Take Me to Your Leader

Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman predicts a surge in births nine months after the blackout in Canada's largest city and advises citizens against using candles for any get-togethers in the dark. Lastman asked people to conserve energy, but lamented that it would "hurt my son's business." (His son runs the retail appliance business built up by his father.) The millionaire mayor, criticized for being slow to appear during this crisis and for a lack of leadership when the SARS virus hit Toronto, has his own way of handling things. He once threatened to kill a reporter, implored the Spice Girls to stay together and called in the army to help dig the city out of a snowstorm, outraging the rest of snowbound Canada. Go Mel.