[PHOTO] Wall of flowers, Dovercourt at Hallam

One thing I like about the warm seasons in Toronto is the return of flowers, priced and potted and waiting to be sold, outside the corner stores of my neighbourhood. Such colour!

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomy notes the proposed names for new superheavy elements.


• Dangerous Minds examines the lost music of the Human League, neglected unjustly on the charts.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes a young hot Jupiter being eroded away after only two million years, and links to a paper suggesting high-metallicity stars preferentially form gas giants.


• The Dragon's Tales looks at the plumes of Europa and Enceladus.


• Far Outliers notes Czech defections to Russia in the early days of the First World War.


• Joe. My. God. links to Politico's unflattering portrait of the Bernie Sanders campaign in its final days.


• Steve Munro reports about different transit plans in Toronto.


• The Planetary Society Blog notes the continued findings from Ceres.


• Progressive Download's John Farrell notes a movement for teleology in understanding the universe.


• Towleroad notes Bobby Brown's claims that Whitney Houston was bisexual.


• Transit Toronto notes Ontario support for the Yonge Street extension of the subway.


• Understanding Society notes LBJ's support for cities.


• Window on Eurasia reports on the Kremlin's use of the last Romanovs, examines Russian fears about Kazakhstan, and notes Ukrainian perspectives on the Donbas war.


• The World notes the problems Brexit would create in a divided United Kingdom.


• The Yorkshire Ranter examines efficient, and less efficient, spending by political parties in elections.

[NEWS] Some Friday links

• Bloomberg reports on Dutch losses from Brexit, looks at the scene in Fallujah, observes the fragmentation of Venezuela's opposition, and notes the positive impact of a solar energy boom on Japan's fuel consumption.


• Bloomberg View notes the lack of regional pressure on Venezuela, reports that Brexit would hit Britain's poor and British-based banks hard, and suggests Russian support for the European far right is secondary.


• CBC looks at Canada's restrictive Internet packages.


• The Inter Press Service notes Thailand's progress in controlling HIV/AIDS, looks at Peru's elections, and notes Uruguay's hopes to be an offshore oil producer.


• National Geographic notes the sperm whales in the Caribbean seem to have a distinctive culture.


• The National Post notes there is no such thing as wilderness, that the entire Earth is touched by human activities.


• Open Democracy looks at Egypt's fear of the urban poor and considers what can be learned about the failure of the Swiss basic income initiative.


• The Toronto Star notes a stem cell-based treatment for MS that offers radical improvements, even cures.


• Wired notes that AirBnB is unhappy with new San Francisco legislation requiring the registration of its hosts.

[URBAN NOTE] "Former Metro Vancouver gangster shot to death in Toronto"

The Tuesday shooting of this man occurred just down the street from work. The Vancouver Sun's Kim Bolan explains who he was.

A former Metro Vancouver gangster was shot to death in Toronto Tuesday afternoon in a brazen attack that surprised even local police.

Sukh Deo, 34, was inside a white Range Rover when two men started firing at him just before 3 p.m. local time in an alley near the busy intersection of Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue.

Toronto police Supt. Reuben Stroble told reporters at the scene that the fatal shooting "is a big surprise for this area, especially at this time of day.”

The luxury vehicle had at least 14 bullet holes visible on the driver’s side window.

Sukh's uncle, Sohan Deo, confirmed it was his nephew who was killed.

[URBAN NOTE] "Cheri DiNovo goes for NDP leadership as party’s first "unofficial" candidate"

NOW Toronto/I>'s Michelle da Silva looks at Cheri DiNovo's candidacy.

The federal NDP leadership race has its first candidate – sort of. Cheri DiNovo, the long time NDP MPP for Parkdale-High Park, tossed her hat in the ring June 7, declaring herself as the “unofficial candidate” to replace Tom Mulcair.

At the NDP convention in Edmonton in April, delegates voted for new leadership after the party’s disappointing performance in the last federal election. Many believed Mulcair was to blame, but few within the party were willing to state as much publicly. DiNovo was the exception, emerging as outspoken critic, telling NOW bluntly in an interview earlier this year, “He’s got to go. I’m not a fan.”

At the time, DiNovo was certain she had no aspirations for the job herself, even going so far as to say, “I’m not qualified.” But now the former United Church minister is having second thoughts.

“Really, who is qualified for that job?” she asked at a press conference at her Roncesvalles constituency office this morning. “Certainly, I can imagine better candidates than myself, candidates that would get more votes and have more skills, and I say go for it. If a stronger candidate comes along that espouses the same principles, I’m happy to fold behind them, but I’m also not happy to just stand back and wait for that to happen.”

[URBAN NOTE] "Lagging ridership a problem for the TTC — and a mystery"

The Toronto Star's Royson James looks at the costly mystery behind the TTC's dropping ridership.

In the 1990s, when the province’s economy nose-dived and the number of passengers on the TTC dropped precipitously, then dropped some more, it was the incremental uptick in TTC ridership numbers that signaled a rebound.

The TTC as economic bellwether is one of the sacred doctrines of those who analyze economic trends in the region. Before the usual indicators start broadcasting the bad news of an economic downturn, the doctrine goes, TTC analysts can see it coming in the declining ridership growth the system’s monthly tracking spills out.

The early warning does nothing to avert the impending gloom; it exists to help the system survive the shock by allowing the TTC to take counter-measures as early as possible.

So, already, in a late-March report to the transit commission, TTC boss Andy Byford is tipping his hand, indicating that staff is retrenching. By his own projection, this year the TTC will collect “in the neighbourhood of $30 million” less than budgeted.

[URBAN NOTE] "Mayor Tory’s vote to build townhomes next to rail yard threatens SmartTrack plans"

Jennifer Pagliaro of the Toronto Star looks at another conflict between new housing and new rapid transit.

Mayor John Tory voted in favour of allowing residential homes to be built next to a GO Transit maintenance yard at the urging of allied Etobicoke councillors, ignoring the chief planner’s warning that the move threatens the mayor’s own signature SmartTrack transit plans.

Both senior city staff and officials from the provincial transit arm Metrolinx warned council that changes to allow residential development on a sliver of employment lands (zoned for industrial, commercial and institutional use) next to the rail facility in south Etobicoke would affect provincial plans for expanded, electrified GO service known as Regional Express Rail (RER).

Those expansion plans are directly linked to Tory’s own chief campaign promise to create a localized heavy-rail service using existing GO rail tracks, with additional stations in Toronto, which he calls SmartTrack.

“The Willowbrook yard is a critical, critical facility for delivering on RER and SmartTrack,” the city’s chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat told council Wednesday. “In the absence of the opportunity to expand that facility, it is very difficult to, in fact, expand the transit uses along our heavy rail corridors in the region.”

The mayor’s spokesperson Amanda Galbraith said Metrolinx is in the process of purchasing lands along the rail corridor and that the decision by council “allows the city to look at all options on how to best use land near our rail corridors.”

[URBAN NOTE] "Scarborough transit users, screwed again"

Chris Selley's National Post essay gets it right.

Only four months ago, the Scarborough Subway Wars had ostensibly drawn to a close. Some city councillors who in principle preferred the original, cheaper LRT option to replace the aging Scarborough Rapid Transit line seemed to have been mollified by a compromise: the subway extension would be one stop, instead of three, from Kennedy to Scarborough Town Centre, and the money left over would go to building an LRT from Kennedy to the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Campus.

Coun. Josh Matlow, one of the subway’s staunchest opponents, credited Mayor John Tory with having placed “facts” at least “alongside politics” in his decision-making, and argued it behoved people like him to give the plan a chance — though he also wanted careful study of aligning the subway along the existing SRT corridor. Tory, naturally, was bullish: “It has the potential to transform a region of our city that is currently vastly underserved by transit,” the mayor enthused.

And now, away we go again. Torontonians learned last week that the one-stop extension is projected “only” to carry 7,300 passengers from Scarborough Town Centre to Kennedy station during the morning rush — not 11,100 and not 14,000, numbers which had been floating around beforehand.

And it was back to our regularly scheduled programming.

[URBAN NOTE] "What was really behind the pot shop raids in Toronto?"

Betsy Powell at the Toronto Star looks at some conspiracy theories behind the marijuana shop raids.

When Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders announced details of last week’s pot shop raids, there were rumblings that Health Canada’s licensed marijuana producers were behind the mass arrests.

“This is about protecting the corporate profits of stock-market businesses who have sent police to arrest people to protect their own financial interest,” Vancouver-based marijuana activist Jodie Emery said, scolding Saunders at his news conference.

Undeniably, some licensed producers who invested tens of millions of dollars to become legitimate players in the medical marijuana market were unhappy that politicians of all levels had done nothing to stop the proliferation of unlicensed dispensaries in Vancouver and Toronto.

The licensed producers, or LPs as they’re known in the pot world, are also competitors of the pot shop entrepreneurs: both are hoping for a piece of post-legalization action once the federal government makes good on its election promise.

But the notion the LPs were behind the raids in Toronto is more conspiracy theory than reality, said Bruce Linton, chair and chief executive officer of Canopy Growth. They are one of 18 federally authorized, mail-order medical marijuana suppliers in Ontario.

[URBAN NOTE] Torontoist on the departure of Glad Day Bookshop for Church and Wellesley

Lisa Cumming's Torontoist article "Why is Toronto’s Oldest Bookstore Leaving Yonge Street?" let me know of something unexpected. I only hope this move is workable.

It has been a staple of Toronto for decades, its pink-and-purple storefront and giant rainbow flag waving over Yonge. Now, thirty-five years since opening its second-floor Yonge and Wellesley location, Glad Day Bookshop is about to leave its post.

But fear not, readers of Toronto: the shop—which is both the city’s oldest bookstore, and the world’s oldest LGBTQ shop—is not closing. Instead, owner Michael Erickson tells Torontoist the company is planning a little-big move to the beating heart of the Church-Wellesley Village.

“For some people there’s a lot of nostalgia attached to the location, but the store was also always supposed to be pushing boundaries; being a part of the queer liberation and sexual liberation movement in 2016 means being wheelchair accessible,” says Erickson, lead owner at Glad Day. “That means not hiding up in the shadows, that means being on the street and that means taking up public space. I think it’s a natural transition to [be] taking up more space somewhere else, and I think that the community will follow us.”

On May 31, Glad Day sent out a survey letting book lovers know that the shop was planning a move, and asked clients to suggest new locations. The results of the survey were very clear, Erickson says: people overwhelmingly wanted Glad Day to either move to Church Street, or stay where they are.

But Yonge Street is no longer a viable option for the grassroots shop, where its current location is small and cramped, and not accessible for those with issues with mobility or disabilities.

[URBAN NOTE] "Monkey’s Paw flees rent rise, goes west"

Verity Stevenson's Toronto Star article looks at a bookstore I never visited when it was on Dundas Street West. Now it will be moving much closer to my part of Toronto, I should perhaps come take a look.

One of the earliest adopters of the Dundas West neighbourhood as a hipster haven, the beloved Monkey’s Paw rare book store, is moving to Bloordale.

The move mirrors a shift in the landscape of Toronto’s quirky storefronts. As mom and pop shops exit the areas they defined, niche joints like Monkey’s Paw that had settled there for cheap rents and lack of competition follow.

Stephen Fowler opened the antiquarian bookstore at 1229 Dundas St. W. in 2006, a few years after moving to Toronto from San Francisco. He says the building that Monkey’s Paw is in was sold and its new landlord has threatened a “significant rent increase.”

Plus, the street’s fast gentrification has him a little spooked.

“The way this neighbourhood has changed seemed very sudden to me and so it went from being this kind of sleepy street to . . . now it’s like, ‘Oh, let’s go for a fancy brunch,’” Fowler said, sitting at the desk in his shop window.