THE FUTURE OF BITCOIN
PROTECTING THE FUTURE OF OUR PAST
Many years ago, I undertook a project that would recapture and bring to life the histories of two places I has some familiarity with, St. Thomas the Apostle School and St. Francis Xavier Church.
In order to successfully bring that mandate to a successful outcome, I had to pour over hundreds of photos, documents, and other pieces of memorabilia that were stored in dozens of cardboard boxes. These boxes, and the treasures they contained, were almost always tucked away in some out-of-sight-out-of-mind part of the building, something I suspect is the case for most places, and even families, who take the time to save the stuff for preservation then, having no plan beyond that, consign these treasures to the ubiquitous cardboard box for somebody to come along in a couple of decades to make sense of it.
But what if nobody comes along?
Continue reading “PROTECTING THE FUTURE OF OUR PAST”RESIDENTIAL PLAN FOR LISGAR
What happens at 436 Lisgar Street is probably not top of mind for most folks unless they live across from it or drive by it on the way to and from home, school, or work.
It’s a stretch of land that basically sits across the street from Renfrew’s dilapidated Public Works garage. In fact, at some point not long ago, this same stretch of land was intended to be used as a public works yard, perhaps the very place where a new garage might be situated, right after the existing one either collapses under its on weight or is taken down by a municipality painfully short on dollars. It appears that municipality spent all the money they didn’t have on a facility right around the corner, the place with the radio station logo on it, the one they named after themselves. So my money is on gravity, and the impending implosion of the building currently held together with elastic bands, duct tape, and best wishes of a council long on ambition but short on cash.
Continue reading “RESIDENTIAL PLAN FOR LISGAR”BAT 365: MIXING COFFEE AND POLITICS
It didn’t take long for the BATs — Boys At Timmy’s — to go sour on Mark Carney.
That’s not entirely accurate though, because in order to go sour on something, you must first have had some, albeit grudging, degree of sweetness, although that’s way too strong of a word to apply to the hard men who hold court at Tim Hortons franchises across this great land every afternoon of the week. Long accustomed to being the primary political thinkers in their respective communities, they never really took to Carney in the first place. Instead, when they saw the political winds shift biblically from the Conservatives to the Liberals, they decided to hold their fire and seek cover, at least and until their natural instincts of baked-in oppositional thinking kicked back in.
To see them, and to hear them rise from the metaphorical ashes and begin their campaign of perpetual sour grapes is sort of like watching a healthy ecosystem re-balance itself, like a creek snaking its way through a modern subdivision. Except for the healthy part.
Continue reading “BAT 365: MIXING COFFEE AND POLITICS”WHAT’S UP WITH THE WNBA?
As a sports fan, a one-time amateur athlete, and as someone who has played and coached several sports, I have to ask a question that I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to ask.
What in blazes is going on in women’s basketball, and in particular, the WNBA, or Women’s National Basketball Association?
There was once a time, in a less than perfect life, when a boring Saturday afternoon at home might be enlivened by a google search along the lines of “women fighting,” or some other absurd search that would yield a YouTube video of a bunch of girls fighting after school, in school, at the bar, at the beach, at the concert, hell even at the hairdresser. I’ll freely admit that watching such videos says as much about the individual doing the searching as it does about the girls scrapping in the cafeteria at lunch. It’s not a good look for any of us.
Continue reading “WHAT’S UP WITH THE WNBA?”JULY 1st IS MEMORIAL DAY IN NEWFOUNDLAND
It was all over in fifteen minutes.
When Canadians celebrate Canada Day tomorrow, they’ll be commemorating the birth of a nation, cobbled together in a process known as Confederation, a coming-together of former British colonies to form one, single, and united nation that would grow into what it is today one of the pre-eminent countries of the world. It all started officially on July 1, 1867.
Newfoundland was a British colony as well, but didn’t elect to join the others to become part of the new Dominion of Canada. They didn’t join the rest of us until 1949, becoming a fully functioning province of that dominion.
It’s Canada Day in Newfoundland as well on July 1, but it’s not known as that. In fact, the day is known as Memorial Day, and instead of a day of celebration, it’s a day commemorating the greatest tragedy ever to befall the province known as “The Rock.” A tragedy that took place on July 1, 1916, at a place called Beaumont-Hamel.
Continue reading “JULY 1st IS MEMORIAL DAY IN NEWFOUNDLAND”FORMER WATER TREATMENT PLANT NEEDS A PLAN
At some point, we’re going to have to do something with that water treatment plant. Not the one currently in operation under the auspices of OCWA — Ontario Clean Water Agency — but rather the older one, the one replaced by the newer one maybe twenty years ago.
Until we do, we’re going to have ourselves a problem, which is a way of saying that we may see several problems emerge from an abandoned building situated between two strands of the Bonnechere River.
Continue reading “FORMER WATER TREATMENT PLANT NEEDS A PLAN”NOVA SCOTIA POWER
With Donald Trump backsliding on a full range of progressive policies, electricity generation through the use of wind power, or wind turbines, is in decline in the United States.
The president has cancelled many initiatives, and rolled back a lot of work previously done to set the United States up as an energy-producing superpower. All this while at the same time encouraging all things oil and gas.
It’s created an opportunity elsewhere, and for others, including Canada.
GENERALLY SPEAKING
As Canada’s top soldier, the Chief of Defence Staff serves at the pleasure of the prime minister. That means that, while Canada’s top soldier, you’re not the top dog when it comes to chain of command.
And that means that when you appear in public, or comment in public, it’s a really good idea that you exercise the prudence necessary to ensure that you articulate the policies, goals, and aspirations of Canada’s military in a way that’s consistent with what the political masters are saying, in this case both the prime minister and the Minister of National Defence.
So, for Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignon, it means that she needs to keep all the ducks in the proper row, as she’s ultimately accountable to Prime Minister Mark Carney and his defence minister David McGuinty.
Continue reading “GENERALLY SPEAKING”ONEIDA GROUP PAIRS WIND WITH BATTERIES
Use it or lose it.
There are any number of situations or circumstances where that expression is credible, and one of them seemed to be the generation of electricity, whether that be through hydro (water), nuclear, natural gas-fired, or coal-fired. Regardless of the means of generation, electric power has storage problems that raise the possibility of having a valuable, albeit renewable source of energy being wasted if demand falls short of generation.
Calling electricity a renewable resource makes it sound like it’s clean energy, and there’s no reason why that can’t be true. Hydro-electricity is about as clean as you’re going to get, but it has limitations in terms of its dependence upon sources of moving water, as in rivers, and the enormous costs involved with the construction of generation dams and the lines of transmission that convey the electricity generated to the markets where it will be consumed.
All well and good.
Continue reading “ONEIDA GROUP PAIRS WIND WITH BATTERIES”
NEWSMAGRENFREW 