What a difference an internet makes, eh?
Great Moments In Political Advertising
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Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Politico – Rush Limbaugh is not backing down from his claim that President Barack Obama is trying to score political points off the earthquake in Haiti.
New York Mag – President Obama to Write Newsweek’s Haiti Cover Story.
Danielle Smith Gets Results!
Danielle Smith gets results!
One day after shuffling his cabinet, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is signalling a confrontation with the federal government over equalization.
Stelmach has put his new finance minister, Ted Morton, in charge of negotiating with Ottawa to update the equalization deal because he says it doesn’t work for Albertans.
Alberta pays a lot more money in federal taxes than it receives, yet the province is criticized for its vast energy wealth, which helps many other Canadians, said the premier on Thursday.
“Especially after the discussion at Copenhagen, where much of the criticism was placed on this province, and yet our contribution — this last economic downturn, the worst year since the 1930s — was well over $21 billion and that cannot continue and we have to have that discussion in Canada,” Stelmach said to reporters in Calgary.
Morton, considered a fiscal hawk, said equalization has outlived its original purpose of helping all provinces provide roughly the same level of services to citizens.
Love overflows in the CBC comments.
Y2Kyoto: A Vengeful Gaia
Danny Glover: “When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?”
Hey, if warming can cause a tsunami, it can cause an earthquake! Oh, wait….
Via Tim Blair
h/t shaku_bert
Update: From the comments;
“SDA – Kate – remove this post, not evan should be debated. Wrong just wrong!!!!”
As much as it troubles me to expose my readers to the rancid opinions of the Hollywood elite, had you tuned in to even the most local of local radio stations yesterday, you will understand how critically important it is to focus world attention on the most trivial of opinions at a time like this.
Bill Whittle
Reader Tips
| Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation, here are Debbie Harry and the boys, as Blondie, performing Dreaming ¤, from their Eat to the Beat album, in 1979 (3:02).
I s’pose I should mention that this may be N.S.F.P.W.T.H.T.F.U.T.A. |
Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.
What Would We Do Without National Crises?
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Winnipeg Free Press, Jan. 14th – Obesity among Canadians ‘a national crisis’
Canwest News, Jan.11th – Depression among Canada’s public servants is the country’s biggest “public health crisis”.
Update: Admittedly, this isn’t a juxtaposition in the purest sense of the word. So, thanks to Ardvark in the comments – time to thrixtapose!
Canwest News, Jan.4th – Dementia crisis looms, study finds
(All true. I’d completely forgotten.)
More – “I miss the H1N1 crisis.”
The First American Prime Minister: On The Importance Of Casting Absentee Ballots
“Your responsibility is to show up ’cause it’s your country. So, if you don’t show up, someone else will show up.” – Michael Ignatieff
Bonus Independent* Student Sighting: Romina Siddiqui, 21, a fourth-year economics student, said Ignatieff’s appearance was “very inspiring.”
Have Al Lehmann And Mark Twain Ever Been Seen In A Room Together?
If you know a child of school age living in Terrace, BC, they may just have as one of their teachers one of the great undiscovered satirists of our time;
[The fraud-promoting climate change deniers] ought to be slowly roasted,” commented a friend of mine in a measured voice during our weekly Yacht Club scrum.
All this, and National Socialists too!
(Speaking of “global warming’s more fulminating spokespeople…”)
Y2Kyoto: Not Dark Enough!
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Oct.20, 2009 – President Obama’s appearance yesterday at America’s largest solar power plant, a Florida Power & Light (FPL) facility in DeSoto County, was of course planned to rally support for the administration’s renewable energy efforts and green economy stimulus initiatives.
Jan 13, 2010 – Florida Power & Light Co. is facing a class-action suit after thousands of homeowners lost power over the weekend because of a cold spell.
(Lots more interesting stuff at the first link).
h/t Don B.
Weapon Of Minor Destruction
Former chief United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter was arrested in a Pennsylvania sex sting in November on a litany of charges involving a lewd Internet conversation with a person he thought was a 15-year-old girl.
Ritter, 48, allegedly masturbated in front of a Web camera while he was engaged in conversation in an Internet chat room with an undercover cop posing as the teenage girl.
The chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-98 and harsh critic of the war in Iraq, Ritter is accused of contacting the “girl” while using the handle “delmarm4fun” last February.
Y2Kyoto: We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
Featured comment by Eric Anderson;
SaskPower’s Centennial Wind Power Facility
• 83 “Vestas-V80” with a potential capacity of 150 megawatts of power on 30 km2 or 11.7 mile2
• 2nd largest wind facility in Canada when opened in 2006
• But, in SK they generate about 40% of this potential or 60 megawatts (see Saskatchewan Legislature Hansard, January 2007, page 794)
• They require a minimum wind speed of 14km/hr to operate and reach maximum power at 50km/hr
• They do not work at temperatures below -30 Celsius
• Footprint is thus 2 MW/km2 or 5.13 MW/mile2
• Each unit;
• is 351 ft tall , or 107 meters, or over 30-stories
• weighs 222 tonnes or 489,510 pounds
• has 3 x 39-meter blades, with tips moving at speeds up to 256kms/hr
Footprint of Wind vs. Nuclear is 1,440:1
• Bruce Power proposal for AB and “eluded to” for SK is, for example;
– 2 Areva EPRs
– 3,200 megawatts from a 250-acre facility (1 km2 or less than ½ mile2)
– Operates 90% of the time at full capacity or 2,880 MW
– Footprint is 2,880 MW/km2
• To get 2,880 MW from wind, at same scale as the Centennial project and efficiency (0.72 MW/turbine) (2 MW/km2), it would require;
– 4,000 turbines covering 1,440 km2
– or, a wind farm over 4.6 kms wide, stretching from Regina to Prince Albert (or 1 km wide from Regina Victoria, BC)
– The total weight of 4,000 turbines themselves (mostly steel, and without the concrete pads they sit on) would be 888,000 tonnes or 1,958,040,000 lbs (a lot of GHG).
• The Centennial Project was placed in the best wind producing area in the province (south of Swift Current) so its abilities cannot be reproduced elsewhere, so the farm would need to be even larger than described.
• See this link for wind averages/resource in SK
http://generationprocurement.saskpower.com/pdf/SPD_80m_021403.pdf
Nuclear capitol costs are less than wind
• The Centennial Project cost $275 million to generate 60 MW (see Saskatchewan Legislature Hansard, January 2007, page 793 for costs); that is $4.5833 million/MW
• A nuclear complex generating 2,880 MW would thus have a comparable cost allowance of; $4.5833 million/MW x 2,880 MW = $13,199.99 million
• A will-reported Finland reactor complex being built by Areva had a budget of $3,300 million that is now 50% over budget at $4,950 million. However, even at $4,950 million this reactor facility has less than half the capitol cost of wind, on a per MW basis.
Reader Tips
Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) SDA Late Nite Radio.
Tonight’s selection is a light-hearted paean of sorts to the quotidian pleasures of long-distance domestic bus travel. Massachusetts native Jonathan Richman paints a picture, in short strokes, of the on-the-ground American expanse and the motley group of strangers who find themselves barreling down the highway together for a moment in time before disembarking, at various announced stops, to persevere with their unknown lives. We’re talking drunks, wailing infants, welfare moms, grit, rolling pop cans on the floor, unpleasant smells – and he likes it. Here it is: Richman’s live performance of You’re Crazy For Taking The Bus.
SDA Readers and visitors are invited, as always, to provide links to any interesting blog posts, news items, essays, ephemera or interesting tidbits you feel might be of interest to others.
Free Geert Wilders
Via email;
I strongly recommend that as many of you that have wide-spread contact lists, urge your friends and readers, to look up the relevant embassy in their home country, or in as many countries as they can handle, and write/fax/email the Ambassador and/or Consular staff on the travesty of Geert Wilders’ upcoming trial on January 20 2010.
There are fax numbers, addresses and in many cases, email addresses in the above list that can be used with great results.
You may want to mention the following 2-3 main points to be addressed
– We note that Holland has always been a staunch ally of the West in its protection of Free Speech, now however, it seems that the old traditions have been abolished
– We abhor the decision of the Dutch Government and Justice Minister E.M.H. Hirsch Ballin to prosecute Hon Geert Wilders for hate speech on January 20 2010
– We urge the Government to immediately drop all charges and FREE GEERT WILDERS
We need voices like his, now more than ever.
“Maybe some former Liberal ministers should be worrying about their asses”
To follow on Kate’s earlier post, it would seem Mr McCallum sure ain’t thinking things through (no surprise there, eh?).
Update: Much more on what Liberal ministers were doing before their government agreed to the detainee transfer agreement here from Adrian MacNair, some excellent research.
Haiti
As with other news events that generate extensive coverage, I don’t plan to do much coverage of the Haitian earthquake, other than to put this up as an open thread for those who want to discuss it, or link to their own posts in the comments.
The Anchoress has a very good post up for source links and updates, there’s little point in duplicating her excellent efforts here.
Update – a few high-resolution aerial photos taken by the U.S. Coast Guard of the earthquake damage in Haiti.
California: Not Broke Enough!
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Jan 8, 2010 – California looks for federal funds to close $20b budget deficit
Jan 12, 2010 – California adopts system of voter bribery to help drive remaining private employers out of the state.
(And such a cheery little article. Read the comments).
The World Still Has Too Many Reporters
Flight 1549 Reconstruction
h/t Jim O.