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Newsstand: December 21, 2011
The bad news is the shortest day of the year still has 24 hours. The good news is you won't feel so bad about drinking early. Now here's some other news: Mayor Rob Ford might be losing the support of council's swing voters, and also does some year-end interviews, Presto card problems leave users with a little less cashish, the number of G20 cases dropped is up, and charities need your help this holiday season.
It being a day of the week and all, it wouldn’t feel right not to talk about Mayor Rob Ford, so let’s get on with it. The Toronto Star has taken a look at how Ford’s support among city council’s eight swing voters (as categorized by the Star) has waned since he took office, and the paper has a headache-inducing graph to prove it. Judging from the analysis, Ford’s diminishing support could just be a fluke, or it could be grim prediction of his future as an ineffectual, empty shell of a mayor able to do nothing but sit back and contemplate the absurdity of life.
Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail sat down with the mayor for a Q&A, and this one has it all: amalgamation talk, labour talk, Transit City talk, a Mike Harris reference, two football references, a misunderstanding of the term “resolution,” absolutely no coaching interruptions, and irrefutable proof that, though Ford might be a big guy, he can dodge questions with the best of them. The National Post has a bit of a longer interview with Ford, so if you’re on a city politics kick this morning, that one’s also worth a read.
And now, to cleanse your palate, not one but two stories about hockey players’ nude photos, courtesy of the Toronto Sun. Both serve as a valuable lesson that, in an age when one person’s dong can become everyone’s dong in mere moments, technophobia is a highly underrated attitude.
There’s been a glitch with Presto cards’ automatic money transfer function, and it’s not the “Bank error in your favour” kind of glitch. Rather, between late November and early December, Presto cards pulled a HAL and automatically transferred money from some customers’ bank accounts into their Presto accounts, even when such a transfer wasn’t necessary. Presto operator Metrolinx has compensated the affected customers, but it makes you wonder what kind of scheme the machines will come up with next.
The number of people arrested during the G20 whose charges have since been dropped has increased to 201 out of the 330 that have so far appeared in court. That means either the Crown has a real problem following through, or there’s a slight disconnect between prosecutors and police on what constitutes a legitimate arrest. As usual, we won’t pretend to guess.
Listen up, tightwads: the Salvation Army and Daily Bread Food Bank are both having problems raising enough money (and, in the food bank’s case, food) to help people this holiday season, so maybe forgo the skim milk gingerbread latte in favour of a regular coffee today, and give the couple bucks you save to charity.