Tag Archives: toronto star

COMMENT OF THE DAY: Hey, isn’t this the same site that ran a video of Rob Ford eating KFC?

Posted by gruesomegreg on

From: http://www.thestar.com/life/2013/06/10/criticizing_wife_over_her_weight_gain_is_a_form_of_bullying.html

In today’s relationship advice column, Toronto Star scribe Ellie responds to a woman who feels pressured by her husband to lose weight, writing “recognize your strength instead of letting him whip you emotionally. Insist that he back off. Tell him you’ll then be fully capable of managing your weight on your own.”  Hmm, it would appear that Ellie has little contact with the News department…

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Now, it’s not every day I’ll stick up for Rob Ford, but when it comes to flab-bashing, he has my support.  That said, my own personal weight-loss program appears to be going much better than the one he abandoned by eating at KFC instead of working out. ;)

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: I dunno guy, but I don’t think they had halter tops in the 12th century…

Posted by gruesomegreg on

From: http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/06/07/dress_code_in_kathleen_wynnes_office_forbids_miniskirts_halter_tops.html

The Toronto Star is reporting that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has issued a summer dress code to her office which is more or less identical to the dress code at every other office in the city—except for the Toronto Star, apparently.  Still, you knew it wouldn’t be long before someone invoked the ere of Henry I in the comments section:

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Now, I might be going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing you can’t dress like a cowboy movie in Kathleen Wynne’s office, either.

COMMENT OF THE DAY: So Rob Ford would’ve sent the runner, then?

Posted by gruesomegreg on

From: http://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/2013/05/27/brett_lawrie_displayed_most_disgraceful_exhibition_of_mefirst_mentality_ive_ever_seen_in_mlb_griffin.html

While The Mayor of This CityTM’s press secretaries are resigning left, right and centre, the Toronto Star is going back on the attack, directing the full force of its journalistic vitriol at…  Blue Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie!?  Granted, the 23-year-old third-sacker has been stinking it up on my fantasy team all season, and his batting average is lower than his weight, but from the sheer level of utter disgust oozing from Richard Griffin’s keyboard, you’d swear Lawrie was caught on tape smoking crack with a murdered drug dealer, or something…

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Then again, it seems the coaching staff made the right call—the Jays ended up winning the game.  Methinks Lawrie ought to chill out and smoke another substance native to his native British Columbia. ;)

COMMENT OF THE DAY: Because if you fly Porter, you must be on drugs… or not.

Posted by gruesomegreg on

From: http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/05/06/younger_torontonians_siding_with_porter_airlines_bid_for_expansion_at_billy_bishop.html

The Toronto Star is attempting to paint the debate over the Porter Airlines expansion project as a Generation Clash between people who might actually own a copy of Eat the Heat, and those who think Accept is something you do when you get a new friend request.  Based on that logic, I can only assume this comment was written by an old curmudgeon:

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Hmm, last time I checked, there was a greater risk of crashes on the 401 than in the sky, and you can’t really blame the airport for the congestion when there isn’t a place to park down there.  As for serving the community, well, one just needs to look at how many university students pack Billy Bishop over the Christmas break.  Then again, I suppose university students also buy drugs, too. :P

Yankees security ejecting fans for heckling on the road? Now that’s rich!

Posted by gruesomegreg on

They don’t call them the Evil Empire for nothing.  The Toronto Star is reporting that “Security guards employed by the Yankees, who travelled with the team to Toronto this weekend, pointed out and requested the ejection of a pair of Jays fans who had heckled the Yankee bullpen, according to a ticket holder in the section.”  Because apparently, it’s only okay to heckle the bullpen when Yankees fans do it.

Wait, back up a second.  Yankees security got fans kicked out of the Rogers Centre in Toronto!?  Do they even have the authority to do that?  As one blogger who bared witness—and later filed a complaint—wrote, “I and many others in our section witnessed two individuals in Yankees jackets, complete with Yankees lanyard ID tags walk into our seating area and point out to Toronto police two fans who were chirping and heckling the Yankees bullpen. One individual, who was later violently arrested, did nothing but look at these two Yankees ‘men in black.’”  Then again, just looking at someone the wrong way can get a man killed in The Big Apple—back in the 70’s, maybe.

Now, here’s where versions of events differ.  The offended blogger writes that the ejected fans simply “told the Yankees bullpen staff they sucked, booed them, creatively chirped them and then, as if a threat to the safety of these players, these fans were removed by police, one bloodied and arrested.”  But the supposed NYYPD has a different story, telling the Star, “that the fans were not only heckling, but throwing peanuts into the Yankees’ bullpen as well,” adding “that later in the game someone threw a full beer from the second deck.”  And the second-deck beer actually hit the pitchers warming up!?  Perhaps the Jays could use that guy in their bullpen!

Now, I wasn’t at the game on Friday—hell, I didn’t even watch it on TV—but you’d hafta wonder that if fans were indeed throwing their hard-earned peanuts and crackerjacks into the pen, how come the venue security didn’t see this?  Why did it take Yankees security to finger them for ejection…  and hell, why do the Yankees even need security on the road, anyways?  As blogger/complainant Justin Jackson put it, “they are so audacious as to bring in their hired goons to keep Mariano Rivera from having to hear that he’s super old. News flash: he is.”  But y’know, don’t tell Rivera that, cuz you might get ejected…

The grand irony in all this is that Yankees fans are known for being some of the most vocal and abusive in all of sports.  I’d love to see what would happen if a pair of Jays fans kindly suggested that Yankee Stadium security remove a group of Bleacher Creatures after an unwelcoming rendition of their homophobic Village People parody, “Why Are You Gay?”  Chances are, the home security would laugh in their faces, not allegedly punch them as they allegedly do on the road.  (At least, I’m presuming that one guy didn’t give himself a bloody nose…)

Then again, if you can’t beat ‘em (up), join ‘em.  Methinks the Jays could hire hockey enforcers Colton Orr and Frazer McLaren to eject hecklers behind the Jays pen at Yankee Stadium.  I mean, it’s not like the Leafs are going deep in the playoffs or anything… :P

Selling illegal beaver on the black market? Not cool…

Posted by gruesomegreg on

Anyone who’s ever seen the low-budget, independent Canadian film Treed Murray (all five of us) knows that some sketchy shit goes down in the Don Valley.  But this latest news will still come as a shock to anyone born after the 18th century.  As the Toronto Star reports, a rogue fur-trader has been skinning beavers and leaving their corpses to be cannibalized.  According to the Star, “City staff said there’s no bylaw against the practice within Toronto. In fact, trapping is entirely legal, with permission of course.”  But if you light up a cigarette while laying traps, now that’s a whole ‘nother story!

In any case, no licensed beaver snatcher would leave behind the rotting spoils of his kill.  As an expert with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) told the Toronto Star, “leaving the carcass behind within the city … would mean loss of a licence.”  How’s a coureur de bois going to put food on the table with his licence suspended!?

Not that selling pelts could buy you a meal for two at Canoe these days, anyways.  According to the director of the Fur Council of Canada, beaver only goes for 35 bucks a pop on the open market.  “It’s not like a get-rich plan by any means,” Alan Herscovici told the Star. “(It’s) a lot of work for the money a trapper gets.”

Not to mention, think of the children!  No, not the young beavers who frolic through the forest, but, y’know, human kids.  “A kid walking along the bank could step into (a leghold trap) and it could be a nasty situation,” the TRCA wildlife expert said.  Wait, since when did kids go playing outside in parks!?  Methinks the fur-trapper’s not the only one living centuries in the past… ;)

COMMENT OF THE DAY: It’s 10 pm… Do you know where your kid’s brain is?

Posted by gruesomegreg on

From: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/04/10/deadly_shootings_by_children_in_us_raise_questions_about_gun_laws.html

When I was a wee one, my parents put locks on the TVs when they left us home alone.  But little did they know that I knew they kept the key inside a decorative goblet on the mantle.  Some deterrent that was!  Likewise, the argument raised by one gun-violence advocate in this Star piece that “Little Jimmy doesn’t know where we hide the guns…”  Yes, he probably does.  Speaking of which, have you stepped on any glial cells or capillaries lately?

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(You mean, it’s no longer attached to that gaping cavity where his head used to be?  Uh-oh…)

COMMENT OF THE DAY: Attn All future Mayors of This City. Please suppress your gag reflex. Thank you.

Posted by gruesomegreg on

From: http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/04/02/mayor_rob_ford_makes_vomiting_sound_in_reaction_to_metrolinx_revenue_proposals.html

Although the Toronto Sun chose to focus on his assessment of the Toronto Blue Jays, other major media outlets, including the Toronto Star (who else?), are running with the fact that Rob Ford, The Mayor of This CityTM, made vomiting noises when told of a proposal to raise taxes for transit.  Hey, who’s to say he wasn’t simply trying to suppress his tax-allergy symptoms?  (The Sun’s take? Metrolinx taxes make Rob Ford gag.)  But don’t you know that the mere thought of tossing one’s cookies is unbecoming of any Mayor of this city?

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(Note to Olivia Chow: Better bring some Pepto Bismol on the campaign trail, lest you invoke the ire of at least 75 registered Star commenters…)

Mayor Rob Ford sez: “I did not have oral relations with that bottle of Jack!”

Posted by gruesomegreg on

After a front-page story in the Toronto Star (where else?) suggested that The Mayor of This CityTM has a major drinking problem, Rob F’n Ford went on the offensive today, calling the Star a buncha lying liars who lie to themselves lying down.  “It’s just lies after lies and lies and I’ve called you pathological liars and you are so why don’t you take me to court. Let the courts decide,” he told a news conference (as reported by the Star).  To his credit, Mayor Ford is 2-0 in court cases this year—but here I thought that the Court of Drunkenness only existed to break ties in Beerfest…

Of course, even if Rob Ford did have a drinking problem, the best time to come clean probably wouldn’t be at an event honouring George Chuvalo, the former heavyweight boxer who now lectures kids against substance abuse.  On the other hand, that could be just what the doctor ordered…

While I’m not saying I agree with everything in the Star, they do offer some pretty damning, albeit anonymous, testimony about Ford’s alleged drinking problem.  As per the Star story, His Lardship was thrown out of the Garrison Ball after he “stumbled and nearly fell on the stairs near the washrooms, according to people involved in organizing the event.”  This actually came a couple weeks before the infamous Assgate incident (has that name already been taken?) where he reportedly fondled Sarah Thomson’s fanny.  The Star notes that “perplexed staffers have said they rarely catch him drinking, fuelling suspicion that he binge drinks prior to events.”  Well duh, everybody knows that you pre-drink prior to any overpriced cocktail dinner—but doesn’t The Mayor of This CityTM get free booze at these things anyways?  Isn’t that one of the perks of the job?

In any case, Ford has reportedly denied he has a problem.  He’s apparently refused to meet with a “prominent individual who has also suffered from addiction,” and is said to have totally pulled an Amy Winehouse when staffers tried to make him go to rehab.  And no, I don’t mean that he choked on his own vomit.  You can’t really dust for vomit, anyways.

In any case, one might assume that the Star must be pleased with this latest development in As The Gravy Train Turns.  Not only does the salacious story sell lotsa papers, but Ford’s steadfast refusal of rehabilitation could possibly hurt his election chances.  As a former Ford staffer told the Star, “politically, Ford’s re-election machine believes coming forward publicly and seeking treatment wouldn’t hurt him.”  Pfft, I’d never vote for somebody who can’t hold his liquor—chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, Mayorseph! :P

COMMENT OF THE DAY: Because marriage fraud is better than divorce?

Posted by gruesomegreg on

From: http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2013/02/07/marriage_to_cuban_leaves_brampton_bride_brokenhearted_and_broke.html

Did you see the front page of The Star?  Well, it’s a real doozy!  A GTA woman marries a Cuban man, sponsors him to come to Canada… then he takes her money and runs, just three days later.  Yet somehow, according to this reverse-racist (and possibly sexist) commenter, it’s all the white women’s fault:

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Granted, the above argument is rambling, disjointed and lacking in punctuation, but if I get the gist of it, this fellow is suggesting that in order to avoid divorce, Canadian men should only marry foreign-born women—on an article about marriage fraud from foreign spouses.  Irony, thy name is nojusticeincanadaonlylegalx!