Here’s where I hypothesize why it’s more dangerous to be on a phone conversation, than chewing gum while driving (or walking). Gum chewing is a veritable automatic response to there being a food-like substance in your mouth — you chew. This is not the same as engaging in conversation, which requires the use of thinking and non-automated parts of your brain, the same parts that much be responsible for calculating trajectories of pending threats to your vehicle and others’ lives. Tying up your thought process with thinking of responses to the person you’re conversing with by phone is statistically proven to imperil your life. As if vehicles weren’t dangerous enough, we’ve started treating the blasted things like they’re working on Jestons’ autopilot, and are using them head-free, while on hands-free phones.

If smokers weren’t juggling a burning object at high speeds, I’d say it’s probably safer to be smoking and driving, cancer risk included, than to be involved in conversations on cell phones while driving through high incident areas like cities and intersections with regular traffic. The habit of putting burning tubes to ones mouth and breathing in and out are entirely automatic, hindering only the automatic processing that goes with driving once a driver is experienced. Talking intelligently, on the other hand, is hardly an automatic response for the human brain. Many people are not even able to hold intelligent conversation while not operating heavy machinery accelerated to dangerous speeds.

So, should the cell phone laws be amended to the unpopular position of banning in-motion/on-road phone conversations, leave the law half-hearted and half-headed by banning only one type of dangerous cell-phone activity, or be removed entirely for being half-wrong in recommending another unsafe activity to replace the very unsafe act of holding a cell phone conversation in your hand, and in your mind, while accelerated?

January 27, 2012

Governments of Canada and Saskatchewan Invest in Research on Oil
Production Technologies

Regina, Saskatchewan* A combined investment of over $800,000 by the
governments of Canada and Saskatchewan will help the Petroleum
Technology Research Centre (PTRC) and the University of Regina (U of R)
study innovative recovery methods for oil and gas production, as well as
reclamation of associated byproducts.

If there is any public funding of this magnitude announced for solar or wind, or other renewable energy research, I’ll be sure to let you know. Don’t hold your breath.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s important to know how to deal with toxic waste. I’d just prefer that the government legislate on scientifically recognized safe levels of waste to be in our air, soil, and water, and leave it to companies to not exceed them. If the government wants to help out energy industries, there are start-up green companies that could use the support a lot more than dirty energy coal and oil who can pay their own R&D bills with ease. I’m not anti-subsidy, I just would rather not subsidize industry that we ought to be winding down as much as possible, to survive.

Dear Prime Minister Harper,
Threatening charities as ‘adversaries’ of your government, is wrong.

The form response I got back started with:

Dear [Saskboy]:

Thank you for writing to the Prime Minister. In your e-mail, you raised an issue that falls within the portfolio of the Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources.

-Photo by Andrew Forget of QMI (http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/17/singing-the-praises-of-joe-oliver)

Who knew that threatening charities was a responsibility of the Minister of Natural Resources? I would have guessed John Baird, or Peter McKay from a helicopter shouting obscenities at people on the ground.

Mm after I said the word vagina if for some reason inserted the word cock and balls as well.

So beware if you write your blog posts entirely through voice recognition you’re bound to end up with some interesting mistakes.

As most TED talks are, this is an amazing video on how to understand culture and arguments against copyright/SOPA. Youth consume and create content online, and childhood is now criminalized and forced underground, which radicalizes people both for and against the law. I’ll freely admit I take a radical view of copyright now to work around it when possible, and help balance the situation by leading others away from the boxes they are put into by companies like MPAA and Viacom. This doesn’t mean I take whole DVDs and make perfect copies to try and sell for a profit, it means I will use photos or video available online, put a funny caption inside it, and share that new article. And I download TV, and have for more than a decade before most people knew it was technically possible. Now most people take it for granted that they can PVRecord shows, or find them on The Pirate Bay.

Hey look, it’s a Creative Commons photo, coupled with a newsworthy image of Lt. Pike! With amusing caption and credit to those who provided the original works.

DFAIT hilariously has labeled First Nations as “adversaries” in their struggle to promote Tar Sand oil, and ship our brains out to the USA and China. The PMO calls environmentalists “enemies of the state”.

-A sample of Harper’s “enemies of the state”

Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has labelled aboriginal groups and environmentalists as “adversaries,” while describing the National Energy Board, an independent federal regulator of industry, as an “ally” in its public relations strategy to polish the image of Alberta’s oilsands, a newly released internal document has revealed.

The document outlines key goals for the government’s diplomats in promoting the industry, which is considered to be the fastest-growing source of global-warming-causing emissions in the country, and in lobbying against foreign climate change policies.

Rich U.S. groups that funded environmentalists also gave to Canadian government

Tax returns show the Canadian government has also been the beneficiary of millions of dollars in largesse from some of the wealthiest private organizations in the United States.

And some of that money came from the same U.S. groups that helped fund Canadian environmentalists.

The grants to the federal government come to light as Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and the pro-oilsands website EthicalOil.org take Canadian environmental groups to task for accepting money from big American foundations to finance their campaigns against the oilsands.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver accused “environmental and other radical groups” of trying to use money from “foreign special-interest groups” to hijack hearings on a pipeline that would bring Alberta oilsands bitumen to a port on the British Columbia coast.

But the Canadian government seems to have no qualms accepting grant money from private U.S. foundations — including some of the same organizations that gave to Canadian environmental groups.

For example, U.S. tax records show the California-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation gave $750,000 to the David Suzuki Foundation and a whopping $40 million to the International Development Research Centre, a federal Crown corporation.

rwatson at ]saskpower.com[
Dear Mr. Watson,

I've found some troubling information on the SaskPower website. The first link is troubling because of what it leaves out. Solar energy, perhaps the best potential generation source of intermittent electricity, is not even considered? There's Photo Voltaic cells, solar power towers that operate with mirrors to generate heat, and net metered PV installations in operation today, and they aren't mentioned as a consideration for generation options? That's quite a gaping omission. I have a couple important requests listed at the bottom of this email, to address my concerns.

http://www.saskpower.com/future/?linkid=fridge_future_power_banner_april2011#/technology-options

This second link I found troubling because perhaps it explains why solar energy was omitted. The antiquated summary provided for PV (no mention of solar power towers), is from Y2K, a dozen years ago! Solar power technology has advanced since then, as I'm sure you must know.
http://www.saskpower.com/sustainable_growth/power_plan/generation_options/solar.shtml

"Solar converts the energy from the sun into electricity. At present, solar power is not suitable for large-scale generation in Saskatchewan because of its high cost and low capacity factors.
Solar research
In 2000, we installed a photovoltaic array at the Saskatchewan Science Centre for research purposes. Results showed that the cost savings realized from the solar energy system cannot effectively offset the capital costs for installation. As a result, this technology is better suited to niche applications where connection to the grid is uneconomical or when passive solar enhancement is desired. For the purposes of scientific demonstration, this project continues to be in operation."

A useful analogy of this summary is akin to saying in 2000 that full screen, smooth streaming video is not possible over the Internet. Now you can get that in your pocket on your smartphone, 12 years later. I request that you update your website with more recent facts regarding the two main forms of solar electricity (PV and heat-towers). If SaskPower does not have current research on these, I also request that you see that it happens soon, lest our province be left the laughing stock with our coal-fired electricity. And I'm interested to know if this gap in research and communication extends to the people in charge of moving SaskPower away from energy sources that are greatly harming our environment and survivability.

Sincerely,
[Saskboy]

cc. Honourable Rob Norris
Honourable Tim McMillian

Journalists drank Regina out of white wine.

She broke a rib and got to cover an election from the ground, where most voters are anyway, giving her a better perspective.
Our new tools have built better silos. Sharing isn’t routine.
Background info from the govt is treated as FYEO (For Your Eyes Only).

140 char delivery is not delivering enough details to people. 30 seconds means 12 in radio. She’s had to edit some people down a bit so they sound effective, and to save her 8 seconds.

Rene Levesque was explaining a policy in detail once she recalls, and politicians don’t do that often anymore.

Layton didn’t produce a lot of memorable quotes prior to his deathbed letter filled with them.

Form response from government gives us “cones of silence”. A human can’t make themselves give detail-free form responses five or six times, but computers give us boring responses that people tune out.

She’s talking about media tech during Meech Lake. The TV was the best place to learn about a national debate. There was no great advantage to being in Manitoba or Newfoundland with only the politicians meeting there.

Ignatieff speaking at a rally in Quebec, talked about Harper barring attendees from his rallies. Some man told Hebert he wanted to hear about something the audience there cared about.
Twitter as a window into what people are interested in, is a distorted mirror.
“People on Twitter are junkies”.

People need to take to the streets still to finish the change started in cyberspace, like in Egypt for instance.

Not totally kidding, couldn’t use “prorogation” in news because it was too long.

Long form census scandal in July was surprising.

Nenshi in Calgary started at 1% in the polls. (Phone corrected Calgary to Calgarygrit – I must be a blogger.)

“Disconnected chattering class” is part of the problem.

Questions start. It’s unlikely that I will ask one this year.

Hebert likes a spin free environment. Know when they are going on holiday and ask them things when they have nothing going on. Know what they sound like when they are telling the truth. Each MP thinks what they are doing is in the public good.

Most politicians sound smarter when they are not in politics anymore. Party line is often a problem.

Twitter used to bounce stories off of it.

Election night publication law.
Elections Can may sue a lot of ordinary people. Voting isn’t like First Communion. BC might want to undo the damage done by voters in the East.

Municipal election lacks entertainment, except Toronto might object. She has a low interest in municipal politics these days.

Coverage of Ford is interesting in part because the cities are bigger than they once were, and many people vote for a mayor, as opposed for an MPP.

The nonConservative voters don’t have an easy way to win now that the Conservative party is united.

The Liberals and NDP are struggling for the same voters. Bruce Anderson argues the Liberals may come back as the spare wheel of Canadian politics. Minority govt is likely.
NDP and Liberals fight for the voters that Harper doesn’t want.

“We vote, and you don’t” is why govt talks about old age pensions instead of childcare.

Dan B. asks a question and starts out by mentioning that he isn’t a journalist. “Good” she said. (Too much competition in a field makes it harder to stay in a job anyway.)
Need healthy debate for healthy politics.
She votes as a citizen. Does a doctor like cancer more than cardiac arrest?
Vote as a parent to show your kids it is important.

ADDED:
Toward the end of the questions, someone wondered why OWS gets less coverage than he feels it deserves. She said OWS has unclear objectives, and doesn’t see the value in occupying public space. I found that odd, since earlier she praised youth in Egypt for taking their protest into the real world off of MySpace and Twitter. She thinks the ballot box is the way to make change happen, but also knows that her generation is more likely to continue to win, since it votes.

Another questioner was also disappointed by the answer they got regarding electoral reform. Hebert said voters and politicians don’t bring it up, so journalists shouldn’t. She neglected to mention that every political party uses methods other than FPTP to elect their party leader and/or executive. She did say that there is no voter appetite for PR or electoral reform. She thinks PR would work well federally though.

Meanwhile, the FP is running cover for the Harper Conservatives, because if anyone knows the power of lobbyists, it’s the party that Bruce Carson built. Read The Sixth Estate’s “Billionaire Conservatives Dominate Federal Lobbying”.

It’s hard not to break into a gigantic grin, the kind seen when watching Jon Stewart pants the witless, when you read this headline:
Rich U.S. groups that funded environmentalists also gave to Canadian government

Yes, the Canadian government that criticized “radical” “foreigners” as the source of Canada’s opposition to destructive fossil-first energy policy, took MILLIONS of dollars from the organizations they’ve badmouthed.
The CP headline pulled no cynical punches:
Still ‘radical’? Rich U.S. groups also gave to Ottawa

In an earlier email that was obtained by the NDP, Dodds said it was his understanding that Clement’s office advised Infrastructure Canada “which projects should be supported” under the G8 fund.

Angus and Boulerice have repeatedly accused Clement of having a direct hand in picking the successful projects, which included streetscaping, public washrooms, an upgraded community centre and improved parks in the Muskoka region north of Toronto where the meeting was held in the summer of 2010.

“This directly contradicts the testimony he gave at committee, it directly contradicts what he told the Canadian people,” Angus said at a news conference.

Clement has said that local mayors were the ones who whittled down a list of proposed projects and that he only facilitated the application process through his riding office by passing on the list of projects to Baird, who had the final say.

In September, Clement told reporters it would have been illegal for him to choose which projects were funded.

“If I was the decision-maker, if I had set up a parallel process and created a situation where the auditor general did not know — that’s their [opposition MPs'] accusation — I’d be resigning right now and turning myself in to the local police office,” Clement said.

“I think Tony Clement should be as good as his word,” Angus said Monday in recounting Clement’s comments. “He told the Canadian people, ‘If anybody could ever prove that I would do that, I’d turn myself over to the cops.’ Well, Tony, what about it?”

[emphasis mine]

- Another slimy parasite problem in Ontario lake country

Make it stop, please? Why do we deserve a government more corrupt than the Chretien Liberals, and perilously close to the Devine PCs? What will make people pay attention, without loss of life or calamity?