🇨🇦 Stephen Wickens 🇨🇦

RELATIVELY high turnout would be a lot more accurate. Last I saw, about 55% of eligible voters didn't bother.

Full disclosure: A nephew is producer/guitarist for this show. But I've seen countless cover band/tribute acts and I'm not sure I've ever been more impressed with one than I was Friday @ Hugh's Room for 'Pearl, a Janis Joplin Experience', starring Christina Leroux. Watch for its return to Toronto.

Not endorsing anyone in this Toronto election, but I wish our campaigns were a lot more honest.

Buy Canadian!

Cats

If the "reduced sodium' version of Lipton chicken noodle soup warrants a government 'high in sodium' warning, should the regular product even be legal? Soupe Nutri Soup® / Unilever

Anyone else's BS detector beep and flash when they see the word 'adjustments'? Metrolinx+Via used it recently to describe service cuts. And, a while back, a utility bill came with a 'rate adjustments' notice, likely aimed at easing the blow of a rate hike. Is this stuff they teach in PR schools?

He actually said that 👇

Maybe the two should go for a skate together, for the cameras.

I still want to know whether the USAF backed out of this air show or was uninvited. There's a story there.

The rules No Halloween decorations before Thanksgiving All Halloween decorations should be down by Nov. 7 No Christmas decorations before Dec. 1. All Christmas decorations should be down by Feb. 2 (whether you call it Groundhog Day or Candlemas). Thank you for your attention to this matter!

If Ford is honest about his professed aim of moving bike lanes to parallel side streets, he needs to install them before any existing lanes go. When he was on council and Rob was mayor, the Sherbourne lanes were almost finished before the Jarvis ones came out. Rob even cut the ribbon on Sherbourne.

And if Ford is being honest about his professed aim of moving bike lanes to parallel side streets he should produce those plans and commit funding to them BEFORE removing anything from the main streets.

TTC has spoken of linking Coxwell 22 to 70 O'Connor from O'Connor on Line 5, via Michael Garron hospital (the old east end's top trip generator), down via Coxwell stn Line 2 to Ashbridge's Bay. Big benefits could kick in with a GO RER Coxwell stop and help for O'Connor bridge bottleneck at Woodbine.

Service 'adjustments'! Good one!

"The heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the four-star commanders overseeing U.S. operations throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America," in a classified document earlier this month, "advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable."

This is why we have to stop using US-based data sources.

Telus's outage map too. @telussupport.bsky.social

Even for its Ontarian customers who log in with Canadian-based devices, which is probably close to all of them, @hydrooneofficial.bsky.social's outage map is calling Lake Ontario 'Lake America'.

Maybe the Canadian International Air Show should disinvite the USAF and invite our NATO allies from Sweden to show off their Saab Gripens over the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto. #lakeontario #lakeamerica @mark-carney.bsky.social

Is the Canadian National Exhibition still looking to have the U.S. military fly in its air show over the Lake Ontario waterfront in Toronto next week? #cne #usaf #lakeontario #lakeamerica #tradewar

Cars are just as lethal as guns, and testosterone impairs just as effectively as alcohol and drugs.

Serious/credible law-and-order advocates would be up in arms about repeat offenders getting bail, even when their choice of weapons is a car instead of a gun. Too many people ignore the fact that testosterone impairs drivers just as effectively as alcohol and drugs. www.thestar.com/news/gta/her...

My sample's tiny but the sentiment may be big in the Beaches-East York by-election: I've had 3 people, all 40 or older, tell me they'll vote NDP for the first time in their lives because of Carney's 'half-hearted stand' on Billy Bishop airport expansion. Is it a safe Liberal seat sans Erskine-Smith?

It's like a pro-wrestling narrative in which Captain America turns heel.

Or, how about a 15th issue: Let's ban partisan advertisements on the public dime (a, wasteful, irritating and unethical program that the federal Liberals have also emulated). Learn how to build before you tell us you're doing it. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Wow! That's the whole line. That's a lot of shuttle buses (coming from other routes). I want to know details about this 'communication' issue.

People in Ontario might even talk about this subway cost issue for a day or two before burying their heads in the sand again. I haven't been attacked by serpents yet, but I have a sense how Lacaoön felt after his warnings about the Trojan horse. rccao.com/research/fil...

The spread of light cycles that force pedestrians to beg for a walk signal is also a sad development. It's not so bad for me personally since my knee healed and sidewalks aren't icy, but having to run to push a button to cross the street sucks. Big change in my hood is more people breaking the law.

Actually, the engineering and construction companies have been outperforming the broad-based indexes and exchange-traded funds by a huge margin in recent years. When I mentioned this to a retired executive in the field a few years back, he replied: "And that's after they've paid out big kickbacks".

Cost is clearly not an object for the people running Ontario, Metrolinx and IO. Even after adjusting for inflation, we’re paying more for 3 km of tunnels and 2 stations (not including track, signalling systems and trains) than the all-in cost of the 8 km Line 1 extension to Vaughan, with 6 stations

Got a great reminder on Saturday night how spectacularly beautiful Toronto can be for a cyclist on a warm summer evening (if you're wearing lots of lights, a reflective vest and a helmet). Went to see a fun band (The Mid Century Modernes) between two lovely and lengthy lakeside rides. What a night.

A repost for you, if you're into Toronto streetcar speeds and the causes of delays. Some day we'll solve the great mystery of why the Spadina 510, despite its right-of-way, remains the TTC's slowest north-south route. I was trolled heavily and called a right-wing shill for writing about this in 2005

Tossup between 'Jaws' and 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest'.

I wonder how recent changes have affected speeds on the Bathurst 511 and Spadina 510. For a 2005 Globe and Mail story, we did a three-month comparison of trips from Bloor to Front. Despite the 510's then-much-ballyhooed right of way, the 511 was 3 minutes and 11 seconds faster on average.

It matters when a political leader is caught disseminating clearly false info. I can't say Doug Ford is lying in this instance, but if he isn't he is relying on unreliable sources, which isn't that much better.

what's the difference between ignorance and apathy? i don't know and i don't care

I'm going to update my intercity transport map in the next few days, please let me know if I am missing anything or if you have any suggestions! seanmarshall.ca/transport-map/

You just know Trump was on the phone in dying minutes against Belgium, telling Infatino to "find me 3 goals". #fifa #fifaworldcup

New from me. Mark Carney’s Oprah giveaway day, and a vexing question: if a new pipeline is a money-printing machine, why does no private company want to build it so that taxpayers have to? #cdnpoli www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opi...

When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent. ~ Issac Asimov #ThoughtfulThursday

Air Conditioning is, obviously, an essential survival tool for modern civilization, but we'd better learn fast to create viable air-conditioning technologies that aren't net contributors to global warming. Timely piece here, even if it's two years old. news.climate.columbia.edu/2024/08/28/a...

For a long time I was the proud owner of rolled-up poster featuring King Kong on the CN Tower (a reproduction from a Toronto Star April Fool's Day prank). I had long intended to get it framed. It probably went to landfill in the 90s. Kinda wish I still had it.

I recall watching midnight fireworks from the Star building at One Yonge. (My shift in those days was midnight to 8:40 a.m.). Pages of the Star's news and sports sections were still produced in hot lead in 1976.

These sleepers don’t look right here. Should I tell GO Transit? Two of the sleepers north of the rail (picture taken facing south at Mimico Station Platform 1) don’t seem to even exist or are hidden by the ballast. There’s even a loose chunk of wooden tie. @wb62.bsky.social @gotransit.bsky.social