From Cork to Toronto

Dublin driver driving an articulated vehicle at way over the posted 50km/h limit in the new Dublin Port Tunnel with U2 blaring and one hand on his mobile phone. Hopefully with enough eyeballs on it this person will either be prosecuted or get a good kicking, whichever is convenient, before other people have to suffer.

Cheri DiNovo, NDP MPP for Parkdale-High Park, has been spearheading an increase in the Ontario minimum wage to $10 an hour . The current wage is due to go from $7.75 to $8.00, an increase of 3.2%, on February 1st subject to certain exclusions . I am a bit wary of the round number of $10 since like the publishing of public service salaries over $100,000 it tends to be worth less over time and might take a while to edge up again - instead it should be linked at least to the Consumer Price Index. I also note that in the U.S. there are moves to increase the Federal minimum, which is popular in many states since those states already exceed both the existing and in some cases the new federal floor, although it has run into trouble in the Senate . In Ireland the rate is C$12.68 with some exclusions. The Liberal government, who just raised MPPs salary's by $22,000 annually (2,750 hours at minimum rates just for the increase!) opposes this and bloggers duly went to bat, with Jason Chern...

BUPA closing down , so are FCI . But never mind, have a prison instead ! Obviously since Portlaoise was bypassed the law and order types in Cabinet felt the youngsters travelling from Dublin-Cork could do with the sight of a depressing edifice. Not really sure that counts as public art ...

As Environment Minister Baird muses aloud about how those pesky Liberals like Stephane Dion subsidised the tarsands and he can't figure out why, the U.S. House of Representatives votes 264-163, including 36 Republicans voting with the majority Democrats, to repeal US$14bn of oil subsidies and other financial benefits . (NYT, rego required) Garth Turner fires back at Baird, pointing out some interesting issues: Dion was not involved in the programme Baird mentioned the programme began when oil was at $21/bbl, not $50 as it has been recently tarsands get more financial benefits than conventional oil and gas - in fact the same incentives as renewables Turner goes on : what we don’t need is an environment minister who has started his mandate lying about who did what, when, instead of what he’s going to do, now. Indeed. However, it would have been good to see the Martin government think aloud about these subsidies when they had the chance. From when Martin took power in December 2003...

I'm trying out SNAP which gives you a preview picture of a link when you hover over it. Check it out!

Harper's trial balloon for equalisation is peeking out and it looks like $1.5bn more for Quebec and $600 million less for Saskatchewan. This is achieved by only counting 50% of resource revenues. Now SK might complain that other provinces benefited more or less in the past but the 50% is ridiculous. Resource revenue should be counted the same as everything else. Transitional equalisation payments rather than immediate clawback should be a function of equalisation rather than of how provincial revenues are counted. The effect is the same but the sense of fiddling with the system is removed. This is how structural funds work in the European Union. Ireland still managed to draw down quite a bit after we approached 100% of average EU GDP by use of regionalisation due to disproportionate economic growth in certain areas like the east coast. Like the income trust tax, the 100% exemption for Saskatchewan was a bad promise but it's a pity the Tories couldn't be similarly d...

That David Beckham's move to LA is more about money and a possible film career for Victoria is one thing. Real Madrid's reaction in its childishness , with Capello's public decision not to select him for the remainder of the season essentially constructively dismissing Beckham and then the club criticising him for wanting to join LA Galaxy early rather than sit in the stands is shocking and I hope true Madrid supporters are ashamed. This is a club that has had no compunction about raiding clubs for their players by declaring their interest (especially when Presidential elections are afoot) but for once are confronted by a deal they can't match even with the historic assistance they have had from various levels of government. This behaviour is making the Americans look like the classy ones - how did that happen?

Robert Mugabe's laundry list expands further, adding to persecution of homosexuals disenfranchisement and persecution of opponents gerrymandering of the Courts provider of State mercenaries thief of productive land to reward the returning mercenaries election rigger unwanted guest . Now he gives haven to Mengistu Haile Mariam , convicted with a life term for genocide in Ethiopia. Zimbabwe continues to suffer, China props them up, South Africa stands idly by . Given his status as a Catholic, it's worth noting the Vatican's relative indolence. I suppose they are busy with the more serious crisis of same sex marriage and all.

Raleb Majadele has been nominated to the Cabinet as Minister of Science and Technology by the leader of the Labour party Amir Peretz . Labour is in coalition with Kadima whose leader Ehud Olmert serves as Prime Minister. This follows the appointment of a Druze (though without portfolio) in 2001. Despite the opposition from hardliners I hope this appointment sticks and is a tangible step towards better co-existence with Arab Israeli citizens - certainly better willingness for co-existence than Binjamin Netanyahu displayed recently .

Aer Lingus check-in agents will now be getting 10% of excess baggage payments , to a minimum of 1,000 Euro (C$1,500) in year one. So don't count on discretion if you're a half-pound over any more.

This isn't a follow up to Thursday's post but rather to Far and Wide's entry about Stephane Dion's speech on energy in Alberta during the week. I was posting in response to another comment by someone called "Sceptical Environmental": Answer me this: if Dion were sincere in wanting us to use less gas, why did he vote against California-style mandatory emissions standards last year? Dion also said his solution to climate change in the oil sands is to have nukes power the whole thing. Who says this guy's an environmentalist?? Dion said the absolute opposite - that while energy generation is a provincial matter, he does not believe nuclear is a viable option . I disagree. Given the size of the comment my disagreement seemed to be generating, I opted to move it here. Please note at this point - I believe in aggressive conservation, supply management and innovations like Deep Lake Cooling but this is a province where peak demand has grown 20% or 1646MW in...

It is a basic tenet of Canadian politics that political and federal versions of a given political party are often more first cousins than siblings, such as in Quebec where a former Tory MP is leader of the Liberals and Premier. In B.C. the contrast between federal and provincial parties is coming into sharp focus on the issue of the environment. Stephane Dion came to power promising strong action on climate change, Gordon Campbell can't get stuck into offshore oil drilling and coal powered electricity fast enough. Does the Premier of B.C. think his fossil fuel production will have grandfathered immunity under a Dion regime or will he be ensconced in retirement in a comfortable corner office and beyond caring? All this in a province with the strongest Green party support, where local opposition managed to prevent a gas generation station across the US border with higher emission standards than the two coal plants Campbell's government just approved and where Chinese coal...

It's Wajid Khan for pity's sake, not Kahn. Blogs on all sides can't manage it . Bloggers are bad, so-called national newspapers worse. If there was any spelling error to be made in his name I expected it to be "Wajit". Other Khans in history: Genghis Khan Kubla(i) Khan Khan Noonian Singh ( Hollywood is "history" now? Shurely shome mishtake - ed. ) Imran Khan the Aga Khan Chaka Khan ( bottom of barrel approaching - ed. ) As for Kahns, well, there's Oliver Kahn Dominique Strauss-Kahn er... that's it. Now all you bloggers out there, Tory gloaters and Liberal spiters alike, get it right before I set Ricardo Montalbán on your ass. He may be old but I bet he's got some moves. And you Tories - what a prize you have. A guy who used to spend his mornings gorming with on FAN590 with Landry and Stellick. God help us all if the guy from Korry's on Danforth who advertises on the FAN runs for office, even if it's against fungus face .

Toronto cares only about (fully grown not baby) Leafs in hockey terms, and a team doesn't have a European name, they aren't interested in soccer either. I mean, they hired SuperMo/Judas as coach which spiked interest for 10 seconds but still, we're not in the New York Cosmos days of Pele and Beckenbauer right? Hang on - maybe this guy will attract some interest . His best years are behind him and he would attract an enormous salary. Sounds just right for a Toronto team, especially one owned by MLSE. ( Fr o m Cork to Toront o , November 12 ). Right League, right player... wrong suckers . RTE Sport, on the other hand, had the suckers spot on. Though having done a little digging, it seems ESPN were even more on the ball . Toronto FC may have sold 100 more season tickets today on the strength of the announcement of Goldenballs' impending visit with his La-La-land teammates, bringing their total sold to 7,000, but can they really assure us that the minion in charg...

Updated to fix some dead links . For a Celtic and Manchester United supporter, this is a dream combo - "Larsson (Solskjaer 78 mins)" "Goals: Larsson 55, Solskjaer 90" The players who share a song shared the 2-1 win in the FA Cup Third Round - I trust Ole has no problems sharing with a Swede. Pity Martin O'Neill, who managed Larsson for Celtic in the glory days of the Seville UEFA Cup final , who must have feared the worst seeing him in a United shirt to face his new Aston Villa charges. Larsson is due to leave United at the end of his loan period on March 12 when Helsingborg's season begins but the buzz to keep him is merely a reflection of the desperation that sets in when you cut loose a world-class striker and have to deal with being without him. Sadly they did "take my Larsson away" from Celtic and I think it might be best that Henrik has a brief but stellar stay and leaves for Sweden with everyone getting what they originally wanted from...

One of the problems with podcasts is that one rarely gets to listen, they build up and you feel obligated to at least try and catch up. I was listening to an audio podcast from the December 13th the Agenda on TVO (about which I have written previously) which concerned the question of the amount of room for true debate in modern media. At one point the question of the use of the word "denier", usually linked to those who dispute or downplay the Holocaust , being used to describe those who do not subscribe to the theory of Global Warming while discussing a recent column by Rex Murphy . One of the participants said (and I have done my best to transcribe accurately and all emphasis below is mine): Until today I never heard the term "global warming denier" okay, until I read Rex Murphy's column. I don't think... I haven't heard that term. I hear "sceptic", is the term I hear. If someone's using the term "denier" that's the ...

Tommy Lee has done many things in his life - musician , participant in a world famous sex video , college student (sort of), reality show judge . Now he tries to help Macclesfield Town throw Chelsea out of the FA Cup . John Murphy's equaliser had briefly raised Town's hopes of causing a shock. But Macclesfield's dreams were cruelly shattered seconds after the re-start when goalkeeper Tommy Lee* was harshly adjudged to have felled Andriy Shevchenko in the penalty area and was sent-off. snip... Macclesfield's dreams of a cup upset disappeared when goalkeeper Lee was harshly sent-off for colliding with Shevchenko a minute after the re-start. The Ukrainian forward had been put through by Wright-Phillips but lost his footing and was already falling when he fell over the onrushing Lee. Poor Tommy. He's so misunderstood. * Yes, I know it's not the same one . Work with me people.

On the BBC quiz show " A Question of Sport " there's a "what happened next" thing where a video clip was shown in part and the teams had to figure out what (usually pretty unlikely and/or amusing) incident happened at the end. This clip is an excellent contender, when Patrik "king of flub" Stefan misses an open goal with 11 seconds left to make it 6-4 for Dallas, then Edmonton's Ales Hemsky heads down the ice to score with 2 seconds left, making it 5-5 to force overtime and get an unlikely point. Fortunately for Stefan his teammates bailed him out in the post-overtime shootout to take the win. Given that Edmonton had blown a 4-1 lead they were probably relieved to get anything out of the game.

James Bow notes that a promise Jack Layton made has not been kept - to lose his face fungus in a charity bet. Perhaps someone out there knows why he hasn't followed through yet. Photoshop from Sweet Neo Conned Update: Northern BC Dipper has found that KISS-FM failed to come up with the $1,000 required to meet one of the bet's three conditions. Couldn't he have just have run a deficit?

Ken Livingstone had a bonkers idea - congestion charging . Ken was used to his bonkers ideas drawing ridicule and fury and ultimately collapsing under their ideological weight. Ken's congestion charge idea largely worked though and he was at a loss - people were starting to take him seriously. Never mind! Our hero, not having an oil industry to nationalise like Hugo Chavez, came up with the next best thing - a two million pound sterling (C$4m+) street party in Trafalgar Square to celebrate 50 years of Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution. No doubt the extension of the congestion zone and the hike in the charge he said wouldn't need to be increased for 10 years will pay for it. Red Ken - back in business! (seen at: Political Quote )