“Flaherty’s budget is a limp noodle”

John Ibbitson is absolutely right that we are missing a tremendous opportunity being so out of synch, politically, with the Americans.

If politics is a car, Stephen Harper knows the Canadian public will not put up with any backwards motion, but by God, he’s got his hands on the emergency brake and he’s not letting up.

Obama or no Obama, there will be very little in the way of progressive politics for Canada until we get a new PM – maybe even a new government.

407 East extension

Word is out the province intends to extend the 407 toll highway through Durham Region toward Peterborough, but the new segment will not be owned or operated by the much-reviled ETR consortium.

I can’t say the prospect of a road connecting greenfield to exurbs fills me with joy, but I am delighted it will be tolled. Say what you will about the high price of driving on the 407; those tolls do a pretty good job of keeping the highway moving.

Hopefully all new highways (and there will be new highways) will be tolled roads. Tolls are a good idea not just for discouraging unnecessary traffic, but also make expensive roads financially sustainable.

Let it pass

The budget has been revealed in full.

My gut says the government needs to be brought down because they can’t be trusted and they spend most of their time living in an alternate reality.

But this budget isn’t nearly bad enough to be rejected. The mess of constitutional wranglings and a possible election delaying a budget until spring is not worth indulging my anxieties over Harper or my envy of the Americans with their new president.

We should accept this mediocre budget and let the Tories wear the recession for another year.

Some people are just monsters

Who need a soul when you can have $15,000?

Two Toronto city councillors voted against the donation of two decommissioned ambulances to a city in El Salvador.

Even when times were tough for everyone during the Great Depression, people in Ontario sent railcars full of food to Saskatchewan, where things were even worse.

A recession is no excuse to be a jerk.

Green power?

Brigid Delaney in tomorrow’s (oh, Australia) The Age:

When I rang home from various parts of the world during my three years away, the news from my family often sounded like excerpts from the Book of Revelation: Lake Wendouree was so dry that it was set on fire, flowers were withering on the vine, people were drinking the bath water. What next? The horses eating one another?

But all is not lost, we have a solution, suggested authors Mark O’Connor and William Lines in their book Overloading Australia: how about not letting any more people into Australia, closing the doors.

The Age reported on Saturday that the book urges Australians to forgo self-responsibility and “ignore water conservation”, instead putting the onus on the Government to rethink its immigration policy.

This solution comes down to a simple calculation. Are immigrants a drain or a benefit to our society? It’s a basic question — but the answer is complicated. Yes, more people will use more resources. Bingo — fewer migrants mean longer showers.

There may be certain places where it would be wise to restrict population growth. Phoenix comes to mind (a city so parched for water they call the airport a harbour) but even there a little conservation would go a long way. We’re water fiends in North America, and I bet it’s the same situation in Australia.

Even excluding all the desert, Australia is a very big place. There’s plenty of room for millions more people, and enough water if used wisely. Hell, with all that potential solar power in Australia you ought to be able to desalinize as much water as you want.

Here’s the deal, Australia: Don’t let those Nazis commandeer your environmental movement and I’ll keep an eye on things in Canada. Agreed?

Cow Farts

It would seem that we have more experience with climate change than we realize. First, our decision to settle down and farm may have saved the planet from an ice age. Second, the smallpox-assisted depopulation of the New World, and subsequent reforestation, may have been partly responsible for the Little Ice Age.

Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

Budget Pessimism

It seems to be generally agreed that next week’s budget isn’t going to be pretty.

Harper playing games with budget leaks: Ignatieff – National Post

Ontario’s back to the wall – Globe and Mail

Gird for the worst as MPs gather for Budget, Round 2 – Toronto Star

When you load a shotgun with $34-billion dollars, a few billion are bound to be spent right, but that hardly makes for a good budget.

(I am tempted to make a joke about getting Cheneyed by Harper’s stimulus shotgun, but will resist.)

Part of the trouble is that even $34-billion can be spread too thinly trying to buy votes across the country with spending (“$1.5-million to refurbish a horse racetrack in Summerside, P. E. I.”) and tax cuts. Harper might please nobody while trying to please everybody. On the other hand – or in addition – he might pull some kind of political trick again to screw the opposition.

In either case, the country will suffer for it.

The future sounds computer-generated

I had noticed lately some of the new buses in St Catharines came equipped with LED boards up front for announcing stops. I thought it would be some time before they had all the buses upgraded to implement audio and visual announcements of bus stops, as mandated by the OHRC [pdf]. Either the transit commission upgraded all the buses very quickly this afternoon or they’re taking a gradual approach.

Whatever the case may be, I can tell you from personal experience that at least one bus in St Catharines now speaks and displays the name of each upcoming stop. Hooray for progress!

Even for someone with myself with decent hearing and vision, it proved to be handy because the bus was crowded and from my standing position I couldn’t really see where we were at. But I could hear it!

Autódromo Municipal

And I thought municipal golf courses were a strange idea.

In my mind, the archetypal racetrack (for cars) is more of a professional sports stadium than public park, but in Buenos Aires the Autódromo Municipal appears to be open to all drivers [Google Maps].

With credit to Google for the translation, here is the description on the city’s website:

Located in the south of the city (at the intersection of Avenida General Paz Roca) is the Municipal Autodromo Oscar Alfredo Gálvez. On weekends, thousands of spectators from all over the country come to enjoy the skills offered by different tracks. Autodrome has a Picódromo. Anyone interested can register their vehicle in one of the classes and participate in the stings.

I think the word which was translated to “strings” – picadas – can also mean races. So anybody can participate in the races! I wonder how many people actually do.

First-world ignorance

Here is something loosely related to the historic election of Obama to the US Presidency.

Did you know Peru has a Japanese-Peruvian president for most of the 1990s? He is currently serving a six-year jail sentence for abuse of power.

This seems like the sort of thing I should have heard about before.