[PHOTO] Toronto skyline looking east from Dufferin Bridge

[PHOTO] Loyalist Country Inn, Summerside

Summerside's Loyalist Country Inn is located on the city's harbour, a bit outside of the downtown.

[URBAN NOTE] "Ignore Ford at your own peril"

Spacing Toronto's John Lorinc warns that Torontonians really should not dismiss the possibility that Rob Ford might be re-elected. That's how he got in back in 2010, after all.

There’s an old and somewhat misleading trope that in Toronto politics, the real campaign doesn’t begin until after Labour Day because that’s when voters start to pay attention. Do they? The reality, back in 2010, was that Smitherman was a dead man walking by the beginning of September. Ford had taken a firm lead in the polls in June, precipitating an internal crisis in the Smitherman camp. Some of his advisors wanted him to tack left, others felt he should go right.

As with the 2008 global credit crisis — which only a handful of professionally pessimistic economists predicted before it was too late — just a few political insiders believed that a Ford victory in 2010 was within the realm of possibility.

There was a lot of denial. Many people — myself included — reckoned that Smitherman and his impeccably well connected, lavishly financed campaign team would succeed in arresting Ford’s ascendency before it was too late. Insiders figured that during the final two months, with the intensive scrutiny that adheres in the final laps, a sufficient number of voters would wake up to the disaster of a Ford victory and come to their senses.

Within the Smitherman camp, however, a growing number of his advisors arrived at the Labour Day turning point with a queasy feeling. Pollster Michael Marzollini’s view, which prevailed, was that Smitherman needed to move sharply right, and demonstrate that he wasn’t going to be some kind of tax-happy Liberal planning to spend like a drunken sailor (sound familiar?). Smitherman pledged to bird-dog a vigorous cost-cutting campaign, freeze taxes for a year, cancel the vehicle registration tax (even Joe Pantalone promised that too) and underwrite his transit plan using a mysterious financing formula that seemed to involve the private sector.

[. . .]

The latest Forum poll once again raises the chilly spectre of denial, as well as Ford’s uncanny ability to capitalize on the disbelief of those who are paid to chart a path across the sprawling geography of our civic discontent.

It seems like just yesterday that we were listening to John Tory’s spin doctors confidently state, in background interviews, that Ford has “no room to grow” beyond the 20-odd percent of Toronto voters who would support a washing machine if it pledged to freeze taxes. Well, it seems he grew.

[URBAN NOTE] "This Man Is on a Mission to Turn NYC Into a Tech Magnet"

Wired's Issie Lapowsky started an interesting discussion by profiling a businessman who wants to make New York City a technology hub. (The real action is in the comments, where people debate whether or not the city has a culture that would work for tech start-ups.)

When Alex Iskold became the managing director of Techstars New York, he came armed with a secret weapon: a script he had written that crawls the web for new startups and assesses whether or not they’d be a good fit for the Big Apple incarnation of this burgeoning tech accelerator.

Just what those metrics are, Iskold isn’t saying. “I don’t want to give out all of our tricks,” he says, laughing. But it’s not too hard to figure out what Iskold is looking for. A serial entrepreneur himself, he has founded and sold two companies, including, most recently, GetGlue, a television social network. Now, at the helm of one of New York City’s largest tech accelerators, this engineer by training is on a mission to bring what he calls “heavy tech” to New York City.

If Techstars can help build these heavy tech companies, Iskold believes, the engineers will come. The aim, ultimately, is to turn New York into a true tech hub. That will take some doing, but Iskold’s work is part of a much larger effort to bring more tech minds to New York, a city that leads the world in so many things but trails places like Boston and Silicon Valley in terms of engineering talent.

Iskold defines “heavy tech” companies as any business for which the technology itself is the primary reason for being. As examples, he lists New York City success stories like MongoDB, an open-source NoSQL database; MakerBot, a 3-D printing company, and Digital Ocean, a cloud hosting service and Techstars graduate. “With, say, e-commerce and finance startups, tech supports the business,” he says, “but with companies like MongoDB, Digital Ocean, and even MakerBot, the technology is the business.”

[LINK] "LinkedIn Reviewing China Censorship Policy"

Bloomberg's Sarah Frier describes how LinkedIn, after enforcing Chinese censorship policies on its global audience, is trying to move on.

LinkedIn Corp. expanded into China this year, adopting policies in line with the country’s censorship rules. Now the world’s largest professional social-networking company is saying it may have gone too far.

When a LinkedIn user in China shares a post deemed to be in conflict with the government’s rules, the company blocks the content not only in China but around the world. While LinkedIn’s goal is to protect members against how their content might be shared and noticed by the government, the practice may end up stifling Chinese users seeking to spread messages outside their country.

“We do want to get this right, and we are strongly considering changing our policy so that content from our Chinese members that is not allowed in China will still be viewed globally,” Hani Durzy, a spokesman for Mountain View, California-based LinkedIn, said yesterday.

LinkedIn’s dilemma underscores the difficulty of doing business in a country with stringent censorship rules where few other U.S. technology companies have succeeded. Twitter Inc. (TWTR) and Facebook Inc. (FB) social-networking services are blocked in China, though Facebook is slowly expanding its advertising business there after signing a lease in central Beijing, people familiar with the matter have said.

[LINK] "Hunger makes Quebec Inuit shorter than average: study"

Bob Weber's Canadian Press article reports on rather distressing findings from the Canadian North. The food situation in Nunavik, a largely Inuit and autonomous territory occupying the northernmost third of Québec, really is dire.

Hunger among Inuit families is so prevalent in Arctic Quebec that it could be why almost half their children are shorter than average, new research suggests.

A paper published in the Journal of the Canadian Public Health Association says the height discrepancy implies that food insecurity is a long-running problem — not just something that happens occasionally.

"The observed association between food insecurity and linear growth suggests that the diet quality and quantity of children from food-insecure households had been compromised for a long time," the paper says.

[. . .]

A McGill University study found in 2010 that 41 per cent of Nunavut children between three and five lived in homes where they either had no food for an entire day or where their parents couldn't afford to feed them at least part of the time. Two-thirds of the parents said there were times when they ran out of food and couldn't afford to buy more.

In a 2012 study, Statistics Canada found that 22 per cent of Inuit reported going hungry during the previous year because they couldn't afford food.

Nunavut's territorial nutritionist has found nearly three-quarters of Inuit preschoolers live in food-insecure homes. Half of youths 11 to 15 years old sometimes go to bed hungry.

The abstract of the paper is available here, full text to subscribers only.

[LINK] "Earth's new address: 'Solar System, Milky Way, Laniakea'"

Nature's Elizabeth Gibney describes a recent study placing our galaxy in a much vaster galactic supercluster than we believed to exist.

I like the name "Laniakea".

The team used a database that compiles the velocities of 8,000 galaxies, calculated after subtracting the average rate of cosmic expansion. “All these deviations are due to the gravitational pull galaxies feel around them, which comes from mass,” says Tully. The researchers used an algorithm to translate these velocities into a three-dimensional field of galaxy flow and density. “We really can’t claim to have a good understanding of cosmology if we cannot explain this motion,” says Tully.

This method is superior to merely mapping the location of matter, because it enables scientists to build a map of uncharted regions of the Universe, says Paulo Lopes, an astrophysicist at the Valongo Observatory, part of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. It relies on detecting the galaxies' influence, rather than seeing them directly.

Moreover, the galaxies' motions reflect the distribution of all matter, not just that which is visible in our telescopes — including dark matter.

Discounting cosmic expansion, their map shows flow lines down which galaxies creep under the effect of gravity in their local region (see video). Based on this, the team defines the edge of a supercluster as the boundary at which these flow lines diverge. On one side of the line, galaxies flow towards one gravitational centre; beyond it, they flow towards another. “It’s like water dividing at a watershed, where it flows either to the left or right of a height of land,” says Tully.

This is a completely new definition of a supercluster. Scientists previously placed the Milky Way in the Virgo Supercluster, but under Tully and colleagues' definition, this region becomes just an appendage of the much larger Laniakea, which is 160 million parsecs (520 million light years) across and contains the mass of 100 million billion Suns.

The abstract to the study is available here.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Anthropology.net reacts to the discovery of Neanderthal abstract carvings and what they say about the Neanderthal mind.


• blogTO shares Toronto postcards from the 1980s and lists the five least used TTC subway stations.


• Centauri Dreams reports that potentially habitable exoplanets Gliese 667Cc has been confirmed to exist.


• Crooked Timber's Corey Robin describes the continuing Steven Salaita affair, with another Crooked Timber post and one at Lawyers, Guns and Money providing more context.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper placing HD 10180g in its star's habitable zone and links to another making the case for the potential habitability of exomoons.


• The Dragon's Tales' Will Baird is very concerned for the fate of Ukraine.


• Language Log's Victor Mair examines the pressing question of why Hello Kitty is not a cat.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at rape culture in England.


• Marginal Revolution notes that Bolivians of different classes rarely marry each other and is relatively optimistic about the country's future.


• Spacing Toronto has a lovely picture of a track on a ride at the CNE under construction.


• Window on Eurasia notes that Kazakhstan is ready to leave the Euriasian Union to protect its independence, argues that the Ukrainian war is sparing Tatarstan and North Caucasus attention, and examines the depopulation of Pskov oblast next to the Baltic States.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes the strengths and weaknesses of the Islamic State as described in an article: a willingness to risk death isn't always a plus.

[URBAN NOTE] On the Rob Ford plan for subways everywhere

The Globe and Mail's Oliver Moore reported on incumbent mayor Rob Ford's

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford promised 32 kilometres of underground transit‎, seemingly without a cost to residents, as he rolled out a key plank in his transportation plan Wednesday.

The mayor is betting big on subways while dismissing light rail as “fancy streetcars” that make congestion worse. His $9-billion proposal, which has no specific funding plan, would see new subways on Finch and Sheppard, as well as a downtown relief line and a promise to bury the eastern portion of the Eglinton Crosstown.

It was unclear how much, if any of this building would happen in first term. Mr. Ford did not answer the question directly.

[. . .]

Lacking were many basic details and Mr. Ford left the event with numerous questions unanswered. It’s not clear why two of his projects have price tags lower than is commonly known, how the subways will be built for less per kilometre than the extension currently going up to York and why the province would choose to reallocate money it has pledged to the Finch and Sheppard LRTs.

Instead, Mr. Ford offered a denunciation of his opponents for supporting light rail. He said it would be a “two-tier” system for Scarborough not to have underground transit, as the denser parts of the city have. And he suggested it was simply logical to keep building subways.

“You bore, bore, bore until the cows come home,” he said. “I have funding options in place and this is not, not, putting the onus on the taxpayers. This is not implementing revenue tolls or taxes.”

The Ford plan makes no mention of ways Toronto residents might pay their share of such a large expansion of underground transit. Instead, funding for the $9-billion plan appears to rely on assistance from other levels of government and some combination of options that could include ‎public-private partnerships, sale of assets and air rights over stations and tax increment financing. The last of these, which involves borrowing against the development transit might spur, is controversial, with critics saying citizens are on the hook if revenues fall short.

blogTO called it a "fantasy", on account of Ford's complete lack of explanation as to how this would be financed. Torontoist was more nuanced but still skeptical, additionally mentioning a couple of lies he told. I myself would suggest that many of the subway lines are being built in relatively low-density areas that couldn't necessarily economically support a subway line. The Sheppard line in North York is a good pointer as to how subways on the geographic fringes of Toronto would fare.

I'm in agreement with top-rated Torontoist commenter Mr Universe: "The most important question about Rob Ford: Is he incredibly stupid or just a chronic liar? Most likely a little of both. Every time he makes a statement, its riddled with inconsistencies, vagueries and outright falsehoods."

[URBAN NOTE] On how Taboo is taboo in Charlottetown

Taboo is a fairly new shop, operating its first storefront in Charlottetown. 211 Euston Street at Hillsborough. It is a "Smoke/Adult Novelty Store", offering for sale (among other things) sex toys and hookahs.

Back in June, The Guardian described how the shop angered some of its neighours.

Homeowners and residents of the area surrounding the Taboo Company on Euston Street are upset the business has been allowed to open in their neighbourhood, and are registering their complaints with city hall.

Anne MacNiven says her main concern is for the children who live in the area.

The shop sells sex toys, lingerie and paraphernalia such as pipes, hookahs and scales.

It is located between two Charlottetown schools, at an intersection where a crossing guard is posted during school hours.

“There are kids walking back and forth in front of the store, there are kids in carriages that are too young to speak being wheeled by the window,” MacNiven said.

She pointed to two photographs she took of the display in the large storefront windows. The photos show two novelty mugs depicting the children’s characters Spongebob Squarepants and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. On top of the mugs are bottles of edible massage oils with suggestive photos on the labels. Next to the mugs is a large, black leather whip.

MacNevin says she worries children walking by the store will be attracted by their favourite characters on the mugs, then exposed to adult products.

“The kids have to walk past these windows on their way to school in the morning and then they get exposed to it again in the afternoon, five days a week for the whole school year, if that business stays there.”

I will note, having seen the store in its location, that it is actually located on one of the major west-east streets in Charlottetown. There are schools there, but there are schools in quite a few neighbourhoods. The store itself is quite tasteful, shadowboxes shielding pedestrians from the interior. Plus, I'm sure that it fills a valuable niche on the Island.

But last week The Guardian's Ryan Ross reported that Charlottetown city council voted against Taboo's location.

Amy Brewster is one of the owners of Taboo Company and said there was a lot of support for the store as it sought the variance it needed to stay on Euston Street.

"I was really shocked that the variance got denied," she said.

The business opened earlier this summer in a space that has housed commercial operations for many years, but Taboo Company required a variance because the area is zoned for residential use.

Its owners didn't know that until they started the procedure needed for signage and they later ran into opposition from some area residents who didn't want the business in the neighbourhood.

The matter went to a vote Wednesday during a special meeting where city council rejected the variance request by a vote of 7-3.

Only Coun. Rob Lantz, Coun. Jason Coady and Coun. Melissa Hilton, who are the three members of the planning board, voted in favour.

After the vote, Brewster said the owners plan to appeal the decision and she thought there was some information not considered in council's decision.

"A little bit of a lack of information about how much support we do have," she said.

I've signed the Change.org petition calling for city council to change its mind. I hope you sign it, too.