The Mayor of Toronto Canada ducked out on his regular Sunday radio appearance amid allegations he was videotaped smoking crack with drug dealers.

The video’s authenticity has not been established, however reporters for The Toronto Star newspaper and the website Gawker say they’ve seen it, and it appears to show a clear image of an incoherent Rob Ford smoking a glass pipe.  The people in possession of the video are shopping it around for  $200,000.  Gawker is trying to raise that money through crowd-sourcing.

Ford says the allegations are “ridiculous”.  And that failure to make a clear-cut denunciation has Toronto City Council members offering unsolicited advice.

“I think that the story needs to come out,” said Councilor josh Matlow, adding that “It's a shame that the mayor hasn’t confronted the allegations directly beyond a one-word answer and I think that for his own sake and for the city’s sake, we need to put this behind us.”

The episode has prompted major media sources to assemble the conservative mayor’s “greatest hits” (examples here and here) for readers outside Canada who may not have been familiar with one zany (and allegedly incompetent) civic leader.