. A secondary entrance will be built to the east of the Pier One building in the parking lot of Rio.Can’s Leaside Shopping Centre. 

Canada’s internationally respected Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is resigning that post and leaving the cabinet. He will return to the private sector, he said. Mr. Flaherty released  a statement late Tuesday saying he feels fulfilled. Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement of his own, saying he had accepted Flaherty’s decision “with great reluctance.” Flaherty said the decision to leave politics is unrelated to his health, but is instead simply “the right decision for me and my family at this time.” Flaherty, the member for Whitby-Oshawa has suffered for some time from a painful skin disease.  It is apparently not fatal but is very uncomfortable. Flaherty’s replacement will be named Wednesday.