The only legal expert in the nation who can tell you what David Dingwall takes in his coffee.

Jimmy was a banker;

… and in spite of that he was a buddy of mine. One of the few that didn’t have his head in the sand and instead of just trying to push loans through to get the commission, he actually cared about the likelihood of repayment. He was a brand new banker, and in being such was crippled by his idealism and integrity. One day, obviously frustrated he pulled me into his office, closed the doors and asked me, “Look, I need your help. What the heck is going on here?”

Loser pays.

h/t
(Update: I wish I’d thought of some of those one-liners posted in the comments, when I titled this last night. “Shut up and sing” is a trifle meanspirited, considering that, unlike many of her equally challenged peers in show business, she at least has the good sense not to talk politics.)

Forwarded by a reader in the industry;

The oilfield is a place to make izzy money if you don’t lose it first, while some are asking for their fair share , some are having to lose more than their fair share. There is no royalty rebate on a wrecked truck or izzy money from an insurance company. The price of oil and gas exploration can be high even in a developed country.
(From a collection of 30 wrecks circulating around the oilfield internet.)

(click to enlarge)

*

Nov.6 Update – At least some of the students involved were at the campaign office of Terry Alm today to offer their apologies. They will be helping the SaskParty take down signs after the election.

(click to enlarge)

Description: A political party for the youth of Saskatchewan upset that they can’t run for office or vote in the upcoming provincial election …and for any kids that just enjoy kicking politcal party signs. Also we find it unfair that the Sask Party has 3 times the funding of any other party, so they get all the big signs. We seek to even this out. Come out, show your support, invite your friends, and kick a few signs

Page info shows:
Andrew Rowan (Aden Bowman Collegiate) Assistant Captain
Taylor Andreas (Aden Bowman Collegiate) Assistant Captain
Brennan Rutherford (Walter Murray Collegiate) Co-Captain of Destruction
Mike Pinder (Aden Bowman Collegiate) Driver
David Fodey (Aden Bowman Collegiate) Co-Captain of Destruction
Will Hamilton (Aden Bowman Collegiate) (creator)
You’ll need a facebook account to access the page. Currently, the group has 59 “members” – most appear to be high school students at Aden Bowman and Walter Murray Collegiate.
If you have kids at these Saskatoon schools, you may recognize some names.
Update – “Hey dude, I heard your name on the radio“
The owner of the property in the photo above just called John Gormley Live (linked above). He’s a little ticked off. In the comments – “It’s as if they reported themselves to Crimestoppers.”
In a case of the apple not falling far from…. the apple – ” Do a search on Facebook for [U of Sask Sheaf Editor-In-Chief] Chuck Hamilton. View his friends, and you will see Will Hamilton is listed as his brother. I bet their parents are proud.” (Or it was until Will’s was pulled.)
More at No-Libs.
Update 2 – Now the Canadian Press has picked up the story.
Update 3 – There are NDP family ties to the Fodey kid as well.
(h/t Ryan, in the comments)

Angry Roughneck responds to Ed Stelmach;

First off, drilling levels will be fine through this winter. Companies have already bought their land rights, so they are already committed to winter drilling projects. This will be great for Ed and the Progressive Communist party of Alberta. Ed will be able to sit back on his throne, sometime in mid February and point triumphantly to the record drilling levels and say “see, helping Albertans did not deter drilling. We must not be afraid of the big oil companies”. Most people will cheer and then once summer comes, and the election is over, and pink Eddie is re-elected, the industry will come to a grinding halt, but the pubic won’t be interested in the debate anymore. The lack of drilling will be attributed to a downturn in the industry, a bust cycle, possibly blamed on a high dollar or more access to middle east oil.
The big energy companies like Encana, Talisman, Conoco, CNRL… etc will spend their dollars elsewhere (see Saskatchewan) out of principle. They will make a stand because they know who’s next in line (see looting feds) for their profits. People think it is hard to move a giant corporation like Encana. Well its not, Encana is just a bunch of engineers. Pipelines, compressors and pipelines can be rebuilt (cost can be spread out amonst competitors) or in a lot of circumstance already exist on other parts. All the equipment associated with oil production is owned by Albertans— the rigs, wellheads, pipe, welding units, trucks, trailers, tools, and heavy equipment are all owned by Albertans who rent their capital to energy producers. The energy companies have no stake in any of this capital expenditure.

A different type of discussion here.

Total cost: $595,000 CAD

AP;

Vuttichai said the solar-powered [wind shear alert] systems — which were out of power at the time of the crash — could have made it difficult for the pilot Arief Mulyadi, to judge whether it was safe to land.

US $24.99

“Next to enriching plutonium, the most popular activity in Iran these days seems to be howling at the moon.”

Or rather, silt. Rebuilding on a mistake;

What’s more, that sinking, unstable soil is in a bowl below sea-level surrounded by the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, and Lake Pontchartrain, bodies of water that are eating away the coastline at a rate of 25 square miles or more each year.
In September of 2005, I interviewed a geologist who was the former Dean of his southern university’s Coastal and Marine Studies program. His closing, unsolicited recommendation was that New Orleans “should be largely abandoned as a city.”
New Orleans is doomed city, a geographical mistake destined to fall to geologic and hydraulic forces beyond our control. It is sad they we are too arrogant to concede this failed city to the sea, and seem destined to waste the billions of dollars that could be spent moving the inhabitants to higher ground.

h/t

Europe’s Dirty Secret (PDF);

The EU emissions trading scheme (ETS), the region’s main policy tool to
combat climate change, is not working and should be reconsidered due to its high operating costs and poor results of curbing greenhouse gas emissions, a UK-based think tank said on Thursday.
“The EU ETS is costing a lot, but it isn’t working,” Hugo Robinson, an analyst with Open Europe, said in a statement released together with a new study, Europe’s Dirty Secret: Why the EU Emissions Trading Scheme isn’t working.
Open Europe, an independent think tank set up by UK business leaders, reckons the 27-member bloc needs to embrace radical reforms based on economic liberalization, with greater transparency and more accountability.
The cap-and-trade market for carbon dioxide emissions was launched in 2005, covering about 12,000 installations from emissions-intensive industries, such as energy, steel and glass.
The market’s first trading period, from 2005 through 2007, has seen the benchmark carbon contract for delivery in December 2007 drop below €0.10 – due to too many emissions permits handed out to installations participating in the scheme.
EU officials have insisted the first trading period has been a test phase, while the EU commission has tightened its allowance policy for the 2008-2012 second trading period. Officials are currently reviewing how to improve the market going forward.
“Everybody knows that phase one was a learning period with teething problems,” a spokeswoman at the EU commission told Point Carbon. “We have full confidence in the second phase and we are preparing the review of the system (for the third phase) to iron out existing problems,” she said, adding that the Open Europe report appeared to be “politically motivated.”
Still, Open Europe sees new problems ahead, while some problems have not been resolved.
“New problems are emerging in the second phase. Member states have opted to buy in vast numbers of what are essentially carbon offsets from developing countries, rather than make real reductions in emissions. But the offsets are often not reducing emissions, or are even subsidising polluters,” he said.
“This approach does nothing for our energy security and it doesn’t appear to be doing much good for the environment. It has also become clear that some member states are clearly using the complexity of the system to provide covert industrial subsidies to polluting industries,” Robinson said.

Telegraph

[A] ground-breaking study has now called into question the effectiveness of using trees to “offset” emissions, suggesting that their ability to “lock-up” carbon dioxide has been greatly exaggerated.
Forests have long been seen as an effective way of absorbing the greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which are thought to trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere, causing global warming.
Celebrities, including the Rolling Stones and Leonardo DiCaprio, the film actor, have signed up to schemes to plant trees to offset their own emissions.
However, the new research found that trees bathed in extra carbon dioxide grew more tissue, but did not necessarily store significant extra quantities of carbon. Instead, the tree’s capacity to absorb the gas depended on water and nutrient levels.
The news will come as a blow to the carbon-offsetting industry, which has expanded rapidly as individuals and companies try to atone for their carbon dioxide emissions by paying companies to plant trees for them.
[…]
But Ru Hartwell, the director of Treeflights, an offsetting company planting trees in Wales and Peru, said: “There are problems with tree planting but it is only one way in which we are going to get on top of the problems of global warming. I have complete faith that tree planting is positive and we should not just chuck away our spades and do nothing.”

I’ve a better idea. Let’s just ban rock concerts, speaking tours, and movies and move the Madonnas, Gores and DiCaprios of the planet into 800 sq.ft. bungalows.

What’s up, Doc?
More.

The diversity of SDA readers never ceases to amaze me. Or perhaps I’m thinking of “alarm”.
Gord Marsden explains;

Flugtags are homebuilt human powered airplane flying contests that are held around the world every year for the past 15 years.
Flugtag is German for Fly Day and is sponsored by Red Bull – the energy drink, “Red Bull gives you wings”, thus the sponsorship.
The first Red Bull Flugtag took place in Vienna, Austria, in 1991. Since then, more than 35 Flugtags have been held around the world — from Ireland to San Francisco — attracting up to 300,000 spectators at each event. The record for the farthest flight-to-date currently stands at 195 feet set in 2000 at Flugtag Austria. The U.S. record stands at 155 feet set in Nashville, TN in 2007.
Teams are judged on three criteria: distance, creativity and showmanship. What constitutes a craft is purely up to the imagination of the participating teams. Past Red Bull Flugtag entries have included a pregnant cow, a diaper-delivering stork, a pimped-out Cadillac, a giant Oompa Loompa, and yes folks — a lobster named Larry. This years North American Flugtags are held in Nashville TN and Austin TX. The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (thanks Hillary Clinton) is the only foreign entry into the US flugtags this year.

And based on this set of Youtube videos, maybe the last.

“We’re the only foreigners in the competition,” declares Gord. “We live in the Great White North – America’s Hat – where the temperature averages 1 degree Celsius over the year.” The team’s politics are purportedly as icy as their homeland. “We’re driving almost 5,000 miles round trip to be at the event,” says Gord in reference to the teammembers’ residences in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Alberta towns of Calgary, Lethbridge (where Heather attends the University of Lethbridge), Strathmore, and the “Redneck Riviera” of Eagle Lake (aka, “the test site”). Gord adds, “Our skit is based on the most iconic right-wing politicians – Ronnie Reagan, Maggie Thatcher, and Donald Rumsfeld – overcoming the bad green influence of Al Gore on the young Stephen Harper.” In case that final name leaves you out in the cold, Flugtag faithful, Stephen Harper is the prime minister of Canada.

In the tradition of the truly goofy, a time waster if ever there was one. But as they’re advertising SDA to Flugtaggers worldwide on the side of their trailer, I owe them. So, try to be complimentary, eh?