Quotulatiousness

June 3, 2010

Toronto Police tougher than the RCMP?

Filed under: Cancon, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:48

Kelly McParland notes that even though the RCMP have a lot of tough-guy things on their list of “will do”, there’s one thing Toronto Police will do that the RCMP won’t:

The RCMP will Taser an old lady at the drop of a hat.
They’ll Taser a guy in an airport because he’s holding a stapler and looks upset.
They’ll Taser the disabled.
They’ll Taser a 15-year-old girl in handcuffs.
They’ll Taser an 82-year-old heart patient in a hospital bed.
They’ll Taser someone who’s been hog-tied, pepper-sprayed, handcuffed and manacled.
They’ll Taser just about anything that can be Tasered. But they won’t use “sound cannons” in the middle of a city. Too risky.
Toronto police are buying four of the ear blasters for the G20 summit.

US & Canadian funding for War of 1812 bicentennial events

Filed under: Cancon, Government, History, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:33

Colby Cosh floats the notion that one of the reasons for the huge disparity in funding for 1812 bicentennial events between the Canadian and American governments is “Maybe they’re still mad they lost”.

In the eyes of the world, the War of 1812 may always appear insignificant against its Napoleonic backdrop. But it did decide the destiny of a continent, persuading Empire and Union that it was better to have trade crossing the border than troops.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Niagara Falls, Ont., on May 21, opening a new federally funded expansion to the city’s History Museum, which stands on the site of the ferocious July 1814 Battle of Lundy’s Lane. The federal and provincial governments are each giving the museum up to $3.2 million; for the feds, the money is part of a Throne Speech promise to commemorate the bicentennial of the war, “an event that was key to shaping our identity as Canadians and ultimately our existence as a country.”

Another $9 million in 50-50 federal-provincial cash is going to three Niagara Parks Commission sites: Old Fort Erie, McFarland House, and the Laura Secord Homestead. Ottawa has also set aside $12 million for improvements to 1812-related National Historic Sites along the frontier, including Gen. Brock’s monument at Queenston Heights. And Toronto is putting at least $5 million into a new visitors’ centre at Fort York.

But the only corresponding public funding on the other side of the border, as noted by the Buffalo News in April, has been a measly US$5,000 donation from the Niagara County legislature. Why isn’t Uncle Sam pulling his weight?

It’s more likely that the various levels of government are afraid of being seen to spend money on frivolous activities.

$30 per barrel for diesel fuel?

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:43

Joule Unlimited claims to have developed a new single-cell plant which can produce diesel fuel from sunlight and carbon dioxide:

Henry Ford, the father of the modern assembly line, predicted a future where fuel would be mass-produced from natural materials like fruit, weeds, or even sawdust — renewable alternatives to finite fossil fuels. Still, one energy technology being developed by Joule Unlimited, a company in Cambridge, Mass., might have surprised even him: a plant that sweats diesel.

Plants use the sun to convert carbon dioxide into energy, but Joule has designed tiny, gene-altered organisms (essentially single-celled plants) that use the photosynthetic process to create liquid fuel. Stored in brackish water enclosed in glass panels, they grow for a few days before a genetic switch is flipped, diverting their energy toward fuel production. The diesel, which they pump out continuously, is circulated away to a separator, where it’s extracted and sent to a storage tank. After several weeks, the plants are flushed away and the process starts over again. These microscopic organisms can be genetically engineered to secrete diesel or other chemicals the company plans on commercializing; president and CEO Bill Sims calls the technology an “above-ground oil well.”

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