National Post To Launch Video Game Site

It's rumored that one of the games is a virtual dunk tank where, for fifty cents, you can choose the NP columnist you hate most  and pitch virtual base-balls at a virtual target that, if struck, will send them splashing into a tank of virtual water.  

If so, Jon and Barb Kay are getting severely wet.  And maybe, just maybe, The Post will turn a profit.  

Rise Teenage Jesus...Or Fall!

WK says Justin Trudeau is going to run!  Great news?  Potentially.  If the guy can perform long-term.  But Justin's fucked a few things up in his time as MP, in ways that have made folks (me included) question his maturity and readiness. I won't get into specifics, but history may be repeating itself. WK says:

I am told the Trudeau campaign will make a point of insisting that all of the team (or its bosses) are under age 40. If accurate, that is the stupidest idea I have ever heard.

So the guy supposed to save the LPoC is going to, as his first act as a  leadership potential, step on a rake and smack himself in the head, according to WK.  Don't do it Justin!  And if you insist, Liberals should consider voting for The Spaceman.  Less hair, more gravitas.

Is Shale Gas The Future?

The dominant narrative re The Shale Gas Revolution is that natural gas can power Western Civilization for the next century if hippies and socialists don't get in the way.   However, lately a bit of a counter-narrative has got going, which suggests that, regardless of the possible environmental fallout associated with fracking and with continuing to burn any variety of fossil fuel, these original claims are overblown, perhaps wildly over blown, perhaps even bordering  on bullshit:

It is looking highly likely that once again the public will get the short end of the stick in a few years as the supply of gas from these shale formations runs out much faster than estimates, leaving the public with a large glut of natural gas fueled cars and trucks and natural gas fueling stations, all of which were built on the promise of 100+ years of supply at cheap prices and the dream of energy independence. As this surplus demand infrastructure is built out and as supplies run out quicker than expected, prices will naturally rise dramatically.

The production levels drop dramatically after the first 20 months on the majority of shale wells and a huge amount of wells have been drilled over the past 5 years so the ability to find high producing wells will diminish quickly and the ones that have already been drilled will be producing far lower supplies. The natural gas market should begin to feel this constraint over the next three to 12 months. Consumers will be stuck with natural gas cars that cost more to fuel than cars that take unleaded gas and they will be left with home heating bills that will be skyrocketing. Add to this the potential reduction in supplies from exporting liquid natural gas to foreign markets by 2015 and we could see a massive bull market in natural gas.

A little melodramatic?  Maybe.  But the problem--how quickly does the natural gas in a typical well run out--while just now coming to the attention of the wider public, has been the subject of debate within industry circles for a number of years.  From 2010:

 The US, Europe, and now China are making huge investments in switching from coal-fired power to gas-fired power, and if there isn’t enough gas at a low enough price, they have a problem.

For example, if the pessimists/exponentials are right, then the ultimately recovered gas reserves from, say, the Haynesville deposits in Louisiana and Texas could be closer to 2bn cu ft for the average well, rather than the 6 bcf some operators project. If so, then the wells on most of their land would need a gas price that is at least twice, and perhaps three times, what is on offer in the spot and futures markets.

 Unfortunately, the pessimists seem to be carrying the day.

The Shorter Kady O`Malley On Pierre Poutine And Andrew Prescott And The Tory Robocall Scandal

Pierre Poutine and Andrew Prescott both accessed Racknine from the same computer at Marty Burke`s campaign office within minutes of each other late, late one night (late several nights, really) back in 2011.  They either know one another or are the same person.

A New Poll From Forum

...who poll relentlessly, if not always accurately:

In a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll among 1,720 Canadians 18 years of age or older, one third would vote either for the federal NDP or the Conservatives (34% each) if an election were held today. Just fewer than one quarter would vote Liberal (22%). Results of the poll are considered accurate plus or minus 2.36%, 19 times out of 20.

That's it.  That's all there is.  Can't even find deets at the Forum website.

A Brief Note: Religion

The street preacher on the corner of Yonge and Dundas yesterday listed both the UFC and AC/DC as being among his "false gods".  He'll never attract anyone to his cause with an attitude like that.

This has been a brief note.

Antarctic Temperature Increases Caused By Urban Heat Island Effect?

It's tough being a climate change denier these days.  The original CRU Hack managed to spread a season's worth of FUD, true,  but since then every successive release of "damning" emails has got  less and less of a rise out of the MSM.  And no wonder.  Reading from  the latest batch, released to Chris Horner by the University of Arizona, is like going over someone's grocery list.  Scientific shop-talk is as boring as any other kind.  Apparently, even the pursuit of knowledge has its dull moments.

So there's been much desperate flailing about in the deniosphere.  And none  have flailed more than Tony Watts of the Watts Up With That "science" blog.  His recent paper turned out to be an unpublishable, error filled mess and, in general, he's been on a been on a downward spiral credibility-wise for a couple of years now.

Except that, this past weekend, Anthony Watts may have hit bottom.  In a rambling discussion of the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the fastest warming spots on the planet, Anthony puts forward the following thesis:

Regarding that rapid warming of 2C in the last 50 years, just remember that most weather stations in the Antarctic are near humanity, and humanity requires warmth to survive.

The Antarctic peninsula is the most populated place in Antarctica.

Well,  it turns out that Anthony has illustrated his theory  with a shot of the wrong side of Antarctica.  In fact, one of the (two) guys who was heating the peninsula from across the continent responded in Anthony's comments section:

I guess I owe the world a humble apology for personally contributing so much to the urban heat island in Antarctica, and hence to misinterpreted climate records.

The badly sited meteorological screen in your photo is at an Australian summer camp in the Northern Prince Charles Mountains, near Mt Jacklyn – in the background. Temperatures measured here were for local information of pilots and field parties only – it is useful to have an idea of how many layers of clothes to put on before exiting your Antarctic shelter. Temperatures here were only measured for less than 2 months over a couple of seasons and have NEVER been used for any climate record.

This photo was taken in the 1988/89 austral summer when I, and a colleague Andy, lived in the UNHEATED shelter nearest to the meteorological station. I didn’t realise that I was so hot that my body heat could influence temperatures measured on the Antarctic Peninsula, thousands of kilometres away. It must have been Andy!!!

But--trying to be serious a moment--if you click through the link Tony provides (at "most populated place") and you'll see that the great cities of the Antarctic Peninsula amount to a couple of hundred guys who mostly come by for the summer months and then leave.  But it gets harder and harder to be serious around Tony and WUWT.

Obvious Things That Are Don't Seem Obvious When You Are Young...

Everyone Knows Better Than to Party Naked in a Room Full of Strangers.

Bye Bye Arctic Sea Ice!

From here. The lowest level on record with a couple weeks left in the melt season.  More room to drill, I suppose.

A Day In The Life Of Ezra Levant...

...and the day is not yet over.  By the way, this is what he's talking about.  Ezra claimed the two lads were drunk and unruly.

The ROC Stands With B.C.

Respondents were given information about BC Premier Christy Clark’s conditions for supporting the Northern Gateway Pipeline.  The most contentious, that BC receives its fair share of tax revenue for the environmental risk it is taking, was told to respondents.  They were then asked which of two statements came closest to their view.

Overall, a large majority of Canadians surveyed (71%) believed that Christy Clark was right in her demand.  If B.C. is assuming most of the risk for oil spills and environmental damage, it should receive more of the economic benefit then it would currently receive.

A couple of things.  As has been pointed out elsewhere, Clark's demands never specifically mentioned a greater slice of royalties, although pipeline supporters have interpreted her words to imply this.  Canadians, though, understand the underlying issue: Alberta and the federal government are not offering enough.  If the pipeline is to go through, they will have to put more on the table.  Who owes and who is owed is clear enough.  Its up to Alberta and the feds to decide what currency they will use to pay.

Not that I think money is the be all and end all in the case of Northern Gateway.  But, if you were to consider things in purely financial terms, it is clear that B.C.ers are owed the courtesy of a serious offer.  They have not received one as of yet.

Thar She Blos...Again!

Another Alberta pipeline springs a leak:


The clean-up is underway south of Edmonton after a pipeline leak on Tuesday afternoon. It happened  about 10 kilometres east of Red Deer on a line owned by Penn West Exploration.

The company says there was a drop in pressure in a produced water injection line. Employees found the spill in a canola field.  

The Penn West rep makes "produced water" sound like no big deal.  Wikipedia begs to differ.  Definitely not something you want on your Canola.

An Interesting Poll

...which might go some way to explaining  why Mr. Hudak is ready to support the McGuinty Libs over imposing new contracts on Ontario teachers:

Of decided voters, 34.7 percent said they would vote for the Progressive Conservatives while 34 per cent said they would vote Liberal — results well within the margin or error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Most previous surveys have shown the PCPO up by seven or eight.

Mann Vs. Steyn, Part II

An update on the unfolding defamation suit climate pitting climate scientist Michael Mann against  Mark Steyn and The National Review.  The NR has offered its response to Mann's contentions here.  It will fight, and not retract nor remove the post in question.  Obviously, IANAL, and U.S. defamation laws make it a tough slog for Mr. Mann.  However, I would note this passage from the document:

Frankly, I know of nowhere that a reader, be they careful or careless, could interpret the term "fraudulent" when applied to a scientist's work as implying anything less than that they were guilty of scientific misconduct (the kind of thing they discuss here) or straight out fraud.  I am unaware of any place the term has been used  merely to state that the scientist's work is incorrect.  This is quite a bit different than the situation with "blackmail", where there is an established colloquial sense that is weaker than the more precise legal sense (the colloquial sense does not entail criminality where the more legal sense does).

But as I say take this for what you will.  IANAL.

PS. I'm not sure why the usual suspects think Mann would fear the discovery phase.  I think Steyn's emails would be far more revealing.

LPoC "Supporters"

Didn't donate, merely agreed to receive party junk mails.  Will almost certainly disappear around convention time.  Why this is a reason for smiles escapes me.

I used to worry about supporters "hijacking" the party.  Now I'm more worried they won't materialize in any way shape or form, and the LPoC will left holding an empty bag.

Conrad Black Wants You To Know He Loves Kittens

Clearly, he is bent on Evil.

Incidentally, have any of my readers actually eaten kitten?  If so--how is it?  I've heard its like a cross between Unicorn and Elf.  If so...UMMMM!

Meet Meir's Warriors

How can these JDLers possibly be extremists?  They're so damn cute!

From yesterday's Al-Quds Day Toronto rally.  No word on whether the Jewish bike gang showed up.

Updated from here.

PS.  It's weird how both the guy at the far end and the guy at the near end look like John Goodman.  Has the JDL got hold of cloning technology?

Oh Dear Meir Weinstein!

First substantive story of out today's Al-Quds Day T.O. event:

A verbal spat between a man and a woman resulted in her asking him: “Would you like to kill all the Muslims in the world?” to which he replied “100%.”

When asked about the exchanged words, JDL spokesman Meir Weinstein said “some studies have shown 10% of Muslims support terrorist groups.”

At first glance this suggests that one of the JDL folks went "off message".  Presumably, in the hours and days to follow, Meir will explain at greater length.

Update: In the comments Meir writes:

I have no idea who these 2 people are. Never seen them or witnessed any of there yelling match.

Postmedia Exits The Propertied Class, Rents Space In Soulless Skyscraper

The National Post's new digs will be 365 Bloor Street East.   The canada.com puff-piece says:

The company has signed a 15-year lease to occupy “several” floors of the 19-storey office building at the Bloor Street East and Sherbourne intersection. The area is dotted with many of Canada’s top media and advertising companies and is the country’s most high-end retail strip.

You know, though, when I look at the area on Street-view I see two pharmacies, a Swiss Chalet, and a McDs.  But whatever.  Apparently there's a paint-ball facility in the building somewhere, and on the upper floors a radical mosque that calls everyone to prayer nine times a day through loudspeakers drilled into the side of the facade itself.  Presumably, Postmedia will want those removed when they "re-brand" the site. Good luck with that.   I am also told that the building will be renamed the Lookout Below Tower, in honor of Postmedia's stock price.

If Colby Cosh Shaved He Could Probably Find A Real Job

Blogger and BCL gal-pal Lisa Kirbie breaks some honest to gawd news, and Colby Cosh, the Werewolf Of Northern Alberta, trashes her for it.  This is twice we've seen this kind of sour grapes in the past week, the other incident being  David Akin from The Sun using research compiled by The Sixth Estate and then complaining about the latter's lack of credibility.  Akin.  From The Sun.  Giving lectures on credibility.  Like the captain of the Titanic giving lessons on boating safety.

As for Colby, establishing Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's Canadian connection should have been a job for real reporters.  These days, apparently, it must be done by bloggers because the journo community is too busy yukking it up on twitter.

PS.  Lisa, if you want me to drive out to Lethbridge and smack this guy, I'd be happy to.

Denier Comes To T.O., Denies

Susan Crockford tells Sun News that polar bears are doing A-OK.  But Susan Crockford gets paid $750 a month from the Heartland Institute to say such things.  And she's been brought to town by, among others, Tom Harris and ICSC.  In any case, her thing is dog evolution, not bears.  So we can assume she's bullshitting.

Thank god her only MSM platform is Fox News North, who I think have outdone themselves for the sheer number of typos per 100 words in the text article that accompanies Ezra's Hour of Blither.

Steyn Makes More Trouble For Macleans

Caol Waino's on-line sleuthery  is noticed by J-Source.  My favorite bit from their short article:

(When contacted by J-Source for comment on the story, Maclean's declined)

This isn't the first time Mark has brought shame to the magazine of choice of Canadian dentists--I mean it has to be, right?  Its all I can ever find to read in their waiting rooms.  Back in 2010, Steyn wrote an article for them that attributed comments from an item in the Mississauga News to the Canadian Jewish Congress.  Legal letters soon followed, and  a grovelling apology from the Macleans editorial staff.  Steyn disappeared from their pages for over a year after that, though nobody involved has ever made a specific connection between the two events. 

In Canada, Abortion Could Become Illegal Again As Soon As This Fall

So say Canada's doctors, and who am I to argue?


Canada’s doctors have sternly rejected what they see as a stealth attempt to recriminalize abortion.

At the general council meeting of the Canadian Medical Association on Wednesday, delegates called on the federal government to reject attempts by a Conservative backbench MP to amend the Criminal Code so that a fetus is defined as a human being

“This constitutes the criminalization of abortion or any form of contraception,” said Dr. Geneviève Desbiens, a urologist from Valleyfield, Que.

“This change could even prevent a pregnant woman from travelling or taking certain drug treatments,” she said.

Of course this attempt will fail, because the Harper government cannot afford electorally to have it succeed.  The point for progressives will be to see that it fails in the most humiliating manner possible.  Let Harper confidants be forced to trash their own pro-life MPs in public.  Let Canadian pro-lifers  gnash their teeth once again and contemplate a vote for some crazy fringe party, as they always do when one of these bills appears, only to go down in flames.  

At the end of the day the status quo will prevail.

Congrats Dr. Dawg

The Fourniers pay up, and his defamation case against various FreeD denizens slowly proceeds.  Mark Fournier says:

We are getting our ducks in a row and expect to have a stellar cast of experts lined up on court day.

Love to know who those people are.  The pool of folks who can argue the state of Internet defamation law in Canada is pretty small, and I'll just note that nobody on the Fournier's side has attempted to contact me in this regard.  Also, if you want to argue that the state of the law on-line is anarchy--which is what the Fournier's legal situation requires--how can you at the same time claim expertise on the topic?

I Think We Can See Where The Problem Lies

From here.

Plagiarism And Mark Steyn

My gal-pal Carol is being hard on Mark Steyn for his incessant self-recycling here.

...when apprised of Steyn’s duplication and errors, editors at Maclean’s did nothing. What does this say about standards at Canada’s national news magazine versus those in leading U.S. publications? Why are fabricated musings about Dylan’s creative juices enough to pull Lehrer’s book from the shelves, while false, inflammatory statistics (which could have an impact on gays and Muslims) are left to stand without correction?

Mind you, self copping is not as bad as ripping off another writer.  You invent a joke, you should be able to tell it as often as you want.  Still, Steyn readers may not know how many times he's used all those lines before.

If You Feel Like Sitemeter Is Letting You Down

You're not the only one.  Its been screwed up for a week.  Apparently, they're moving to new servers.  Unfortunately, though, it looks like some of the data may be gone permanently.

Glacier Collapse In Jasper National Park

Global warming comes to Jasper National Park?

The circled area shows the bit that fell off.  Turns out this post from yesterday was correct, but named the wrong glacier.   From CTV:

Parks Canada said a large amount of glacial ice fell from the side of Mt. Edith Cavell and into a pond at the base of the mountain early Friday morning.

The pond overflowed and flooded the upper parking lots, outhouses, trails, roads and a picnic area.

[...]

Parks Canada says “unusual weather conditions have resulted in several uncommon natural events in Jasper this summer.”

Including this week's mudslide, apparently.

Bye Bye Angel Glacier?

Angel Glacier is a glacier in Jasper National Park.  As noted in the wikipedia article, like so many Canadian glaciers  it was much larger once, but has been melting furiously under the onslaught of global warming.  According to this fellow on twitter, a large chunk of it might just have collapsed:

There appears to have been some damage to the park facilities:

The glacier is so-named because it seems to consist of a pair of swept out wings.  What seems to have happened (if this account is accurate) is a chunk of one of them fell into a nearby lake and kicked up a wave big enough wash over an activity area.  And this kind of thing is not unheard of.  The largest tsunami ever recorded  occurred at Lituya Bay, Alaska in 1958 when an earthquake dropped a huge chunk of rock into the water.

The Beginning Of The End Of The Harper Majority?

The new job numbers are out...

...and they are crap, and all signs say they'll likely remain crap well into next year, and perhaps linger persistently crappy for several years afterwards.  All hail our new Socialist overlords!  Note to Tom Mulcair: get me a Senate appointment and I'm yours.  These liberals have been a total disappointment.

N.W.T Premier Walks It Back

He wasn't announcing his support for the Northern Gateway pipe-line.  Oh noooo, he wasn't talking about that at all:

The Northern route [Premier Bob] McLeod had been talking about for oil and gas had to do with the Mackenzie Gas Project, and he based that solution on the territory's resources not being able to flow south.

I wonder why the sudden need for clarification.

BCL On Coren's Show

Here it is:



Not bad.  I'd like the last couple of minutes back.  Essentially, the point is that people say fight speech with more speech, but then you spend all your time in a back & forth with the Zundels of the world when there are  more soul-nourishing topics to debate.  Sunlight, they say, is the best disinfectant, but on the other hand disinfectant is what you use to clean under the sink or behind the fridge, which means that public discourse becomes the equivalent of cleaning up the crud.  As a society, there's better ways to employ our time.

PS. The lads from ARC watched, and commented thusly.

NDP Convention Hijacking Incident: Time To Call Bullshit

The source of the cyber attack that disrupted voting at the NDP's leadership convention in March remains a mystery, and further investigation to find out who was responsible has been dropped.

[...]

Scytl was able to determine that approximately 10,000 IP addresses were used in the attack and that each computer launched up to 1,000 requests per minute to the voting server. An IP address is a number assigned to an internet connection.

Let us review.  And I should say that I've read these numbers I've going to give you in various places, and I was physically there at the convention, but I'm not going to bother to find the old stories and link to them.

So:

--Total votes for the NDP first round of voting was about 60,000, of which about 50,000 had been cast before the convention.  That's about half the number originally expected.   And I remember, coming into the convention center,  a couple of NDPers talking in  line in front of me.  "Are you persuadable?" one asked, and the other responded yes, but that they already cast their preferential ballot.  In the end, about 1,500 of the 4,500 NDPers present were casting ballots on the floor, and therefore could actually switch their vote.  I think it was Andrew Coyne who pointed out that, given the math, the convention itself was superfluous.  Mulcair would have won on the basis of the preferential ballots alone and nothing that happened on the floor or on-line made a lick of difference.

--In any case, that means that on-line vote was a pathetic < 10,000 (rather than the 60,000 expected).  Its worth noting that one of the sadder rumors NDP ops tried to spread on the morning of day two was that there would be  a "West Coast Wave"--a swath of BC voters   who were just getting up  and who would  bump up the on-line numbers in subsequent rounds of voting.  The wave, needless to say, did not materialize.  There's a message to the LPoC in this.  There is no reason to expect that the Liberal on-line contingent will show up to vote in any greater numbers than the NDP gang did.

So the upshot is that a cyber-attack would have involved about 1 1/2 rogue computers for every NDP voter, which would clearly have been overkill, and pointless anyway.  After all, a DOS attack could only slow down the proceedings.  It wasn't like the NDP was going to give up and go home.  And, if you had been there, you would have read all sorts of twitter complaints about the voting situation during the course of the convention's second day.  The standard bit of advice was: clear you cache and try again.  Until I see something a bit more substantive in the way of analysis from Scytl Canada, I am going to assume that this was just a bung-up and not an attempt to derail democracy.

Moving Along With Sun TV

Last night, after watching my wife toy with a hapless life insurance salesman for several hours, I found myself too tired to check my email.  So this morning I find that who but Sun TV has left a message asking me if I'd guest on Coren's show today and talk about the state of the White Supremacist movement in Canada (riffing on the Wisconsin killings, obviously)?  That interview will air at eight tonight; I'll post the youtube clip when it becomes available.

It went well enough.  Coren slightly left-footed me towards the end when he asked me straight out why Holocaust Denial should be illegal, and I muttered something  about "standards of discourse".  However, I did manage to get in a shot at the federal government for not moving to beef up C-319 of the criminal code (as they have promised to do) after repealing section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.  And I was quite happy with my hair, which achieved today its slightly dishevelled,  "got this sexxxy by accident, and if it were any sexxxier the other guys wouldn't have a chance" look.  As for the crummy picture below (shot on a cheap tablet), that's what's outside of the Sun TV building--an application to put up condos on the site.  Given what's happening with Postmedia, its enough to make you go hmmmm.

PS.  Ran into Kathy Shaidle on the way out.  She didn't recognize me, I don't think, but I got a small sample of her hair for the database when she wasn't looking.  It might turn out to be useful in oppressing her come the Day of The Great Freedom Oppressing.  I'll just say that Five Foot is looking the best I've seen her, is even approaching the outskirts of the city known as Hot.

Nuze Flash: Fox News North Luzes Less!

From Canadian Business:

Operating income in TVA's television sector fell to $17 million due to a loss at the new TVA Sports service, partially offset by higher operating income at other French-language specialty services and a smaller loss at the Sun News channel.

From their news release, I gather they found a couple of saps willing to pay a subscription fee for the "service".

I Kid You Not

Ezra Levant, a pro-Green columnist for the Left-leaning Toronto Sun, said, “this pirate is pathetic. Paul Watson is a criminal who has embraced his darker side and needs to be prosecuted.”

Its from the Dallas Blog.  Things are different down in Texas.

The Medieval Warm Period And Other Sciency Stuff

Potholer has a nice video discussing the reality of the Medieval Warm Period (it probably was) and its significance to the AGW debate (probably not much).  Also some nice stuff on the way various deniers have fiddled with graphs and charts in an effort to "break" the hockey stick:

Just the thing for a sunny Saturday morning.

CIJA On Bill C-31: Disagreeing Without Being Disagreeable?

I wrote not too long ago about CIJA's (The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs)  meager response to Bill C-31.   Now The Centre has issued a meatier statement on the legislation.  While its tenor of the backgrounder is, in general,  kissy-assy towards the Harper government,  in the end it concludes:

...there are certain areas where small but significant improvements should be considered by the government:

Clear provisions should be included for how a designated country could be removed from the DCO list should the situation there warrant a re-evaluation;

In our view, DCO refugee applicants should have access to the same health coverage as non-DCO claimants, especially in light of the potential cost savings derived from the shortened processing time established by Bill C-31.

Care should be taken to avoid separating families that are part of an irregular arrival, particularly those with children under 16 who might not be detained with their parents. Once an irregular arrival claimant’s identity and status have been confirmed and they have been concretely determined to be a legitimate refugee, they should be treated the same as all other successful refugee claimants and not subjected to a five year waiting period before they can sponsor their families to join them.

Tone aside, as far as I can tell this puts CIJA more or less on the same page as The Toronto Board of Rabbis, Elie Wiesel , and other critics of the legislation within the Canadian Jewish community.  Certainly in regards to the health coverage enjoyed DCO refugee claimants.  On the topic of claimants from DCO nations that are safe for their majority populations, but unsafe for certain minority groups within the country (example: the Roma in Hungary), CIJA takes a somewhat weaker position, asking for clarification of what needs to happen for a state to move from the DCO to non-DCO list.  And I haven't hear anyone else object to the five year waiting period (although that may be because I haven't paid sufficient attention). 


Still waiting for BB to chime in.  They have remained notably silent over the past month or so.

How Enbridge Fixes An Exposed Pipe

..in Rouge Park:

The pipe is part of a line that was built in the mid 1970s, but in 2009 the river bank started to erode, shifting the water's edge and leaving the pipe exposed.

This exposed pipeline in Toronto's Rouge Park has been causing concerns for at least one environmentalist. Enbridge, which has had highly-publicized spills in Wisconsin and Michigan, had responded to the problem by placing concrete blocks around the pipe as temporary protection.

But, naturally enough, the pesky environmentalist wasn't satisfied, so:

...Enbridge spokesman Todd Nogier said the company has developed a cover that satisfies the regional conservation authority that oversees the park.

"We've been working with the authority to come up with a solution … something that blends in a little bit with the surroundings and something that they felt was not obtrusive," he said.

Nogier said work will begin soon and they hope to have a cover in place in a couple of months.

A few take-away points:

1) there's been a problem since 2009, but Enbridge did nothing until someone complained.

2) In response to that complaint, they did a shitty job.

3) In response to a complaint about their shitty job, they have promised to do a better job in "a couple of months".

4) This is their response to a problem in a populated area, with tons of media around to keep an eye on them.

Northern Gateway Pot Pourri

Two new polls shows overwhelming opposition to Northern Gateway in B.C.  One of them suggests that a good portion of BCers are willing to negotiate a better deal with Alberta and the feds; the other suggests that Christy Clark's new harder line against the pipeline hasn't helped her electorally.  So, apparently, she has turned to God.  Meanwhile, senior BC Conservative cabinet minister James Moore has gone rogue, or maybe been cleared to express a dissenting opinion.  He says is all down to Enbridge, so if the project goes TU you know who the Tories plan to blame.  Meanwhile, Ft St James says no thanks; that's six B.C. communities  that have decided to take a stand against the pipeline.

So there you have it.

Chick-Fil-A Rebellion!

Wow!  Pictures don't lie!  From on-line reports, I'm seeing literally dozens of almost entirely old white folk supporting a restaurant that would jail homosexuals.  As a Liberal, I am feeling so scared right now!  And remember, gay people, if you're ever confronted by Chickinistas, you may not be able to hide, but you sure can run, because I doubt any of these people can crack 3 MPH even with the aid of an atomic walker.  Except the gal in the middle and lets face it  I doubt she's good navigating sharp corners.

Wind Concerns Ontario Speaks Out On Death Threats

I have received the following message (reproduced below in its entirety) from the WCO's current president Jane Wilson re the recent threats directed against wind turbine worker Jeff Damen:

WIND CONCERNS ONTARIO DEPLORES THREAT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WIND COMPANY EMPLOYEE


August 1, 2012
For immediate release

The executive and members of Wind Concerns Ontario were very disturbed by the report of an alleged threat against a wind power developer employee, and are gratified that police are now investigating the incident.

It is our view that even a threat of violence in any form is completely unacceptable and in fact, counter-productive to our objectives. 

Wind Concerns Ontario does not support or condone any action other than calm discussion of the serious issues before us.

Our continuing objective is to make known the facts of large-scale wind power generation when it is placed far too close to people's homes, as is being done in Ontario. 

Jane Wilson
President, Wind Concerns Ontario
Ottawa, Ontario 

Anti-Wind Groups Should Renounce Violence

This story is most disturbing:

West Grey Police are investigating alleged threats against a worker, who says he had a shotgun pulled on him while working on a wind turbine site northeast of London, Ont.

Police are also investigating threatening phone calls the man says he received.

Jeff Damen was doing preliminary work at the site of a proposed wind farm in the community of West Grey, near London last week when he says a red pickup truck pulled alongside his vehicle and the driver asked what he was doing.

After Damen explained the work he was doing, the driver pulled out a gun, Damen said.

One particularly disturbing part of it was this statement from Bill Palmer, referred to here as an "activist with  Wind Concerns Ontario":

Bill Palmer opposes wind farms and claims the province refuses to listen to health and safety concerns. So he's not surprised tempers are flaring over wind farms.

"That's unfortunate. I mean I hate to see that happen, but it's what happens when you divide society," Palmer said.

I would hate to think that the anti-wind people really think the problem is some poor local fellow  trying to do his job.  I suppose Mr. Palmer would prefer Mr. Damen stop everything and join the ranks of the unemployed.  In any case, I have emailed a few of the principles in the Ontario anti-wind movement to get their take on the story and Mr. Palmer's statement.  Ex Wind Concerns Ontario President  John LaForet  has already answered as follows:

"Those that seek to use violence to further political or policy objectives are a threat to everyone in our society and there can be zero tolerance for such behaviour.

My sincere hope is the police take this investigation seriously so that all Ontarians can be assured those who rely on death threats and violence as means to further their viewpoint will be held accountable."

...and John promises a fuller response later in his Huffpo Canada column.

Unfortunately, John no longer speaks for WCO.  I've emailed the addresses on their website, once last evening and once this morning, but they have not yet replied. If I can find a working address for Mr. Palmer, I'll email him as well to see if he really wants to stand by that quote.