Sunday 22 July 2012

Toronto Mayor's Solution to Guns and Gangs - Lower Taxes


You can't make up this stuff. An important plank in Mayor Rob Ford's solution to the city's gun violence is to lower taxes for businesses so companies can create jobs so that gang members can "get a job."

I naively thought that Ford could not surpise me any more. I was wrong. Click the link and read on.


Friday 20 July 2012

Stephen Harper: selling our (children's) birthright for a mess of pottage


This is scary. I never realised that the list was so long, or so serious, and I consider myself an informed person. The phrase, to sell your birthright for a mess of pottage, comes from a Bible story, Genesis 27:1–40
Dear Terence,
Harper's assaults on the environment.
There is no shortage of compelling issues to discuss in a Hill Times Environmental Policy briefing.  Even listing, without describing, the catalogue of assaults on environmental law and policy by the prime minister in the last 12 months is enough to occupy the whole issue.
Canada undermined global climate negotiations in Durban in December, negotiated in bad faith, and immediately announced intent to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol when the Environment Minister touched down on Canadian soil. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver kicked off the New Year with an assault on environmentalists and First Nations as “radicals.”  The Prime Minister attacked environmental groups for accepting foreign funding, even as he courted Communist Party controlled state operations from China as investors in the oil sands.  One Parliamentary Secretary said anyone opposed to pipelines and tankers was “against Canada.”  When asked to withdraw the remark as un-parliamentary, she refused.
The legislative juggernaut, C-38, repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, replacing a coherent piece of legislation with a discretionary formula for confusion, conflict and court cases.  The gutting of the Fisheries Act raised the ire of four former federal Ministers of Fisheries.  Environment Minister Peter Kent insulted the four former ministers, suggesting they had not read the Act.  Mulroney era Minister Tom Siddon showed up to testify before the sub-committee on Finance and in short order made it clear he may be the only Minister who has read the act.  While Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield tried to claim the new Fisheries Act will improve habitat protection, the assault to habitat is real, underscored by the subsequent lay-off notices to all DFO habitat officers in British Columbia. The National Round Table on the Environment and Economy is scrapped.  The Species at Risk Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act amended to allow the National Energy Board to assume jurisdiction of endangered species or navigable waters are in the way of any pipeline.
Basic science and monitoring is being savaged with the end of funding to the Canadian Foundation of Climate and Atmospheric Science, elimination of the Adaptation research group within Environment Canada, the cuts to ozone monitoring, the closure of the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, the sale of the 58 lakes in the globally unique Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora, Ontario, the elimination of the marine contaminants programme within DFO, the loss of scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice cores data (and the hope to find a university with a large fridge willing to take the 80,000 year ice core record Canada’s government no longer wants), the end of monitoring smoke stack emissions, cut backs in the Canada Oil and Gas research group in Halifax, and cuts at NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) resulting in the closing of the Yukon Research Lab at Yukon College in Whitehorse.
The thin end of the wedge of privatization has hit National Parks – first Jasper and then the hot springs at Banff, while cuts to ecological staff in the parks compelled former Deputy Minister Jacques Gerin to call on Harper to stop gutting National Parks.
It is a blitzkrieg of bad news as cut-backs and programme cancellation hit the core areas of federal responsibility to protect nature.  The multi-faceted assault has the effect of blinding media and the public to the largest threat.  In 2012, Canada still has no plan to address the threat of climate change.
While Stephen Harper has succeeded in dramatically reducing the Canadian media coverage of climate science through the muzzling of government scientists, the atmosphere does not seem to have gotten the memo.  Around the world, the force and frequency of severe weather events has woken up even the mainstream US media.  Fires, floods, tornadoes, heat waves are wreaking havoc on agriculture and running up the bills to the insurance industry.  The culprit for much of this year’s strange weather phenomenon is the rapidly warming Arctic.  As the Arctic warms the differential in temperature between the Arctic and the Equator becomes less pronounced. That causes the jet stream to lose its straight and fast course. (Francis, Vavrus study, Rutgers/Univ of Wisconsin). Slowing down, it has allowed large low pressure systems and high pressure systems to sit for far longer periods than normal in one place --  causing flooding in the low pressure zones and heat waves and fires in the high zones.
Loss of agriculture, losses to floods and fires also cost the economy, as well as human lives. Despite the Prime Minister’s attempts to destroy the collection of data, the evidence of the climate crisis is all around us.  We are sabotaging our children’s future – but what does it matter as long as the bitumen flows?
Elizabeth May
M.P. for Saanich-Gulf Islands
Leader of the Green Party of Canada

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Weather Opposites


The following is a recent facebook chat about the weather that I thought might be interesting for some. Temperatures are quoted in degrees Centigrade. I've always been fascinated with how difficult it is to recall the "feel" of the extreme temperature that is the opposite of what I am feeling at a moment in time. Joeys is Johannesburg.

Sunday 15 July
Terry - Canada
What a beautiful storm. Lots of rain and thunder; complete with birds singing afterwards. Well, blue jays squawking rather than cuckoos, but it still calls for Beethoven's 6th...

Cynthia - South Africa
Sounds good. We are freezing here in Joeys. 5 degrees outside.

Terry - Canada
I was speaking to my Aunty Bessie yesterday. At 96 she is really suffering with the cold and is afraid to use the heater too much because of the cost.

Alice - Canada
I would give anything for 5 degrees......ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!

Monday
Terry - Canada
Alice, your wish will be granted in January !

Tuesday
Peter - South Africa
I'm always careful of using the word "freezing" in the presence of Canadians and other far-northerners, but I did experience -3 in Oudtshoorn over the weekend. It was freezing.

Terry - Canada
Pete - you don't have to be overly cautious. Even in extreme cold we are still warm in our homes. I felt colder in my home in SA when the temp was +1 than at home in Canada when it's -20. However, I do feel sorry in the cold weather for people with outdoor occupations. It can be brutal with the wind and chill factor.

Wednesday

Peter - South Africa
Terry - you're right about feeling cold in our homes. Someone from England told me that it seems South Africans (try to) ignore the cold rather than accommodate it. I thinks that's because for 10 months of the year we're just right or else trying to cool down.
Yesterday at 02:47 · Like

Thursday
Terry - Canada
I don't know about elsewhere, but Canada seems to be at the other extreme. In the cold of winter it is not uncommon for homes to be heated to 23-24 deg. In the heat of summer homes are often cooled down to 18 deg. The big stores seem to be the worst offenders. That has to be a factor in Canada having one of the worst per capita rates for global warming CO2 emissions. See http://www.google.ca/publicdata.

Tuesday 10 July 2012

Overdue Family Update


When you wait too long to provide an update it gets difficult to choose what to share. Here goes, in the order that things come to my disorganised mind:

Judith. Don't even ask.
Judith 
Completed her second year at Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College.   She has one more academic year to do and then begin what is effectively her residency. Judith is still dating Mark "Dank" - they were going out already in high school. Her health is good and she is enjoying her role as aunty to Claire, Caitlyn and Jonty.





Judith, Mark Dank, Heather

Mark Dank
Supplementing his engineering skills with personal trainer qualifications Mark is more than the picture of health right now.


Caitlyn
Caitlyn Grace
Already two months old she is smiling and very engaging - a real cutie pie. She's been camping but still too small for a life jacket so no boating. Caitlyn looks so much like Geoff's sister.






Claire Abigail
Couldn't wait for Caitlyn to be born, Claire is proving to be a wonderful big sister. Also a big cutie pie, Claire's big news is that she has just turned two years old. A serious talker and singer who commands a captive audience in Oma and Grampa Mac with her already quite large repertoire of songs. She has just started at a new daycare centre within walking distance of home.
Claire and Jonty

Jonathan Tiago
Five months younger than Claire, Jonty is always a very busy little man with a whole world to explore every day. A happy, active boy, his ball skills would make his cricketing namesake proud. There is some room for improvement with catching but his throwing is truly awesome.

Ingrid
a.k.a Moed or Oma, she is totally besotted with Caitlyn, Jonty and Claire. Ingrid has also been a great source of strength to me through my recent surgery and recuperation. She joined Weight Watchers at the beginning of the year and has averaged a loss of a pound a week for the last twenty-five weeks. Ingrid is now looking for new clothes.

Miriam
On a year's maternity leave and enjoying motherhood, Miriam is taking delight in helping Claire and Caitlyn grow into little people with their own personalities.


Geoff and Claire
Geoff
Like Miriam, Geoff is taking huge delight in spending time with his two little girls, singing and playing with them, talking to them and making them laugh.






Caitlyn engaging Uncle Sean

Sean
Still working hard in the restaurant industry and in the throes of relocating where he stays, Sean totally enjoys his role as Uncle Sean. He took a rare weekend off to go camping with everyone a couple of weeks ago.




Luisa
Just recently returned to work after a year of maternity leave with Jonty, Luisa is as fit as a fiddle playing ultimate Frisbee every week. She is also putting in her share of effort with "the renovations".
Luisa, Mark, Jonty

Mark
"The renovations" are the main thing consuming Mark's energy at the moment. He and Luisa pulled down a shed and a small annex and are building an extension to their home. He still hopes that one day the Lions will make a Super 15 comeback.

Claire, Uncle Stephen, Jonty
Stephen
When his fiancée was assigned the residency of her first choice in Peterborough Stephen decided to resign from his job in Mississauga and move to Peterborough as well. He was fortunate to find an engineering job there without too much difficulty. Right now his emotional energy is focused on his coming marriage to...


Heather
Heather
Doctor McLaughlin is juggling the demands of her new residency program with the itsy bitsy details of her and Stephen's wedding in about four weeks time. I look forward to having Heather as my daughter in law.