The country is facing a recession, people of all stripes are cutting back on their expenses, some are losing money on their RRSPs, gauging (more like fleecing) at the pumps, people are losing jobs left and right, yet the Liberals, NDP and Bloc are against capping their salaries, cutting their expense accounts and want to hold on to their entitlements.  “We must work together to make this parliament work for the Canadian people” has changed to “I don’t want to give up my $1.95 per vote and a pay hike”. Thanks Jackie, Stephane and Gilles. Glad you’re working for us. Glad you’re chippin’ in.
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The facts are these: this quirky show has been on the air for one year, three months, twenty days, six hours. It has won 3 Emmy’s and it has been nominated for twelve, and ABC found the Neilson ratings too low and cancelled it this week.

In case you don’t know, Pushing Daisies is a comedy unlike any other: it’s new, fresh and quirky. It looks almost cartoonish in production and the humour is great as well. The premise is this: Ned, a pie-maker gifted with the mysterious ability to bring dead things back to life by touching them. However, Ned quickly learns that if something is revived for more than exactly one minute, something of similar “life value” in the vicinity drops dead, as a form of balance. Additionally, if he touches the revived person or thing a second time, it falls dead again, this time permanently. He uses this ability to revive murdered people, ask them who killed them, and then put them back, using the information to cash in on rewards for solving their murders.

Pushing Daisies plays on ABC on Wednesday Nights, in Canada in plays on CTV on Tuesdays at 8 and Wednesdays at 8.

In a TV world where every “reality” stupidity show stays on the air for season after season (think: Big Brother, So You Think You Can Dance?, The Bachelor), my favourite show has been cancelled after a season and a half. It’s a real shame.

For more info on Pushing Daisies:

The ABC website

Wikipedia

Daylight Savings Time. That incredibly inconvenient occurrence each spring and fall (do we go back, or forward?) where suddenly, for a few weeks, everybody in the world is out of sync and mass confusion ensues because not every country, or even every province, changes time on the same date. Computers are off. VCR’s are off (yes, I am of that generation). And the most depressing: that nasty event where all of a sudden you leave your place of work at the end of your day and it’s pitch dark out.

And for what? To save money?

In this cooling climate, it has now been shown that Daylight Savings Time actually COSTS money, since the power consumption is shifted from lights to heating. (I suddenly have a mental picture of Dion waving his arms in the air saying “cut… lights… shift… to… heating”).

Isn’t it time to stop this foolishness, and just keep our regular time all year ’round?

Yesterday Layton and Dion were calling for more civility in the House. People don’t want the name calling and shouting matches in question period. “We must all work together for the economy’s sake” was the phrase of the day. Dion pledged not to abstain on votes anymore, indicating a will to work together.
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Yes, I received another email from my good friend Jack Layton this afternoon. After he chalked up his “historic gains this election”, he sat down with Mr. Harper and told him how to fix this economy thing, and, he says, he hopes Harper can put aside his petty partisan ways and listen to him. Jackie hopes Mr. Harper mentions the following suggestions in his throne speech:

• Cancelling the scheduled 2009 unconditional corporate tax giveaways;
• Investing in the new energy economy to create jobs and fight climate change;
• Investing in a national training strategy;
• Cracking down on the banks receiving government support but still charging outrageous credit card and ATM fees;
• Protecting pensions and RRSPs so that Canadians can sleep at night knowing their retirement is safe and secure.

Jackie, don’t get me wrong, these are good suggestions. Really good, but I don’t think in this time of economic uncertainty that ATM fees are really all that important. Or fighting climate change. Or national training, whatever that is.

All throughout the letter my good friend Jackie mentions me and my family and how he wants to help us. All we have to do to weather this storm, is to “stick together and put family first”. On three occasions in the short letter my pal Jackie tells us how to accomplish this: by giving him some money. Just $20. That’s enough. But give ’em more money!

My buddy Jackie is going to help me and my family weather this economic storm by taking more money out of our pockets!

I am richer for having such a good friend.

CTV has an ‘interesting story’ on how 2 greenhouse gases on the rise worry scientists.

The story talks about two greenhouse gases (GHG): methane and nitrogen trifluoride and how they are on the rise. Methane is coming from landfills, natural gas burning, coal mining, etc. and nitrogen trifluoride is used as a cleaning agent during the manufacture of liquid crystal display television and computer monitors and for thin-film solar panels.

The story, as usual for this subject in the media, is riddled with misinformation, omissions and non-information:

Methane is by far the bigger worry. It is considered the No. 2 greenhouse gas based on the amount of warming it causes and the amount in the atmosphere.

1) methane for the amount of greenhouse gas effect (GHGE) is listed after WATER VAPOUR (36-70%), CO2 (9-26%). Methane is listed as causing 4-9% of GHGE, making it NUMBER THREE. And for 2) The amount in the atmosphere: methane is listed after (again): water vapour and CO2, making it #3 again.

It is astounding that a ‘scientific’ news article like this completely IGNORES the fact that WATER VAPOUR is by far the biggest greenhouse gas and causes 36-70% of its effect.

The story goes on to say:

the Arctic warms, the concern is this methane will be freed and worsen warming. Scientists have been trying to figure out how they would know if this process is starting.

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It’s still early and the data are far from conclusive

In other words, methane levels are on the rise, but a) they have no idea why, b) no idea when, and c) no idea if it will, because of inconclusive data.

So, your “news” story, CTV, is about “scientists” announcing something they don’t know much about may be happening, but they wouldn’t know it, and if it were happening, they have no idea what it will do, when or how.

That seems well worth reporting.

The City of Ottawa can no longer afford to take care of their 13 Royal Swans. In a report released tomorrow, staff writes:

Staff say Ottawa can’t afford to build a winter home for the Royal Swans, with the cheapest proposal at $239-thousand.

$239,000? For a swan-coop? No wonder this city can’t balance its books.

Current coop		Proposed coop

And in other sad news, Wendell the Wallabi was found dead just 15 kilometers from the farm where he escaped a few weeks ago after a storm knocked down the fence that kept him on the property. I had known Wendell since he was a wee little baby. He was always sleeping in a sling behind the cash register of a nursery we used to go to.

These misconceptions about our climate have got to stop. The Earth’s climate is of such an enormous complexity that we can’t even begin to understand it. Sure, we have some notion of how things work in general, but there are an infinite number of variables that weigh in on the climate and on the weather pattern at any given location. Human activity, if it is a factor, is just ONE out of that infinite number.

And yet, every time a species dies, an ice floe breaks off, or on a windy day, inevitably the Climate Change (formerly: Global Warming) people come out of the woodwork and blame this one particular variable: humans. read more…

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Obama: Hi, this is Obama.

Dion: Hosama?

Obama: No, Obama. Osama’s the other guy.

Dion: (to himself) I don’t understand what he’s saying…

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I haven’t said much about the American election, and in fact, this is courtesy of my wife, who said yesterday evening watching John McCain’s concession speech: I wish Canada had such a MAN, such a graceful loser, and not such a grovelling, whining little boy for an opposition leader.

Congratulations, Mr. Obama. I hope you can bring the American people together and help bring an end to the racial divide that has plagued your country for centuries.