Joe Pantalone is the only mayoral candidate welcome to participate in this year's Labor Day parade. The Star reports that both Sarah Thomson and George Smitherman asked, but were denied a chance to march in the parade organized by the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. The Council's endorsement of Pantalone seems natural, given that he's the only candidate whose platform does not include selling assets or contracting-out city workers' jobs.

Rocco Rossi spoke out on, um, pool reform yesterday, saying that Toronto's shortening of hours for pools all over the city is a result of mismanaged books and out of control spending. Many people were upset at the limited hours as temperatures reached 32-degrees and pools closed early. Rossi spoke outside Kiwanis Outdoor Pool in East York, which had its hours shortened to 4pm to 7pm. No updates from Rocco on his broken blender.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has issued a warning that beef products sold by North York's Kabul Farms store may be contaminated with E. coli. The agency, along with the Ministry of Health and Health Canada, is already investigating an outbreak of E. coli-related illness in the GTA. The statement, issued yesterday, said that all beef products sold from that store on August 6th should not be consumed.

The National Motorists Association (whose website is host to articles on topics such as "several ways to bring public and private wrath down upon the perpetrators of speed traps") released their annual "Worst North American Speed Trap Cities" list yesterday, and Toronto gets the top spot for Ontario. The list, I should mention, is compiled by tallying the number of speed traps submitted by drivers to the NMA's website; for Toronto this amounts to about 250 to 260 individual traps submitted over the last few years. The Allen Expressway's southbound Lawrence Ave. on-ramp is just one of the hot spots listed on the site. But there is no disclaimer mentioning the fact that Toronto, as our largest city, is likely to have more users submitting speed traps than most other cities in Ontario.

The Air Canada Centre was host yesterday to 19,000 teachers of the Toronto District School Board in a somewhat controversial rally entitled "Believe It! Our Time is Now." The event has garnered criticism ever since its initial price tag of $345,000, later reduced to $125,000. Education director Chris Spence called the conference "absolutely inspirational," with its pulsing lights, big screens and a performance by Kardinal Offishall almost an hour after the event was scheduled to end. I guess someone forgot to ring the bell.

Photo by asianz of the blogTO Flickr pool.