One of the presenters in the Toronto municipal budget consultations came up with well reasoned, solid advice.
Les Routledge
One Reason to Buy a Hybrid
Their extra weight makes them safer in an accident.
Jobs and Energy
Where does the president stand… jobs or special interest groups?
Thank God I’m a Country Boy
Rural unemployment continues to fall across the United States.
Featured News
What Exactly Does ‘Climate Justice’ Mean?
It seems like everything is about justice these days. Recently, as I drove home from the store, I saw a sign for the elections here in New York from the local Democratic Party, promising “equity, equality, and justice for all.” Beyond the obvious concerns any sane...
We are Finding the 2800 Missing Children
The “secret graves” and “missing children” narrative had our national flag flying at half-mast for over five months after an obscure indigenous politician made the startling claim that she “knew” that 215 indigenous children had been secretly buried in the “apple...
EPA To Regulate Harmful Emissions
In the United States, the EPA is proposing to regulate emissions of mercury and other toxic substances from coal and oil fired electrical plants. Grist has posted an article that discusses the background of this proposed regulation in more detail.
Proponents of the action argue that there is a technological capability to meet the new standards, the new standards are justified on a cost-benefit test, and the action protects human health and the environment (more detail here).
Smart Meters in California
PG&E, the utility in San Francisco, is offering to turn off smart meters for their customers for a price.
Interlake Water Woes
Over the last few years of wet weather, the Shoal Lakes have been expanding and flooding surrounding lands.
The lakes only need to rise 30 or 40 centimetres higher before they spill into Grassmere Drain, with unknown and potentially disastrous effects on downstream agricultural and residential communities, said Steve Topping, executive director of Manitoba Water Stewardship.
Bell UBB – Monetizing Video Traffic
As we see a growth in video usage on the internet, making sure we’re monetizing that for our shareholders through the bandwidth usage charges
Nuclear Panic in the Mass Media
A couple of submissions over at Small Dead Animals caught my attention today about how the media tends to get irrational about potential risks of anything nuclear or related to radiation exposure.
Remember back in the ’50s and early ’60s, when we set off something like 900 atomic bombs in Nevada? And how we just let the fallout blow wherever and it landed all over the eastern
US? And how it wiped out life as we know it and all that was left from Colorado to the Atlantic were six-legged rats battling two-headed cockroaches in the glowing ruins?
and the following tutorial on radiation exposure…
Germany – Is Environmentalism Working?
In the fight to protect the environment, it may be time to pause and ask oneself: what is really helping, and what isn’t?
Separating the Battery from the Car
This week’s issue of The Atlantic contains an article outlining the plans of Better Place to roll out a system of swapping batteries in electric cars in Israel and Denmark. It will be interesting to see how their attempt will fare.
In the past, I have read critics contend that no one will want to participate in the system because of the risk of receiving a faulty battery. I suppose that is a concern, but on the other hand, there are services that sell you propane with exchangeable tanks instead of requiring the user to own their own tank. To me, the Better Place business model is just an extension of one that works in the propane sector.
Federal Rail Freight Service Review Report Released
The federal government released the final report of the Rail Freight Service Review process in Friday. The review was launched in 2008 to address ongoing issues with rail freight service, raised by users of the rail supply chain. The report of the Review is posted on the Transport Canada web site.
The government accepts the panel’s commercial approach and intends to implement the following steps to improve the performance of the entire rail supply chain:
- initiate a six-month facilitation process with shippers, railways and other stakeholders to negotiate a template service agreement and streamlined commercial dispute resolution process;
- Table a bill to give shippers the right to a service agreement to support the commercial measures;
- establish a Commodity Supply Chain Table, involving supply chain partners that ship commodities by rail, to address logistical concerns and develop performance metrics to improve competitiveness;
- in collaboration with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Transport Canada will lead an
in-depth analysis of the grain supply chain to focus on issues that affect that sector and help identify potential solutions.
HST Research News
A study reported on today in the Financial Post indicates the implementation of HST did not significantly inflate consumer prices. As time progresses, it appears that businesses are passing cost savings associated with HST input cost credits onto consumers.
“With the compensating income tax changes also enacted by the Ontario government, the net impact of the reform for most families by the end of 2010 was a gain or very small loss in after-tax real incomes,” Mr. Smart said in the report.