Fear? disgust? disbelief? Feel the fiscal fiasco

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What should Canadians feel about our American friends? Fear, disgust, disbelief? There’s probably a little of all those things in the rather bitter look we see in the eyes of Finance Minister Flaherty (left). Some people are saying that the handful of Senators who are now working furiously to find a compromise and avoid that tax-wrenching dive over the fiscal cliff are already mathematically out of time. Is there a retro fix available? We think so. But if they don’t find it, the U.S. is expected to slide into another recession by June. And you know what that means for us.

Woman with flu-like symptoms dies on Via train

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An elderly  woman has been found dead on the transcontinental  Via Rail passenger train. Her body was discovered Saturday morning when the Vancouver-to-Toronto train stopped near Parry Sound because four passengers were showing flu-like symptoms. Emergency crews boarded the train and confirmed that a woman who Via Rail described in a news release as elderly had died. The other three passengers were taken to hospital for treatment, according to the news release.

Let’s make Laird Drive Midtown’s new auto alley

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Service five minutes away

You only have to ask most car owners in and around South Bayview to learn how much they resent the lack of automobile sales and service in our area.  The collapse of 2008 caused a near blood bath among local dealers — Yonge Toyota, Brennan’s on Bayview, Roy Foss at Eglinton and Brentcliffe — all gone. The promising new auto sales centre on the site of the railway lands vanished with the bankruptcy of General Motors.  But still we have the old standby, Gyro Mazda, on Laird Drive and this company is also wisely expanding to create a Hyundai dealership at Laird and Industrial St. across the road from the Mazda outlet. This is excellent news for all South Bayview and leads the way for business, municipal and federal leaders to bring more car dealerships to the dormant industrial lands on the east side of Laird Drive. And the wisest course, in our view, would be to forget about the cash-strapped and top-heavy American-based firms like GM and Ford. Emphasis should be on manufacturers with less developed systems. Hyundai and its Korean cousin KIA come to mind. But there are car makers in China, India and Europe who should be encouraged to take a look at Laird Drive. Those who settle here will be able to tap a rich market of households whose car owners are fed up with driving to Front Street or Steeles Ave for service. It is frequently said that Hyundai is determined to break into the North American market by building better and more stylish cars. In the case of Gyro Hyundai on Laird, it will also be going where the business is located. May it prosper.     

Woman, 21, gets court order against parents

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Music/drama student Aubrey Ireland
A 21-year-old woman in Cincinnati has obtained a court order which prevents her parents from more or less trying to run her life, the wire services report. Aubrey Ireland told an Ohio court she was treated “like I was a dog with a collar on,” the Cincinnati Enquirer has written. The court ordered that David and Julie Ireland have no contact with their young  honours student daughter until at least Sept. 23, 2013. The young woman had filed a Sept. 24 stalking order against her parents as a last resort, she said. “They basically thought that they were paying for my college tuition and living expenses that they could tell me what to do who to hang out with … basically control all of my daily life,” Ireland told ABC News.

Outrage at Russian ban on adoptions to the U.S.

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The decision by the Russian Duma (or parliament) supported by President Putin to ban the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents has incited outrage around the world. This legislation  is a kind of tit-for-tat action by Moscow, a political snake-pit which is set out in the accompanying Euronews video on the right. The decision seems particularly inhumane for more than 40 American couples who are currently in the process of the long and expensive task of choosing a child and getting approvals. On the left, is a picture of the Thomas family of Minnesota. Their son is 7-year-old Jack, who was adopted as an infant from a Russian orphanage. He and is mother and father were expecting to bring Jack’s brother, Nikoly, to join him. Now, their hopes are thrown into chaos and uncertainty. It is said that some 750,000 children are living in Russian orphanages and that U.S. families alone have adopted more than 60,000 in recent years. As you will see in the video, there is also strong objection to this ban on the streets of Russia.

Moms outnumber dads 4:1 on parental dating site

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Knowing people, the discovery that there may be more moms seeking a new mate than dads doesn’t seem too surprising. But the new online dating site MyLovelyParent has to deal with this four to one imbalance. The owner is starting a site focused primarily on men in the hope of moving them over to the MyLovelyParent site. Worth a read.  Postmedia

Can newspapers ever recover lost revenue?

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Can this sign save the Globe?

The Globe and Mail has a lot at stake in its recent effort to get people to pay for reading the newspaper online. The desperate measure of showing readers an image asking them to pay, rather than showing the story, has become known in the industry as the paywall.  Today the Globe is thumping the paywall  tub again starting off with a brave little conceit that Apocalyptic Mayans didn’t see the end of the world, but they are seeing the end of news for free online. Then there ‘s U.S. commentator Dana Blankenhorn who says investors should short the New York  Times because its paywall — and paywalls everywhere — haven’t got a chance. Blankenhorn says paywalls are only a temporary fix. He quotes Matt Ingram of GigaOm as saying that the Times is only maintaining with its paywalls, not prospering. “The paywall acts like sandbags against the flood. They keep the floodwaters out but they don’t stop the rising water. In the case of newspapers, this flood is an unsustainable business model. As Clay Shirky noted, in the debate over the Washington Post adding a paywall, sites like Homicide Watch cover every killing in the area, with a staff of two, while the Post newsroom has dozens of reporters but just covers a handful of cases a year. As Shirky wrote at his own blog last year a newspaper is a bundle, but the nature of the online world is to tear such bundles apart. The easy part of a paywall is getting money from 2% of your audience, he adds. The harder part is replacing 98% of your advertising business.”

Family dog returned to Lawrence Park home

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A 15-year-old mixed breed family dog has escaped a cold demise in Toronto’s Boxing Day storm.  Yebo is now back home with her owners. Margaret and Garth Jackson, of Lawrence Park. As told in the Toronto Star by reporter Alyshaw Hasham, lucky Yebo was found wandering in the snow by Guido Lenarduzzi and his wife Tammy Huot as they were driving on Lawrence Ave. E. The couple knocked on some doors to try to find the dog’s home but were unsuccessful. They took Yebo home with them and struck on the idea of posting a picture in the Kijiji Dog Found  classifieds. And it was here, the next day, that the Jackson’s daughter found the online posting and picture and called her parents with the news. It appears that Yebo got lost when she was let out into the Jackson’s back yard and then, instead of scratching at the door to get back inside, she decided to explore the snow on Lawrence Ave.

Fire call to Dalewood Road in Sherwood Park

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The  Toronto Fire Department is dealing with a fire call on Dalewood Rd near Sheldrake Blvd east of Mt. Pleasant Rd. tonight. The call came in at about 10.45 p.m. No assistance was requested.

Shark aquarium cracks open in Shanghai

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Shoppers were caught completely by surprise as a 30-ton aquarium full of  fish, turtles and sharks exploded without warning in a Shanghai mall earlier this month. The flying glass, debris and fishes injured more than a dozen people.  The drama was caught on closed-circuit television and posted to YouTube. It sent shards of glass flying at unsuspecting shoppers when the huge tank burst. On the left, a freeze frame milliseconds after the aquarium cracked open. The woman seen in the frame is apparently paralyzed in shock. The video shows onlookers get swept up in waves as the water gushes out of the aquarium. “There was no warning. Just a loud crack and it went. I’ve never been so scared,” a worker at the Shanghai Orient Shopping Centre said The glass was reportedly 15 cm thick. Some 15 people were injured, including eight shoppers and seven staff. 

Libel action against Mayor Ford is dismissed

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A $6-million libel lawsuit against Mayor Rob Ford has been dismissed. The Toronto Sun reported Thursday that in a decision from Justice John Macdonald lawyers for Boardwalk Cafe owner George Foulidis failed to prove that comments Ford made alleging corruption damaged Foulidis’s reputation. “I welcome today’d decision by the Court to dismiss the Foulidis lawsuit against me. I will continue fighting to represent the best interests of Toronto taxpayers at City Hall. There is still a lot of work to be done and I will continue to focus on this,” said Ford in a statement. 680 News

Nomophobia is fear of smart phone deprivation

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Rogers has produced a survey of smart phone use that indicates our  reliance on these devices is just intense.  We like to sleep with them apparently. Not too cuddly but what the heck. The whole phenomenon has a name — Nomophobia — according to Rogers. Nomophobia is the state of stress caused by being away room your smart phone. The survey says as many as  65 per cent of users feel naked without their smart phone and Internet access. A little over half sleep with their device next to them, and 82 per cent use their smart phone in the bathroom. Over half say they check their mobile device before brushing their teeth in the morning.