Well now, isn’t this special? It seems that London’s City Council has decided that the time has come to hop aboard the rooftop turbine bandwagon. “City council will be asked to pass a bylaw Monday to regulate the new green power, small versions of the turbines popping up along the shores of lakes Erie and Huron,” says the story in today’s Freeps. This is what we pay these clowns for, folks. 🙄

Yes indeed, the keepers of the Dufferin Avenue Widget Factory are just as ga-ga over wind power as any Kyotology kultist. Mother nature is gonna huff and puff for us and blow away all our energy worries. Coun. Joni Baechler ( the planning committee chairperson) is all gung ho for the whole thing:

“We absolutely have to. Anything we can do to divert demand from coal-fired plants, the better it is for our air quality.”

Well, at least she’s not flogging the global-warming-from-CO² horse. While I don’t swallow the idea that something that’s exhaled by every animal on the planet is going to boil the oceans, it is kind of hard to argue about smog if you’ve looked out a window any time in the last few years. Jim Rowan is equally enthusiastic:

“I’d say three to five years […] Right now, it’s only the occasional brave individual who does it. But I liken these to the home personal computer. It took off, completely supplanting the existing computer market.”

Well, of course he thinks it’s the greatest thing since the stubby got banished; he’s the co-designer of a rooftop turbine called the Mag-Wind, so he stands to clean up on this latest eco-fad.

So what the hell’s got a stick up my backside about all this, you ask? It’s simple: the do-gooders are, yet again, ignoring a few inconvenient truths themselves. While I’m all for improving our environment, the fact is that these damn things just aren’t practical. Don’t believe me? Well then, let’s just take a look at this then, shall we?

For the purposes of this little exercise, let’s make ourselves a whole lot of warm, fuzzy assumptions, just like the eco-dorks do. Let’s assume that:

1. The wind will actually blow all the time; 24/7, 365 days a year. Even on those Sweltering August days when the air is like a war, wet blanket over you and your buttcrack is doing an impression of Niagara Falls that would put Rich Little to shame.
2. Let’s also assume that the wind in the city is going to blow just like the wind in the country. It wont be bothered by large obstructing buildings, uneven windflow that you always get in urban areas, or roof designs that didn’t have wind flow in mind.
3. Let’s pretend the turbine will always function at its peak design efficiency (even though they never have), consistently cranking out 5KW, without any interruption at all. Ever.
4. As long as we’re feeling frisky, let’s assume that the cost of electricity is going to stay at the current rate of about 5.5¢/KWh, because we all know how stable the energy market is.
5. While we’re blabbing about energy markets, let’s say that you can sell 100% of all your excess production back to the public grid; at 5.5¢/KWh, of course.
6. Let’s throw the laws of mechanics, and all the things that says about moving parts, out the window and assume that these things won’t cost one thin dime in maintenance. Even though they’ve come under fire for problems with vibrations.
7. Why not say that you’re rich enough that you’ve got an extra $20,000 (minimum!) lying around to pay for this gizmo in cash. Or that Big Nanny will give you an interest-free loan to finance the thing.
8. And it’s going to be totally tax free, too. Hey, we’re in tree-hugger lala land here, remember?

So, now that we’ve got our arses all stuffed with sunshine and lollipops, what are we looking at? Well, let’s do some math.

(5.5¢/KWh) x 5KW of output x (24hrs/day) x 365 days in a year = a savings of $2409 every year.

Damn, that’s not too bad. I could use an extra 2400 bucks in my pocket every year, couldn’t you? There’s just one little fly in the ointment:

$20 grand ÷ ($2409/year) = about 8yrs, 4 months before you so much as break even.

In eight and a half years, you’ll break even. If the wind never stops blowing, the thing never breaks down, Big Nanny keeps her hand out of your pocket, and a monkey flies out of your ass.

Yes, alternative and renewable energy sources are a good thing. But let’s quit with all the pie-in-the-sky shit and be practical about it, alright?

Ouch. That’s gotta hurt. What I’d like to know is, how the hell did Tootoo catch on to Robidas coming up behind him like that? For those wondering what you’re about to see, here it is in a nutshell:

Tootoo creams Modano with a high-but-clean hit and then sends Robidas to the corner of WhereTheHell & AmI, seemingly by sense of smell, before getting whacked across the back by Modano’s stick after he peeled himself off the ice. Things got cranky from there and Robidas ended up riding the stretcher off the ice. Final tally: no majors, charging for Robidas and double roughing for Tootoo.

I repeat: how the HELL did Tootoo smell that guy coming?? Robidas clearly thought he had the element of surprise, or else he never would have led with his chin like that…

Sometimes I just plain don’t get my fellow right-wing nutjobs; I really don’t. There has been a great weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth over the last 24 hours or so, ever since Jim Flaherty coughed up the federal budget on the House rug. And quite the hairball it was, too. But let me ask you, my VRWC fellow travelers: Are any of you, any at all, really surprised by any of this??

Come on, now; you didn’t just fall off the turnip truck this morning did you? I’m not in the habit of moaning and groaning about my BT fellows, but some of what I’ve read leaves me scratching my melon hard enough to leave a gouge:

Christopher Edey, Got Blog If You Want It:
“Someone should really remind Prime Minister Harper, Finance Minister Flaherty and co. that they really are in government, and don’t have to keep letting Paul Martin write the budget just because that’s what everybody has gotten used to.”

M. K. Braaten:
“This afternoon when I read about the latest federal budget I swear I thought the NDP was in power. What happened to being fiscally conservative? What happened to income tax cuts? What happened to increased spending only at the same rate of increase in GDP? What happened to fairness?”

Others, like Dark Blue Tory, Sandy at Crux of the Matter and Joanne are taking a somewhat more pragmatic approach. I tend to agree with them. No matter how you slice it, there is no getting away from the fact that this was a political budget. It’s purpose was not to chart a course to fiscal responsibility, boost the economy or anything else like that. Its purpose was to pave the way to the next election. Period.

If there’s one thing that we should have learned in the last year, it’s that nothing meaningful will get done while the Tories have only a minority government. Anything that they try to do, that will actually make any kind of a difference, will be shot down by the opposition if for no other reason than to be able to bleat to the voters that the Conservatives can’t get anything done.

We need a majority and this is one step towards getting it. It’s bitter medicine, I know, so let’s just hold our noses and get it over with.

Growing up in a little, slightly more than a wide spot in the road sort of town in Western Ontario meant, amongst other things, lots of community picnics in the summertime. There were always plenty of things for the kids to do at these little shindigs, from sack races, to scavenger hunts, to junior marksmanship, and just about everything in between. But there’s one thing in particular that’s been popping up in my brain lately: the money scramble.

For those of you that haven’t heard of this, it’s just what it sounds like. One unlucky grownup would get to stand in the middle of a pack of wild-eyed kids, jacked up on glucose preteen rocket fuel, with a small sack of change. He would then grab a handful of coins, toss them into the air, and then get the hell out of the way as about 20 kids dove on the nickles and dimes like a pack of starving wolves on a herd of lame deer. So where the heck did this memory pop up from, you ask? It’s simple: there’s a budget coming up.

Actually, if you live in Ontario, there are two budgets coming up and they’re both of the pre-election variety. We all know what that means, don’t we? Yup: we’re about to get bribed with our own money on a massive scale. 🙄 As the Freeps put it this morning:

1 week. 2 budgets. $300B+ in spending.

Oh, joy. First comes the feds today, with what is expected to be a $3-billion grab bag of goodies, which will no doubt have pundits reading the election-speculation entrails for weeks to come. Then, on Thursday, McSquinty and his Fiberals will grab fistfuls of our money and furiously try to scrub our brains with it in the hope that we will somehow forget what a colossal frak-up he’s been over the past few years (health tax, Caledonia, flirting with sharia, yadda yadda yadda).

Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m a little too hungover from Saint Paddy’s day to bother with any of that bullshit right now. So here, for your non-budget-related enjoyment, is a bunch of stuff:

• Ever wonder what it takes to get a first class seat on some airlines? Now you know…
• Sun Media’s Michael Coren shows that he does, in fact, have a sense of humour (and so, apparently, does the Anglican bishop of New Westminster in Greater Vancouver): “Thank God for liberal clergyman. Because if they didn’t exist we would have to make them up.”
• Earl McRae tells us why he wears red on Fridays (as if we couldn’t figure it out).
• Watch UWO’s Salim Mansur take an astronomical pin to the zealotry balloon of the Prophets Of Eco-Doom.

There. That should keep you busy for a bit. Now I’m gonna go and try to get rid of this carpet on my tongue… Guinness, anyone?

No, I’m not being rhetorical; not entirely, anyway. Just who the hell does Stephane Dion think he’s kidding with his new little “look at me, I’m tough on crime” song and dance that he’s added to his traveling dog and pony show?

Forget — just for a minute or two, okay? — that this is the same bonehead who has fought every bit of real anti-crime legislation he has ever seen tooth and nail. Forget that this is the fool who flip-flopped on his own party’s anti-terror legislation, denying law enforcement vital tools needed to safeguard the people of this country from terrorist attacks that everyone with a brain in their heads says are coming, sooner or later. Forget that he has always decried any kind of tough-on-crime measures as draconian, but thought that the farmer Bob rifle registry was a great idea. Forget all that, just for a minute.

What Dion has done now is to fling open his piehole and hack up the tired, old and discredited hairball of “restorative justice.” 🙄

Dion yodeled on about more money for more cops, “tougher laws” (whatever the hell he thinks that means; I doubt it’s anywhere close to my definition) to protect kids and places of worship, and reverse onus for aresholes that use a gun and want out on bail. The problem is that he just doesn’t get that none of this means jack shit. Yes, you read that right.

Dion just can’t get his brain around the idea that scumbags that commit crimes with guns shouldn’t get out of jail at all, we already have more than enough laws, and we don’t need any more cops.

What the hell did I just say? We don’t need more cops?? Am I nuts all of a sudden??? No, I’m not. This is actually one of the things that I disagreed with Harper on during the last campaign, when he was also talking about putting more cops on the streets. The problem isn’t that we need more cops; we already have all the cops we need. The problem is that the cops we do have are having to chase down the same assholes again and again and again and again… because they keep getting sprung.

In other words, the problem isn’t with how we hunt down bad guys; it’s with what we do (or should I say, don’t do) with them once they’re caught. Our penal system is a God damned joke, and nobody’s laughing except criminals. How many times have you heard of someone getting raped or murdered by some sack of crap that was out on parole? Did you know that damn near every prisoner in the country has an automatic get-out-of-jail free card after serving a maximum of two-thirds of their sentence? But even then, what’s the difference? They get coddled on the inside anyway.

Liberals and the Left in general have spent decades obsessed with the notions of rehabilitation, hug-a-thug approaches and revolving-door justice. Everything they have tried has proven to be an abject failure.

Getting tough on crime doesn’t mean more social programs in crappy neighbourhoods; it doesn’t mean helping criminals “improve their self-image;” it doesn’t even mean more cops. What it means is punishing — and I mean really punishing — criminals in a way that would make Dion bleed from the ears if he heard about it:

No more TVs, no more radios, no more access to gyms that turn scrawny criminals into big criminals, no more conjugal visits (who the hell ever came up with that idea in the first place?), and NO AUTOMATIC EARLY RELEASE! You want parole? Prove that you deserve it, otherwise serve your whole damned stretch. And if you’re sentenced to life, forget that wussy little 25-years thing; you come out in a pine box. They don’t need to be given college degrees at public expense, they don’t need time in an exercise yard, and (contrary to what the thug-hugging handwringers will tell you) yes, you can live off bologna sandwiches for lunch. Every God damned day. For years.

Don’t tell any of this to Steffie, though. His poor sensibilities couldn’t handle it. Liberals, big or small “L,” just don’t have the stomach to deal with criminals. They never have and they never will.

So please, Stephane, quit trying to piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.

Well, it looks like we can finally look forward to something other than a one-horse race for who is going to get the nod to run for the Tories in London North Centre whenever the writ that everybody keeps talking about gets dropped.  Good thing, too.  For a while there it was looking like “acclaim” would be the word of the day and call me odd, but I don’t think that such an outcome is ever a good idea; there should always be some alternative, even if you don’t particularly like it.

While Tom Weihmayr isn’t going to take a run at it this time (kind of a drag, that; since I was hoping he’d try again), Paul Van Meerbergen (left; who jumped into the race a while ago) is getting joined in the race for the Tory nod by Allison Graham (right).  Some of you might know Graham from her writing the Freeps’ People You Know column but she also operates a business-networking advice firm called Elevate Services and Strategic Development.  More can be found in the Freeps, right here.

Now all we need to do is decide who is best equipped to bump off Glen Pearson and represent us in Ottawa…