…don’t tell anybody that I’m running.
UPDATE: Here’s the list…
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100-miles from your kitchen table.
After picking up Discovering the Unknown Landscape: A History of America’s Wetlands by Ann Vileisis while I continue my research on wetlands habitat protection, I stumbled upon an online video interview Vileisis gave on her newer book, Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get it Back.
Kitchen Literacy sounds like a fascinating book and as I am planning to spend part of my summer seeing how long I can last on the 100-mile diet, I plan to pick up Vileisis’ book and give it a read.
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and the award goes to…
With the Spring Session of the Alberta Legislature set to begin in just only weeks, the provincial scene is starting to come alive again after the post-election hangover/depression is starting to wear off (depending on which side of the Legislature your team is sitting on)…
– The Alberta Liberal Caucus was sworn-in today. The 9-member Official Opposition will include new faces Kent Hehr (Calgary-Buffalo) and Darshan Kang (Calgary-McCall). The Alberta Liberals recently announced their shadow cabinet which includes Hehr taking Justice and Attorney General, Solicitor-General and Public Security, and Kang taking Transportation and Service Alberta.
– Alberta MLAs are getting a 4.7% raise this week (their salaries are tied to an annual adjustment). We’lla ll be looking forward to seeing newly elected Tory MLA Carl Benito (Edmonton-Mill Woods) come through on his election promise to donate his salary to a scholarship program.
– After six-months on the job, Alberta Energy and Utilities Board Chairman William Tillman has resigned. Tillman took over the position following last year’s AEUB spy scandal, in which it was discovered that the provincially-appointed AEUB had used public funds to hire a private investigator to spy on central Alberta landowners and their lawyers.
– And the awards goes to… Tory Premier Ed Stelmach for placing a strong second in the Fossil Fool of the Year Awards…
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has won the dubious title of Fossil Fool of the Year runner-up, beating out several of North America’s top energy and automaker chief executives.
Stelmach picked up 25 per cent of more than 6,000 votes cast worldwide and will be crowned ‘Canadian Fossil Fool of the Year’ on Tuesday, April 1 by San Francisco-based organizer, Energy Action Coalition.
The premier was nominated in the international vote for his staunch support of oilsands development in northern Alberta with “the potential to lay waste to an area the size of the state of Florida,” says the coalition.
Stelmach finished second in voting behind Bank of America chief executive Ken Lewis, who has attracted the ire of environmentalists for funding various coal-power projects.
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mary robinson in edmonton.
Former Irish President Mary Robinson will be speaking in Edmonton this week.
Tickets are on sale at the U of A International Centre or through the Citadel Theatre 780-425-1820.
After having spent most of my day sitting in Rutherford Library pouring over a series of response articles between the Ted Morton and Rainer Knopff duo and the feisty Miriam Smith, I think my brain is very close to reaching the ‘mush’ point. As interesting as I find the Court Party debate, I think I’ll save writing a post about it until later…
I had some good solid fun checking out the Born Ruffians show at the Velvet Undergroud this weekend. The Born Ruffians are on tour now, so I’d recommend you check them out if they’re playing in a town near you… you should also check out their MySpace page for some sample songs. Here’s the video for their song ‘Hummingbird’…
And of course, as I seem to do at the end of month, I was at Oh Susanna at the Varscona Theater last night. If you haven’t been, you should. They put on a good show and rarely disappoint. The Be Arthurs were there too and gave the audience a hilarious rendition of Bitches ain’t Shit.
If you’ve never heard the Be Arthurs, here’s a clip from one of their live shows.
If you haven’t read it already, make sure to check out Naheed Nenshi’s op-ed in yesterday’s Calgary Herald in which he articulately explains why he will be joining a growing list of Canadians in deciding to individually boycott the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Nenshi gives a shout out to bloggers who have jumped on the Boycott Beijing 2008 effort (this blog specifically. Thanks, Naheed!), but if you’re looking for more information on the Boycott Beijing 2008 movement you can check out my previous post, Laura at We Move to Canada, and Reporters sans frontières.
In more recent news, French President Nicholas Sarkozy has stated that he may boycott the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games in protest of the recent situation in Tibet.
“Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, has led a chorus of European criticism over China’s actions in Tibet, refusing to rule out a boycott of the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
The publicity gained by anti-China protesters abroad have generated a fiercer response to China’s actions in Tibet
“I don’t close the door to any option. I want dialogue to begin and I will graduate my response according to the response given by Chinese authorities,” Mr Sarkozy said.”
And here I thought Raj Sherman (Edmonton-Meadowlark) was the Parliamentary Secretary to Health & Wellness Minister Ron Liepert (Calgary-West), but according to the mandate letter sent this week by Tory Premier Ed Stelmach to Advanced Education & Technology Minister Doug Horner (Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert)…
You will work with the Minister of Health and Wellness to:
• Increase access to quality health care and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health care service delivery, and
• Ensure Alberta has the health care professionals we need to meet future demand, andLead the following initiatives:
• Increase the number of physician graduates from 227 to 295 by 2012;
• Increase the number of Registered Nurse graduates from 1,375 to 2,000 by 2012; and
• Increase the number of Licensed Practical Nurse graduates from 559 to 1000 by 2012.
Doug Horner’s mandate letter seems to have more to do with Liepert’s portfolio than his own. Maybe after his tenure in Education, Stelmach wants someone to keep a close eye on Minister Liepert…
Continuing from yesterday’s post, here’s some more coverage from the blogosphere and MSM on the proposed downtown Edmonton arena.
AGRDT: The good and the bad: Edmonton’s proposed new arena
Colby Cosh: If you build it, they will come. Or at least Mayor Mandel will, And another thing!
Covered in Oil: Arena Feasibility Committee releases its brochure
The Battle for Alberta: An Arena Response Letter #1, An Arena Response Letter #2, An Arena Response Letter #3.
PunjabiOil: Did Alberta Taxpayers fund the Oilers Dressing Room Renovations?
Scott Henning: Shell game hides taxpayer contribution to new arena
And make sure to check out Paula Simmons’ column in today’s Journal for the balanced opinions that couldn’t be found in yesterday’s paper…
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what’s a wetland anyway?
It’s crunch time in academia and I’m up to my waist in paper writing.
One of the papers I’m writing is on the topic of habitat protection in the wetlands of Louisiana. When writing about wetlands in the United States, it’s important to understand the many definitions of ‘wetlands.’ For example, until the Federal Manual for Identifying and Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands was created in 1989, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Soil Conservation Service, and the Fish & Wildlife Service all operated under different definitions of ‘wetlands.’ This created all sorts of hijinx as each agency had the power to designate areas as ‘wetlands’ and to affect people’s behavior accordingly.
I found this exert from Edward Schiappa’s article Toward a Pragmatic Approach to Definition: ‘Wetlands’ and the Politics of Meaning quite interesting (it was published in Environmental Pragmatism in 1996). It details the campaign promise of President George H. W. Bush to protect the wetlands of the United States (according to the EPA, the U.S. currently loses an average of 60,000 acres of wetlands each year).
“You may remember my pledge, that our national goal would be no net loss of wetlands. And together, we are going to deliver on the promise of renewal, and I plan to keep that pledge…
Wherever wetlands must give way to farming or development, they will be replaced or expanded elsewhere. It’s time to stand the history of wetlands destruction on its head. From this year forward, anyone who tries to drain the swamp is going to be up to his ears in alligators“Bush described the protection of the environment as “a moral issue. For it is wrong to pass on to future generations a world tainted by present thoughtlessness.” Encouraging his audience to judge their actions in light of the verdict of future generations, Bush asked those present to imagine what might be said forty years from now:
“It could be they’ll report the loss of many million acres more, the extinction of species, the disappearance of wilderness and wildlife. Or they could report something else. They could report that sometime around 1989 things began to change and that we began to hold on to our parks and refuges and that we protected our species and that in that year the seeds of a new policy about our valuable wetlands were sown, a policy summed up in three simple words: “No net loss.” And I prefer the second vision of America’s environmental future.”
Of course, politics being politics, the discussion turned to the definition of “no net loss.“
With Edmonton’s mainstream media bubbling in praise of the report supporting the construction a new arena in downtown Edmonton, I can’t help but be put a back at the lack of objectivity in the reporting. Judging by the amount of support in today’s papers, you’d think that Colin Powell had just made an irrefutable case to the United Nations Security Council…
Here’s a quick look at a couple of things that immediately caught my suspicion…
1) The committee that wrote the report was handpicked by someone who had already voiced support for the downtown arena – Mayor Stephen Mandel. Self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?
2) The comparisons are reaching. Of course I want Edmonton’s downtown to become vibrant, but building a giant hockey rink won’t automatically put Edmonton in a position to rival downtown Montreal or New York (like some of the article’s have alluded). I’m still not convinced that spending upwards of $450 million (plus land costs) on an arena that will draw the suburbs downtown for a couple hours 2-3 nights a week is what will revitalize downtown. As someone who has lived in the Whyte Avenue area for 4 years, I can tell you that bringing loads of hockey hooligans into an area doesn’t revitalize much for the people who are actually living in the neighbourhood.
3) No one seems to be talking about… “Northlands, the non-profit group that runs Rexall Place, released a study in February that said the arena could be rebuilt for $250 million. That report has been shelved while the mayor’s committee does its work.” (The Battle of Alberta had a good post on this back in October 2007).
4) I think that Journal City Hall columnist Scott McKeen might be getting a little too comfy in his City Hall Office as he spent the majority of his pro-arena article taking aim at those who would rather the public funds be spent on other things, like say, fighting homelessness or fixing infrastructure. McKeen also tried to solidify his case by arguing that the amount of reporters who showed up at yesterday’s media conference means Edmontonians should be convinced of the recommendations. Sorry, Scott, but still I remain skeptical.
Through all the frenzy and praise, I’m glad to see that there is still some sensibility on City Council as Councillors Don Iveson, Amarjeet Sohi, Ben Henderson, and Tony Caterina have all publicly stated their skepticism of the report.
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"it proves i’m human."
Now, you’d have a hard time finding a person who hasn’t inflated the truth every now and then for the sake of good story telling, but you’d think that any sane person would remember the difference between running through gun fire and walking peacefully across tarmac…
Clinton admits Bosnia ‘mistake’
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has said she made a mistake in claiming that she came under sniper fire on a trip to Bosnia in the 1990s.
“It proves I’m human,” she said in Pennsylvania ahead of the key primary election vote there on 22 April.
Her aides earlier admitted she “misspoke” in claiming she and daughter Chelsea “ran with our heads down” when arriving in Bosnia in 1996.
Also, I wasn’t under the impression that there were people who believed that Senator Hillary Clinton wasn’t human. What could they possibly think she is?
I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend of either:
a) Celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ;
or
b) Celebrating the arrival of the magical chocolate egg bearing “Easter Bunny.”
Coming back to Edmonton after a weekend spent up north, I had a difficult time deciding just what I wanted to write about upon my triumphant return to Alberta’s capital city…
I could write about the proposed development of a new arena in downtown Edmonton. The arena is being proposed as a way to revitalize Edmonton’s downtown-core, but I’m still not sure if I understand how building a giant cavernous hockey arena will equal revitalizion. Anyone care to explain? I’m hoping for some good coverage by Battle of Alberta and Covered in Oil…
I also could write about Tory Minister Ray Danyluk’s political posturing for rural Alberta in preparation for the next Electoral Boundary Redistribution. It is too early to tell whether Danyluk and his gang (who shall know be known as the “rural clique“) are blowing smoke to appease the “rural clique” or are turning an issue of fair democratic representation in the Alberta Legislature into a purely political game. As I’ve written in the past, rural Alberta is incredibly overrepresented in the Legislative Assembly compared to urban Alberta. I’m really hoping that Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel, Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier, and their Councils don’t hesitate in standing up for fair provincial representation for Alberta’s two largest cities.
And finally, I could also give a shout out to the Grande Prairie Daily-Herald Tribune for their shout out in yesterday’s paper (thanks to Bill for sending me the link). The Daily-Herald Tribune is one of the better newspapers from Alberta’s smaller cities and usually makes my list of daily scans (along with the St. Albert Gazette and Fort McMurray Today).
As fun as the Olympics Games are to watch and as great an opportunity they are for amateur athletes across the globe, I can’t help but be completely disturbed by the actions of the government of the People’s Republic of China in their recent military crackdown against the people of Tibet over the past couple weeks.
With a strong-arm crackdown on freedom of assembly and expression underway in the People’s Republic, there is no way that I can feel good about watching and therefore supporting the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.
The list of injustices stemming from that country’s regime is long, but We Move to Canada has put together a list of reasons why not to support the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games:
Tibet: China’s continuing occupation of this sovereign, peaceful nation.
Darfur: China is Sudan’s largest trading partner and the main foreign investor in its oil industry. Most Western oil companies, under pressure from human rights organizations, have withdrawn from Sudan. And although we know that economic isolation and divestment can have a very powerful, positive effect (think South Africa), China continues to do business with Sudan, enabling slavery and genocide.
China: The list of China’s abuses of its own people is a long and shameful one.
— China executes more of its citizens than the rest of the capital-punishment countries combined and doubled. While China has a much larger population than those other countries, its rate of execution is still disproportionate. China has more capital crimes, and is believed to have more hidden executions and political executions, than any other country in the world.
— China jails (and also executes) thousands of activists, political dissidents, journalists, and ordinary citizens who attempt free expression. Reporters Without Borders is a good source for civil liberty and human rights abuses in China, as is Human Rights Watch.— China’s labour laws are a sad joke. Factory conditions sound like something out of Dickens or Upton Sinclair.
— China pollutes water, air and soil with impunity, poisoning and sickening its citizens for generations to come.
So, when August 2008 comes around, instead of watching the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, I will be outside enjoying my freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression, and movement that the people of Tibet and the People’s Republic of China aren’t able to freely practice.
Hundereds of University of Alberta students gathered in front of the University Administration building this afternoon to protest the lack of consultation that occured before the U of A administration announced it will no longer accept credit cards as a method of payment for tuition fees.
With an average of 18,000 University of Alberta students using credit cards to pay their tuition and fees, a group of students have begun the “Dare to Deceive” campaign protesting the lack of consultation (“Dare to Deceive” is a play on the University’s “Dare to Deliver” document which, if you believe the U of A administration, is the best thing since sliced bread).
Not surprisingly, you can still use your credit card to donate to the University in honour of its centenary year.
A group of political science students at the University of Lethbridge will be holding a write-a-thon on April 3 at 7:00 in Galileo’s (at the University of Lethbridge) to send a message to Tory Premier Ed Stelmach that the Government of Alberta should appoint a Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform.
Sub-campaigns are also being organized at the Universities of Calgary and Alberta.