Michael McQuilken, right, was 18 when he and his brother, Sean, 12, climbed California’s Moro Rock in 1975. The photo was used for years to warn about the dangers of pending lightning strikes. “We thought it was something funny.” But now, nearly 38 years later, McQuilken says he recalls that
Continue readingMorton's Musings: Inference in the absence of evidence an error
Drawing an inference in the absence of any direct evidence is a material error: 1250264 Ontario Inc. v. Pet Valu Canada Inc. 2013 ONCA 279, [2013] O.J. No. 2012, at para 7: [7] In my view, the motion judge erred in two material respects: drawing the inference in the absence
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The American Entitlement Paradox
It makes it easier to run a society when you can get the poor people to fight amongst themselves rather than organize against the real problem. Filed under: Politics Tagged: Class Warfare, funny-sad, US Society
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Ontario’s Speaker: the PCs are idiots
Well, he didn’t say that, but he may as well have. Despite Lisa MacLeod’s claims that her party had unearthed evidence that Ontario’s Speaker had been “bullied” – despite her claims that democracy itself was at risk – the Speaker took the extraordinary step of issuing a simple statement on
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Wait: I thought the Conservative Party supported the troops?
Remember that? That same old tired refrain has come from this party since in power – trying to hold a monopoly on patriotism. That includes such episodes as the Afghan detainees and whether Canada knowingly handed them back to the Afghan government to be tortured; all such queries were met
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Review: The Silence of Animals
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars In 1961 Martin Luther King Jr. told an audience on the New York University campus: “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; … Continue reading →
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: How Offshore Tax Havens Destroy Governments
Last fall, Greek magazine editor Kostas Vaxevanis published in his magazine Hot Doc a list of 2,000 wealthy Greeks who were hiding taxable savings in the Geneva branch of HSBC. The list had been furnished years earlier by the then French finance Minister Christine Lagarde to the Greek government, who did nothing
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Putting the ‘t’ in Church
Took kids to the Trinity church in #Boston. My son (w/ #autism) asks: 'Why is there a giant 't' up there?' He says the best things sometimes— Kathleen O'Grady (@kathleenogrady) July 31, 2013 Kids say the darnedest things. .@snolen @kathleenogrady The t in Church stands for "torture". #Christ— Saskboy K.
Continue readingknitnut.net: GC has been violating the neighbours
GC has been violating the neighbours this week. Four-Dog Neighbour Two doors down from me is a woman with four dogs. For three evenings last week, two dogs barked incessantly in her postage-stamp back yard. On the third evening I went over and talked to the dogs. They settled down,
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: A Question For Scarborough-Guildwood Candidate Ken Kirupa
Liberals fire back at Ken Kirupa & accuse him of “deliberately misleading” voters about living in Scarborough-Guildwood for “so many years”— Don Peat (@reporterdonpeat) July 30, 2013 Its been impossible to find a record of a K or a Ken Kirupa residing within the riding boundaries. The folks covering his
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Stephen Harper’s Desperate War with the White House
Well I never said the end of the Con regime would be pretty eh? But who knew it would be so humiliating? Such a crude awakening. Read more »
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Relative Costs #nlpoli
Leave entirely to one side the spectacle of the guy who gets paid as the consumer advocate sitting there on the CBC flailing his arms around explaining Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro’s latest rate request. Tom Johnson sounded like a Hydro spokesperson as he went on about things called “puts” and
Continue readingImpolitical: The Keystone jobs
I keep hearing people saying Obama still might approve Keystone. And who knows. But he’s sure not sounding like he’s going to do it at moments like this: If [Congressional Republicans have] got a better plan to create jobs rebuilding our infrastructure or to help workers earn the high-tech skills
Continue readingImpolitical: The Keystone jobs
I keep hearing people saying Obama still might approve Keystone. And who knows. But he’s sure not sounding like he’s going to do it at moments like this:
If [Congressional Republicans have] got a better plan to create jobs rebuilding our infrastructure or to help workers earn the high-tech skills they need, then they should offer up these ideas. But I’ve got to tell you, just gutting our environmental protection, that’s not a jobs plan. Gutting investments in education, that’s not a jobs plan. You know, they keep on talking about an oil pipeline coming down from Canada that’s estimated to create about 50 permanent jobs. That’s not a jobs plan.
That was a speech he gave yesterday. Obama gets the 50 number from a Cornell study that says this on job creation:
In this context, it is also important to consider that almost all of the jobs (direct, indirect
and induced) associated with Keystone XL will, of course, also be temporary. The operating
costs for KXL are very minimal, and based on the figures provided by TransCanada for the
Canadian section of the pipeline, the new permanent US pipeline jobs in the US number
as few as 50. The other operating expenditures (for materials, supplies, services, electric
power, property taxes, etc.) would comprise the bulk of operating expenses and would also
have some job impacts. So considering a broad range of spin-offs, operating expenditures
would have job impacts in the order of around 1,000 per year.It is unfortunate that the numbers generated by TransCanada, the industry, and the
Perryman study have been subject to so little scrutiny, because they clearly inflate the
projections for the numbers of direct, indirect, and long-term induced jobs that KXL might
expect to create. What is being offered by the proponents is advocacy to build support for
KXL, rather than serious research aimed to inform public debate and responsible decision
making. By repeating inflated numbers, the supporters of KXL approval are doing an
injustice to the American public in that expectations are raised for jobs that simply cannot be
met. These numbers—hundreds of thousands of jobs!—then get packaged as if KXL were a
major jobs program capable of registering some kind of significant impact on unemployment
levels and the overall economy. This is plainly untrue.
Current Canadian government advertising that can be seen on U.S. websites is touting 40,000 plus jobs that the pipeline will support during a two year construction period. More on that advertising, said to total about $16 million, here.
(h/t)
Continue readingImpolitical: The Keystone jobs
I keep hearing people saying Obama still might approve Keystone. And who knows. But he’s sure not sounding like he’s going to do it at moments like this: If [Congressional Republicans have] got a better plan to create jobs rebuilding our infrastructure or to help workers earn the high-tech skills
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: With Justin Trudeau, Canada now has two Conservative parties
With so many Canadians eagerly awaiting the end of the anti-democratic, unaccountable Harper regime, some seem to be inclined to support any alternative that may stand a chance for replacing the Cons in 2015, after the next federal election. But maybe we should take a pause to think this through
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Breaking: Premiers declare victory after national meeting
Tweet“Over the past few days at the annual Council of the Federation meeting, we made a great deal of progress on a number of critically important issues to Albertans,” said Premier Alison Redford in a July 26, 2013 media release. It would be surprising if Canada’s premiers did not claim
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Bradley Manning found not guilty of aiding the enemy, guilty of lesser charges
Military judge Colonel Denise Lind found whistleblower Bradley Manning not guilty of the serious charge of “aiding the enemy”, and guilty of lesser charges which still carry the possibility of over 100 years behind bars. The post Bradley Manning found not guilty of aiding the enemy, guilty of lesser charges
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Night Cat Blogging
Flattened cats.
Continue reading