Malaysia wants to treat bloggers like terrorists, particularly if they insult Islam or the king. Hey, did you know there's an election coming there?

Two Clinton-era national security officials argue that the CIA's paramilitary capabilities should be built up to carry out delicate work in places like, oh, say, Pakistan.

While walking along College St. one day, I gazed at the facade advertising a funky new condo development - N-Blox.

The building's design looked very cool, and when I got home, I went to the website to see how much it would cost to live the dream -- knowing full well that it would cost much, much more than I could afford.

I was thinking an entry-level condo there would be in the $400,000 range. I certainly don't know my real estate. It was $800,000 for 1,200 square feet. The most expensive suite was priced at $1.8 million.

However, I walked by again the other day, and the facade was gone. And the website is gone.

Whatever could it mean? Whatever it is, I hope it's not that Torontonians don't appreciate
progressive architecture and an urban lifestyle, or that there aren't enough discerning buyers in this town who planned to inhabit the space and call it home as they readied themselves to live large.

For that would be too sad to contemplate.

Addendum

This arrived by e-mail:

If one can believe the commentary at http://urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?t=669 the N-Blox development was over-priced relative to the trendiness factor of its neighbourhood ($700/sq.ft!!). Had it been proposed in, say, the residential streets of Yorkville, I don't think that would have been a problem.

Unfortunate, really, because Toronto must become less conservative in its residential architecture choices (all those vaguely neo-Tudor, neo-Georgian and helplessly suburban monster McMansions scattered all over the place--urghhh!).

I suppose part of this problem is that we North-Americans are trained from an early age not to observe the built environment around us and make choices, everything seems to be built by the "unseen hand" of the market and we acquiesce with the default result.

Dubya is trying to convince Americans that al Qaeda in Iraq and al Qaeda are the same organizations, and backing down in Iraq means another 9/11. I believe the saying is, "that dog won't hunt."

The Tyee's Tom Barrett on just how Chicago lawyer Hugh Totten got to be quoted so much during the Conrad Black trial.

Kevin Marsh, editor of the BBC College of Journalism, thinks the YouTube debate the Democrats held in conjunction with CNN did little to truly put the candidates on the spot, compared to a traditional 'big media' debate format.