The South Bayview Bulldog

WIRES DOWN
Rosedale Valley Road will be CLOSED from Park Rd to Bayview Ave, wires down across the road #466356 ^cb

— Toronto Police Operations (@TPSOperations) March 15, 2017

Wires down

Battery operated headphones

Headphones blow up

A frightening moment or two when a woman found her headphones on fire as she rested on a flight from Beijing to Melbourne recently. This is reported by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) which for reasons unknown did not identify the make of the earphones. The woman felt burning, threw off the headset and flight attendants used a fire extinguisher on the device. The fire was accompanied by a loud explosion. “As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face,” she said. “I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck,” the ATSB quoted the unidentified passenger as saying. “I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor. They were sparking and had small amounts of fire.” In the statement, the ATSB said it “assessed that the batteries in the device likely caught on fire.”

Now CBC targets all five banks

The CBC Marketplace investigation which began with perhaps one or a few complaints from employees of the TD bank about up-selling has expanded to an apparent expose of all five chartered banks. The allegations seem to focus mostly on the efforts of managers to get employees to persuade customers to accept credit cards and borrow money in some form. The most recent online story attributes words like “dupe” and “false stories” (lies) to employees (or former employees) of the banks. It isn’t very clear whether the CBC has confirmed these things. It says there have been more than 1,000 pieces of mail. Estimates suggest that the five banks may have as many as 300,000 employees. The current story seems to contain more emotional expressions of grievance such as being “stressed out.” It is not apparent if the CBC has heard from customers about being duped. CBC

The Ontario Alert Ready System was back on television Wednesday morning reminding us that its screeching whine may well protect families from unknown perils in the weeks and years to come. Maybe it will. The underlying assumption of the screaming meemies has to be that the news media can’t do it and that many people don’t pay attention to the news.

Was a triangle of sort of people just being in the wrong place? York Regional Police need to find out and are appealing to witnesses to come forward after two people were shot in the City of Vaughan. On Tuesday, March 15, 2017, at approximately 4:12 p.m. a man started shooting at Caster Avenue in the area of Weston Road and Highway 7. A woman is dead, named as  Mila Barberi 28, of  Vaughan. A man, 40, apparently with her (or maybe not) received minor injuries. The shooter is described as 6’2, 250 lbs.wearing a dark jacket with his face was covered. He escaped in a dark coloured Jeep Cherokee.

Peter Duncan was rinkside to take these great photos of the Leaside Minor Bantam A Flames in GTHL playoff action against the Don Mills Mustangs

Andrew Smith, 36

Police are hunting an escaped man who slipped away from them at Mount Sinai Hospital early Wednesday. Andrew Smith, 36, was last seen on about 7 a.m. at the hospital at  600 University Avenue. He is described as approximately 5’11”, 130 lbs, brown receding hair, wears glasses. He was last seen wearing a navy-blue sweater, brown pants, dark shoes

Aamar Khwaja

Herbs grow under lights

Modgarden

A Toronto man, Aamar Khwaja, has invented a compact apartment or condo garden to grow herbs and edible weeds all year long. It is called the Modgarden and as reported by the CBC is being shown at the National Home Show this week. Mr. Khwaja says the idea came to him as he pondered how to have fresh greens handy all the time to help eat better. The little compartmentalized garden has grow-lights and is a creation of the Internet of things, sending its owner a text when it needs water. It is not cheap — $600 to $1100 — for something, which while innovative, uses known practices and technology.

Tuesday’s storm whipped the northeast US and Canada much worse than it did Ontario. One family in New York City lost its home in a related fire. The local fire chief said he thinks a gasoline-driven snow blower was parked in the garage after use next to a propane tank which blew a valve because of the heat.

An executive of one of the country’s largest home builder says Toronto is experiencing a “perfect storm” of price increases. And billionaire investor Stephen Jarislowsky of Montreal says the housing market in Toronto “is definitely something that’s going to come down, and come down with a bang. Not enough is being done in order to control it. This is just an accident [waiting] to happen.”

In their first interview since their children hilariously hi-jacked a live BBC segment on Korean affairs, college professor Robert Kelly and his wife Kim Jung-A spoke to The Wall Street Journal about the circumstances, the chaos, and the global reaction to the now-legendary slapstick video. Photo: Miho Inada/The Wall Street Journal. See the original