Who Said It First

The echo chamber of the Blogging Tories, the National Post and the New Canadian Government, having all the Alberta MP's , have now gotten through to their pals in the Media Room of Premier Ed Stelmachs office. Which prompted his latest Klein like outburst.

But before Mark Holland of the Liberals said anything about the need to slow down tarsands development this guy said it first, and not a peep, nary a word, not a comment from the BT's or the Harpocrites, heck not a word from Fast Eddie either.......


Former premier, Peter Lougheed criticizes oil sands development

CALGARY, Jan. 24 /CNW/ -The next episode of Energy-TV includes a candid
interview with former premier, Peter Lougheed following his keynote address at
the Oil Sands Supply & Infrastructure conference in Calgary. Lougheed
delivered a speech that was critical of both the petroleum industry and the
provincial government's management of oil sands development.
In an exclusive Energy-TV interview, Lougheed bluntly discusses his
concerns about the rapid oil sands development including a call for a review
of the capital expenditure aspect of oil sands projects and how the rising
cost overruns are impacting the royalties collected from oil sands reserves.
He also examines alternatives for cleaner oil sands development, such as not
using natural gas for bitumen production, alternative energy sources and his
views on fresh water use.

Former premier says bitumen should stay in Alberta

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Lougheed told delegates at an energy conference in Calgary on Tuesday that the provincial government should firmly link the licensing of new projects to the processing of bitumen at home.

"I just find it completely unacceptable that our resource involves shipping jobs down the pipeline with bitumen to the United States."

Lougheed, the keynote speaker at the two-day Oilsands Supply and Infrastructure conference at the Hyatt Regency, said shipping bitumen south is a temporary solution in an overheating economy, but it shouldn't be part of the long-term plan.

Note the dates, and this is not the first time Lougheed has said this......

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Shower With A Friend

That is Alberta Preimer "Fast" Eddie Stelmach's suggestion to Albertans. Big Oil is not responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, no siree, its you and me he says.

Stelmach promised that his government will set mandatory emissions intensity targets this spring, but he suggested individual Albertans can help by conserving electricity and hot water.

And of course following that logic we all use much more water than the TarSands do, NOT, so we should all shower with a friend to help save Alberta's water. Can you spell goof; EDDIE.

The premier said it's wrong to place all the blame for greenhouse gases on the energy sector.

"The energy sector is number 1 (in emissions), but of course every time you put on your lights in the house or turn on your TV, you're using electrical energy," said Stelmach.

"So it's going to require all Albertans working toward one common goal."

In dry Alberta, conflict over water has been going on for years, fuelled by an industry that, it's estimated, requires between two and 4.5 barrels of H2O to produce a single barrel of crude. Moreover, while Canada boasts 20% of the world's freshwater, Alberta gets by with only 2.2%.

As I said here before when Conservatives accept the need to do something about Global Warming they will say it is an individual problem, not a problem of capitalism.

The reason for the outburst is Fast Eddie is all upset over comments made by the Liberals but was deafeningly silent over threats from his pals in the New Conservative Government of Canada to introduce a new NEP.

And Eddie claims voluntary caps are working!! Funny that's not what Harper and Baird say.

But Mr. Baird did say something of great note, something that those in the business community, especially oil and gas, have been lobbying successfully against for 15 years. Said Mr. Baird: "Voluntary compliance is not enough. We actually have to regulate. Those regulations have to be enforceable." And, he said, these regulations will be tougher than anything the Liberals ever proposed.

Someone should get the Federal and Provincial Tories on the same messaging page.

Oh wait they are, the Feds want to cap "emmision intensities", which will NOT result in a decrease in Greenhouse gases as Alberta has already shown.

And Fast Eddie needs his newly appointed Tory Media hacks to properly brief him, they are no longer working for the Sun.....

Stelmach also threw out some figures Monday suggesting Alberta has taken a leading role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"Alberta is the only province on record that has actually reduced CO2 emissions by 16 per cent," he said.

But the premier later conceded he was talking about so-called emissions intensity, which is a measurement against the growth in industrial production rather than a total measurement of what's coming out of the smoke stack. If a company increases emissions at a slower rate than it increases production, then emissions intensity is reduced even though absolute emissions have increased.

An Alberta Environment official later confirmed that total emissions have increased by 40 per cent since 1990, but emissions intensity is down by 16 per cent over the same period.

Ouch!!!

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Bye Bye May, Hello Dion

MP Garth Turner joining Liberal caucus: CTV

I guess this answers which is greener, since the Greens sucked up to Garth and Garth sucked up to the Greens, and despite the opportunity to make history and give the Greens their first seat in Parliament Garth goes Liberal.

So does that mean Dion is greener than May?

It just goes to show despite Garths blather on importance of independent MP's he succumed to good old fashioned political opportunism.

And for those who think there is a difference between Conservatives and Liberals, well Garth proves it just ain't so.

Though one does wonder what the Liberals will do with Garth since he supports Income Trusts and Income Splitting. The liberals support the former and the Conservatives suppor the latter.

This is truly a marriage of convinence, it gets the Liberals a seat back, but the balance of power remains in the NDP hands.

Garth had an opportunity to do something historic and he blew it by just being opportunistic.


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Man Made Volcano

As if Indonesia did not have enough environmental problems; 340000 flee deadly floods in Jakarta, now we find out that the mud spewing volcano that erupted last year is a man-made phenomena.

The Indonesian volcano, known as Lusi, has been spewing steaming mud since May last year, causing 13,000 people to flee their homes (Image: University of Durham)

Drilling for gas most probably caused the eruption of an Indonesian mud volcano, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people, scientists report.

"[The eruption] appears to have been triggered by drilling of over-pressured porous and permeable limestones at depth of around 2830 metres below the surface," says the study, the first published on what caused the eruption.

The study, which appears in the February issue of the journal GSA Today, adds that the volcano has been disgorging 7000-150,000 cubic metres of mud every day since it erupted in May last year.

Such pressures, coupled to the local geology, suggest the flow "will continue for many months and possibly years to come", warn the UK researchers, led by Professor Richard Davies from the University of Durham.

In the coming months, sag-like subsidence several kilometres wide will occur, and around the main vent there is likely to be "more dramatic collapse", forming a crater, the study adds.

An area of at least 10 square kilometres around the volcano will be uninhabitable for years, and over 11,000 people will be permanently displaced, it says.

Add to that the wildfires started by slash and burn operations for palm oil plantations and the continuing disruption and displacement from the 2004 Tsunami and Indonesia is an ongoing environmental disaster.

But do plan to take your holidays there, I hear it is quite nice otherwise.

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Environment Minister MIA

I am having a flashback.

The new Conservative Environment Minister has become just like the old Environment Minister.

John Baird has bowed out of appearing before the Parliamentary Environment Committee, twice now, reports CBC reporter Julie Van Dusen on Newsworlds QP.

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Jack Alliterates

Jack Layton on the partisan politics in parliament around the environment bill C-30.

"We have ditherer's, deniers and delayers"




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Crack The Whip

Tonights vote in Parliament on the Liberals Kyoto motion will be whipped for the Tories says Don Newman on CBC. Yep them Tories who promised free votes in the House. And that they would only whip votes on fiscal bills. Another broken promise. No wait, they already broke that one.

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Polyandry And Butterflies

This is a male fantasy, one male for forty females.....but wait it's butterflies we are talking about.

The fact that female butterflies could even find mates in the presence of male-killing Wolbachia stunned scientists. In some islands there was only one male for every 40 females. One would expect this type of sex imbalance to leave females deprived of a mate, explains Hurst.“To our knowledge we’ve never heard of female promiscuity being caused by fewer males,” he says.

What were they supposed to do remain childless spinsters? That ain't natural.

Another example of the birds and the bees, well butterflies anyways, and polyandry

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Not Man Enough To Be PM

Stephane Dion is a girly man says the Ottawa Citizen.

Everything about Dion seems soft, from his handshake to his policies. His appearance at the Citizen editorial board Friday confirmed the fears I had when the Liberals chose him as their leader. Dion is a verbose, mild-mannered academic with a shaky grasp of English who seems unfit to chair a university department, much less lead a country.

Randall Denley
The Ottawa Citizen

Yep not man enough to be PM unlike our current Manly Man PM Stevie boy.

What a cheap shot, and it has the Blogging Tories all a buzz. Well at least Dion doesn't suffer from baby fat.


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Twisters and Trailer Parks

What's with Tornados and Trailer Parks?

When Edmonton was hit with its first ever Tornado it took out Evergreen Trailer Park.

Last weekends three Florida Tornadoes took out Trailer Parks.

David Demar stands in the remains of his mobile home at Lake Mack early Saturday, Feb. 3, 2007 after a killer tornado struck the Paisley, Fla. neighborhood Friday.(AP Photo/J. Pat Carter)

My partner suggested that it is because of location and heat, that is trailer parks are on the outskirts of cities, and that buildings and other urban developments give off heat patterns that do not attract the Tornados.

Mobile homes are cheap housing for the working class, and are not made to the same specifications or building codes as houses.


They are deliberately placed in the path of tornadoes by a sinister conspiracy of capitalists to kill off excess members of the working classes whom they call white trash. (just kidding).

It is actually just that capitalists can't be bothered to build cheap afforable homes, and place them in safe areas.

Picture of the "double tornado" that hit the Midway Trailer Park in Dunlap, Indiana, killing 36.

Here's what some other folks think.

Back in Kentucky, we always called trailers "tornado magnets."

Tornadoes and hurricanes are indeed most frequent in states with many mobile homes. For instance, eight states are in the top eleven for both prefab homes and tornadoes. Furthermore, Florida leads the nation in violent storms and is third in manufactured home purchases.

Statistics from the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City show
that from 1975 to 1991 nearly 36% of all tornado deaths occurred in mobile
homes. Tornadoes don't hit mobile homes more often than conventional homes,
but mobile home are just that - mobile.

Is it not within the realm of thinking that the reason trailer parks garner
the most television exposure in regards to tornados, is because
of the higher mortality, and injuries sustained in mobile home vs.
a home of standard construction.
The most significant difference in their construction I would
contend is the "basement", or lack of a basement.

i should also point out that in many places of the southern states, the
water table is too high for houses to have a basement and not have it
flood. in the case of texas, the ground is so hard, u'd need dynamite
and jackhammers to dig a basement. trailer parks and houses on slabs
are more economical to build.

One in 25 Americans live in some kind of mobile structure, mostly in states where there are dozens and dozens of tornadoes each year. Places like the great plains, in general, have lots of folks living in these structures, which are just not built strongly enough to withstand even your run of the mill wind storm, let alone a tornado.

Okay, okay, so if trailers don't attract tornadoes, why do so many trailer parks get hit by tornadoes?
There are probably hundreds(maybe more than a thousand) very small tornadoes that touch down in the USA every year, but are not recorded because they do no damage. However, since a mobile home flips over so easily in even the weakest tornado, trailers probably act as "mini tornado" detectors. This makes it seem like tornadoes are attracted to mobile homes, but that is because trailers are the only things that reveal the presence of what would otherwise be an unrecorded event.

Another reason for trailer homes to pop up as the victims of tornadoes, is that trailer parks are often situated on flat plain-like areas. If you have a valley, more often than not, the trailer park will be situated in its flattest part. Tornadoes also enjoy these same geographical areas.

I don't know about anywhere else, but back in Tulsa, there was a period of time when it seemed like just about every tornado would actually change its path on approach to the city in order to accomodate the position of the trailer parks. Thinking about it later, I realized that it might have been just were the trailer parks are located in the city -- cheap land adjacent to or right near the Arkansaw river. Because of this, you have two contributing factors: 1) the river was on the west side of town and almost every storm (especially tornado producing ones) moves in from the west and 2) the river acted as a barrier against the tornadoes (storms/tornadoes that would tear up towns to the west would effect much less to little damage on Tulsa) so that if a tornado did hit the Tulsa area, the position of the trailer parks ensured that they were set receive a fully powered storm.

I was thinking it could be the history of the areas. Like noone wanted to build houses/buildings in that area because of all the tornadoes, so that made the land cheap enough for someone to start a trailer park there.

Trailer Parks are usually located on flat open ground. Tornadoes travel easier in this type of land. Also trailers are built of cheaper, much less sturdy materials than houses. It does not take nearly as much wind to damage a trailer. Plus most of them have flimsy underpinning. Trailers are built up off the ground a bit. Strong winds can destroy the underpinning and get under a trailer tossing it up and over. The trailer that gets tossed then becomes a weapon when it hits somebody or another trailer.

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