“Calgary space junk” was just plain garbage

by  • 

Thanks to reader rudy for tipping us to the confirmation that the space junk over Calgary was indeed a hoax. A story in the Vancouver Sun has chapter ansd verse on the phony story which originated with some joker calling himself “Reporter Cal Phillips.” And once again the popular signalling system Twitter was used to get the tale out there before it could be checked. The Sun called it a “scene reminiscent of Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds broadcast, an Internet hoax early Saturday had a NASA satellite the size of a bus crashing to Earth on a farm near Okotoks.”

Wingsuit man threads needle in China

by  • 

The far flung reporters and videographers of the Telegraph newspaper in London have this week witnessed a frightening feat by American Wingsuit flier Jeb Corliss as he flew through a narrow opening in Tianmen Mountain near Zhangjiajie, Hunan province. According to Wikipedia, wingsuit flying is the sport of flying the human body through the air using a special jumpsuit, called a wingsuit, which adds surface area to the human body to enable a significant increase in lift. Modern wingsuit designs create the surface area with fabric between the legs and under the arms. A wingsuit may be referred to as a birdman suit or flying squirrel suit.A wingsuit flight ends with a parachute opening, so a wingsuit can be flown from any point that provides sufficient altitude to glide through the air, such as skydiving aircraft or BASE jumping exit points, and to allow a parachute to deploy.The wingsuit flier wears parachute equipment designed for skydiving or BASE jumping. The flier deploys the parachute at a planned altitude and unzips the arm wings, if necessary, so they can reach up to the control toggles and fly to a normal parachute landing.

Liberals cancel electric generation plant

by  • 

The Liberal Government at Queen’s Park has announced that it will halt construction on the natural gas electric generation plant in Mississuaga. The news was delivered by the local candidate and is clearly related to the tight contest between the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives for Toronto area seats. A poll apparently shows the two parties in a dead heat for support as the Thursday, October 6, 2011 General Election looms. Those concerned about whether we’re going to be able to keep the lights on in Ontario may take some solace in the knowledge that such proclamations are not always set in stone, so to speak.

Get rid of the “gotcha” parking ticket

by  • 

Is it possible the City will move to eliminate the most outrageous “gotcha” feature of metered parking in Toronto? We all know that if we misjudge the time required to do an errand, have lunch or whatever, the penalty is $30. Bang. The days of pay as you go parking are gone. The civilized idea that you could simply pay a makeup fee at the regular rate has been stomped on like a bug. But wait. An electronic means of paying a top-up fee has been tested and is now in use in Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver. Councillor Karen Stintz said this week that Toronto is considering a plan that would allow drivers to pay for parking or replenish their meters by using a smart phone. Drivers would pre-register, phone the number on the meter, and buy more time by redialing the number. If a parking officer wanted to issue a ticket he would have to check the electronic time clock to see if the driver was overdue. A story in the Mark News says that Toronto Parking has been investigating the option for a year to see if it’s financially feasible. This will test City bosses morality. Why give drivers a way of avoiding that delicious $30 tax grab? We will see. Many thanks to the reader who commented (Click comments) for correcting us on the amount of the street parking fine. And of course those who don’t pay at all deserve a fine but we believe most people pay. It’s the practical problem of getting back to the meter in time that makes paying difficult.

Henderson Homecoming Tour here tomorrow

by  • 

A reminder that Paul Henderson and the Henderson Jersey Homecoming Tour will be rolling into Leaside Memorial Gardens to support fundraising efforts for the expansion of the facilities, as well as to meet fans and celebrate an iconic piece of Canadian history. This is a follow on to our story of earlier this week (right). The free admission traveling exhibit is housed in a 48-foot-long double trailer and features Henderson’s 1972 Summit Series Jersey (left) the hockey gloves he wore in that game, rare Canadian hockey memorabilia and interactive games and fun for all ages. Residents are encouraged to come out and enjoy the festivities. All donations received by September 25, 2011, day of the show, will be matched by SmartCentres to a maximum of $25,000. The date and time: Sunday, September 25, 2011, 11 to 5 pm. There’s also a nice story in InsideToronto here by Danielle Milley. This story has a photo of the man who took the famous winning goal picture, the late Frank Lennon.

CNN Cafe opens in Seoul with vision of future

by  • 

The new CNN concept ‘coffice’ (coffee-office) offers customers free wi-fi, computers and printing services, and features CNN content across different platforms, including a live feed of the CNN International channel on a large screen, the latest CNN newswires on a digital ticker and computer terminals featuring cnn.com and cnngo.com. Oh sure, there have seen all sort of commercial, free hot spots in Starbucks and elsewhere, but this is the full up largely free office. It can’t be cheap. Even $4 lattes won’t cover it all. No, it’s a scheme to drive viewership. Will it work. Here’s what the cable service says. “CNN Café is not just another coffee shop, but an information hub for locals to get the latest international news from CNN, as well as a chance to learn English in a more comfortable, relaxed environment,” said Ron Lee, senior vice president and general manager of Turner Entertainment Networks Korea.

Sobeys to supply Overlea Target store

by  • 

Here’s a reminder of just how many grocery outlets we will have in South Bayview. Target stores will buy their grocery products from Sobeys when the American retailer opens its big box stores next year. As is known, one of the first of the Zellers location to be converted to a Target is on Overlea Blvd. No doubt Target will be looking to divert some grocery business from the Loblaws on Redway Drive to its own store on Overlea. We also can look forward to a new Longos store in the Leaside Village on Laird Drive when it opens and, if approved, a Loblaws in the development under application for 1860 Bayview at Broadway. Target said it will open 125 to 135 stores in Canada, beginning in March 2013 with most of the locations opening that year. Target also announced that another 84 leases it have been acquired from Zellers. Target said in May it had selected an initial group of 105 Zellers leases, one of which was Overlea Blvd.