Silly buggers in Ottawa

Kind of like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Hopefully they will not turn this economic disaster into a who has a bigger dick power play.

Silly buggers indeed.

OTTAWA – The spectre of a spring federal election loomed larger Wednesday as Liberals and Conservatives reached an apparent impasse over a $3 billion fund aimed at quickly stimulating Canada's sputtering economy.

Liberal finance critic John McCallum said his party will propose a motion next week calling on the government to itemize precisely how the $3 billion will be spent.

The move followed Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's adamant assertion Tuesday that his party will not approve the fund without details.

Read more at thestar.com

Mayhem requires strong leaders. Where are our leaders?

Hard to stay positive when so many are losing their jobs. The litany of manufacturing jobs that are being eliminated in Ontario is huge; U.S. Steel idles their plants in Ontario, Chrysler lays off 1200, media jobs are disappearing across the country, A-channel, Torstar and Obama takes a beating on his budget from Rush (what an idiot), and where the hell is Harper with his stimulus package? Why is the money not flowing into concrete plans?

Is bailing out dying and unsustainable industries the smart way to go? What about Canada's investment in green. Dalton has talked about it and promised 50,000 green jobs but what is the rubber-hits-the-pavement plan?

Maybe Obama has the answer with trying to spend his way out this mess with investments in green energy, education and health care. Quite a risk but what else can you do.

Can you imagine a way out of this mess and how long will it take for any kind of recovery to kick in? My guess early 2011.

Well at least we have spring to look forward to.

Good day for riding although the rain was a bit intense

Loaded up the bikes today (first time using the bike carrier) and went for a nice ride at the Dundas Valley Conservation area on the rail trail bike path. This was our first time riding there and I must say it was fantastic. Heading west from the trail centre is a nice gentle uphill on fine crushed gravel - apparently you can ride all the way to Paris Ontario.

Today though we only went to the second road crossing (sulphur spring road I think) before we turned around for 2 reasons. 1) the Sprogs were whiny after 15 minutes and 2) a thunderstorm was threatening.

So we turned around and glided downhill back to the trail centre. Young sprog (age 6) and I kept riding for another km or so before the skies really opened up and we were royally drenched. The young one managed to fly uphill though especially considering he is a fairly tall lad on a 12 inch wheeled bike with no speeds. Pretty impressive.

I think maybe it is time to step up to a better bike - he took a spin on one of these today at Brant Cycle and his birthday is coming up so maybe the time has come to fork over the dough...

Why did it take so long

Just got wireless for the 4 year old laptop - why did I wait so long considering I am in the web world. Now I get to work out by the fish pond.

Nice baby really nice.

Summer winds down

The last full week of summer is fast approaching and fall is in the air. The early mornings are chilly and our big maple tree is even starting to turn red and lose its leaves.

Where does the time go.

Find your passion, easy to say, hard to do.

It may be trite and it may be a cliche.

This is the Carnegie Mellon Charge speaker Randy Pausch presenting his insights and wisdom to newly minted grads.

I like this line about finding your passion:

"You will not find that passion in things and you will not find that passion in money because the more things and money you have the more you will just look around and use that as the metric and there will always be someone with more."

UPDATE: Randy Pausch died in July 2008.

Flapping in the breeze!

Doing our bit sometimes means working harder. We have a corner lot in the burbs and we cut it with a reel mower. Takes a bit longer and is more excercise but it is worth it.

In the same realm of harder work is a clothes line. Ontario recently struck the bylaw that banned outdoor dryers off the law books which means that we can all hang our skivvies in clean fresh air and sunlight. Gives a whole new meaning to a good fence makes good neighbours.

So to celebrate the spring sun, new law and fresh breeze we sunk a cedar 4x4 into the ground this weekend and strung our very own Canadian Tire deluxe clothes line.

Very exciting. We'll see how long the excitement lasts - I give it a week of lugging wet laundry from the basement before the novelty wears off.

More bad news: Ontario sinks to "has been" status

Say it ain't so! Ontario has now officially slipped in to "poor cousin" status with federal equalization payments coming our way for the very first time.

The fingers are already pointing at Dalton McGuinty and his mishandling of the manufacturing meltdown. No easy answers but it did make me wonder (fear) what impact this will have on my industry (newspaper media) which is already staggering to its' knees from changing social habits and vanishing advertising.

Should be an interesting couple of years.

Catching up on all the news that's fit to barf.

Lots of negative news in the world these days. Ah happy spring. Where is the good news? Is there such a thing as good news?

Well here is at least one piece of good news.
Ontario pesticide ban looking like a go. And on first glance the ban looks pretty comprehensive. "Ontario's proposed ban on the sale and cosmetic use of pesticides will be the toughest in North America once it becomes law, supporters said Tuesday."

But really so what? We ban pesticides but will there be enough food?

Food prices soaring out of control. "we're plunging headlong into a world food crisis. Rocketing prices are squeezing billions and triggering food riots from Bangladesh to South Africa." Says avaaz.org

Apparently humans were almost extinct 70, 000 years ago.

Gas prices continue their upward trajectory like growing corn at a biofuel farm.

And the loss of high paying, once-secure manufacturing jobs at companies like GM continue to devastate Ontario's manufacturing sector. No wonder considering they still continue to build trucks and suvs that spit in the face (blow smoke up the arse maybe) of peak oil and pretend there is no environmental crisis. Come on people.

But at least the sun is shining today ;-)

First step in the Ontario pesticide ban

I was alerted via an email from Pesticide Action Burlington today that the Ontario Pesticide bylaw process has begun with a call to comment on what that bylaw may end up looking like.

Here is a snippet:

"In November 20, 2007, the government committed to a toxics reduction strategy to help protect Ontarians from potentially harmful environmental toxics. Further to this, the government has made a number of commitments with respect to the proposed ban on cosmetic uses of pesticides, including:

• “New legislation would also ban the cosmetic use of pesticides in our cities and towns.”
• “Legislation to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides to be introduced in the spring of 2008”.
• The ban would apply to cosmetic uses, such as “lawns, private gardens, parks and school yards” with a focus on “small towns and cities, not on restrictions for rural residents.”
• “Agriculture will be exempt. Ontario farmers already have stringent rules on the storage and application of pesticides.”
• “Golf courses will also be exempt but we would require golf courses to develop plans to limit the environmental impact of pesticides.”
• “We will also ensure that pesticides can still be used in situations where it is warranted to ensure public health (for example, to fight West Nile virus).”
• “The focus of our efforts will be on outreach and education on alternatives to pesticides on lawns. Enforcement will be a last resort.”

The government will look at other communities and jurisdictions, including Quebec, that have implemented bans on cosmetic uses of pesticides. Currently, the use of pesticides (including herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, or combinations of any of these) is restricted in a number of municipalities across Ontario. "

I urge anyone with an interest in this issue to follow the link, read the release and send a comment.

Airsick video from thestar.com

Oh and the Star also posted this great video called AirSick - my son loved it.



Here is the link to the video on youtube

Earth Hour: March 29, 2008, will it look the same as March 28?

The Toronto Star launched their coverage of Earth Hour over the weekend. thestar.com/earthhour has lots of great information and green living tips including a green life blog which has only one post so far but a lot of comments and ideas on being green.

My only observation so far - I hate the look of compact fluorescent bulbs - the light they give off is horrid. Are LEDs any better?

Burlington revisited.

As fall rolls along and work coagulates into one large boredom clot, I thought it would be fun to reflect on the past 2.5 years since we moved to Burlington and balance out the good, the bad and the ugly.

In that time there have been some good changes to the city.

• Ice rink opened downtown.
• Downtown waterfront pier started.
• Central Library re-opened.
• Commitment to build a McMaster Campus downtown.
• Commitment to passing a pesticide ban by-law.
• Mountain Equipment Co-op announces a new store for Burlington.
• GO transit starts refurbishing the Fairview station and opens a new rail line and introduces weekend service.
• Upper Brant (below Fairview) gets a make over.
  

The flip side to the above - some not so good developments for the city.

• McMaster campus blows off the downtown deal and looks for a place with a parking lot.
• Walmart wins at the OMB and plans to build close to downtown.
• Traffic continues to be snarled.
• The pesticide bylaw may take a while to enact
• Home prices run amok - so much so that we can not even afford Burlington anymore.
• Global warming and climate change news continues to dominate the media and Burlington's modest efforts to control carbon emissions will be a drop in the ocean.
  

Toronto's trees get a little help in fighting drought

Toronto's trees took a beating this past summer.

Youtube link.

Are we acceptable.

When Robert Frost was in his sixties he wrote, "I am no longer concerned with good and evil. What concerns me is whether my offering will be acceptable."

I wonder if our species' offering is acceptable?

Sometimes words fail me...

So the summer weather in October will be today's spokesman on the state of our planet's climate.

That and the freaky sunny thunderstorms and rain bursts.

That was just weird...

Mildly funny Green Party ad from Youtube

Slightly simplistic election video from the Green Party of Ontario vs the Grey Parties of Ontario. Parody of Mac/PC ads .

Using Ontario's power more wisely is not an option. Are people in Ontario, especially in the GTA, really committed to voluntarily reducing their energy consumption?

Pesticide presentation

Since this has now been publicly presented and distributed (and written about in the Burlington Post) I thought it would be fun to share the with a larger audience. You can read the entire presentation with notes in PDF format here.

Some highlights:

"We have to ask what is the City of Burlington waiting for? Where is our leadership and vision?

As you can see from the numbers on this slide (130 Canadian municipalities of which there are 25 Ontario Municipalities) there is a groundswell of smart, environmentally aware communities who are acting on the concerns from residents and recommendations from professionals like the Canadian Cancer Society, the Ontario College of Physicians and environmental lobby groups.

These municipalities are passing and enacting pesticide by-laws that protect the health and environment of their people. And today the city of Hamilton announced that a partial ban on lawn and garden pesticides will go into effect in Hamilton on Labour Day 2008.

It is important to remember that these communities are demonstrating environmental awareness and strong leadership. Where is Burlington’s leadership?

Anyone of us can search on the internet or in libraries for information that supports or denies the health effects of exposure to pesticides. Healthy and vigorous debate is an important part of the democratic process, but as more and more communities enact bylaws banning pesticides the tipping point of public pressure will only increase.

We urge you to take the time to absorb the information presented to you tonight and reflect on Mayor Jackson’s vision from the May 9 Burlington Post “My vision for Burlington’s future is one where we can live, work, and play in a clean and healthy environment.”

Finally as the great ad man David Ogilvy once said “Don't bunt. Aim out of the ballpark.”

Polar bears chat about the causes of global warming.

An entry in the Friends of the Earth green film competition.

Check out the link above to vote for your favourite.

2 worth reading

A couple of good reads from thestar.com today.

The first story is on how "Green" fuels are potentially worse for global warming.
snip
"Using biodiesel derived from rapeseed would produce between 1 and 1.7 times more greenhouse gas than using conventional diesel, the study estimated."
end snip

The second story is a good opinion piece by Kathleen O'Hara about our provincial leaders lack of leadership on green issues - Leaders fumble green ball

snip
"...we can't allow our energy future to be hijacked by profit-driven corporations the way the Internet was. "The great promise of the Net ... has been compromised, at every step of the way, by commercial interests determined to gain a foothold over the medium."

Yes, the world is getting off to a rocky start when it comes to "saving civilization." Here in Ontario, it doesn't look like any person or party is going to lead us out of the increasingly hot wilderness – no matter what the election outcome. That is a disgrace when so much is at stake."
end snip