[PHOTO] Towers over Grenadier Pond, High Park

One of the many things I like about High Park are the condo towers and other pieces of architecture that rise to the south and the west, beyond Grenadier Pond. The contrast/comparison between nature and artifice gets me but good.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• blogTO notes the construction of another tall condo on Wellesley between Yonge and Church.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper observing that the Titius-Bode law apparently doesn't work for exoplanets.


• The Dragon's Tales observes that Western sanctions against the Russian space industry could harm its long-term prospects vis-a-vis China and the United States.


• Eastern Approaches covers Ukrainian industrialist Rinat Akhmetov's turn towards supporting a united Ukraine.


• The Financial Times' The World blog notes that Russia is pivoting towards Asia, especially China, to compensate for its broken Western ties.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money tries to explain the concept of privilege.


• Marginal Revolution quotes Neal Stephenson's argument that dystopian science fiction is popular because it's cheaper to film.


• Torontoist examines ongoing efforts to revitalize the downtown neighbourhood of Alexandra Park.


• Towleroad reports on the jailing of six men in Morocco for their homosexuality.


• The Volokh Conspiracy examines ethical issues with being a corporation in the United States.


• Window on Eurasia notes that a prominent North Ossetian has called for the annexation of ex-Georgian South Ossetia into the Russian republic.

[LINK] "Anna Politkovskaya killing: five men convicted of murder"

The Reuters article (via The Guardian) reporting on the convictions of five men charged with the murder of Russian journalist and Anna Politovskaya is good news, but suspicions that the identities of the people who ordered her murdered won't be revealed seem sadly plausible.

Five men were convicted on Tuesday of murdering investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, including three defendants who had been acquitted in a previous trial.

Politkovskaya's killing drew attention to the risks faced by Russians who challenge the authorities and deepened Western concerns for the rule of law under President Vladimir Putin, who was then serving his second term.

Another jury's 2009 acquittal of three of the men who were found guilty of murder on Tuesday embarrassed Russian prosecutors and was later thrown out by the supreme court, which ordered a new trial.

The defendants were three Chechen brothers, one of whom was accused of shooting Politkovskaya in the lobby of her Moscow apartment building on 7 October 2006, as well as their uncle and a former police officer.

The convictions are a victory for Russian prosecutors and the state, but rights activists and relatives of Politkovskaya say that justice will not be done until those who ordered her contract-style killing are identified and convicted.

"The murder will only be solved when the name of the person who ordered it is known," a lawyer for Politkovskaya's family, Anna Stavitskaya, was quoted as saying by RIA news agency.

She welcomed the jury's verdict but said the men found guilty "are only a few of the people who should be brought to justice", RIA reported.

[LINK] "For Atom-Friendly Asia, a Nuclear Power Boom—in the West, Stagnation"

Katherine Tweed's Scientific American article contrasting the ongoing boom in nuclear reactors in Asia with stagnation in the West makes a convincing contrast. (South Korea isn't mentioned in the article--it should be.) I do wonder if China's state-directed push will continue without consequences, and whether or not the current West lull might yet be temporary. Non-oil energy may be useful.

More than a decade ago a contract was signed to build the world’s first third-generation European pressurized reactor (EPR) in Finland. The cutting-edge, 1,600-megawatt nuclear power plant, Olkiluoto 3, which its French maker Areva boasted as the most advanced safety design of the time, is still under construction today. There have been various setbacks as well as endless finger-pointing between Areva and the Finnish utility TVO, which are locked in court battle over expanding costs. Now the reactor might not be completed until at least 2017, if at all, with a price tag of $11 billion, more than double its original estimate.

The Olkiluoto 3 situation is not unique. Another Areva EPR in Flamanville, France, is also behind schedule and over budget. A recent government deal for two new EPRs in the U.K. has also come under fire.

The prospects for a nuclear power revival are no better in the U.S. Although the technology has never been cheap, cost overruns and delays are plaguing the handful of next-generation pressurized water reactors currently being built, the first since Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. Even before that event, a study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the cost of new nuclear plants, globally, doubled from 2002 to 2009. The third-generation reactors have safety features that should prevent a meltdown similar to Fukushima’s but political controversy, along with the high price tag means that new nuclear complexes in the U.S. and Europe could be in the single digits instead of dozens originally planned less than a decade ago.

Ironically, the experience has been markedly different in Asia. Two of Areva’s EPRs are expected to come online in China next year. China and South Korea are building the third-generation reactors with fewer construction delays and cost overruns than their Western counterparts. “They’ve been single minded about it,” says Tony Roulstone, course director for nuclear energy at the University of Cambridge. “And that single-mindedness has its advantages.” China and other Asian countries have been building nonstop for the last 30 years whereas the multiyear gap in the U.S. has resulted in a loss of construction knowledge. China also seems to have the advantage of endless manpower, and the state owns the country’s largest nuclear firm.

[LINK] Two links on the problems of American retail chains in Canada

Sears Canada's issues, as reported by the Hamilton Spectator, seem existential.

Sears Canada, which could be sold by its U.S. parent, saw its net loss more than double in the first quarter as it felt the impacts of shoppers staying away due to a long winter throughout most parts of Canada.

The struggling department store chain reported Wednesday it had losses of $75.2 million, or 74 cents per share, for the three-month period ended May 3. This compared with a loss of $31.2 million, or 31 cents per share, for the same period a year earlier.

"The unseasonable weather had an adverse effect on our revenues," president and chief executive Douglas Campbell said in a statement.

"Sales of spring merchandise were below last year, as winter-like weather was prevalent in most parts of the country well into the new season with cooler temperatures and significantly more snow in many areas," he said.

Campbell said an upside to the cold weather was that it allowed the retailer to clear leftover fall and winter merchandise, "virtually emptying our stockrooms and getting it in front the customer."

Sears Canada Inc. said its net loss included pre-tax expenses of $7.6 million primarily related to severance costs. Also included in net loss for the quarter were pre-tax lease exit costs, warranty and other costs related to such things as the future settlement of retirement benefits, totalling $11.2 million.

Same-store sales, which are stores open for at least a year and are an important metric in the retail industry, decreased by 7.6 per cent year-over-year.

Target Canada, at least in this CBC report, merely seems interested in getting things to work.

Target has sacked the president of its Canadian operations and replaced him with a 15-year veteran of the company's U.S. operations.

Effective immediately, Mark Schindele, 45, who was senior vice-president of merchandising operations, will replace Tony Fisher as head of the Canadian operation.

[. . .]

Target opened more than 100 stores in Canada to much fanfare in late 2012, but the early returns have been underwhelming, with the Canadian unit losing about $1 billion since launch. The company is also trying to recover from a massive data breach in the U.S. that has cost it customer trust.

Canadian shoppers have complained that prices are too high, and the Canadian stores have been wrestling with inventory problems.

"Target came here trying to stoke expectations and they were very successful in that," retail analyst Doug Stephens says. "Their problems began with delivering on the ground."

Stephens says Target ran into a Canadian consumer base eager for the type of a shopping experience it had heard about in the U.S., but the company was quickly plagued by avoidable problems in their supply chain.

[LINK] "“The Big Bang Theory” and Our Future with China"

Evan Osmos' blog post at The New Yorker arguing that popular culture can bind China and the US together makes me think hopeful thoughts. (Hope can be good if founded in something, right?)

On April 26th, the Beijing government abruptly banned the country’s most popular American television show, “The Big Bang Theory.” Earlier that month, the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, had launched the latest in a string of campaigns to clean up the Web, to rid it of porn, rumors, and other “harmful information.” It is part of a broader effort to push back the tide of foreign pop culture that has eroded the state propaganda agencies’ control over what people in China watch. Online video revenue grew more than forty-one per cent from 2012 to 2013; the number of visitors using phones and other mobile devices to view that video grew by seventy-three per cent, to a hundred and seventy million.

“The Big Bang Theory” was a prime beneficiary. After seven seasons, the subtitled Chinese version of the show had achieved iconic status—all without the remotest involvement of the government’s vast media apparatus. By the time the show was banned, Chinese episodes had been watched online no fewer than 1.4 billion times. When the actors, such as Johnny Galecki, visit China, they are mobbed by fans. In Beijing, any tall, slim, dark-haired American male is likely to have been told once or twice that he looks a bit like Sheldon, the most Spock-like character on the show.

Young Chinese, who have grown up in an age of prosperity and stability, are typically the most passionate defenders of the Chinese political and economic way. When the government, for instance, breaks up demonstrations in the name of defending China’s stability, or blocks Web sites to protect China’s honor in the long-running divide with Japan, it is often the self-described “angry youth” who rise in defense of the flag. But in this case, the ban hit a nerve. In the city of Wuhan, in central China, student members of the Center for Protection for the Rights of Disadvantaged Citizens of Wuhan University issued the rough Chinese equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act request, demanding to know why they had been deprived of their favorite show.

In response, the state agency that oversees the broadcasting and censorship of media explained, vaguely, that “The Big Bang Theory” and three other banned shows (“The Good Wife,” “NCIS,” and “The Practice”) were either out of copyright or had been found to violate Clause 16 of the rules around online broadcasting, a clause that prohibits pornography, violence, and “content that violates China’s constitution, endangers the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, provokes troubles in society, promotes illegal religion and triggers ethnic hatred.” That explanation was met with guffaws. On Chinese social media, people joked that they should rename their own country West North Korea, and censors soon blocked that phrase.

[URBAN NOTE] "Woman reportedly arrested in Rob Ford’s SUV says mayor doing “top notch” in rehab"

This Toronto Star article, just minutes old according to Google News, is almost ridiculous.

Ford’s black Escalade — which in Toronto was tailed by police for months last year during an investigation into the mayor — has been impounded in the Muskoka Lakes region, according to several unconfirmed reports.

LeeAnne McRobb, a 36-year-old woman from Muskoka Lakes Township, has been charged with impaired driving and driving over the legal limit after she was pulled over by Bracebridge OPP near Muskoka Road 169 and Butterfly Rd. around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.

[. . .]

When reached by the Star, McRobb’s sister, Lindsay Sarrasin, confirmed it is her sister who appears in two videos shot by Moose FM reporters talking about being at GreeneStone with Ford.
LeeAnne McRobb is Facebook friends with Mayor Rob Ford and posted this picture[.]

[. . .]

In the first of two YouTube videos posted Wednesday by Moose FM, McRobb is seen entering Northland Towing and Recovery in Gravenhurst. She tells an employee behind the counter: “Nice watch, very nice. I don’t know where mine is. I can’t find it. It’s driving me crazy. Not having a watch is just not good. I’ve got a really nice one too. I think I left it at GreeneStone. I think it’s in Rob Ford’s room.”

The woman tells the employee she was arrested for drinking and driving a day earlier and wanted to get her personal belongings out of the car. “It’s not my vehicle, but all my stuff is in it.”

[. . .]

In the second video, which continues after the first, McRobb says Ford is doing “top notch” in rehab.

"Second Video of Rob Ford's Impounded Escalade" (Watch on YouTube)

[URBAN NOTE] On what Coffee Time can mean in Toronto

This time last decade there was a Coffee Time restaurant on Queen Street West just east of Dufferin. It's gone, now; condos have taken its place.

A down-at-the-heels version of Tim Horton's, Coffee Time is almost a marker for neighbourhoods that aren't at the cutting edge. A documentary just over seven minutes long, "Coffee Time", set in one of those Coffee Times--this one on Gerrard Street, in Little India--makes the case for the chain's importance at a time when different neighbourhoods, like Queen Street West then and Little India now, are gentrifying.

Coffee Time (Director's Cut) from Made By Other People on Vimeo.

"Coffee Time" is described at blogTO.

A new mini-doc by Made By Other People (you might remember them from their short film about Craven Road) hopes to change that perception, or at least give the changing neighbourhood a look at what the store means to its regulars. Filmed last winter, it makes a strong case for controlling the pace of gentrification in Little India, lest it force out businesses important to the wider community.

"It's a staple of the neighbourhood," says director Kire Paputts. "It's kind of like a hub for a lot of people in the community who don't necessarily fit in with a lot of what's happening with gentrification."

"There's few spots on the strip that still kind of cater to the working class, and that's just one of them. The thing with Coffee Time is there used to be four of them in the immediate neighbourhood and now there's only two left ... I wanted to document the place and people that went there before it's gone."

Vern, the store's window cleaner and family member to two of its staff, echoes that sentiment in the film. "In this community, somebody living on social assistance that's getting roughly around $600 a month, how can they afford to be going to some of the higher-end coffee shops, let alone just barely being able to afford to come here," he says.

Vern also captures the essence of the shop with this doozy of a quote:

"A friend of mine come in [to the coffee shop,] he was drunk. A guy and his girlfriend were arguing, he got involved because he shoved her, and next thing I know he's getting beat by with a chair from the coffee shop. But yeah, this area is really nice."