Thursday Post

Quickly now....


I don't think he gets it:

Federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair toured Alberta's sprawling oilsands Thursday, saying he was left agog at the size of the operations, but also with a renewed determination to make sure it all gets cleaned up.

"These are extraordinary undertakings on a human scale. I mean they're massive," Mulcair said at the Alberta legislature in Edmonton after his trip.

"We were able during the helicopter part to really take in a vast vista of what was being accomplished.

"It's extraordinarily impressive. But it also brings with it real challenges that if we don't assume in this generation we're going to bear in future generations."

He positioned himself as one with Alberta and Alison Redford on the need to develop the oilsands in a responsible way. 

"I think your premier and I might be on the same page when I hear the idea of a greener energy infrastructure for the future," he said.

The Alberta oilsands is essential not only for the provincial economy but the national economy, as well. Why cripple it? Who will pay cheap tuition for Quebec students without it?



And it has a lower carbon footprint than other projects (if you buy into that sort of thing):

Alberta became the first jurisdiction in North America to legislate greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions for large industrial facilities.  ...

• Oil sands make up about 6.5% of Canada’s overall GHG emissions and approximately 0.1% of the world’s emissions. 
• GHG emissions per barrel of oil from the oil sands have been reduced by an average of 29% between 1990 and 2009.

Speaking of Quebec:

An attempt to find a solution to the Quebec student crisis has fallen apart, opening up a vast range of potential implications that could be felt from the street to the ballot box.

After four days of negotiation, the provincial government and student groups announced Thursday that their talks had gone nowhere.

Surprise, surprise.


A bailed-out company and one of the biggest companies in America are relocating to China:

Obama touts the fact that “Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive” at every campaign event. However, is GM “alive” for Americans or Chinese? Well, in fairness, he borrowed the $80 billion from China. ...

Also, keep your eye on Waukesha, Wisconsin. Their biggest employer is moving out. General Electric is planning to move its 115-year-old X-ray division from Wisconsin to (drum roll, please – you guessed it!) Beijing. In addition to moving the plant, the company will invest $2 billion in China and train more than 65 engineers and create six research centers.

This is the same GE that made $5.1 billion in the United States last year, but paid no taxes – the same company that employs more people overseas than it does in the United States. Nice. President Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation (job czar). Immelt is supposed to help create jobs. I guess the President forgot to let him know that he was to create the jobs in our country.

Why are we giving our industry to these guys?


(with thanks)



Yep, being allergic to everything AND having your parents make you into a identifiable group unto yourself will do that:

It was a small study involving 20 young people. University of Waterloo public health and health systems professor Nancy Fenton and Susan Elliott, a professor in the applied health sciences department, interviewed 20 children aged 8-18 and found, from their stories, that an allergy can have huge social implications for young people.

The study —which is part of a larger work slated for publication in 2013 — was done as an examination of life after Sabrina’s Law, which requires staff at Ontario schools be trained on how to recognize and deal with anaphylaxis and have an action plan in place. The law took effect in January, 2006, nearly three years after 13-year-old Sabrina Shannon of Pembroke, Ont. died from eating French fries that were cross-contaminated with dairy.

“Despite the inclusionary policies in place at school through Sabrina’s Law, all children and youth, through the interviews, talked about the barriers every day that made them feel excluded,” Ms. Fenton said during her presentation on Wilfrid Laurier University campus Wednesday.

If this guy does become some sort of anti-bullying poster boy, I will be sickened but not shocked.



(thumbs up)



And now, love carved on trees:

In 1945, American soldier Frank Fearing carved his wife's name into a British tree.

He had married Helen in secret just days before going off to war. As they said their goodbyes, Frank promised his new wife that he would carve their names into trees wherever he went. And he did, marking trees across France and Germany.

Helen thought Frank made up his tree-marking stories.

More than six decades later — and years after Frank's death in 2001 — Helen finally saw one of Frank's carvings, thanks to a 24-year-old British student specializing in tree carvings.

Chantel Summerfield was working on her PhD in military arborglyphs — inscriptions engraved on tree trunks — recording markings on 1,500 trees in France alone, and included the followed markings found on a Salisbury tree in her research:

"Frank Fearing — Hudson, Massachusetts, 1945," the markings on the tree read, followed by a heart and the name Helen.

Summerfield used this limited information to track down the couple's daughter, Barbara, in the United States, who helped Summerfield connect with Helen.

Summerfield then sent Helen a photograph of the tree.

"It was amazing to be able to give her that and show her the carving," Summerfield told The Daily Mail.
"When I first looked at it, I thought, What on earth am I going to do with this? But when you try and pick out individuals from thousands of marks you start to get amazing stories," Summerfield said of her work.

"Anybody of importance was remembered from the wars but your common squaddie was forgotten, it's those stories I'm uncovering."

Helen passed away shortly after seeing the photograph.

"Helen was still alive when I got in touch — although she has sadly passed away since — and so she was able to see a photograph of the tree her husband engraved for her on the other side of the world all those years ago," Summerfield said.