I thought a piece of sophisticated technology like the Space Shuttle has to be flown and operated by a variety or personnel like commander, pilot, several mission specialists, and a flight engineer. I thought the International Space Station needs a crew of at least three to make it functional. But if you’ve been following the latest Endeavour space mission, you’d think it would all be done by just one person: Julie Payette. Every night on the news: Julie Payette in the Shuttle taking off. Julie Payette docking the shuttle to the station. Julie Payette operating the Canadarm 2. Julie Payette hugging herself on live TV (there were two Canadians on board the station–can you name the other one??). Julie Payette fixed the toilet. Shuttle carrying Julie Payette landed in Florida. Julie Payette is back on Earth. Ah, thank God. It’s over. However, now we’ll get: Julie Payette drives home from Floria. Julie Payette gets hassled at the border for bringing back too much alcohol. Julie Payette pulls into her driveway and hits her dog.
Now, I don’t do this often: I live in Canada now, and I try not to draw comparisons between Canada and Holland, and I don’t call Holland ‘home’ (my home’s in Ottawa), but I have to say that, for once, Holland got it right when it comes to traffic handling. True, the streets are narrow, and people drive like crazy, but at least they had the foresight to separate pedestrians from bikes from cars.
Road way, curb and bike path
They separated all traffic into three levels: slow, medium and fast. Pedestrians are in the slow category, bikes & mopeds are in the medium, and all motorized vehicles over 50 hp are in the fast category. Fast goes on the street, medium goes on the “medium” path, and slow goes on the “slow” path. So, you have the road way, then a curb, then the “medium” path then a separator of some kind (gras, gravel, painted line, whatever) and then the sidewalk. And this goes on both sides of the street.
Intersection: the road way, a curb, the bike path (the red paved section) and the side walk intersecting each other. If you look closely, you can see the bike cross roadways on a ‘crosswalk” type of crossing, with their own traffic lights.
The following video shows the lights in action. Now, you have to disregard the IDIOTS who bike through red, don’t pay attention and cross intersections without regard for personal safety. We have those IDIOTS here too. I want you to pay attention to the bike traffic lights and how they work in relation to the cars’ traffic lights.
And here’s one on a roundabout:
There is no reason whatsoever to not put these kinds of measures here in Canada, or at least in “bike friendly” cities like Ottawa and Victoria, B.C. Maybe the number of bikes doesn’t make it cost-effective to construct these elaborate intersections, but how much is a human life worth? Can you put a price on a lifelong disability from being hit by a car?
Now, I can already hear all car-people come out saying “but those bikers don’t follow the rules of the road! They don’t stop at stop signs, don’t signal where they’re going”, and I can hear the bikers say “the cars don’t respect us! They zoom by us like we’re not there!”. I hear you. I really do. But something has got to be done. At least separating the bikes from the cars will avoid a large number of collisions that will almost always leave the cyclist with life-threatening injuries.
This is McGuinty’s Ontario: take money from those who don’t have it, give it to those who don’t need it, to buy cars with that are not made in Ontario and create no Ontario jobs, that run on power we can’t generate. All for a questionable claim that those cars are “green”.
Premier Dalton McGuinty’s announcement this week of $10,000 government handouts for buyers of Chevrolet Volts is wrong on so many levels that one has to wonder if the premier is still firing on all cylinders.
he continues:
The batteries of the Volt are expected to last five to eight years, which might be longer than GM itself,
and:
In the wake of McGuinty’s peculiar announcement, the Ontario PC party reminded us that it has been pressing for some time for an incentive to take high-emissions clunkers off the road. That would have an immediate environmental payback, but McGuinty is not interested.
We don’t have $10B for a nuclear plant, yet we can waste $3.5B on handouts to people who don’t need it to buy unproven technology. Technology that is not any better for the environment than your ordinary coal-burning power plant. Does McGuinty know what to do with all those discarded heavy-metal containing dead batteries five to eight years from now? Does he know where to get the power to charge up all these vehicles? And, I’ll ask again: what are you going to do in the winter?
No, it seems McGuinty didn’t think this one through… as with most of his plans and bans: pesticides are toxic but Toronto can spray them safely on garbage, light bulbs are banned, but if you happen to break one of those spirally things, you better call in the hazmat-team.
When KISS comes to town, you gotta go. You just have to: it’s the greatest rock show on Earth. You’re not going for the fine musicianship, you’re not going to hear the crystal clear soprano-like voices. You’re going to watch an extravaganza. And when it comes to putting on a good show, KISS is second to none. No other band comes even close to giving you your money’s worth of sheer entertainment.
Their music may not be appealing to most people, and the make-up and costumes may put a lot of people off, but when they take the stage and play their hearts out for a solid 2 1/2 hours, together with explosions, pyrotechnics, lighting and confetti, it somehow all comes together and it works. This IS the greatest show on Earth.
They played mostly KISS Alive! era songs, circa 1975 and earlier, replaying the entire album, minus Rock Bottom and Firehouse. Only the encore had some later songs such as (the appalling) Lick it Up and (yawn) I Was Made For Loving You. It’s hard to believe that, apart from the slightly tamer explosions and fireworks, which are, no doubt, due to the Ottawa Bylaw officers keeping a close eye on things, that these guys are closing in on 60 (Gene’s turning sixty later this year, Paul is 57) and the show looks and feels just like the 1975 version, when the lads were in their late twenties.
A record 30,00040,000 people came to see KISS at the Ottawa Blues Fest last night. A few showers didn’t dampen our spirits. In true Ottawa fashion, we all came, walking calmly from the bus station about 1 hour before the show, and left immediately after, in the same calm fashion, back to the buses. I was sitting in a bus, less than 1/2 hour after the show. Bravo OC-Transpo!
Got a headache, ears are ringing. feet are tired, knees are killing me: I’ve been to a KISS show.
I thought I’d make a french onion soup for lunch while taking a break from the website stuff. Now, I know french onion soup is more of a winter dish, but hey, have you looked at the temperature lately? The soup turned out really nice, so I took a picture and decided to give you the recipe, should you be interested.
The main ingredient in this soup is not onions, it’s time: it takes about two hours to make two bowls of soup, so don’t start this as a last minute what-the-hell-are-we-making-for-lunch type of meal. It’s a lot of standing and stirring.
Remember, this makes TWO bowls, multiply all ingredients according to your number of guests:
3 medium onions, thinly sliced (makes about 4 cups worth)
3 tbs margarine/butter
1 tbs flour
1/2 tsp sugar
4 cups of beef broth
2 tbs Sherry
2 slices of bread
2 slices of cheese (swiss is best, but any will do, except cheddar)
Here we go:
In a large pot, melt margarine/butter, and add onions. Cook on LOW heat for about 45 minutes, stirring frequently.
After about 45 minutes, when the onions are starting get a bit pasty, add suger and flour, stir and cook for 3 minutes.
Add the beef broth, stir, and simmer uncovered for about 50 minutes, or until liquid has halved in volume. Add the Sherry about 10 minutes before it’s done.
Spoon the soup into oven-ready bowls, toast the bread slices and float on top of the soup. Cover the bread with cheese slices and broil in the oven until the cheese is bubbling and golden brown.
Enjoy (and apologize to your partner/family/co-workers for the rest of the day)
I will be working this weekend (weather permitting: wireless is no fun in a thunder storm) to upgrade my webpage to WP 2.8.1 and install a new theme. This Blue Zinfandel theme has served me well, but is beginning to show its age…
So over the course of this weekend, widgets may stop working, disappear, reappear, and screw up the layout–no worries: I’m on the case!
I know this has been a busy news week, with such utterly important subjects as Michael Jackson’s Memorial Extravaganza, Shannon Tweed Day (yes? no? ye.. no? no!), and Did He or Didn’t He (also titled: Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t), and a nearly missed photo op (would you want to be in the picture with people who think they can influence the weather? I wouldn’t either) but I’d like to point your attention to another pressing issue: the City of Ottawa Weed Team.
Upon getting a complaint from a neighbour, the City of Ottawa Weed Team was sent out to a suburban back-yard to take note of the unruly collection of grasses and weeds protruding through their fence and peeking into their neighbours’ yards, and to subsequently deliver a bylaw notice that the home owners should mow their weed-yard down, or else… [the City of Ottawa would do it for them, and send them the bill]
Now, I am not one to go for the eco-nut back-yard let-it-grow-wild meadow-experiment, however, I do believe in property rights, and as such a homeowner has the right to grow any plant he or she wants to, even if it does invite an infestation of aphids and bees.
The irony is, ever since the City of Ottawa banned pesticides (and herbicides) on their own property (long before Dalton banned it for everybody else), and they cut the budget for city property grass mowing in half, coincidentally around the same time, the city is one big collection of tall grasses, weeds and other unsightly growths and are in effect in constant violation of their own bylaw. Take a drive down Merivale Road, Baseline Road, St. Josef, Carling Ave. The weeds are three foot high!
I think the City of Ottawa has better things to do than to lecture ordinary citizens about keeping their lawn neatly trimmed and bickering on whether we should have a Shannon Tweed day or not: the latest property tax increase is currently set at 28%, to be wiggled down to, say, 26.3 by the time the budget gets approved.
Mr. Carr, an inmate in Millhaven, had his award upheld by the Federal Court Justice James Russell on June 2. Mr. Carr was stabbed in the bum with a plastic device in 2005 and has since been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The taxpayers of Canada eased his suffering to the tune of $12,000.
Mr. Carr, who was serving a three-year term for robbery-related offences when he was attacked, is now living in the Hamilton, Ont.-area, awaiting his money.
Copyright 2010 ERWIN GERRITS. All Rights Reserved.