Toronto principal in controversial controversy over explicit poems he wrote and posted to his website. This is of course the first recorded case ever of somebody getting in trouble for something they wrote on the Internet, and the scandal has sent shock waves through the online community. "Wait, somebody actually reads this shit?" said Patrick Metzger. "Dammit, I better re-emphasize that my erotic snuff story about Geri Halliwell is purely a work of fiction!"......

So, you may have noticed it snowed this weekend. If you don't believe us, go check out the Toronto Star's website, where nine out of ten local stories are about the snow, people dealing with the snow, and celebrities talking about the snow. Notably absent among them: the probable cause for all of this snow. Rare meteor lands somewhere near Georgian Bay. This would as opposed to the common, everyday type of meteor that......

Photo of Hollerado courtesy of Hollerado. It’s day three of Canadian Music Week, and you can feel the excitement in the air. Before we get started with today’s preview though, we have a couple of public service announcements: German rockers 4LYN have cancelled their show at Clinton’s Tavern due to ill health, and Hollerado are looking for a place to crash for the night. Apparently they’ll make you nachos. Where were we? Right. There......

City councillor, unintentional humourist, and Torontoist favourite Councillor Rob Ford has grabbed himself some headlines again. He refuses to apologize for his comments on Wednesday, "the Oriental people, they're slowly taking over...they're hard, hard workers," because his sweeping generalization was intended as "a compliment." However, a spokesperson for the Canadian Council of Lazy Asians has said that the remarks were "deeply offensive." A devout Sikh man has lost his bid to overturn the law......

It snowed again last night, so if you're going anywhere, it'll probably take you a long time. However, we're getting another storm on the weekend so you might as well wait before you start shovelling. Actually, it'll be spring in a couple of weeks anyway so if you have enough cans of SpaghettiO's, it's probably best to just stay home til then. The Bank of Canada slashed interest rates by fifty basis points yesterday,......

New glass recycling program will save local municipalities millions of dollars. It turns out that you can turn used glass into other things than smaller bits of broken glass! Stephen Harper threatens to sue Stéphane Dion for libel over allegations of bribery. Harper, long an advocate of tort reform, explained that while limiting the ability of people to sue is generally a good thing, he didn't mean that it should apply to him. Tory......

Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman has caused a furor with his comment that he'd be willing to test-drive an adult diaper to see if being left in soiled diapers for hours on end is really all that bad. Critics say he isn't taking the issue of sub-standard care in nursing homes seriously, which seems a bit harsh, since there can't be too many politicians who'd be willing to spend a day crouched in their own......

Photo by Darryl Scott. Danger! The Mothership descends onto the Phoenix this Monday, bringing George Clinton and his ace group of funkateers, Parliament Funkadelic, into town to tear the roof off the mutha sucka. Meer mortals are powerless to Dr. Funkenstein and his bop gun. All attempts to fake the funk are punishable with potential exile to the Zone of Zero Funkativity. Accept that it's one nation under a groove. (Note: resistance to groove......

In the most important news story of the day, two people have been arrested in the mysterious case of Huckleberry, the dog who vanished from outside a Yonge Street bakery and was returned after his owner offered a $15,000 reward. Police haven't said whether they believe Huckleberry was in on the caper. Oil prices closed yesterday at over US$100 a barrel yesterday, spooking financial markets. And my mom said I was crazy for keeping......

TTC "U-pass" close to passing for students, possibly also hotel workers. If the scheme passes, the TTC will suddenly be crowded once again, rendering all those recent fleet upgrades essentially moot. Hooray for public transit! Jack Layton calls for Family Day to be named a national holiday. He then asked for a pony and all the candy he could ever eat ever, on the basis that it was about as likely that Stephen Harper would......

Barack Obama thumps Hillary Clinton in last night's primaries. Obama for the first time won the majority of Latino voters, the majority of women voters, and the majority of senior citizen voters, while broadening his support in the demographics he was already winning. On the bright side for Hillary, she did manage to win the vote of nearly 87 percent of the voters who thought she was more qualified to be President than Obama.......

A three hour Blackberry outage affected millions of people across North America yesterday, leading to much wailing and handwringing over the temporary unavailability of a technology that didn't even exist ten years ago. Truly we are a nation of whiners. The Toronto Maple Leafs braved the cold to hold an unannounced outdoor skate at Withrow Park yesterday, where they were cheered on by 300 local grade-schoolers. Following the warmup, the kids formed a pickup......

Extreme cold alert! Be forewarned that this extreme cold is not extreme in the sense of "it is totally radical like Doritos and Mountain Dew," but rather extreme in the sense of "it can kill you if you stay out in it too long." Environment Canada will discuss the prospects of the extreme cold's effect on totally shredding slopes with your snowboard later today. Barack Obama thumps Hillary Clinton over the weekend, with impressively......

The Tory minority government is double-dog-daring the Opposition to force an election over their crime bill. Prediction: Stéphane Dion will grumble and pretend he doesn't care, Jack Layton will howl impotently, and the Bloc will negotiate another billion dollars for folk-dancing in Rimouski. Stephen Harper is truly the alpha Parliamentarian in this bunch. Did you know that Toronto has already gotten as much snow this winter as the past two winters combined, and that......

The weather continues to suck in Toronto as today promises more snow, sleet, rain and just about every other damn unpleasant thing that can fall out of the sky short of a hail of radioactive meteorites. On the other hand, the central U.S. suffered a rash of tornadoes yesterday that killed at least 27 people, so suck it up and go shovel the walk of the old people down the street. U.S. candidates continue......

Kennedy Station will remain closed today, at least for the morning. So, if you live in Scarborough, enjoy those shuttle buses. It's Super Tuesday! Barack Obama is closing the gap with Hillary Clinton in a number of key states, most notably California. Meanwhile, the Republican race is boiling down to a dogfight between Mitt Romney, running on the "I hate liberals the most" platform, and John McCain, running on the "I might actually be......

Hey, did you know it's snowing? School buses have already been cancelled for today, meaning that children will romp and play in the streets and sabotage snowplow drivers and Chevy Chase will duel with a rival meteorologist for some reason and the mayor will declare it to be the "funnest day ever." Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have a nice, pleasant debate about minute policy issues. The debate was thus about as interesting as watching......

Chalk River reactor's risk level was 1,000 times greater than normal. However, Stephen Harper is a certified nuclear engineer, so if he says it's safe, then shouldn't we trust him? Wait, what? He's not a certified nuclear engineer? Well, dang. John McCain wins crucial Florida primary. The old coot narrowly defeated the Mormon android and the world's angriest ex-mayor to maintain his momentum in the Republican candidates' race. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in......

David Miller delivered a balanced budget yesterday, thanks to higher property taxes, some fabulous new tariffs, and a one-time infusion of $150 million from the the provincial government. According to Miller, the property tax increase of 3.75% is in line with his commitment to limit raises to the rate of inflation (1.9% in Toronto last year), evidence that the mayor is either math-illiterate or assumes that everyone else is. Transit expert Richard Soberman will......

Barack Obama lays down the smack in South Carolina's presidential primary. Obama won by an enormous 28-point margin, prompting Bill Clinton to afterwards comment that this was no big deal because Jesse Jackson, who is a black man, like Barack Obama, won South Carolina when he ran for President, and did he mention that Barack Obama is black just like Jesse Jackson? (Also black: Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and that R&B star that had......

Photo by Sidereal The week is looking very light in anything literary around the city. If anything, you've got your three poems (no longer than three minutes each) in hand and will be heading down to Clinton's to show what you've got at the Art Bar's 9th annual Art Bar Discovery Night. Nancy Bullis will be guest hosting. For everyone else, be sure to help yourself to some free donuts to make up for......

TSX plunges nearly five percent in one day. The stocks dropped as a result of a worldwide sell-off prompted by the probable American recession that, depending on who you talk to, is either here already, coming very soon, or never going to come ever. Of course, you'll only hear that last one when you talk to George W. Bush. Landlord of "the Dungeon" says it's not his fault. He only rents it out, he......

The Star reports that TTC operators have a rate of post-traumatic stress disorder four times higher than Toronto police officers. The syndrome is often a result of witnessing, or becoming the victim of, physical violence, and is now the second leading cause of missed work days at the TTC. Arming operators a la Mad Max probably isn't the right solution, but hoping that the assholes who assault drivers will magically disappear may not be......

Photo from Monolith Festival. One of Chicago's finest, Kid Sister makes her return to Toronto at Wrongbar this Friday. Ever since landing the cover of Urb's Next 1000 issue, Kid Sister's career has been moving firmly in the fast lane. She landed a Kanye cameo for her debut video Pro Nails and she's already proven that she can rock a Toronto crowd. Kid Sister will be joined by Ottawa's Jokers of the Scene and......

Apparently 6% GST is still being charged in parking lots at Pearson airport, in spite of the fact that the tax was lowered to 5% on January 1. The overpricing is being blamed on a system glitch that is being "worked on," but in the meantime, the GTAA plans to keep the extra cash for themselves. A spokesperson explained, "If you don't like it, then you can fly out of another international airport in......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Once a week, the editors of each site—from LAist to Londonist—compile some of their most interesting posts into a brief blurb. It's Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse, and it appears, across the network, every Sunday. Austinist attended a town hall meeting about proposed noise ordinances that could undermine the city's future as the Live Music Capital of the World, and lamented the possible loss of......

Passe Muraille has been pushing its remount of the hugely popular Michael Healey hit The Drawer Boy with considerable fanfare, including leaving giant, inflatable barnyard animals outside the theatre for a few days last week. And why not? It's the most successful play to ever come out of that theatre this side of The Drowsy Chaperone, which has definitely grown a bit too gigantic for a return trip. But The Drawer Boy, with its......

J. K. Rowling to come to Toronto on her reading tour. It's her only Canadian stop, so expect an audience that is 30 percent younger readers and 70 percent aging, obsessive fanboys and fangirls, most desperately wanting an explanation as to why Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were not revealed to be secret gay lovers. By-elections happen, Liberals get trounced big-time. The NDP won Outremont—their second seat ever in Quebec, and the first time the......

While Hilary Clinton was content to let her supporters choose her theme song, the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party has asked Dalton McGuinty's detractors to pick one for him. "What tune best represents Dalton McGuinty's campaign?" asks their website, accompanied by a Say Anything–inspired pic of the premier (pictured at right). "Which lyrics do you think of when you see Liberal red? Their election campaign needs a theme song and here's your chance to play political......

Over the past month, Hillary Clinton has been on the hunt for a campaign song, with her "exploratory committee" website inviting her followers to vote on a winner. Finalists included born-and-bred American bands like U2 and Shania Twain, as well as tried-and-true musical legends like Smash Mouth. This morning, however, the winner was announced. And Hilary Clinton's 2008 campaign song is...that Céline Dion song from that Air Canada commercial! It's such a good song......