Photo: untitled by Amy RL, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):

Missing a flight and having to sit around at Pearson airport for hours on end is rather painful. But a woman, about whom we know very little, was given bus fare and escorted out of the busy international airport after reportedly staying there for a whole month [City]. I guess she found it cheaper to live there than any hotel or hostel in the city.

Based on the massive number of images geotagged on Flickr, Toronto shutterbugs and photoblogging community has helped put our city on the list of "most photographed cities in the world" - joining the ranks of New York, Rome, Paris, etc. [NP] The National Post points readers to some of the most interesting photoblogs but is too web 1.0 to actually link to them. Why make us cut & paste 12 times?

A study by the University of Toronto (which included interviews with over 40,000 immigrant Canadians and their Canadian-born offspring) reveals that skin colour trumps religion and income when it comes to feeling of belonging [Star]. It also suggests that the darker the skin, the greater the feeling of alienation. What I find surprising as well is that second generation (Canadian-born) offspring of immigrants feel less a sense of belonging than their parents do.

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The new Ontario driver's license, which the government hopes will allow Ontarians to access the US without a passport, may pose a serious invasion of privacy risk. The RFID chip within it may be readable by those not intended to have access [CBC].

Our street food and vending laws are so ridiculously strict that construction in the Yonge and Dundas area has cost one well-known hot dog vendor to lose his permit [G&M]. There's so much red tape and regulation that he can't even move a few feet away and continue running his business.

Protests protesting protests are starting to occur. A small group of Pro-Sinhalese protesters hung banners on the DVP and even had a plane carrying a banner reading "Protect Canada! Stop the Tamil Tigers!" pass over Queen's Park yesterday [Sun]. And a group being rallied on Facebook plans to protest the protests on Saturday. I really (really) hope that we don't see any clashes as a result.