Excellent entry from Nukevet, whom I've never heard of before. He makes my blogroll, not that it's much of an honor. Link via Misha, whose new site rocks.

Seems like everybody is switching to Movable Type now, except for the unreconstructed individualists.

Should a betting pool be started on when Colby goes to MT? (Real permalinks... can you hear them calling you?)

Here's a quick note for residents of other provinces: read this article from the U.S. Department of Energy.

NATURAL GAS
Canada holds about 59.7 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven natural gas reserves. Canada currently produces about 6.3 Tcf of natural gas per year, making it the world's third largest natural gas producer (after the United States and Russia) and second largest natural gas exporter (after Russia). Canada's natural gas exports go almost exclusively to the United States. Canadian natural gas consumption is projected to grow significantly in coming decades, largely for use in electricity generation. As natural gas production and infrastructure grow, there is a potential for emergence of a unified North American natural gas market.

Exploration and Production
Like the oil industry, Canada's natural gas industry is based primarily in Alberta, reaching into neighboring Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and the southern Northwest Territories. Saskatchewan is expected to become an increasingly important natural gas province in coming years. Atlantic Canada is a newer industry focal point. Nova Scotia's Sable Island and offshore Newfoundland hold significant natural gas reserves.

All of you out there in BC, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia: higher carbon taxes will mean that the exploitation of your natural gas will be less profitable. It will be attended to less swiftly by the multinational oil companies which create jobs in rural gas-producing areas. And your power needs will not be met.

Alberta, of course, mostly burns coal for power and gas for heat, so we're screwed no matter what.

I've been wanting to go back to "hewers of wheat and drawers of oil" -- a throwaway Alberta crack from John Barber's anti-Alberta, pro-Kyoto article in the 19 September Globe and Mail. This is a very important insult because its meaning is unclear in modern society.

Obviously it's a modification of hewers of wood and drawers of water. But does John remember the rest of the story? I doubt he does. I will retell it in brief, attributing the roles as he does in his article.

All the peoples in the Promised Land are in great fear of the Israelites (Eastern Canadians) and their leader, Joshua (Jean Chretien). The princes of these people (western Premiers, notably Ralph Klein) go to Joshua. They deceive him and beg him to spare their lives. This he does, magnanimously. When the Israelites realize that they have been deceived, they punish these people (westerners) with eternal slavery. I quote: "For this are you accursed: every one of you shall always be a slave (hewers of wood and drawers of water) for the house of my God."

I doubt Barber really meant to show that he wants to enslave Alberta to the East. But I also doubt that Barber really understands what would happen to Ontario if Canada's hydrocarbon industry tanked. Do Ontarians drive only electric cars and heat their homes only with electric heaters?

Memo to the East: please stop trying to find new ways to tax us. The G.S.T. is bad enough; the federal taxes were already killing us beforehand. We've got our provincial taxes cut to the bare minimum -- 10% flat income tax and a small corporate tax -- and we're creating all the value we can. Raising our taxes is not going to encourage us to create more.

We're the goose, OK? Please don't kill us.

Sorry about the width of this, but I had to get it in while it was still on my screen. I was reading this article about the Kyoto treaty and the 200,000 jobs ratifying it is expected to cost in Canada, when I realized what the ad was for.

My favorite Kyoto-treaty comment so far came via Wednesday morning's Rutherford show on 630 CHED (the local right-wing radio). Apparently, in order to conform to Kyoto, some sort of nationwide planning board needs to be created to allocate emissions among proposed new developments. The example cited was, "Which do you think is greener: a pulp and paper mill in Alberta or a pulp and paper mill in Ontario?" To which I must add that clearly, the pulp and paper mill is greenest when it's in Quebec. Right?

Honestly, between this and the Ayn Rand Institute newsletters being confiscated, it's like living in a bad remake of Atlas Shrugged. In which case, I want to be Dick McNamara.

There's snow.

Admittedly, about 3 mm of snow, and it's probably not going to last out the day.

But it's funny, because last night I was thinking aloud about garage logistics, and one of the things I mentioned was the need to reorganize which cinder blocks are where in the garage, so that the four that belong to our housemate can be properly returned to her trunk. She keeps them there in winter to improve the traction her rear-wheel-drive car gets.

My wife and our housemate, both Edmonton natives, laughed at me for worrying about snow so early in the year.

Har har.

Good thing we picked the last of the carrots in the middle of last week. I suspect they soon would have started rotting in the ground.

After several days of waffling and who knows how much bad press, the Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) releases The Ayn Rand Institute's "In Moral Defense Of Israel":

IRVINE, CA -- ”After a three-day detention, Canadian Customs released today a shipment of newsletters from the Ayn Rand Institute titled "In Moral Defense of Israel."
...
"Hopefully our brochures will get to the University of Toronto in time for the speech that I will deliver there this Sunday," said Dr. Brook. "The essential point is that we are expressing an intellectual view—and we have an absolute right to advocate that view."

And here I was all set to mirror it illegally, in a pointless act of civil disobedience.

I've heard it said before that 'thoughtcrime' exists in Canada, but I've never had the law explained to me; possibly because it's (allegedly) technically illegal under the law to enumerate what kinds of thoughts are illegal. Or so I'm told.