Results tagged “algore”

When Chris Adams and Hugh Evans talk about the rewards in producing their film, there's a remarkable sincerity in their words. Amidst all the TIFF buzz, it's a relief to see such a lineup outside the door for a work that's about the real world, with an audience engaged in the contents of the presentation rather than the contents of the star's dress (we're looking at you, Megan Fox fans). At this event, no one's talking about what anyone's wearing, nor do they really care—in fact, someone showing up in Valentino might be downright embarrassed by the presentation's end.

All three parties in the Ontario legislature are backing a bill that will ban smoking in cars carrying anyone under the age of 16. You know, when Torontoist was young, we'd roll around seatbeltless in the back of flimsy subcompacts doing 150 on the highway while our parents drank beer and spewed out lungfuls of carcinogens, and we turned out okay.

City councillor, unintentional humourist, and Torontoist favourite Councillor Rob Ford has grabbed himself some headlines again. He refuses to apologize for his comments on Wednesday, "the Oriental people, they're slowly taking over...they're hard, hard workers," because his sweeping generalization was intended as "a compliment." However, a spokesperson for the Canadian Council of Lazy Asians has said that the remarks were "deeply offensive."

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

Canadian DMCA to be introduced to Parliament today? That's what a lot of sources are saying, and the bill will likely be an abomination, essentially outlawing, among other things, freeware hacks for the iPod, automatic intellectual property rights for research purposes, making copies for your own personal use, and the above image.

So, what’s scarier: a zombie infestation or the melting of the polar ice caps? This is an urgent and legitimate question! And later this week, Toronto cineastes can compare and contrast, for just as the After Dark Festival winds down, the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival springs up. Running from October 24 to 28, Planet in Focus is the most acclaimed film festival of its environmentally-minded ilk. This year, to coincide with the International Polar Year (which 2007 is, as you are doubtlessly already aware), the festival’s Spotlight Program is entitled Polar Visions. (Hint: these visions may include the melting of large volumes of ice.)

Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize. And then Ann Coulter's head exploded.

Ontario Conservative leader John "The Tory" Tory has promised that if elected a Conservative government would allocate $800 million to public transit in the province. Tory also confessed that it has been a long-time dream of his to one day ride on a streetcar, but that his chauffeur wasn't yet licensed to drive one.

This was Toronto’s downtown at 10:30 a.m. yesterday, as seen from Lakeshore Boulevard near the Canadian Exhibition Grounds. Air Quality Ontario’s Air Quality Index measured a daytime high of 54, which put Toronto’s air well into the “Poor” category. The day before, the AQI hit 59.

The City of Toronto's Community Environment Days combine a number of different worthwhile initiatives into one event. They began last month and continue until the end of September, with each Ward getting their own day.

Gas prices in Ontario at a nine-month high. Given the immediately following news item, Torontoist can only say "well, shucks" and pull out its collective bike with thirty-plus seats.

Say you work in government, and a famous environmentalist attacks the environmental plan you've put together, calling it a sham. Do you defend it on the merits? Well, if you're Environment Minister John Baird, no—instead you attack Al Gore with a "you weren't any better" retort. Because Al Gore was Vice President, seven years ago, of a different country! Also, he has a big house and is now kind of fat!

In a time when Al Gore is predicting that global warming is the coming of the apocalypse, people are looking for creative ways to maintain a sustainable ecosystem without giving up their consumerist lifestyles. Toronto’s first Green Living Show will inspire ways to do just that.

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico.

Al Gore brought his now famous slideshow to a sold-out crowd at the University of Toronto last night. Outside, a very Canadian phenomenon—the "friendly picket"—was taking place with signs that read "Welcome Al" and "Heed The Goracle." Inside, former Ontario premiere David Peterson introduced Gore as a "moralist, philosopher, thinker, teacher, doer, and rock star."

Toronto's overwhelming reception of Al Gore yesterday prompted David Miller to toughen his stance on climate change. Mayor Miller promised an aggressive change in policy on pollution, transit and construction, which will be formally proposed in late March.

Sometimes it feels like time is slipping away faster than ticket sales for tonight’s Al Gore talk at Con Hall. Catch time while you can! Hurry over to *new* gallery to bid on a selection of tick-tockalicious clocks created by 50 artists, such as by Donald Brackett (above, right).

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur, the new graffiti king in town, Bill Cosby's adorable dog, and the disturbing tale of a yoga instructor who was found guilty of killing his girlfriend, a dancer from Ohio who stripped to make ends meet.

Almost 20 years ago, in 1988, over 300 scientists and policy-makers from 46 different countries and organizations came together to discuss the crisis of climate change in Toronto. It was called “The Toronto Conference,” and their final statement began with the following sentence: "Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment, whose ultimate consequence could be second only to a global nuclear war."

He's making a list, and checking it twice. He's going to let us know who's been naughty or nice. That's right -- Al Gore is coming to town.

First off, two thoughts.

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers.

The City decides to shelve their new dogs in parks policy. A lot of people are pissed off on both the pro-dog and no-dog sides. We've said it once and we'll say it again, come fall we think this'll be an election issue.

Torontoist thinks love letters are a little too schmaltzy and saccharine for our taste, give us a good breakup letter any day of the week. So we were thrilled when someone tipped us off to e-closure. These local boys solicited a bunch of breakup letters last summer and have added 48 different breakups on their site. They're always looking for more and will keep things anonymous if you're worried about any future partners finding out just how big of a jerk you were the last time you dumped someone. Torontoist had an entertaining e-mail interview with Dwayne and Charles about their site, relationships and world domination.

Current TV, Al Gore's pet telly project, launched itself into the digital cable stratosphere yesterday, empowering disenfranchised youth viewers, and cutting off the Canadian diaspora from their nightly Peter Mansbridge fix. The channel that's taking over Newsworld's slot will be available in approximately twenty million households. But if your house isn't one of those lucky few, the San Francisco-based Current's website is a souped-up ZED for the audience-input generation. You can watch clips, upload content and do the blog thing.

Today's article in the Globe Review about David Macfarlane was probably intended to tell us new and exciting things about David Macfarlane. But TOist couldn't get past the giant picture of David Macfarlane and his city-issue bike post, a prop in his latest play. You see, for years we've lost sleep at night wondering about the validity of a rumour that we've not been able to confirm or disconfirm via snopes: Did NDP mustache Jack Layton invent those circular bike nubs? Is Layton our localized Internet-inventing Al Gore? Or is it all just an urban myth, repeated groundlessly each time we match kryptonite to concrete? We were going to shout out our query when Jack passed us by at this weekend's College Street processional, but didn't want to disturb the concentration of the thirty-odd, elderly Portuguese men that surrounded us. Any information pertaining to Layton's inventing gene most welcome! We find it hard to believe that Jack has extra time to divert to such endeavours, but he does find time to meticulously groom that stache, so anything's possible.