Tom Clancy, whose complex, adrenaline-fueled military novels made him one of the world’s best-selling and best-known authors, died on Tuesday in a hospital in Baltimore. He was 66. New York Times
Keep eye out for bike stolen off Sutherland Drive
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Pam Haines is asking everyone to be on the lookout for her TREK bike that was stolen out of her garage on Sutherland Drive sometime between September 19 and 23, 2013. It’s a women specific bike (SKYE SL DISC) and had a black rack on it (that may or may not have been removed by now). Pam is asking that you spread the word and try to get this valuable bicycle returned. You can contact the South Bayview Bulldog at news@bayview-news.com
CIBC branch on South Bayview adds an ATM
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The CIBC on South Bayview between Dollarama and Benjamin Moore Paint is closed today for renovations that are said to include another ATM
New Leaside rink to open Sunday, October 5, 2013
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Global News background on the new arena. Global News Part of the events of this Sunday will be the game between the Wildcats and Mississauga Chiefs. That goes at 3.30 p.m. Wildcats
Raging New York bikers called Motor Psychos
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Video taken down
2 held in Egypt are extremists, says Sun News
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Sun News has published and broadcast information about the two Canadians being held in Egypt which paints them, not as innocent tourists caught up in local events, but as militant activists who support the Muslim Brotherhood. The men are Dr. Tarek Lubiani and John Greyson, referred to for many weeks in the media simply as a physician and a filmmaker. The Sun News contention, as detailed by Michael Coren (inset) is that these titles may be correct in a narrow sense, but they provide no context to explain why the two men are being held by the Egyptian Army. Coren says that Dr. Loubiani is an extremist who has disrupted government news conferences in Canada to complain that he is a Palestinian refugee. He is, according to Coren, no such thing. The facts as stated by the Sun are rather remarkable. Mr. Greyson, says Coren, is a “leader of the extremist group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.” These previously unheard statements, if true, explain a lot about the difficulty the government is having getting the two men returned home. Sun News.Shiner, Mammoliti leasing bargains at 88 Erskine
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A story by City Hall investigative reporter Zach Dubinsky of the CBC says that Toronto council members David Shiner (Ward 24) and George Mammoliti (Ward 7) are both leasing two-bedroom apartments in a building owned by a subsidiary of Greenwin Property for much less than the market value. The story has good length of detail and is worth a read. The apartment building is located at 88 Erskine Ave. between Yonge St. and Mt. Pleasant Rd. in Ward 22. The subsidiary is Verdiroc Holdings. Below is an extract of Mr Shiner’s voting record in regard to Greenwin relevant to the time he has been in possession of the apartment in question.
In 2005, a year after Shiner became Verdiroc’s tenant, the company sought approval from a city tribunal to nearly double the number of units in a condo it was planning at Sheppard and Bayview avenues. The panel eventually deferred the request in a move marked by procedural irregularities. Shiner, who supported Verdiroc’s application, then brought a motion to have all five members kicked off the panel. The motion was ultimately ruled out of order, but not before landing Shiner and a fellow councillor in the headlines for months. He also cast four votes, over two ensuing council meetings, that helped block city lawyers from trying to fight Verdiroc’s proposal at the Ontario Municipal Board. In 2007, he voted on how to disburse $1 million in city subsidies for low-income renters. City staff had recommended allocating the money to an entire neighbourhood, instead of solely to tenants of a Verdiroc-owned building. Councillors voted 7-1 in favour of the staff plan, with Shiner as the lone dissenter. CBC
Thief on bicycle grabs purse at Broadway-Laird
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An unusual purse snatch has occurred at the corner Broadway Avenue and Laird Drive. A 32 year old woman was approached from behind by a man riding a bicycle. He grabbed the purse from her shoulder and fled heading west on Broadway Avenue. The woman was uninjured in the attack. It is a disturbing incident especially because of the early evening time period. It was ten after seven on Sunday, September 29, 2013. Police are requesting the assistance of the public in identifying the following described person in connection with this offence. Description of Suspect: Male, white, 20-25 years, 140-150 pounds, medium build, thin eyes, dark brown hair. Anyone on Broadway west of Laird who has video with a street view should tell police.
Farmer fights Ottawa for his family’s heritage
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Maclean’s online tells a story of Trenton area farmer Frank Meyers who has been fighting federal expropriation of his land for more than a decade. It has been in his family for centuries. Read it and see what you think. Maclean’s
Camera snaps attack as golden eagle kills a deer
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Pictures from a remote camera in an isolated nature reserve in Russia have revealed an attack by a golden eagle on a young deer. In a sequence from the wild quite probably never before recorded, the bird is seen sinking its talons into the struggling sika deer. The camera is intended to monitor Siberian tigers. The three photos were released by the London Zoological Society. The society’s Linda Kerley said she first realized something was up when she approached the wildlife-monitoring device — also called a camera trap — and found a mangled deer carcass nearby. “Something felt wrong about it,” she said in a statement accompanying the photographs. “There were no large carnivore tracks in the snow, and it looked like the deer had been running and then just stopped and died. “It was only after we got back to camp that I checked the images from the camera and pieced everything together,” she said. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.” Golden eagles are large birds. Their wingspan tops more than 6 ½ feet and, while they typically eat small birds, mammals, or snakes, they’ve been known to target larger animals as well. The eagles are trained by Russian hunters who sometimes send them after prey in flocks The zoological society said the photos were shot in the Lazovsky State Nature Reserve in the Primorye region of Russia’s Far East on Dec. 8, 2011. The pictures were released only after the publication of a scholarly article by Kerley and co-author Jonathan Slaght of the Wildlife Conservation Society in the Ohio-based Journal of Raptor Research earlier this month.
Smoking zero-tolerance is an uncharted land
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The Toronto Board of Health is hoping to get smoking banned in patios, parks and a range of other public places. The matter will soon go to City Council. Make no mistake: smoking is a dangerous, dirty source of grief, including the cause of the occasional house fire. But as in other things of which we properly disapprove, there is with tobacco possible folly — the risk of turning weak-willed nicotine addicts into law breakers. If smoking remains legal but the act of lighting up becomes effectively illegal there is no knowing where the law of unintended consequences will take us. It seems possible that smokers will be even more secretive and perhaps inspire forms of group behavior that border on the criminal. Again, reasonable rules against things we correctly dislike are welcome so long as a distorted zero-tolerance mentality does not take over. In recent decades Ontario has experienced righteous zero-tolerance against many social ills. In the case of making sure that children were not abused the system managed to convict and imprison people who were totally innocent. Yes, only a few actually over-reacted but there was great popular pressure to get convictions. Of course, the smoking context is different but we will do well to remember that it is called the rule of unexpected consequences for a reason. It might as easily be called the rule of unforeseeable consequences.
Pan Am executives are singed by Toronto Sun
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That fire-breathing Sue Ann Levy at the Toronto Sun has set fire to the pleasant and respectable image of the Pan Am Games scheduled for 2015 with revelations of careless spending. She names CEO Ian Troup, salary $477,000 a year (inset) as having thrown an $8561 reception in Mexico for 150 people in the fall of 2011. Some of the other expense account items seem petty given the salaries being paid. Somebody collected for a 91-cent parking ticket. It may or may not be as bad as it seems but the Sun News campaign against the Pan Am Games cuts sharper when it asks — nightly it seems — how many people go near these events. And can the City economy possibly generate the business that might offset the billions of public funds spent on them. Today the Premier and Mayor Ford were separately saying they expected better cost control from the organizers. We will see. Sue Ann Levy