Hiatus

I’m going camping. Be back early September. Sorry to disappoint all my nonexistent readers

The Cost of Development

Today I mourn the loss of a friend.

As you may or may not know, I enjoy sports. However, there’s only a few that I’ve really excelled at:

1) Skiing
2) Long-distance running
3) Basketball
(I’ve played soccer just as much as any of these, but, despite what the number of medals I possess says, I am not a great soccer player)

I started playing basketball when I was 12. Mostly because my friends were, but hey, when you’re 12, that’s the best reason to do anything. From then until last spring, most of my non-organized basketball life took place at Greenview’s basketball courts. They weren’t as big as Hillview’s, but they were less crowded. Me and my friends could go there and not worry about playing other people to stay on the court. And we were there a lot.

Now, they’re gone.

Just a casualty of Greenview Landing, the pilot project of Edmonton’s First-Time Homebuyer program. A program which has gotten off to an incredibly slow start. How slow? Try 15 applications for 85 units made available so far, with only 11 being approved.

Why the slow start? I’m attributing it to all the development locations being in the suburbs. Some people want to live close to downtown, Whyte Avenue, 124th St, whatever. Look where the large majority of rental units are in the city: Riverbend? Nope. Castledowns? Guess again. They’re central! The vast majority of people who are looking to buy their first home are renting in central-Edmonton, and, believe it or not, they might like their neighborhoods.

And there most definitely are suitable locations. How about in the Ottewell area? Braemar school is being used to educate pregnant teens and parenting teens. A worthy cause, but surely they don’t need all of the field space. How about Wellington, High Park, Newton, or one of the other schools that have been recently closed? There’s more space in a more central location.

This project has potential to do a lot of good, but I think it needs to re-evaluate its locations of choice. Maybe that will save other well-used parkland areas, like Greenview and my favorite basketball courts.

You can find the full list of potential sites here.

Pictures to follow…

Rant of the Week: Headphones while driving

I am really at a loss. AS I was driving down St. Albert Trail (’scuse me, Mark Messier Drive) this morning, I noticed not one, but TWO people driving with little white headphones on. The first, a portly fellow driving a magenta Neon, was full-on singing along, most likely poorly. The second, a young woman in a Ranger, appeared to be applying lipstick while she drove. I’m starting to think that we really do deserve our reputation of bad (at the very least, negligent) drivers.

I mean, c’mon. Yes, iPods are great. Headphones are the problem I suppose. When used together, they should be used when there’s no music available. If you’re in a car, you have a radio, probably a cd player, hell, probably even a jack to plug your iPod into. There’s plenty of other solutions available rather than making yourself even more oblivious to what’s going on around you. And it is an entirely different matter than having a cranked stereo. With headphones on, you’re hyper-focused. It may be easy enough to go straight, but I’m pretty sure its difficult to be aware of what is going on around you.

Forget cell phones. Little while headphones are a sure sign of an accident waiting to happen. Some people…

UPDATE

I’ve just been informed that this is, in fact, illegal. It seems that my frustrations are valid.

BESCoTW #1: Iran isn’t a threat, get over it.

That’s right folks, it is now time for the first-ever Bad Edmonton Sun Column of the Week, hereby to be referred to as BESCotW. This week’s BESCotW takes us to the ramblings of Ed Feuer, A new name for me in the realm of bad columns, although if he keeps this up, he might become a regular in this feature.

Mr. Feuer’s column is all about taking action before Iran develops nuclear weaponry:

Some wring their hands and say the world must accept a nuclear Iran, but that wouldn’t be like the old Soviet Union. Mutually assured destruction doesn’t work with martyrdom-seeking whackos.

Wait, Iran is actually developing a credible nuclear weapons program?! Since when? Last time I checked, it would take 1200 of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges a YEAR to make one nuclear warhead:

Even though the IR-2 appears to be easier for Iran to build, the new centrifuge maintains the same production capacity as Pakistan’s P-2. Both can enrich uranium about 2.5 times faster than the P-1 centrifuges Iran has already been running at Natanz. Under optimal conditions, about 1,200 IR-2 centrifuges would need to operate for a year to make enough weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear warhead. The same goal would require about 3,000 P-1 centrifuges. (Natanz probably has about this many P-1s, but they have not been operating at full capacity.)

Oh, and did I mention that Iran has nowhere near 1200 of these things? Their old P1’s are home-made, ramshackle devices that can’t even operate at full speeds. Good luck getting the new ones to work, boys. Even if Iran plans on manufacturing nuclear weaponry, they are about as far off as Mongolia conceivably would be. Sorry Mr. Feuer, you’re a bit off.

Now, onto Ahmadinejad himself. This man is no Hitler. He’s no Stalin. He isn’t even a Sadaam Hussein. This man is akin to the doomsday-prophet homeless guy that pesters you on the way to the bus. He SOUNDS threatening, but in reality, he’s pretty much harmless. Yes, he’s an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier partially in charge of a nation (still less power than the Ayatollah, might I add), but he’s in charge of Iran. Not Russia, not Nazi Germany, Iran. A country that poses no possible military threat to, well, any of us here in the west. The last thing we need is another Iraq scenario, and this is right where this thing is headed unless people stop believing all the BS the Bush administration and the UN Security Council is feeding them and wake up. Ahmadinejad is a two-bit attention seeker, and we’re giving him exactly what he wants: a platform to spew his anti-Semitic slogans and idle threats.

Just ignore him and he’ll go away.