There will be a Transit Town Hall on Monday, October 22, 2012 at the North York Community Centre at 209 Eglinton Ave W. in Eglinton Park opposite Eastbourne Ave. It goes at 7 p.m. Councillor Matlow is the organizer and others who will speak are Paul Bedford, Steve Munro and Richard Joy. They are all knowledgeable on transit and planning. There will be representatives of the TTC and the Ontario Government transit body known as Metrolinx. (Is there anybody who still thinks Metrolinx is an exhibit at the Toronto Zoo?) Never mind. It might be a good chance to get your transit concern heard. For information (416) 392-7906
Holy Hookahs! Water pipes remain unregulated
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| “Higher” education |
Hookah parlours will continue to be unregulated in Toronto until at least next year. City staff is expected to bring back a detailed examination of health issues related to these ad hoc locations where one can smoke different substances. Tobacco is popular as are various fruit flavoured herbal mixtures. They are smoked through a water pipe that heats the substance with charcoal and cools the smoke in a water chamber before it is inhaled through a hose and mouthpiece. The licensing committee turned down a proposal to regulate parlours mostly out of a concern that the move might give them credibility with young people. There were views expressed that no matter how the hookah is used it is unhealthy. It is apparently legal for kids to smoke the herbal stuff but not tobacco. But who knows what’s going on at your local hookah palace. CBC.ca
How George Cope had his Bell rung
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Nice little play on words here as Globe and Mail writer Steve Ladurantaye has his go at explaining what went wrong in Bell Media’s bid to buy TV, radio and billboard giant Astral Media Mr. Cope (left) is CEO of Bell and it seems his confidence about this deal was boundless. There were rumbles that maybe it was just a touch too self-serving and frankly humongous to be in the public interest. The head of the Competition Bureau Melanie Áiken (centre) said as much a couple of weeks ago. In the end, CRTC commissioner Jean-Pierre Blais (right) and his cohorts decided that Bell had just not made the case. They rejected the whole deal. You can decide whether you like that. One problem Bell has is that it’s not very well liked. Many see it was an indifferent steamroller in the marketplace. The company’s contention that it needed Astral to compete internationally came under close scrutiny. How did buying a Canadian company help Bell compete internationally? It was an obvious question. The CRTC couldn’t figure it out. The current telecoms bogeyman Netflix was dragged out as a threat to Bell. It must have seemed silly to the government appointed commissioners. Globe and Mail
Employees get privacy right on office computers
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The Supreme Court has found that employers may not routinely check on what their employees are doing on a company computer assigned to the individual. The ruling stands to throw many company practices into confusion. In deciding the matter, the court said that workplace computers contain so much personal information that employees have a legitimate expectation of privacy in using them. It specified that the surfing history of employees should be confidential. The court did say, however, that some matters were so serious that the right to privacy might be overruled. But it did not explain how such criminal matters might be detected when the employer cannot routinely oversee activity on its own computers. The case involved a high school teacher who had nude pictures of students on his computer. In this case, the court said, the pictures, which had been discovered by a technician during maintenance, may be used as evidence against the teacher.
Bessborough residents in the home stretch
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Long suffering residents of Bessborough Drive over by Sutherland Drive will be glad to see they are in the home stretch with the current construction on their street. Two great looking new homes have gone up. No 63 (right) is ahead of the home across the street, but work is moving along well. No 58 is an especially graceful looking place. It is the work of TomaValley Homes Inc.
Gardiner X-way a menace to those underneath it
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The Gardiner Expressway is loaded with traffic today but a report from an independent Toronto engineering firm, IBI, says the old elevated highway is a menace, especially to those underneath it. The Gardiner is full of deteriorating concrete that presents a “significant hazard to public safety.” More than that, it contradicts the much more optimistic assessment made by the City’s engineering department. The IBI survey finds the underside of the expressway has sizable cracks, spalls (pieces that have detached from a larger mass), problematic patches, and/or splitting in six areas where the city found “no signs of surface deterioration.” The report also warns that it is possible for concrete to fall off in the future no matter what precautions are taken. Guess we’ll be taking side streets.
World of accountability growing so fast
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The offices of the City Ombud, Integrity Commissioner and Lobby Registrar are just so busy. The budgets of these three “accountability” services are proposed to go up because there are more general complaints, more complaints about integrity and more lobbyists. For the budget committee, the suspicion seemed to be that more accountability invited more business. Toronto Sun
Millwood-McRae townhouse sold in one day
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The Toronto Star’s What They Got feature today reports on a townhouse at Millwood Rd. and McRae Drive that sold in one day. It fetched the asking price — $609,900. The home sold previously in 2007 for $515,000. It has 1,800 sq feet with a single car garage. This home and its attached neighbors sit right across the street from Leaside United Church and have the appeal of being kitty-corner to Trace Manes Park. Of course the corner is a bit busy but not excessively so. What they got.
Newsweek folds print edition after 80 years
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If you are about 26, it won’t mean as much to you as it does to someone who was an adult in 1992, That’s 20 years ago and the news magazines, including Newsweek, were big, fat prosperous publications. The Internet was a question mark to most people. Hey, we are not here to buck change.
Looks like a Ding-Dong Dollarama Christmas
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That’s right friends, if Dollarama at 1531 Bayview Ave. isn’t open by Christmas call this scribbler a Terrier not a Bulldog. Every night the lights blaze and a peek through the (very narrow) crack in the papering shows shelves moving into place. For Dollarama this one is just store umpty-umpty in a business model that only keeps spiralling up. And no doubt they will do well. But the question remains as to whether the South Bayview buyer will merely look or shout “I’ll take this.” Anyone who has gone through Dollarama knows that it has an amazing array of goods. Some of it seems to have function, depending on the context. But frankly much if it appears dreadfully poor and unappealing. How will all that $2 stuff play with customers? We say you will be able to take a look on Bayview before the big man boards the reindeer shuttle for points south.