The last televised mayoral debate before the October 25th election took place last night, and not surprisingly Smitherman and Ford were all over one another. Ford was quick to use the eHealth fiasco as evidence that Smitherman can't be trusted with taxpayer's money, while the latter defended himself by saying that he left the Ministry of Health before the program came to be. For his part, Pantalone put in a good showing, repeatedly reminding the audience that "out of fear nothing good can happen." But with yet another poll confirming Ford and Smitherman have a huge lead over him, Joey Pants just hasn't been able to drum up much momentum.

The Toronto Police Services Board is expected to end the TTC special constable program via a vote tomorrow. In place of the special constables, who have the power to use force to detain suspects on TTC property, the number of police officers on transit patrol would be doubled to around 80 in total. The TTC's remaining transit officers (i.e. those without special constable powers), will also be reduced to around 100. Gary Webster, the TTC's general manager, thinks that riders are safer with the special constables, but the TPSB disagrees because such constables are not governed by the Toronto Police Services Act. In all my years riding the TTC I've only rarely seen these special constables, so I doubt this will make a huge difference.

The federal government claims that the "fake lake" at the G8 and G20 summits was a "wild success," citing the fact that international journalists were able to bring the Canadian wilderness to living rooms throughout the world. But, um, wouldn't a big-ass photo have done the same thing?

Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky won the $20,000 MOCCA award in contemporary art yesterday. "Often cinematic in scale and always spectacular in pattern and detail, his pictures are as highly regarded for their formal and aesthetic qualities as they are for being powerful and even disturbing documents of the impact that these activities have upon the landscape, the ecology, upon our very selves and our surroundings," MOCCA representatives said in praising his work.

The Sun has a photo gallery titled "Sexy PETA supporters protest Toronto Fashion Week," which features three women with their bodies painted to resembe a tiger, a leopard and a cow, respectively. Classy stuff.

And, this has been kicking around for a few days now, but if you haven't seen this timelapse video of a bridge demolition, it's certainly worth a look.

Lake Shore Blvd. bridge demolition time lapse DETAIL from Spacing Magazine on Vimeo.

Photo by asianz in the blogTO Flickr pool.