When Did Carp Get A Mountain?

Mulder

The Waste Management dump in west Ottawa is scheduled to grow unless something is done. The current monstrosity, dubbed the Carp Mountain, is about 1km x 1km and scrapes the sky a whopping 20 stories.

Waste Management is now looking at ways to expand the dump to 2 or even 3 times it’s current size.

The dump is already viewable from the 417 and on a downwind day you can smell it several kilometers away. According to Lowell Green as far east as Terry Fox Drive (2 highway exits over) and as far south as the old Stittsville Fleamarket.

The expectation is that trash would be coming from as far away as Trenton on the outskirts of Toronto. But, apparently, there is also a policy that enables the provincial government to force the dump to take trash from Toronto. With the state of Michigan looking at stopping 600 trucks a day of Toronto trash showing up to unload, this is going to be a problem.

WMI says that the plan is to accept only 10% of trash from outside the Ottawa area, but the ability for McGuinty to jump in and force this, I am on the side of stopping this expansion.

It’s bad enough we wallow in our own trash so close, but to wallow in the trash of others? Why is WMI not gasifying this stuff and turning it into electricity? Why are we not REDUCING the size of the carp mountain with these clean, safe methods of incineration?

For those in the Ottawa area there is something you can do. A march to demonstrate against the expansion is happening on March 1st at 6pm, starting at Sacred Heart in Stittsville. More info here. The last day for the city to accept input from the public is March 17th, so NOW is the time to act.

EMAIL CITY COUNCIL Today!! And tell them you don’t want the dump growing. I made that convenient link so you can send one email to all 21 councillors and the mayor.

Cookie Owns The Podium!!

Mulder

Ok, with all the Olympic hype the past week, I could not forget to toss my daughter into the mix.

Yesterday, here at home in Kanata, the 31st Kanata Cup was held. This was the biggest event put on by the local Rhythmic Gymnastics organization. There were over 60 competitors and in her age group, Cookie took a bronze and a silver and a bronze in the overall.

Talk about owning the podium!!!

She took a silver in her Free routine, and the bronze came in her Hoop routine. A bauble with her hoop had it roll out of bounds which was her only deduction of the day. She did manage to reach it without going out of bounds herself, which would have knocked her out of the medals in that event.

I was especially pleased to see our local MP, who happens to be the Minister of Defence, Gordon O’Connor at the event to present medals to the second group of girls and I had the honour of introducing him myself. Mr. O’Connor was kind enough to give the girls a few words of congratulations and inspiration.

Being a parent of one of the local girls, we all had our duties. My rubber arm got twisted to co-announce all day Sunday but it was worth it. I had front row seats!!

A-Channel showed up and took some footage for the 6pm news. I will strip the footage out of their broadcast and post it here later tonight.

Talk About Mr. Spilly Pants

Mulder

I can’t make this stuff up.

One of Canada’s largest breweries is in damage control after the 40-year-old Toronto actor who played a Scottish spokesman for Alexander Keith’s beer was charged with several counts of possessing child pornography.Robert Norman Smith, who is best known as the mutton-chopped, loudmouth Scotsman who praises Alexander Keith’s India Pale Ale as “the pride of Nova Scotia” in television commercials, was charged Wednesday after Toronto police searched his home on a warrant Tuesday.

This is one heck of a CLM.

Ottawa City Staff Heading To Spain?

Mulder

I don’t normally criticize Jan Harder much. She is one of the Ottawa City Councillors that, typically, is on the ball when it comes to what is right or wrong. And I was pleased to hear that she was cleared of issues surrounding inappropriate aid to her daughter’s campaign. Today, Susan Sherring is reporting on an upcoming trip to Spain for four city employees, including Harder.

And why are they heading to Spain? To see an operational Plasma Waste Conversion facility in Castellgali in light of the Plasco pilot program going into the Trail Rd. Waste Facility in Harder’s riding.

Now I am all for PGP or (plasma gasification processes) that convert biomass to burnable gases which are then used to create electricity, but this is an unwarranted and not necessary.

At the end of the month, Kirkpatrick, Harder, acting deputy city manager Richard Hewitt and director of utility services Ken Brothers will go to Spain on Plasco’s dime. Plasco Energy Group, owned by Rod Bryden, has inked a contract with the City of Ottawa for a pilot plasma waste conversion project at the Trail Rd. facility The Spanish plant located in Castellgali is owned by Plasco, and operated by HERA Holdings, in which Plasco has a 40% share. The four leave on Feb. 25 and return to the nation’s capital on March 4.

Why would four senior level city employees head off to Spain for a week to view a facility we will have a pilot program for locally? The deal for the pilot facility has already been inked? Why not just drive a few miles down the road once it is built and see how it is going?

Don’t mistake my disdain for this trip as some slight against Rob Bryden. On the contrary, I think he has been an exceptional businessman in the city and built up some of the most interesting, socially responsible organizations. But I do question public servants, (and that’s just what these four nation hoppers are) with inappropriately accepting gifts/donations which they cannot reciprocate. This is the rule for our City employees.

Now, the only ways this trip could be done would be to say either 1) yes we can reciprocate, which puts us on the hook for carting four businessmen around the world, or 2) having the city pay it’s own expenses, which defeats the purpose and was already discounted as a reasonable expenditure above.

Auditor General's Awards Don't Go Far Enough

Mulder

Auditor General Sheila Fraser gave out the awards to the Crown Corporations submitting the best annual reports. The program has been around since 1993 to help promote good reporting.

The AG, with a team of 7 judges, determined that the winners for this year were Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) and the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation. CDIC won in the larger corporation category.

What I find amazing is that they had reviewed the reports of 46 Crown Corporations yet only select the top two.

The AG could take a lesson from Neilson ratings or the best to worst college lists published annually. They should lay it on the line and rank them 1 to 46. Wouldn’t this put some pressure on the organizations to put accountability into their reporting? Naming 2 while 46 get off easy could be reversed to pegging the worst 2 so they know where they rank and can get their asses in gear.

Simply announcing intentions to rank the Crown Corporations reports would whip them all into line in a year or two.

Pictures Depicting Mohammad Are Not New, So Why The Kerfuffle?

Mulder

Listening to Lowell Green this morning, he mentioned hearing that images of Mohammad were not new. So I quickly did some googling and came up with this gem from the Washington Post.

While rare in the 1,400 years of Islamic art, depictions of Muhammad are found in the collections of such institutions as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris and the Edinburgh University library. Muhammad has been portrayed in the work of revered Muslim artists and of such Western figures as William Blake, Auguste Rodin and Salvador Dali — as well as the creators of the cable-TV cartoon series “South Park.”

In addition, we have the the website Answering-Islam.org.uk siting the Qu’ran with the following support.

Numerous passages in the Qur’an prohibit idolatry, and worshipping statues or pictures, but there is not even single verse in the Qur’an that explicitly says not to have any pictures of Muhammad. This bears repeating: There is not a single verse in the Qur’an that prohibits making or having pictures of Muhammad or people or animals or trees. In fact, there are some verses in the Qur’an which mention images in a positive context and which therefore presuppose that some statues or images were approved by God, see the article Muhammad and Images.

But the article continues with a very critical point that must be made. This MUST be read.

It is clear that making pictures is a horrible sin in Islam. There are dozens of narrations that emphasize and reiterate this point. However, it is always said that Allah will punish those people on the Day of Judgment. There is no command for Muslims to go out now and punish those painters themselves. This is particularly relevant since Muhammad was not shy in this regard.

I am not sure about this source, but if this is the case, then the rioting and uproar over this whole issue is, again, invalid. The Day of Judgment is where those who portray images will get their just due. In addition, there is continued growth of support that the whole concept of no images is to prevent idol worship. Which, again, supports what I said here. I think that portraying images of anyone, including Mohammad, is actually within the guidelines of the Qu’ran because images in a newspaper, cartoons, educational imagery, are fine, as long as you don’t idolize the photo or painting by putting up on the wall in a place of honour. I can understand the disdain for the disrespect of certain cartoons, but again, why are people rioting? Are people afraid of images in general? I am not sure, but I think the reason may have something to do with this or this. You can read more from other bloggers on this subject here, and here, and here

Munter Gives Kilrea A Valentine's Day Gift

Mulder

It may be 9 months before the municipal elections here in Ottawa, but the polls are already starting up.

An informal poll on the Ottawa Sun website today already is showing the Munter effect.

At the time of this post, there were 384 respondents with Terry Kilrea being favoured by 33% of them. But the left wing vote (47%) is split between Munter (27%) and current Mayor Bob Chiarelli (10%).

Munter’s impact will be much more quick and painful than the left can imagine. If the right can keep Walter Robinson from running, Kilrea has a real shot at dethroning the two term Mayor.

I will update this post again later when there are more respondents.

All I Want For Valentine's Day…

Mulder

Am I being unromantic when I tell my wife that I would love to get one of those sheepskin hats our Canadians are wearing in Torino as a Valentine’s Day gift? I hope not, because I did. Man, they look sooooo warm, and how much more Canadian can you get with this one.

I really do want to congratulate HBC for this one. The Canadians look so, for lack of a better word, Canadian!! I love the fact that they take the Olympic uniforms to a new level each time. The Roots outfits were instahits on a global level, and I can see these fur trader hats being a huge hit. What I found to be funny was that in light of the pending sale of HBC, Canada’s oldest company, to an American conglomerate, HBC put a perfect touch on the uniforms with these trader caps. The creation of the Hudson’s Bay Trading Company so long ago was based on the fur trade, and the trader cap is such a symbolic Canadian headgear. Even more than the toque!!

So if anyone out there has a heart, please comment in this post and let my wife know that I REALLY REALLY want one of these hats!

I wonder if it fits over my Tory baseball cap.