Montreal’s eclipse weather is looking good for Monday. I could watch the 60 or so seconds of totality from my balcony, but I think I’ll join the crowds on the McGill campus - even though totality will be a few seconds less. (I’m about 3 km from the edge of totality).
Federal dental plan is not getting much take-up from dentists, who say that the administrative requirements, including signing a multi-page contract, are too high. Payments are also lower than from other insurance plans. Apparently the federal government officials only started consulting with them a month before the announcement.
I think for many of these knuckledraggers, they would want to replace the carbon tax with large coal-rolling pickup trucks.
There are climate change deniers, but I think the majority of anti-taxers have the following issues:
- what is the best way to promote a change from fossil fuels to green energy?
– Taxing the hell out of everyone, at all levels, is not that way - I don’t look at the carbon tax component at the pump and say “well now I’m going to start riding my bike” - I just fill up and drive 20 km to work. Oh, by the way, you literally cannot ride a bike to work 6 months of the year here.
– Who has real choices in picking green energy, and are those choices really all that green? Electricity and e-vehicles (battery production) for example have dubious credits.
– How can you replace dirty with clean? We need targeted incentives, not a broad deterrent. The only way the current carbon tax is working is by shutting down the entire economy. - who should be doing the effort and taking on the sacrifices?
– Not Canada - in this list, the 6 Canadian companies listed total 10,000 units. The top single producer (China Coal) was 276,458 units.
– and for methane we have lots of cows and other farting animals. I suppose we can cancel the beef-production portion of our economy but that production will just move to Argentina - that’s how it works like it or not.
– and, knuckle-dragger here, it’s getting nice and warm here. I like that. Too bad for India and Saudi Arabia but they have more money that we do, let them figure it out.
How was the eclipse where you were? There wasn’t much to see in Toronto, as the sky was overcast the whole time. And now, to add insult to injury, it’s bright and sunny two hours later, at 5 pm.
I drove half an hour to see the eclipse properly. We had the good fortune to mostly escape the cloudy skies; just a few cirrus. It was easy to see the cosmic dance and worthwhile to see it. But no waves of light flashing over the ground, and the many nearby dogs took the event with great calmness. It did go 9pm dark and feel five degrees colder for a few minutes. I was surprised how much corona was visible. But it seemed bright and sunny even when 99% of the Sun was still covered up afterwards.
Left home around 11:10, headed south toward highway 2 along the St-Laurence river, about a 50 minutes trip. Ended up at Guidon Park just west of Cornwall. It had gotten a little cloudy by about noon but then clear up nicely in time for the eclipse, had a great view.
Perfect eclipse weather in Montreal. I was joined by thousands of other at the downtown McGill campus - at least I had a seat on the (luckily dry) grass. Applause and screams as totality happened.
I’m told that for those who missed it, there will be another eclipse on April 20th - you just have to smoke enough weed that the sun goes out! 
Anybody watching Canada’s Got Talent? They had a spoons player on tonight. He was good—but I think I’m better.
Maybe I should audition!
I drove down from Ottawa to Prescott to see the eclipse. I made the mistake of taking the 416 instead of my usual secondary roads because I was starting from the West side of the city instead of home - a mistake, as everybody and their sisters and their cousins (who they reckon up by dozens) and their aunts had the same idea and traffic mostly moved at a crawl. I got off at the “Bridge to the USA” exit and took Highway 2 from Johnstown into Prescott, and watched from the roof of my sister’s business.
There was a bit of overcast, but not enough to completely block the sun, and I had a good view with my second pair of eclipse glasses (given away free at the cash in Canadian Tire). The first pair would probably have been OK on a clear day, but combined with the bit of overcast were too dark for a clear view.
Totality was perfect - still a bit of haze but the corona and a couple of prominences were perfectly visible! Very glad I decided to go, as I’m not likely to still be around for the next one.
The trip back was OK - a crawl getting out of Prescott on 2 as a lot of people were likely using their mapping apps to find an alternate way to get to the 416 instead of taking the 401 , but once I turned onto my usual route of secondary roads it was smooth driving all the way, crossing over the 416 several times with the traffic below bumper-to-bumper and creeping along.
Absolutely!
My daughter was there too and thought it was amazing, as opposed to Toronto’s “it got dark for a few minutes”
How fun! My profile photo is of me in a production of “Twelfth Night” at the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival in July, 2022, presented at the Kinsmen Amphitheatre. I was both Sir Toby Belch and A Priest - that get-up is me as the priest.
Canada continues to behave dishonourably - Canada broke its treaty promise, but Blood Tribe is barred from suing, Supreme Court rules | CBC News
Wow, that was depressing. Thank you for reminding me why I avoid the Sun/PostMedia.
Rex Murphy has shuffled off The Rock one last time
I used to enjoy him on CBC back in the day, but I’m pretty sure that in his senior years he had that brain eating worm RFK Jr has.
Both my grammies were pretty optimistic and cheerful up to the end. Bad-tempered grammies are Justin’s fault!
Rex Murphy was once lucid and entertaining. He hasn’t been either of those things for many years.