Edmonton driving tip #2

If you're lost, I recommend pulling into a parking lot, and checking a map, or maybe pulling into a service station and asking directions. What I don't recommend is stopping in the middle of the road with a vacant look in your eyes, as the driver who took a left across traffic did in front of me, leaving the back end of my car exposed to all sorts of oncoming traffic when I followed.

Driver of the red Accord, may I suggest a glance at Google Earth before you depart, next time?

Urban futures

Via The Velvet Lounge, I've discovered what can only be seen as a love letter to Detroit. Not thoughtless or cheering, but an honest view of the very epitome of a industrial city in a post-industrial age.

After reading about the changing face of Detroit in the July issue of Harper's, I'm interested to watch how it's all going to turn out, and the Detroit Blog seems like an excellent place to follow. How much of Alberta's urban landscape will have to be rethought as well, as the world moves past oil?

Daily KKKos

Bill O'Reilly has declared that Daily Kos is a hate site. "It's like the Nazi Party", says Billo. Does one get thirsty from talking out of one's ass? Just in case, Bill, here's a nice big cup for you. Drink up!

Putting aside the obvious absurdity of this accusation, one of the points of evidence he uses is that a commenter (not a contributor, but a commenter) at Kos called the Pope a primate. Shocking!

I haven't found the comment in question, so lets not eliminate the possibility the commenter meant "Primate" in the ecclesiastical sense. This is strictly true, then, because the Pope serves as Primate of Italy.

Or perhaps it was used as Billo wants us to believe it was used, that the commenter intended "primate" in the biological sense. Again, how hateful, to say what is true about the Pope, not to mention Billo's beloved President of the United States, Billo himself, me, HRH Elizabeth II, the Hot Chick from That One Show, That Guy with the Shirt, and very probably you, unless you happen to be a search engine bot or a houseplant that's gained sentience by being placed too close to a leaky microwave for too many years. We're all primates. Fortunately, not all of us are morons.

Why does Bill O'Reilly hate science? Yes, it's a rhetorical question.

In the news today

I found the following on the CBC's website, in the local news section:










Do I have to draw a line through these three stories? A million Calgarians, in the absence of a real development plan, give new meaning to the word "sprawl". We encroach on our once wild spaces. Nature encroaches right back.

It is more than high time we recognized that if Alberta's cities are going to keep growing, we need to stop the "out" and work on "up".

Boy Wizards and such

Here's some fun things to do this weekend:

Go for a midnight trip to your local bookstore on Friday, and buy an armload of books - anything except Harry Potter. For added fun, buy nothing but expensive coffee-table erotica. Tell the cashier "I didn't expect to see you open, but I was passing by. Are you always this busy this late?"

If there's a reading of the first chapter or two, sit and listen. Then, ask the reader when you need to come back to hear the rest of it. Ask the reader to sign your copy, and compliment him or her on the writing.

Travel to another bookstore on Saturday. Casually lean against one of the many pallets of Deathly Hallows. Ask a passing employee if they have a copy of the new Harry Potter book.

Ask another employee if they know when Joanne Rowling will be passing through on the book tour.

If anyone during these visits says "Voldemort", put on your best expression of insane fear and scream "Don't! Say! The Name!"

Or, here's a better idea. This book is being sold as a loss leader in the big stores. Go to your little local bookstore, go buy it there for a few extra dollars. Perhaps buy another copy or two from a store you don't like very much that's eating a loss on the book, and donate it or them to your local library. Their wait lists are going to be gross on this book for a good long time.

Spin cycles

Those of you who don't spend quite the hours I do listening to CBC Radio One (current motto: "The Branch of the CBC Even the Tories Think is Good Value for Money!"), you may have missed this lengthy documentary that played on Sunday Edition last winter. Sunday Edition is replaying it this summer, which sent me on a search that led me to this page: all six episodes, fully downloadable. If you've never listened to a radio documentary, and if you have any interest in what I've always felt this blog is primarily about (critiquing and sometimes untangling spin), your time will be well-rewarded .

"Well, we tried democracy..."

"But the west told us we weren't any good at it, and boycotted our duly-elected government. So, maybe we'll have a go at theocratic totalitarianism, and see how that works out."

Seriously, we have no one to blame for this but ourselves.

The byelection to watch

There's a great deal of talk about watching the Calgary Elbow byelection tonight, as a read on the future of both the Premier ("How bad does he suck to lose Elbow?") and the Leader of the Opposition ("How bad does he suck that he can't win in the face of all the disaffection with the Premier?"). I think Drumheller-Stettler may be much more telling.

The Liberals didn't even put up a candidate in D-S in 2004. Shirley McClelland won almost 65% of the vote, with the Alberta Alliance coming second with 14%, the NDP third with 9%, and three fringe parties divvying up the remaining 13%. So, although a Tory win seems inevitable, the results there may be indicators toward a more province-wide problem the Tories are going to face in the next election, and whether the Liberals are the real contenders or not. If the Alberta Alliance makes significant gains, it's a good indication that Stelmach has as much to worry about from the rural base of the party as he does from the cities. At the same time, if the NDP comes out ahead of the Liberals, that tells me that the Liberals will never make a real breakthrough in the rurals, which is probably enough to keep them from winning an election.

Of course, if the Tories can't win in Drumheller-Stettler at all, the serious winds of change are blowing.

Right sentence, wrong criminal

Scooter Libby, who until he started woking for Dick Cheney was widely considered to be an upright, reflective, thoughtful, and honest public servant, took it for the team today. So that makes two friends Dick Cheney has shot in the face.

Failure is an orphan

We aren't going to meet our Kyoto targets. It's disappointing and sad, it undermines our international reputation, and it endangers the quality of life of every Canadian and every citizen of the globe, but it's no less true for all of that. The Liberals would like to tag the current government with the blame for this, of course, but I can't take the party seriously (though I take Mr. Dion as an individual very seriously on the topic) when I recall that of all the years since Canada signed the treaty, the Liberal party has held the reins of power in all but the last.

Then again, the Tories like to remind us of the same fact, forgetting that they were the critics of the science, promising to be obstructionists toward any real steps forward. One wonders if the Tories actually believe the science yet, or if they've simply come to the realization that denying the science would make them look crazy, or at least unelectable in most of this country.

(As for the other sitting parties and the Greens, their unwillingness to acknowledge the huge economic impact that meeting the Kyoto targets would produce only serves to make me dismiss them. I'd have much more respect for a party who would, like a Prime Minister converting to a wartime economy, realistically evaluate the price in jobs and economic activity, and then forcefully argue that the price is worth paying.)

Which brings me to the G8 meeting. Does the Prime Minister really expect anyone to take Canada seriously now? He can tart up his intensity targets as a great idea for developing nations all he wants (and perhaps it is a great idea for developing nations), but what it sounds like to the rest of the world is NIMBYism: we're having phenomenal economic growth in Canada right now, the United States is suckling at the enormous energy-supplying teat of the northern Alberta goop-mining business - we just can't stop!

Here's my point. If Harper wants Canada to be taken seriously on climate change, it's time to stop pretending we've got any cred to be a "world leader". We need to content ourselves with being a follower for now, sign damn near anything put in front of us at this meeting, and get started on the path we should have started on a decade ago. Until we pay the piper, we don't get to call the tune.

Driving tip #1

I've been living in Edmonton two years now, and despite my love for most things Edmonton, there are a few things I just can't get used to, and number one on that list are the drivers. Calgary was populated by some people who became very aggressive when they got behind the wheel, but I'll happily deal with that super-aggression than with the oblivious dimwittery of too many Edmonton drivers. I won't bore you with the tales of close calls and great excitement on the road, but rather, I've decided to begin a new series of driving tips, tailored specifically to the people I encounter during my travels. Enjoy!

And so here's the first tip, intended for the individual in the silver PT Cruiser I encountered this morning. When making a short-corner turn on a red light, unless the street is intended for multiple turning lanes, it is considered good form to both begin and end in the curb lane. If you need to get further to the left than that, you may want to consider changing lanes after you complete the turn, rather than crossing three lanes of oncoming traffic in order to travel 10 km/h under the speed limit in the leftmost lane for twenty blocks. Just a thought.

Isn't that fun? Stay tuned for more useful driving tips, coming straight from the streets of Edmonton to you!

Oprah, Ehud. Ehud, Oprah.

Via This Modern World, I see that Oprah is travelling to Israel to accept a humanitarian award. I highly doubt she would travel all that way and not spend some time meeting the locals and talking about the Intifada. But Jonathan Schwarz, The author of the TMW post, is right - the last thing the conflict needs is Oprah telling only one side of the story. She's an opinion-setter among her sizable audience. So write, and encourage her to visit the West Bank and Gaza while she's there. I have:

I was happy to read that Ms Winfrey will be travelling to Israel. I hope, even as she expresses her concern and sympathy for Israeli citizens, she'll also take the time to travel to, or at least meet with, regular citizens of the West Bank and Gaza. The last thing that conflict needs is a one-sided representation of it.

I believe that Ms Winfrey is fair-minded and sympathetic to all people who suffer. I believe that she likes to see through to the heart of seemingly intractable issues. I don't know what conclusions she might draw from visiting the occupied territories, but I'm certain she'd find the stories that need to be told, and tell them to a much wider audience. If she doesn't make the trip, I fear Palestinians will remain the invisible villians of the story she tells, and that can't be good for anyone who wants only peace in the region.

Fake Estate

The provincial government is facing its first serious issue since Stelmach became Premier, and it's fun to watch them try, yet horribly mismanage the issue.

It seems the issue started with something small but positive the government did, announcing that they were lengthening the time between allowable rent hikes to one year, up from six months. I'll be honest, this is more relief than I expected from this government, and in fact, serves me very well indeed since my own rent went up a very small amount, very recently. I'm safe for a long time. But not everyone here in Edmonton, or anywhere in Alberta, is. We've all been reading the stories, possibly even know people, facing obscene rent increases, because landlords have come to the conclusion that the market can bear it right now.

Pull that thread, and we come to an overheated real estate market. Not that long ago, anyone who could pay a thousand dollars or more in rent every month could afford to buy a house and pay a mortgage. That was the outlet the free market used to keep rent costs within reason - there was always enough capacity in the rental market, because people who became increasingly successful and financially secure could leave it. Today, virtually no one gets to leave the rental market who isn't already invested in a house - it's one thing to go from $250K condo to $350K house, when you didn't buy the condo for 250K and perhaps only owe 100K of the 150 you paid a few years ago. Essentially, you're extending your debtload, but you also have a bunch of equity in the house, so the debt isn't so intimidating and the bank is happy to talk with you. But to buy that 250K condo to escape your increasing rent? That takes more than a single middle-class income, and it may take more than two.

What's a landlord to do? There are many more people moving into Edmonton, Calgary, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie.... they all need places to live. If the market decides that a 500-square-foot concrete box is worth a thousand dollars a month, who are you as a landlord to argue? Even the friendliest, most generous landlord, though she might maintain the rent level with only moderate increases for current tenants, would be absolutely moronic not to price to the market for any new tenants. People get trapped in their current rental situations. The free market that the Tories believe will help everyone along doesn't serve people who aren't offered competitive choices.

Rental increase caps would still trap people in their current situations, because the government, any government right or left, is unlikely to cap the price a landlord can negotiate with a new tenant. Left or right, though, I think most people would agree that having only one option is better than having no options at all except to leave the province. Capping the increases mean that the one option you, the tenant, are living with now is the one you'll want to (or have to) stick with while the worst of the real estate boom washes over the province.

The government tells us that capping increases would stifle development of new rental construction. Well, this very minute represents the apex of potential rental profitability in Edmonton and Calgary. Where's the new construction? I see lots of houses and condos, but the only new rental units I see coming on the market are condos being bought by real estate speculators and rented out. Construction started on 593 rental units throughout all of 2006 in Alberta. What is that - two decent-sized towers in Ft. McMurray? Where is all this construction that the Tories are worried about stifling? Where are the market forces that are supposed to be producing new buildings for renters in Alberta's two largest cities?

Part of the problem goes back to our overheated real estate market. There are only so many tradespeople available to build in Alberta. They're overwhelmingly tasked with constructing condos and half-million-dollar houses, striking while the iron is extremely hot. What developer is going to give up people to build rental accommodation? Double the rent prices in Edmonton, and it might make economic sense to build, but who's going to do that work? There'd be nowhere those workers can afford to live.

The free market did a fine job of keeping rental prices reasonable when supply and demand were similar numbers. Demand is increasing, as workers move to Alberta cities and the economic bar to home ownership rises exponentially faster than wages. Supply doesn't change at all, no matter the economic theories of our Premier. If we price working class people out of both the ownership market and the rental market, they leave the province, and Alberta's good economic times come to a sudden halt. What's the solution?

A rental increase cap will defer this crisis. It's not a permanent solution, but it's probably a reasonable temporary solution until the real estate bubble bursts. And burst it will, at least in Edmonton and Calgary where real estate speculation, sometimes heavily leveraged, seems to be all the rage. Even if house prices never get any lower than they are today, any slowdown in the market or increase in the interest rate will make some speculators run to turn their properties into cash, and there, you'll see the invisible hand of the market at work, giving the most heavily-leveraged speculators a sound spanking. Defaults and abandonments of mortgages may follow, and that puts upward pressure on interest rates, which may lead to some domino effect - the less-leveraged all of a sudden find that they too are borrowed beyond their means to service their debt. As the speculators leave the market and housing comes available again to the people who want to live in it, some of the pressure on the rental market will ease.

But if we want a longer-term solution, one that will insure that the forces at play today don't come around again, then we need to legislate the building of rental property. As new communities spring up all over Edmonton, it's obvious that high-density housing is part of the community planning, because there are always condo complexes tucked in among the mini-palaces. Why can't development approval be dependant upon a certain amount of rental accommodation, too? It doesn't all have to be within the complexes, either - a duplex on every couple of streets legislatively forced onto the rental market would serve just as well.

Economic prosperity in this province depends on the working class. Turning the obvious rental crisis into a ideological battle is stupid beyond belief - a practical solution is required. Cap or no cap, there's no non-legislative incentive to increase supply. Any rental cap introduced would have to be seen as a short-term, stop-gap measure, and that's exactly what's needed right now - a short-term, stop-gap measure. In the medium term, the levers of government have to be used to increase supply to the rental market, particularly now, while building is at its craziest and that lever will have its greatest positive impact. Without these steps, we're gutting our own prosperity.

Almost wants to make me add her to the Gaffe-o-Meter. Almost.

Via the always-attentive Calgary Grit, who rips off Stephen Colbert in his McKay v May matchup (it's really more Tale of the Tape than Better Know a District, but I'll forgive), I see that dimwitted Green Party leader Liz May says Canadians are stupid.

Well, I know one who is.

The Quiet Restoration

Back in my university days, I counted among my friends an ardent, full-on left wing Quebec separatist. We tended not to talk about that particular leaning of his, because we knew it was a point of fervent, angry disagreement, and we weren't going to convince each other. However, we talked about it a little, because I was genuinely curious to understand the attraction of Quebec nationalism. He was certainly a believer that as "masters in their own house", Quebec would not have to play along with the right-wing-leaning Rest Of Canada he perceived the rest of us to be.

I think it's fair to say that the lie of that was readily exposed last night. Until now, the face of separatism has been the BQ and PQ, parties far enough to the left that the NDP don't seem to have the heart to really work against them, or (much to my disappointment) seriously contest the things they say and do. But while the ADQ might be willing to put away separation as a party plank (and who can't agree that it's good for the country that the only Quebec party outwardly advocating separatism was reduced to third party status?), they are built from a side of Quebec nationalism that my old university friend called a rump, or denied completely. Private health care, private schooling (read Catholic), "autonomy" (An independent Quebec within a united Canada, as the Quebec comedian Yvon Deschamps liked to say) - these hearken back to the Union Nationale.

The new ADQ caucus is unknown and untried. It's a new party, it's a "populist" party, and it's an ideological party, and those three facts in combination almost certainly guarantee that they'll have more flakes and nuts than a box of Muslix. For too many years now, the ROC's left has shied away from confronting Quebec nationalism head-on (witness Jack Layton wanting to tear up Clarity, check national unions not attempting to spread into Quebec, for fear of stepping on nationalist toes). Perhaps some inopportune words here and there from the new ADQ members, and we can finally mix it up.

Comments are clearly dead

I'm going to give them until the end of the week to recover before I try the backup plan, because obviously, once Gaffe-o-Meter 3 starts, we can't have the comments falling down on the job.

And speaking of gaffes, and falling down on the job, do you suppose the people of Alberta will exact an extra penalty since this happened in the Premier's own riding? Guess there's no point in asking you, at least until the comments recover.

Amateur Hour

Elizabeth May, leader of the federal Green Party, has decided to run in Central Nova, against the locally- and nationally-popular Peter McKay. She says the move will raise the profile of the Green Party.

I'm no friend of the Green Party. I think the last thing the left in this country needs is to split their vote. The lessons of the Reform Party should be obvious to all involved - how would the politics of the 90s have been different if Preston Manning had decided that the Tories had needed renewal from inside, and started organizing there?

However, I'm still willing to offer a little advice. Liz, are you a moron? Deranged, perhaps? Your party has some profile. What it doesn't have, the one thing the Green Party needs to be taken seriously, is a seat. Any seat. You might win Central Nova - I suppose it's possible. But what's the risk/reward ratio here? You're taking on a far more difficult battle than required, and if you manage to win, in a month people across the country are going to forget who you beat to win the seat. Or worse, if you win the seat in the face of a national Tory majority, people may even blame you for taking a moderating voice out of that caucus. And that's all under your bast-case scenario, that you win. The far more likely outcome is that you run a respectable second, and everyone ignores you and your party again until the next federal election.

You're a national party leader, Ms May. No one will blame you for parachuting into a seat. But by parachuting into this seat, all you're offering your party is more years in the wilderness.

March Madness

Not the US college basketball, which I could care less about, and not even the homestretch of the NHL's regular season and the rush for playoff spots, which keeps my interest only marginally more.

No, I allude to the two most watchable events in sports.

First, the McDonald Labatt Nokia Tim Hortons Brier. This year's Coffee Cup tournament has been marked by complaints about the quality of the playing surface. Now, people have complained about the ice in Hamilton for years, but they generally haven't been talking about curling sheets. I'm sure it's the bad ice that's keeping the crowds away. I don't blame at all the broadcast contract which keeps so many rounds away from the eyes of basic cable subscribers.

Which brings me to the second event: the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup. Canada has qualified again, and drawn themselves into a group with England, who I'm sure we can kick around - what does England know about cricket? Thing is, if the Canadian side does actually pull off this miracle, most Canadians will never get a chance to see it. The only broadcaster here is the Asian Television Network, who in turn is only offering the World Cup as a pay per view on their Cricket Channel. I might consider buying it, but I can't get it though a normal cable connection, so the pay per view price would only be a small part of the cost of buying a mini-dish from Bell and paying their subscription fee. Might as well fly to Saint Lucia and watch it live.

What are Canadian curling and cricket fans to do?

Time to wake up this sleepy old blog

Noises of an election mean that the Gaffeometer III: The Third Iteration will be coming soon. I'm still on the hunt for Dion pictures - headshots, and no photoshop!

Guess I should determine where I need to send my $20 for Gaffeometer II: What's Scott Reid Worth?. Sounds like a weekend project.

Don? Don?

It appears RevMod Don has been hiatusizing for some time, so feel free to join me for all-new episodes of the bear604 Show. This weeks topics include:

Budget 2007: Bust Place on Earth?

Oscar? Who's Oscar?

Vancouver's train to nowhere vs. Seattle's highway in the sky

BC's new energy source: Liberal bullsh*t

The first hundred visitors will receive free admission onboard Walnut Boat. Too groovy to miss.