pragmatic radical

Chuck Norris for President

2008-06-10T23:29:00.002-04:00

...geologist, economist, American patriot. 'Nuff said.

Doors Open Toronto

2008-05-23T19:10:00.004-04:00

Here's a map of the various locations I plan to (attempt to) hit this weekend during this year's Doors Open Toronto:

View Larger Map

This year, the City has put together a very useful, searchable database of participating buildings.

ITS PEANUT BUTTER WASHINGTON!

2008-05-11T02:33:00.003-04:00

ITS PEANUT BUTTER WASHINGTON!
Originally uploaded by Joe D!

Great, thanks Cory, now that song will be stuck in my head all day.

See also John Waters Jackson, Teenage Mutant Ninja Lincoln, 300 Jackson.

More great currency refacings here, also in slideshow form.

Un. Be. Leavable.

2008-04-26T14:03:00.004-04:00

All the way through these latest tortured negotiations, I managed to find a way to empathize with the plight of the TTC's unionized workforce. I've been pro-union all my life, I'm in a public sector union myself, I rely on the TTC every single day of the week, and I know that most of the TTC's foibles cannot rationally be laid at the (supposedly vastly overpaid) union's feet.

Strikes suck, sure, but they're a last resort to which freely associated workers have a legal right in the event that structured negotiations break down. So, my wife got her hands on a servicable bicycle, and I psyched myself up for an hour-and-a-half walk to work if necessary. If my colleagues and I can use the threat of withdrawing our labour to win better wages and working conditions, so can the ATU. Fair's fair, solidarity forever, etc., etc...

I wanted to sing hosannas to the good and helpful angels on high when, as of last Sunday evening, it seemed as though Kinnear et al. managed to bring home the bacon for their members while avoiding both egregious concessions and unconscionable demands from the employer. Things seemed well-settled, especially with the controversial GTA clause in place to keep our transit workers the (marginally) best-paid bunch in the region. The contract was still 'tentative', sure, but at least we've got that genuinely helpful 48-hour good-faith notice period in case the membership rejects the new deal.

But no. As Steve Munro deftly put it:

[ATU] Local 113 has blown its relationship with the most pro-labour Commission and Council they could hope to have across the bargaining table. From here on, who can trust their signature on a contract?

With virtually no notice and well after most reasonable people stop monitoring the news on a Friday evening, it was announced that 65% of voting ATU members torpedoed the contact and that a strike had been called for the next morning. Supposedly the maintenance workers -- a minority of members -- were unhappy with the deal, and apparently enough others voted in sympathy to tip the balance over to rejection.

Yes, it's better for most (non-TTC) workers for this to go down on a Saturday rather than a Monday; and, yes, there's a good chance that Queen's Park can force this to arbitration before the start of the standard work week so long as the pro-union party sees fit to refrain from availing itself of the various applicable procedural delays Still, it absolutely did not have to be this way and I see no one else to blame but ATU 113's leadership.

It now seems that essential service designation and permanent binding arbitration is the only option. On balance this will probably benefit the ATU 113 membership (as such arrangements usually do) but this was a ridiculously self-destructive path to arrive at that result. It's been an awfully long time since the TTC's workers had any sympathy from the wider population of the City, but it now seems that all but the most militantly radical unionists will have to distance themselves from this kind of behaviour in order to salvage whatever credibility the movement might retain going forward. Clumsy, purely self-interested shenanigans such as these are exactly the opposite of what we need with so dire an economic outlook on the horizon.

Photo credit: "Midnight TTC Strike..." by Flickr user Jason Michael.

Surveillance Society™, you say?

2008-04-12T22:31:00.008-04:00

CCTV Smart Car, London, UK 3.JPG
Originally uploaded by gruntzooki

Caught this via Cory Doctorow's Flickr stream.

The tailgate of this Smart car in Islington municipal livery reads: "CCTV Mobile Enforcement Vehicle".

I would think a better balance could have been struck between euphemistic effect and the acronym-friendliness in naming. Telescreen Mobile Enforcement Vehicle, more like... all it lacks is a 52" plasma screen mounted to the rear windshield.

By the time the Olympics comes around, London may well end up just as prepared as Bejing apparently aims to be.

Urban crime, suburban crime

2008-04-09T00:30:00.005-04:00

Police warn woman of sexual predator in downtown area [680 News] :

Investigators said a man, who identified himself as "Steve," approached a woman in the Bloor Street and Spadina Road area last week, claiming to be [...] working on a photo collage.

Police said he asked the woman to pose for a picture and then led her into an alleyway, where she was sexually assaulted.

Although the incident in the story linked above took place immediately adjacent to the University of Toronto (it's described as having happened around Bloor & Spadina) the headline refers to the nebulous "downtown" and the University of Toronto doesn't rate a mention in article itself. It strikes me that, had a similar assault occurred at Keele & Steeles, the headline would refer specifically to York University.

When we lived in North York, it wasn't uncommon to hear reports of sexual assaults in and around York at least twice a month. I presumed that the high concentration of women in the area accounted for this in combination with the relative lack of street life in the surrounding neighbourhood (hence fewer "eyes on the street"). Still, I wondered why the higher student population and potentially emboldening anonymity of downtown crowds didn't seem to produce a corresponding number of assaults around the U of T's St. George Campus. It stands to reason that a great many assaults must take place there, too, but few seem to get high-profile coverage.

Perhaps crimes there are attributed to the well-known risks of "downtown" life, whereas assaults in a quasi-suburban setting like York seem unusual and get coverage as shocking "campus" crime?

Feature request

2008-04-06T23:54:00.007-04:00

Apple should change the iTunes interface so that the iPod Capacity visualization can optionally distinguish between music, audiobooks, and podcasts rather than lumping them all together as 'audio' like this:

I want to ration across these three types of audio, but this doesn't provide sufficiently granular information and it feels like a hassle to actually dig into my library to assess their relative storage burden.

I suppose that if I had much video on my iPod I'd applicate the simplicity, as this might clutter up the lovely gradients...

Winter-pounded pavement

2008-03-28T03:03:00.006-04:00

Pothole season 'worst ever' - "Mending the city's battered streets amid the fickle cycle of freeze-and-thaw that always accompanies our annual pre-spring tease – snow, sun, rain, more snow – has always been a battle. This year, it's war..." [Toronto Star]

I can't speak for other parts of the city, but the season has not been at all kind to my narrow side street. Evidence?

Thankfully, the sidewalks are pristine (and besides, I generally travel underground).

Oh, craigslist...

2008-03-22T22:29:00.003-04:00

...will you ever cease to amaze and amuse?

Hitting pay dirt with posts like this really does make all those hours of fruitless boredom-surfing worthwhile.

In case it gets pulled down, I'll reproduce the post below:

toronto craigslist > city of toronto > etcetera jobs
Diploma maker WANTED

Reply to: job-615319462@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-03-22, 8:51PM EDT

If you have the ability to make diploma/degrees - please contact with samples.

Gigabytes of gigs

2008-02-16T23:53:00.005-05:00

Today I discovered that Last.fm will let you use RSS or, better still, a dynamically updated Google Calendar file to pull down a list of concerts your friends ~~say they~~ are attending. From your dashboard page, just pick the events tab and look for the drop-downs on to the right.

I already use Last.fm to find interesting new music based on the listening habits of my more musicologically gifted acquaintances (you may or may not know who you are). Now I will have perfect awareness of all the cool shows I won't seeing.

Recommended events selected based on your music preferences, as well as events you yourself will be attending, are also available in this way.

Of storms and subways

2008-02-14T10:34:00.003-05:00

Why do so many occasional transit riders hate the TTC so much? Because they bring the system to it's knees, clogging up the subway by riding en masse on bad-weather days like this past Wednesday rather than dig out their outdoor-parked cars to face a slippery drive to work. The foul-weather ridership bump leads to serious crush conditions, and the resulting experience sucks for everyone. These people assume that rush-hour conditions on the TTC are always so horrendous, which further validates their normal preference for driving.

By way of anecdotal evidence, on the morning after Tuesday's snow storm my usual 15-30 minute morning trip took about 85 minutes-- a full 60 of which were spent twiddling my thumbs on Chester station's Westbound platform as least 10 fully loaded trains passed before I managed to shoehorn myself into one. Once I did, though, it was smooth (if cramped and awkward) sailing. Normally half an hour early, I ended up being more than half an hour late.

On most days, living in Riverdale near Chester is great for someone who works downtown; however, since it's one of the last few stations before the massive offload at Bloor/Yonge, the more riders there are coming in from points East, the more difficult it is to actually get moving in the first place.

If only there were more ridership, some say, the added buy-in from voters would make it easier for politicians to push for system expansion. Unforntunately, extending the existing subway further into Scarborough, Vaughan, Etobicoke or Mississauga (or continuing to add buses to suburban surface routes) might only make things worse, for, as a wise man recently wrote in the Toronto Star, "When more people get on the subways at Kipling and Kennedy, there will be longer waits for subways at every station in between."

Too true. I guess what we need is to compliment higher ridership with more capacity on trunk routes, but a new East/West (or North/South) subway line is probably not in the cards.

Photo credit: "Subway" (with permission) by Flickr user Jeff Wyonch

Lines sure to win any argument

2008-02-10T16:51:00.003-05:00

Marry Him! - "...if you say you’re not worried, either you’re in denial or you’re lying. In fact, take a good look in the mirror and try to convince yourself that you’re not worried, because you’ll see how silly your face looks when you’re being disingenuous." [Atlantic Monthly]

The above being, here, in support of the following thesis:

In practice, my married friends with kids don’t spend that much time with their husbands anyway (between work and child care), and in many cases, their biggest complaint seems to be that they never see each other. So if you rarely see your husband—but he’s a decent guy who takes out the trash and sets up the baby gear, and he provides a second income that allows you to spend time with your child instead of working 60 hours a week to support a family on your own—how much does it matter whether the guy you marry is The One?

Photo credit: "Mirror" (with permission) by Flickr user TheGiantVermin

Fluxx: not teh Suxx

2008-02-10T15:26:00.001-05:00

I am generally very, very suspicious of gimmicky card games. In the past, these suspicions have generally proven well-founded; however, Fluxx -- "the card game of ever-changing rules" -- is really, really great.

Having slept on it, I have decided that I enjoyed the game for at least one of the following two reasons.

1. At the outset, the rules are extremely simple: draw 1 card, play 1 card. As the game progresses, new rules (e.g. draw 4, play 3, play all, hand limit 2) are added by players until the game becomes exceedingly complex.

2. I won all but one of the games I played against Amy, which is awfully unusual.

Also, there is a variation available called Zombie Fluxx. As you know, everything good is better with zombies.

Photo credit: "Fluxx" (Creative Commons) by Flickr user Plutor.

Eee Gads! I'm back...

2008-02-03T21:31:00.000-05:00

The lack of recent substantive post-age here is due mostly to a PC access rationing plan instituted in my household after the untimely death of our 2nd desktop computer last year. As a result -- and, for the first time since age 14 or so -- I've had to 'share' our lone remaining desktop.

Balance was temporarily restored to the force by bringing my old skeezy laptop out of retirement, but it reverted to its overheating-and-crashing routine once the temperature dropped outside (and the furnace began blasting inside).

But fret not, ye (seven) loyal readers! An ultra-cheap ~~laptop~~ subnotebook, in the form of Asus' Eee PC, has arrived to save the day. Twice the computers means... well, i'm not sure what it means. Anyway, I'm going to try to blog more in the coming weeks.

Photo credit: "mason likes the eeepc" (Creatve Commons) by Flickr user Matt Westervelt

Lately listening | last.fm

2007-11-19T21:45:00.000-05:00

Top 10 last week: Radiohead, Saul Williams, The Mountain Goats, The Tragically Hip, Dropkick Murphys, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Xavier Rudd, The Fiery Furnaces, Hayden, Ronald Jenkees [...]

Lately listening | last.fm

2007-11-10T17:52:00.000-05:00

Top 10 last week: The Tragically Hip, The Mountain Goats, Radiohead, Daft Punk, C'mon, Regina Spektor, Mogwai, The White Stripes, Neil Young, Amy Winehouse [...]

Enumerate this!

2007-10-04T19:11:00.000-04:00

I think I'm fated to never, ever be on the voters list for a provincial election.

Last time, I had to add myself to the voters list at the returning office because I was a student living away from home. The election prior to that one was the first since I had turned 18, so I had to add myself to the voters list at the returning office.

This time I thought I was finally set. Sure, we just moved to a new apartment in a new riding last month; however, just before we moved, a pair of revising agents from Elections Ontario knocked on our door and took down our new address information.

That was handy, we thought.

In mid-September, when Notice of Registration cards were sent out, we got one -- for our old address, forwarded to our new address by Canada Post.

Well, whatever, it takes time to update databases and so forth, right? I'm sure we'll be on the list at the polling station. Without a registration card, we'll just need two pieces of ID instead of one.

Today, I voted in advance at the returning office. I wasn't on the list. I explained that I had expected to be, as my wife and I had been "revised" weeks ago. Aghast, the poll worker insisted that I must have been scammed, because "we don't do that any more".

So, once again, I had to twiddle my thumbs while a kindly older gentleman filled out a form and had me sign a declaration saying that I am indeed who I indeed am. Again.

I was pissed when they stopped ennumerating the whole province to focus on high turnover areas like new subdivisions and high-rise apartment blocks. But I suppose that if the fractional revision that's still undertaken is this useless, they might as well not bother at all.

del.icio.us

2007-08-26T17:39:00.000-04:00

Something I should have done long ago is migrate my miscellaneous link memos from this blog to a purpose-built bookmarking web application such as delicious.

Today, I did.

From now on, I'll stick to original commentary and blah blah blah posts here; delicious, on the other hand, will be the repository for news articles and websites that have caught my eye but which have not inspired me to belt out any particular missive.

It's getting hot in here

2007-08-19T11:10:00.000-04:00

Just as a cool snap hits, this story about extreme heat came to my attention:

Air-conditioning fees probed [London Free Press]

Suzanne Young, 49, who couldn't afford a $50 monthly fee to run an air-conditioner was found dead earlier this month in her sweltering apartment. Another Sarnia resident, Stanley Scott, 58, was found dead in his basement apartment three days later.

Bradley had asked [Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, John] Gerretsen to protect tenants from being gouged by landlords for extra air conditioning fees.

In a reply, Gerretsen said he has asked ministry staff to consider changes to legislation to help residents remain cool in their rental housing during the summer. [read more]

Our current building has the same fee (a generic $50/month fee for 'large applicances'), but I know for a fact that it's not levied on everyone. It would be nice if the law acknowledged the necessity of climate control - or at least the depravity of denying it to those at risk.

2007-08-12T20:13:00.000-04:00

Pet saver defends his actions - "Tre Smith, an animal cruelty investigator for the Toronto Humane Society and former mall security guard, is not allowed to investigate animal cruelty complaints pending an investigation in which he handcuffed the owner of the dog to a car." [Toronto Star]

Ow, my breathing!

2007-07-31T16:15:00.000-04:00

Office printers 'are health risk' - "Almost one-third were found to emit ultra-tiny particles of toner-like material, so small that they can infiltrate the lungs and cause a range of health problems from respiratory irritation to more chronic illnesses." [BBC via Gizmodo]

Now it's all coming together: four straight years of 15+ hours per week spent working in a small and poorly ventilated room full of laser printers that chugged away non-stop the whole time, and the periodic 7-to-10 week cases of bronchitis that just wouldn't go away and which disappeared completely when I left university. It certainly makes a fella' think.

Great jorb, Toronto council

2007-07-18T05:49:00.000-04:00

Best one-liner on this week's land transfer tax fiasco: "The same business groups who wanted Queen’s Park to give Toronto more taxing powers screamed like the well-fattened pigs they are when Toronto actually tried to exercise them." [Steve Munro]

Spy Package

2007-06-25T05:31:00.000-04:00

"A digital camera inside a parcel looks out through a small hole and captures images of its journey through the postal system." [Artist via BoingBoing]

Canadian ZENN's electric car

2007-06-23T00:25:00.000-04:00

Toronto Company Has Electric Car But Our Government Won't Let Them Sell It - "Although the car is now available for sale in 48 US States, no Canadian government has approved it for sale in Canada. In fact, Queens Park refused to even entertain the idea until Al Gore cornered Dalton McGuinty earlier this year and insisted that he make it happen." [BlogTO]

Geo tattoos?

2007-06-21T23:05:00.000-04:00

Google Sightseeing has a curious post exploring one of Angelina Jolie's tattoos; specifically, a jumble of numbers forming four sets of lat/long coordinates related to her children. For a photo, brace yourself and follow this link to the evil, evil Daily Mail.

What the other 9/10ths thinks

2007-06-18T16:37:00.000-04:00

Toronto still terrific - "Toronto is funky, tolerant, multicultural, young, with an artistic sensibility and an inherent dignity. It's not New York. It's not Chicago. It's more earnest, more harmonious." [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Funny, isn't it, reading what an outsider has to say about the city where you live? This article highlights 10 general categories of stuff-to-do in the city this summer that make the travel, currency, and border hassles worthwhile for US-ian tourists.

Sometimes a travel writer's enthusiasm boggles the mind, though. For example: "Families will have a blast taking the fast, on-time subway through town". What on earth does that mean? An "on-time" subway? Has Toronto such a beast? Our subway are scheduled to run "every x minutes" - with x being a function of time of day and day of week - with the only fixed times being the first and last train of the day. I think even giant TTC transit nerds like myself would have a hard time saying to themselves, "boy, that subway sure was on-time".

Another good one: "Taxis are plentiful and inexpensive". I guess Einstein was right... it's all relative.

"Google killed my privacy", round n+1

2007-06-17T20:08:00.001-04:00

How to put blinders on Google Street View - "Just as governments have asked Google to blur the overhead images of Google Maps, you can ask Google to censor street-level photos." [Webware]

2007-06-17T19:46:00.000-04:00

HtO Park: Toronto’s Waterfront takes a big step forward - "Despite all the setbacks, the incomplete park (the western half is still under construction) is a huge success. On the first Saturday night, the park was full of families, children were playing the sand pit, Afro music playing and gathering a crowd, others people walking along the water." [Spacing Wire]

Checking out HtO is now on my (short, but growing) list of things to see in the city this summer.

Go figure

2007-06-16T21:29:00.000-04:00

Venn diagrams + comics = awesome.

2007-06-15T03:49:00.000-04:00

Best quip yet about LED lighting on the CN Tower and condos: "We like change, but we urge restraint." [Torontoist]

A futurist digs his hearing aids

2007-06-13T18:47:00.000-04:00

The Accidental Cyborg - "These [hearing aids] aren't just dumb amplifiers; they're little digital signal processors, small enough to fit into the ear canal, and smart enough to know when to boost the input and when to leave it alone... And here's where therapeutic augmentation starts to fuzz into enhancement: one of the program modes I'm considering would give me far better than normal hearing, allowing me to pick up distant conversations like I was standing right there." [Open the Future via BoingBoing]

The blogger at Open the Future's hearing aids have apparently confirmed his enthusiasm about the coming (eventually, honest!) wave of cyborg-ness. I had a similar rush of optimism after getting my own hearing aids, but it's faded somewhat with time.

They're great, and they've improved my quality of life considerably, but they're incredibly expensive, and could certainly be better. For example: I don't get distortion or interference from my GSM cell phone, but orienting my Motorola's earpiece so that the speaker lines up with the microphone in my hearing aids is hit-and-miss at best.

I often feel a little lame, having spent around $3,000 for custom-molded, high quality 'headphones' that I have to take out to listen to some phone calls or my iPod. That problem can be addressed with bluetooth add-ons, which are compatible with the larger BTE (behind-the-ear) devices, not my small ones. Oticon, the manufacturer of my own devices, has developed a relatively small BTE aid with built-in bluetooth as well as wireless co-ordination between the two aids -- awesome, but presumably battery-devouring.

Not to mention that being able to "pick up distant conversations like I was standing right there" is approximately the most annoying superpower ever when riding the bus.

New Cuff The Duke in September?

2007-06-13T13:37:00.000-04:00

From an interview with frontman Wayne Petti about his solo album: "Cuff the Duke is just finishing mixing our new record, which should be out in mid September if all goes well." [BlogTO]

John Tory's GO Transit 'solution'

2007-06-13T13:25:00.001-04:00

Journeyman pro-transit activist Steve Munro lays the smack down on Ontario PC leader John Tory's recent comments on how he'd get the GO trains running on time:

[His] solution to GO Transit’s on-time performance problems is to fire managers if they cannot meet the targets. Although this is a refreshing change from the usual right-wing habit of blaming everything on the unions, it is no more realistic or responsible a platform...

Tory needs to own up to his own party’s legacy, to changes in funding and downloading of costs to municipalities, and say what he would change. The Liberals may have left some Harris policies in place for their own convenience, but if there are things Tory would change, he should say so. He should acknowledge the damage that was done the last time his party ran Ontario and set himself clearly apart from that regime. [read more]

Not only is Steve's blog a must-read for GTA transit nerds, but his thoughtful posts also tend to draw a lot of fascinating perspectives from others in the form of comments (to which he often replies individually in italics, letter-to-the-editor style!).

2007-06-01T17:49:00.000-04:00

Thief stabs ticket taker, burns TTC booth - "A man with a dark hood over his head and a scarf covering his face approached the booth [at Lawrence West station] and doused it with a cup of gasoline, demanding the employee open the door. Fearing for his life, the collector opened the door and allowed the attacker inside the booth, police said." [Toronto Star]

Surface Computer rocks (apparently)

2007-05-30T12:29:00.000-04:00

Who'd have thought: an exciting, innovative technology from Microsoft. Required reading:

Microsoft announces Surface computer [TechCrunch]

First look: Microsoft Surface computing [Channel 10]

Microsoft Surface: behind-the-scenes first look [Popular Mechanics]

Microsoft Surface confirmed: touch-sensitive, $10k Minority Report table [Gizmodo]

Press release [Microsoft]

Big trouble in little Downsview

2007-05-23T17:56:00.000-04:00

I didn't pay much attention to the circling news helicopters for the first couple of hours, but when one of Toronto EMS's bus-sized ambulances pulled up in front of my apartment building, it seemed wise to investigate.

Dozens of police cruisers, the Emergency Task Force, several regular ambulances, one tactical ambulance, the aforementioned huge ambulance, four or more satellite news vans, two news choppers hovering and at least one small aircraft circling overhead make for an awfully busy scene just a block south of my home. The cause? A 'lockdown' at C.W. Jeffries, the neighbourhood public high school.

Apparently a 14-year old student was shot inside at 2:30pm, and later died at Sunnybrook. CityTV's News at Six had a couple of really tasteless video clips of the victim's mother (and others) screaming and collapsing outside the hospital when informed of his death.

Thankfully, it seems like it was 'only' a murder, rather than a spree shooter. There seems to be some confusion has to how a nearby indoor pool fits into the scenario, with The Star reporting that "police at first responded to what was initially reported as a drowning at a pool near the school."

Coverage a-plenty:

ETF enters high school after fatal shotting at indoor pool [CityNews]
Boy killed in school shooting [Toronto Star]
Teen dies after Toronto school shooting [CBC]
Student dies after being shot in Toronto school [CTV]
Teen shot dead at Toronto high school [Globe and Mail]
Toronto school in lockdown after shooting [Canada.com]

Lessons for Canada, too

2007-05-23T15:46:00.001-04:00

Michael Moore on his new film Sicko's showing at Cannes:

Even those who have been harsh to me in the past, or who have not agreed with my politics, were moved. Aside from my stated desire that "Sicko" ignite a fire for free, universal health care (and a larger wish that we, as Americans, do a better job of treating each other with a true sense of solidarity and respect), I continue to hope that I can make a contribution to the art of cinema and give people a good reason to get out of the house for a few hours...

[read more]

TTC's "36th Annual Bus and Maintenance Roadeo"

2007-05-23T14:04:00.000-04:00

How Tough is it to Drive a Bus? Now it's Your Turn to Find Out - "The Bus Roadeo competition takes place this coming Sunday over an obstacle course that is designed to challenge the most skilled urban bus driver. TTC drivers qualify during run-offs at the divisional level, and compete for top honours... The winner [will] compete at the North American championships, which will be held by the American Public Transportation Association next year in Austin, Texas." [PR @ CCN Matthews]

Oh, and before you get as worked up as I did about it being "your turn to find out", be advised that the headline is addressed to the newsroom and/or transit beat journalist-types who actually read these press releases.

Inappropriate Honours Dr.

2007-05-23T12:51:00.000-04:00

Judy Sgro, longtime (and still serving) Liberal MP for the riding in which I live, has a street named after her in North York. Awesomely cranky Councillor Moscoe no likey one bit:

Eglinton-Lawrence Coun. Howard Moscoe is one of the outspoken opponents "The city has a policy against naming streets after living politicians," he argued. "But if you're going to name a street after a living politician, you might as well put the 'reelect' in front of it and do some good for her," he facetiously notes.

[CityNews via BoingBoing]

The policy in question may be found here (see point #3). It cautions against naming streets after living persons of all kinds, not just politicians.

Perhaps surprising, but hardly shocking

2007-05-19T13:41:00.000-04:00

"A profile drawn up in the [Department of National Defence] study [by CROP] shows that today's average potential military recruit is 'proud and intense,' a 'crude hedonist' and drawn to transgressive behaviour – or breaking the rules... [they also] tend to show an affinity for social Darwinism, characterized by the view that only the strongest members of society will survive." [Toronto Star]

"The poll results indicate about one in 10 Canadians is interested in joining the military. But it also describes an increased segment of those interested in a military career as demonstrating 'more nihilism, less hope,' and being 'more socio-dysfunctional' than respondents in the previous year." [CBC]

School rules as class warfare

2007-05-17T20:41:00.000-04:00

Unlike in public schools, where phones are now banned, NY's private school kids tote BlackBerries for ~~fun~~ status and ~~profit~~ success:

"Gil received a hand-me-down Palm Treo six months ago, when his father upgraded his smart phone. Since then, the 16-year-old has been using the PDA to stay on top of his homework assignments, appointments, and extracurricular activities. "I'm definitely more organized," he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his camera- and multimedia player-equipped Treo."

[New York Sun via Gawker]

Best job title ever

2007-05-15T18:57:00.000-04:00

Nougat Making Specialist

Freedom toaster?

2007-05-10T15:44:00.000-04:00

Seneca@York: Freedom toaster dispenses open source software - "The product of a student project, the Freedom Toaster burns open source software to your own CDs, quickly and free of charge." [Seneca Libraries]

Apparently this is modeled after an initial freedom toaster project in Africa. Neat! I think I'll stroll up there (York, not Africa) and check it out some time soon.

2007-05-09T12:20:00.000-04:00

Austria moves to lower voting age to 16 [Wall Street Journal]

2007-05-08T20:10:00.000-04:00

Green ink draws a crowd - "With this interest in bringing properties up to new environmental standards, it was only a matter of time that an army of new ventures would surface catering to this burgeoning green market." [Globe and Mail]

2007-05-03T17:53:00.000-04:00

Adam Vaughn gets tough on nightclubs - "[His] proposal would require nightclub owners to apply and pay for the a permit to use public sidewalks for lengthy line-ups." [BlogTO]

2007-05-03T07:59:00.000-04:00

It's okay to think it's ugly: No one says you have to love the ROM addition [Toronto Star via Spacing]

2007-04-29T11:39:00.000-04:00

Brass Eye is hilarious, and available online [Sound of Young America via Good Evening]

2007-04-23T18:49:00.000-04:00

Ruffians to annoying kids listening to music on the TTC: use headphones, or get yourself stabbed. [CBC]

2007-04-19T08:36:00.000-04:00

Prius too small as T.O. limo - "Green Limousine Inc., can currently operate [its] "green" limo service in Ajax and Pickering, but not in Toronto, where a bylaw that stipulates vehicle size, trunk space and passenger legroom restricts the use of the most popular and energy-efficient hybrid cars." [Toronto Star]

2007-04-19T08:30:00.000-04:00

The facade of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheium is cracking like crazy [New York Times via Kottke]

2007-04-18T18:53:00.000-04:00

Ontario to ban 'old' lightbulbs - "The Ontario government said Wednesday it plans to ban the current bulbs and what it calls other inefficient lighting technologies by 2012 in an effort to reduce the province's electricity consumption and lower the greenhouse gases that cause global warming." [Toronto Star]

2007-04-17T21:08:00.000-04:00

Why do we live in houses, anyway? - "The idea of urban houses spread to the British Isles thanks to England's strong commercial and cultural links with the Netherlands. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Britain adopted the row house in many guises, as Georgian crescent, middle-class terrace, and workingmen's row. It has been estimated that, by the beginning of the 20th century, nine out of 10 dwellings in England and Wales were row houses." [Slate]

2007-04-17T15:45:00.000-04:00

AOL News, of all places, has obtained two one-act plays allegedly written by Virginia Tech mass-murderer Cho Seung-Hui.

2007-04-17T15:23:00.000-04:00

Couch Entitlement - "Although men in many rich countries do not work less than women, they do enjoy about 20 to 30 minutes more leisure per day (over an hour more in Italy) because they spend less time on sleep and other biological necessities. Men spend almost all of this additional leisure time watching television" [Slate]

The Kaye Effect

2007-04-17T14:45:00.000-04:00

Most Azuredly

2007-04-17T10:01:00.000-04:00

Azure is an art, architecture, and design magazine published in Toronto (but with international coverage). Based on the website, it looks promising; however, with teasers instead of full articles, it's hard to say for sure.

Woah

2007-04-16T17:24:00.000-04:00

Officials: Gunman dead after bloody campus rampage - "At least 33 people, including a gunman, were killed Monday during shootings in a dorm and a building housing classrooms at Virginia Tech, university officials said... The killings mark the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, surpassing attacks at Columbine High School in 1999 and at the University of Texas in 1966" [CNN]

Let it all hang out

2007-04-16T17:01:00.000-04:00

"This Thursday is [US] National Hanging Out Day, a project which aims to promote energy conservation by encouraging you to hang the laundry out to dry. By simply switching to solar and wind power, using a highly unique infrastructural improvement called a 'clothesline,' it is estimated the U.S. could trim 3-4% of it's energy usage overnight." [The Examining Room of Dr. Charles via ScienceBlogs]

To Fight Global Warming, Some hang a Clothesline - "That simple decision to hang a clothesline, however, catapults me into the laundry underground. Clotheslines are banned or restricted by many of the roughly 300,000 homeowners’ associations that set rules for some 60 million people. When I called to ask, our Rolling Hills Community Association told me that my laundry had to be completely hidden in an enclosure approved by its board of directors...

Looking for fellow clothesline fans, I came across the Web site of Alexander Lee, a lawyer and 32-year-old clothesline activist in Concord, N.H. [who] sponsors an annual National Hanging Out Day on April 19. He plans to string a clothesline at the State House in Concord, N.H., this Saturday as part of a Step It Up 2007 rally on climate change, where he will hang T-shirts and sheets with the slogan “Hang Your Pants. Stop the Plants.” " [New York Times]

2007-04-16T07:08:00.000-04:00

Landlord licensing in works to force fixes at 'appalling' apartments - "Moscoe said he plans to introduce a licensing scheme to force landlords to clean up their buildings based on the model followed for restaurants.'We inspect restaurants periodically. If there's a problem, it gets inspected monthly until it gets cleaned up,' said Moscoe." [CBC]

2007-04-15T12:25:00.000-04:00

Lenders Sought Edge Against U.S. in Student Loans - "In a fierce contest to control the student loan market, the [US]’s banks and lenders have for years waged a successful campaign to limit a federal program that was intended to make borrowing less costly by having the government provide loans directly to students." [New York Times]

2007-04-15T12:22:00.000-04:00

Rental realities - "The tenant reports posted on a new ratings website suggest that some Toronto apartments are crawling with unsought guests, guileful supers and nightmarish neighbours." [Globe and Mail]

2007-04-12T10:34:00.000-04:00

Toronto Life Acquires Naming Rights to Downtown Toronto Entertainment Complex - "The new world-class entertainment complex opening in downtown Toronto will be named Toronto Life Square. Developed by PenEquity Management Corporation and referred to as Metropolis during initial construction, the multi-use complex is scheduled to open in phases, beginning fall 2007." [CCN Matthews (press release)]

2007-04-11T09:54:00.000-04:00

U of T to divest $10-million in tobacco stock - "As of Dec. 31, 2005, the school's investment arm held about $10.5-million of tobacco industry stock, investments that included $4.6-million in Japan Tobacco, $4.5-million in Altria Group Inc., and $1.4-million in Rothmans Inc." [Globe and Mail]

Will it blend? Glow sticks!

2007-04-07T16:21:00.001-04:00

MMPissed off / PR me a river

2007-04-04T18:15:00.000-04:00

This column by Ian Urquhart ran in dozens of local papers owned by the Star today:

Electoral reform: The good, the bad, the ugly - "Last weekend, the citizens' assembly on electoral reform, which has been meeting regularly with little or no press scrutiny, voted to back an electoral system called "mixed member proportional," or MMP. The system is used in Germany, New Zealand, and a few other places..." [Toronto Star]

Despite the headline and a few rhetorical flourishes at the start and finish, the article is really just a one-sided review of all of the potential drawbacks of an MMP system with absolutely no reflection on the flaws of the present system. It pains me to say this, because his reporting on many other aspects of provincial politics is usually pretty solid, but I swear he's written exactly the same anti-electoral reform screed at least a dozen times in the past few years, adopting the same pretense of dispassionate analysis each time. Here's another recent piece on the citizens' aseembly; most of the others I'm thinking of are hidden inside The Star's pay-for-access archive.

I wish I knew more about Mr. Urquhart's personal political views, because my working theory is that partisan Liberals and Conservatives are pleased as punch with the status quo because, even though they may lose and have no power whatsoever, the promise of eventually having total power on the basis of a minority popular vote share is just too tantalizing a possibility. New Democrats, just as obviously, are sick of being marginalized as "fringe" radicals despite the substantial support of the public.

The overall impression one gets from his clippings on the subject is that, like a few other people I know, he is perfectly willing to admit and accept that first-past-the-post is undemocratic; but, what the heck, it sure is convenient and stable! He also fears the decline of "broad based" (read: brokerage, rule-at-any-cost, promise-whatever-it-you-must, i.e. Liberal and Conservative) parties in favour of "fringe" (read: issue-based, principle-driven) parties, and then audaciously claims that minority coalition government is an "oxymoron" despite decades of solid historical counterexample from countries using various forms of PR.

I'm sick of hearing the establishment viewpoint echo back and forth in the press, tempered only by a few dissenting letters to the editor. Wouldn't it be more interesting to find out what the majority of Ontarians -- the disaffected, cynical, politics-is-just-BS crowd that grows bigger every year (for good reason!) -- think about the relative merits of illegitimate yet convenient winner-take-all majorities versus highly representative but tricky and compromise-producing minorities? Or for serious, informed debate on the subject from expert scholars who've devoted their professional lives to the topic?

If people who have seriously weighed the issues were given a public platform, rather than written off as naive, unrealistic wonks, electoral reform might have a chance. But of course, that's not the point. Ontario's Liberals, just like BC's Liberals, designed the citizens' assembly process to fail. With the help of this sort of punditry, it almost certainly will.

Pranktastic

2007-04-02T16:25:00.000-04:00

Most years, ThinkGeek wins the trophy for cleverest April Fools gag. This year, they pushed out an email full of BS products, including this stellar widget ("SnūzNLūz"):

People who enjoy sleeping in are cowering in fear all across the globe - it's finally true, when you snooze, you lose! The principle is simple. The SnuzNLuz securely connects via WiFi to your online bank account, and donates YOUR real money to an organization you HATE when you decide to snooze! [more]

This is actually a really, really good alarm clock idea. Better, even, than the design school thesis-type prototypes that bubble up now and then, like the alarm clock that rolls off your bedside table and under the bed so you have to chase it to turn off the siren, or the one that dangles from a string above your bed and winds it self up higher and higher with each successive snooze until you have to physically climb out of bed.

Edit: Neat, Gizmodo agrees.

More pedestrian Sundays!

2007-04-01T22:25:00.000-04:00

Spacing says Kensington's wicked awesome Pedestrian Sundays concept is having two babies: one named Baldwin, and another called Mirvish.

This is great news. I had never been to Baldwin Street before Dave started working there, and now it's one of my favourite parts of the city. The hippy factor there is a little lower than in Kensington, but still pretty substantial. As for Mirvish, well, I'll reserve judgment for now.

Orange Alert

2007-03-30T23:55:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I dad an americano at Orange Alert Organic Coffee @ McCaul and Dundas West for the second time in three days. Tasty stuff.

I came home, and after a little Googlin', I discovered a review of the café on a site called Tupalo (tagline: "stuff in your neighborhood"), which is a city-by-city, user-generated map site. It's a solid implementation of an idea I've seen several times elsewhere (e.g. Google Local), but based on individuals adding their favourite places rather than adding a whole phonebook's worth of locations. For example, here's a search for coffee near Dundas that returns just four locations based on reviews by happy-camper customers.

Later that night, Borrelli, Liam, Dave and I made rowdy fools of ourselves over loads of delicions "meat" at Bo De Duyen. Maybe a positive review will go some distance toward making ammends?

2007-03-29T18:26:00.000-04:00

Student punished for spaghetti beliefs - "The school, in North Buncombe, North Carolina, remains adamant that their decision to suspend Killian for a day has nothing to do with his religion, and quite a lot to do with his repeated refusal to heed warnings against wearing pirate outfits." [Metro.co.uk via Digg]

York U assaults on YouTube

2007-03-27T19:31:00.000-04:00

Retrofit that s***!

2007-03-26T14:09:00.000-04:00

Faulty towers - "Typically viewed as "mistakes" from the 1960s and '70s, and largely excluded from urban debates, [high-rise apartments] may in fact represent one of our greatest opportunities for creating a sustainable region... Though efficiencies are gained from reduced land coverage, transit use and so on, exposed floor edges (typically protruding balconies), minimal insulation, single-pane windows, and aging mechanical systems give these buildings an unacceptable environmental impact. A typical 25-storey building contributes 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide." [Toronto Star]

2007-03-25T18:18:00.000-04:00

Booze, smokes worse than some illegal drugs: study - "Prof. Nutt and his colleagues used three factors to determine the harm associated with any drug: the physical harm to the user, the drug's potential for addiction, and the impact on society of drug use." [Globe and Mail]

2007-03-25T17:32:00.000-04:00

Torontoist vs. Torontoist in...Non-Citizen Voting! [Torontoist]

2007-03-25T15:23:00.000-04:00

The political revenge fantasies of Shooter - "The movie's... strangely powerful and absolutely nihilistic political message: Everything sucks as much as it possibly can, and even if you're named something as awesome as Bob Lee Swagger, there's not much you can do about it." [Slate]

At-home earning & online booking

2007-03-25T13:32:00.000-04:00

If it works as advertised, Skype Prime could enable regular (anglophone) Joes to profitably connect with eager Asians or Eastern Europeans or others as paid 'conversation partners' in their spare time. Apparently it even includes a handy online booking and scheduling function.

Now if only I could book medical, dental, optometric and audiology appointments online... that should be coming in the near future. I know my optometrist already uses and 'end to end' practice management software package for windows - his eye charts are a flat panel LCD reflected in a mirror, and he emailed me a copy of a recent Optomap laser retinal scan. Presumably an online booking module is in the works, or perhaps even already available.

Whenever I finally shift from my old 905 health care providers to new ones in the 416, the ability to book online would be a massive selling point. I suspect, however, that such perks are the preserve of high-end, pay-as-you-go clinics for the rich where your OHIP card is worthless.

English conversation partner

Practice your spoken English skills with a university-educated native speaker in Canada.

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USD $0.50/min

Adequately rewarding selflessness

2007-03-24T18:21:00.000-04:00

`It was instinct,' subway hero says - "After risking his life by jumping into the tracks at the Sheppard subway station to save a blind man who had fallen in, friends and neighbours gave Osman Hersi the nickname Hero. It's a moniker that's sure to follow him all the way to Rideau Hall, where he will be given the Medal of Bravery by Governor General Michaëlle Jean in a ceremony later this year." [Toronto Star]

The article also notes that the TTC boosted Hirsi's initial reward -- one free metropass -- to a full year of gratis rides after a torrent of public complaints.

I think it should have been a special lifetime metropass. If 19-year old Hirsi lives to be 100, such a reward might represent a value of around $100,000* in 2007 dollars, but would cost the TTC virtually nothing given the insignificant marginal cost of a single rider. Even administration costs would be miniscule: just add one name to the MDP mailing list in perpetuity.

* ~$100/month * 12 months * 81 years = ~$97,200

As with the cheapo, so too with the custom

2007-03-23T21:22:00.000-04:00

Breathing lessons: the peculiar pleasure of earplugs - "I could hear people speaking, I could hear sounds, but it all took place at a remove. And yet I did not feel farther away from everything. I moved through the streets as though in a dream, but, as with a dream, somehow more attentive and aware than usual. Up to that point the purpose of earplugs was to keep things out. Now I perceived a new dimension to earplugs—to keep things in." [Slate]

The effect only gets stronger when you graduate to the custom kind.

No new funds for affordable housing

2007-03-23T21:16:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the thoughts, but where's the money? - "Two days ago, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty complained that Monday's federal budget fell short of the dollars that Ontario was seeking. "Justice delayed is justice denied," said the Premier of the Harper budget. The same can be said of Premier McGuinty's own budget, which falls far short of delivering the dollars that would lift Ontario children, and their families, out of poverty." [Wellesley Institute via CNW Telbec]

Tear out the Sheppard subway!

2007-03-22T15:52:00.000-04:00

I've been pondering the implications of the so-called Transit City LRT plan for Toronto (which has been discussed in passionate and speculative detail over at Spacing).

An LRT is to run westward along Sheppard to Don Mills station, which is great; however, travelling this direction past Yonge will then mean a transfer from the LRT to the subway at Don Mills, then to a bus at Yonge.

It is well-known that the Sheppard stubway, while convenient for a limited range of commutes, loses a great deal of money every year. If the LRT is added, it may being seem like an inconvenience.

My outlandish proposal: rip out the subway tracks and run the LRT underground from Don Mills to Yonge. Eventually, the LRT could hit the surface around Wellbeck (doesn't the Sheppard tunnel already run a certain distance past Yonge?), and head all the way out to Weston with connects at Bathurst, Downsview station, Keele, and the proposed Jane LRT.

Swapping subway for LRT along Sheppard shold cost considerably less than digging a new LRT tunnel (as is planned on Eglinton), requiring only new tracks and some station modifications to raise low-floor LRT doors up to meet the platform. The subway cars used on the Sheppard line are interchangable with the rest, and so they won't go to waste.

Will it cost less to operate an underground portion of an LRT line than the current Sheppard subway? Have heavy-to-light underground rail retrofits been sucessfully accomplished elsewhere? I have no idea, but a great deal of transfer hassle would be saved at Don Mills, and a single-trip, transfer-free LRT run from the east through to Weston would make a lot of sense.

2007-03-21T23:52:00.000-04:00

Smokey Bear Nation - "We now take it for granted that fictional characters like Shrek and Arthur and Smokey Bear help teach our children right from wrong. But how did we come to outsource our kids' educations to creatures with googly eyes?" [Slate]

Now that's a tidy raise

2007-03-21T18:53:00.000-04:00

Minimum wage to rise, Liberals to fight child poverty - "Sorbara commissioned University of Toronto professor Morley Gunderson to study the impact of a $2 hike. Gunderson, paid $24,000 for a sobering 50-page report that took him six weeks to complete, found such a dramatic rise in the wage could cost even more jobs than the 66,000 the finance ministry had estimated." [Toronto Star]

Before I go nuts with math here, a disclaimer: none of what I'm about to spew out is is by way of impugning the quality or accuracy of Prof. Gunderson's study, or his deserving to be properly compensated for key economic policy advice.

But $24,000 divided by 6 weeks = $4,000 per week, which begs the question:

In other words:

40 hrs @ $100/hr;
20 hrs @ $200/hr;
10 hrs @ $400/hr;

I think it's safe to assume that the professor didn't manage to squeeze in an extra full time job moonlighting for Queen's Park. I suppose $200/hr is probably a decent ballpark guess at the effective wage paid for his study.

Anyhow, putting it a (few) other way(s):

To earn $24,000 today, you'd have to clock:

3,504 hours (88 weeks full-time) @ 2003's $6.85 pre-Liberal minimum wage;
3,000 hours (75 weeks full-time) @ today's $8;
2,341 hours (59 weeks) at 2010's proposed $10.25;

Finally, Prof. Gunderson's 2005 U of T salary (excluding benefits): $140,970.32, for an effective wage of $67.77/hr assuming 52 weeks at 40 hrs/wk.

Surprise of the decade

2007-03-19T20:58:00.000-04:00

A Conservative (for the umpteenth time, not Tory!) budget that panders to middle-class suburbanites? You don't say... [Globe and Mail, CBC, National Post, etc.]

My vote for word of the century:

2007-03-19T18:29:00.000-04:00

"Presenteeism"

WordSpy: "The feeling that one must show up for work even if one is too sick, stressed, or distracted to be productive; the feeling that one needs to work extra hours even if one has no extra work to do."

Random Googled glossary: "Describes an employee who is at work but not fully functioning while there."

Urban Dictionary: "[The phenomenon] of showing to work when you are sick. Opposite of absenteeism."

Dictionary.com/Webster's: "[T]he practice of always being present at the workplace, often working longer hours even when there is nothing to do."

WebMD: "[W]hen sick employees show up for work."

MedicineNet.com: "The problem of workers being on the job but, because of medical conditions, not fully functioning. The health problems that result in presenteeism include such chronic or episodic ailments as seasonal include: depression, back pain, arthritis, heart disease, high blood pressure, and gastrointestinal disorders. An example of presenteeism might ibe an employee who suffers from depression and so is less able to work effectively. And another example might be the employee with a migraine headache who may have difficulty looking at a computer screen."

Now for a not-SideJob to track...

2007-03-18T13:04:00.000-04:00

SideJobTrack calls itself a "web-based job tracking, invoicing, reporting & project management software for the part-time independent contractor." [via WebWorkerDaily]

2007-03-18T12:58:00.000-04:00

Ms Sorbara's in a groove - OK, so Greg Sorbara's daughter Martina moved to England, became a pop musician, and is now mostly naked in The Star? Oh, right, it's *Sunday*. Thanks, Torstar!

2007-03-17T15:03:00.000-04:00

Far too big, too high, too close - "It's a cat-and-mouse game between the [billboard] advertising companies and overworked city inspectors trying to enforce an inadequate bylaw that is convoluted and confusing, even to them. Among other things, it mandates the kind of billboard that is permissible and the minimum distance between signs." [Toronto Star via Spacing]

This article profiles Rami Tabello of IllegalSigns.ca and its map of allegedly offending billboards.

2007-03-15T15:26:00.000-04:00

Click2Map is a fancy-pants Google Maps tool that's verily oozing with AJAXy goodness.

Stay in school, kids

2007-03-15T01:34:00.000-04:00

It's hard to remain optimistic about one's own job prospects when Softchoice wants Facilities Assistants (whose duties include: "restock toilet paper, hand towels and soap", "Clean fridges every two weeks", "Wipe glass surfaces with Windex") to have a "College or University Degree", the "ability to multi-task", and "Working knowledge of MS Word, Excel, Outlook".

Perhaps at Canada's 8th best workplace (2006), BA-wielding janitors are expected to simultaneously email revised spreadsheets tracking office-wide TP use statistics to their supervisors while re-filling the liquid soap dispensers.

2007-03-12T22:05:00.000-04:00

"A University of Iowa study may provide an explanation for why some people get migraine headaches while others do not. The researchers found that too much of a small protein called RAMP1 appears to 'turn up the volume' of a nerve cell receptor's response to a neuropeptide thought to cause migraines." [University of Iowa]

2007-03-12T17:12:00.000-04:00

Meat-loving calf eats chickens - "Instead of the dogs, we watched in horror as the calf, whom we had fondly named Lal, sneak to the coop and grab the little ones with the precision of a jungle cat..." [Reuters]

2007-03-12T13:53:00.000-04:00

2007-03-11T18:28:00.000-04:00

Crisis Looms in Market for Mortgages - "Hanging in the balance is the nation’s housing market, which has been a big driver of the economy. Fewer lenders means many potential homebuyers will find it more difficult to get credit, while hundreds of thousands of homes will go up for sale as borrowers default, further swamping a stalled market." [New York Times]

Status report Delta

2007-03-08T22:01:00.000-05:00

So, my hearing aids work. Well. Fear of distortion, feedback, whistling from the wind, and physical discomfort have proven unfounded.

Hussah?

2007-02-26T11:44:00.000-05:00

Province brands city a high-risk employer - "Toronto has been declared a 'high-risk' employer by Ontario's Ministry of Labour because of its poor health and safety record, the city's employee and labour relations committee has heard. The designation means the city is subject to more intensive and more frequent safety inspections, and pays higher premiums to the WSIB." [The Star]

2007-02-26T11:39:00.000-05:00

Sticker campaign for $10 wage - "The campaign will give stickers to small businesses who pay employees more than the minimum $8 an hour." [The Star]

2007-02-26T11:36:00.000-05:00

Does Bush Know What Neocon Means? - "When someone is as uncurious as George W. Bush, it's easy to underestimate what he knows. A friend of mine tells the story of discussing the income tax with the president early in his administration and, after using the term progressive, acting on the impulse to explain to the president what, in that context, progressive means. 'I know what progressive means,' the president snarled back, irritated that anyone would think him so ignorant." [Slate]

2007-02-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

Muslim girl ejected from tournament for wearing hijab - "[League spokesman Lyes Arfa] pointed out that the referee is Muslim himself, and that the ban on hijabs is to protect children from being accidentally strangled." [CBC]

2007-02-26T11:20:00.000-05:00

Climate draft allows spike in oil-sands emissions - "The internal documents appear to underestimate significantly future oil-sands development as a way of producing more positive figures, said two environmentalists who analyzed the documents..." [Globe and Mail]

Things that should not be

2007-02-25T19:38:00.000-05:00

A couple of exceedingly minor municipal issues have been bothering me lately, but I haven't had time to lay them out clearly here. I know these may seem a little petty, but I think both are relatively significant in terms of civic propriety. In both cases, I feel like a doofus for being annoyed, but each does seem like the kind of thing that shouldn't be happening.

Toronto EMS / Support Our Troops - When I first noticed a big yellow ribbon decal on an ambulance, I presumed it was a one-off show of patriotism by a particular EMS crew. Apparently not, as I have not seen a single ambulance or EMS SUV without a yellow ribbon for some time now. This should not be permitted. These ambulances are municipal vehicles -- just like fire trucks or police cruisers -- and allowing them to sport stickers that push a divisive political message is totally inappropriate. Despite the slogan's overt neutrality, 'Support Our Troops' in the current context is code for 'do not criticize the Afghanistan mission'. I thought about contacting Toronto EMS, but I don't want to be a jerk about it.

TTC / Request Stop Program - This service, whereby TTC riders can ask drivers to let them off buses in-between official stops at night, is explicitly offered exclusively to women. Posters throughout the TTC and audio announcements in subway stations all specifically indicate that this service is for women only (in this poster [PDF] the word 'women' even appears in a different typeface for emphasis). I can understand the motivation, and I would allow that women might feel less safe than men in the city at night, but how could a program like this make it through the planning stages without setting off gender discrimination flags? Presumably most drivers wouldn't refuse to stop for a man (or male children), but would the program really suffer from advertising to men and women alike? The only rationale I can think of is to limit the program to addressing sexual assault, rather than robbery. In any case, this is a potentially beneficial city service that needn't be, and yet is, offered in a discriminatory fashion. Promoting this service for men would not make it less effective for or useful to women.