City
Morning Brew: August 18th, 2008
Photo: "CNE - swing ride" by Phil Marion, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
Your Toronto morning news roundup for Monday August 18th, 2008:
Wacky weather is the story of the summer. We've seen near daily sun showers, thunderstorms, funnel clouds, hail, and now sunsetning (that's sunset plus lightning, and Sam Javanrouh captured it well).
With the looming potential for a federal election in the near future, Prime Minister Harper has announced a September 22nd by-election in Toronto's Don Valley West riding. It's been a Liberal stronghold for 15 years, and could be an interesting test of the waters for the Conservatives.
Will the Canadian version of the ongoing and elusive "war on terror" be a major platform issue in the next federal election? A newly revealed open letter from the Taliban to the Canadian people states: "The Canadian people have to realize if their sisters, their brothers and their children are being killed in Afghanistan, it is because of the wrong policy of the government of Canada and their falling under the influence of [America] when they sent occupation soldiers to Afghanistan."
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We've gotten used to filling the cupboards under our kitchen sinks with once-used grocery bags, and we love not having to sort recyclables (instead just tossing stuff into our new, gigantic, blue recycling bins). But what about those pesky plastic bottles from bottled water? In London, they may be taking some first steps to start curbing their sale. Tap water is still perfectly good to drink, isn't it?
Our Olympics medal-earning drought in Beijing ended this weekend when Canada picked up seven. Meanwhile, right here at home, a firefighter on a charity mission to help burn victims at Sick Kids won over the hearts of Torontonians when he completed a 50km swim across Lake Ontario.
Did you know that recording and archiving television on your Bell PVR or doing the same with music and videos on Apple's Time Machine could be a violation of copyright laws under the proposed bill C-61?
The latest rumour in the Mats Sundin saga is that he's ranking the New York Rangers as his preferred place to play hockey this fall, if he plays this fall at all.
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Re: water bottles. I think there's a whole variety of products that should be pulled from the shelves because of how wasteful or how much of a nuisance they are.
Bottled water is convenient when you're in a pinch for a drink, but it's really a product that has thrived because of civic laziness - we need more sanitary drinking fountains around the city.
Another example is chewing gum. Twice this weekend (with two different pairs of shoes), I've stepped in gum on the street that someone had carelessly thrown away. Littering issues aside, looking at the sidewalks and all those nasty black splotches, I think Singapore set a great example by banning it all together.
From the linked article: <i>"Similarly, as Apple touts the benefits of its Time Machine backup hard-drive, it should also warn purchasers that multiple backup copies of songs and videos would violate Bill C-61."</i>
We are blessed with good clean drinking water.
It takes 10 litres of water to manufacture a typical 1ltr plastic water bottle. Are we so arrogant that it is acceptable to drink 11 litres of water, and then toss it away?
There are places in the world where bottled water is a necessity, Toronto is simply not one of them.
But recently, Walkerton was. Toronto tap water is great - but not all southern Ontario is in the same boat. Ever drink the water in Belleville in the summer? If you can get past the fishy smell, enjoy. Until the water infrastructure in the country is repaired/updated, you might want to keep a few bottles of water around, just in case.