I also tend to watch the CBC Montreal evening news.
Danielle Smith blames the left for the heated rhetoric in political discourse, and calls on them to turn the temperature down.
Thankfully, CBC’s response was ‘Looked in the mirror lately?’ - Danielle Smith sees a political language problem when she looks in one direction | CBC News
I mean, seriously - when your supporters have ‘Fuck Trudeau’ flags all over their trucks, you’ve got no call to blame us for the volatility of the situation!
Very scary news about Jasper, Alberta - the townsite has been evacuated, and as of this news article, the fires are about 12 km to the south. Story here - Wildfire that forced evacuation of Jasper National Park now within 12 km of townsite | CBC News
It’s strange - when a wildfire is raging in a remote area where there are very few people or settlements, it doesn’t hit me as hard. When it’s somewhere I’ve been to, or where I have friends, it has a direct emotional impact for me, and Jasper is no exception!
Scary news indeed. I’m in no danger, but I do enjoy the mountain parks. Hope everybody (and pets) was able to evacuate in good shape.
Looks like the Jasper townsite was hit pretty hard. The devastion of wilderness can only be imagined. A couple years ago I flew out at night to the island during fire season and BC was lit up the entire way with fires.
Years ago we would get the occasional bit of smokey sky in Calgary and there would be a lot of talk about the fires. Now its just a normal part of late summer as the forests burn away.
My truck has a fine layer of ash these past few mornings.
This is long past the boiling point of the frog in the pot.
Saskatchewan has more miles/km of roads (paved+unpaved) than any other province (stats are from 2003 but they are still number one today). Alberta comes close. Table 1 Length of Canada’s public road network, 2003 (statcan.gc.ca)
The Supreme Court of Canada has refused to hear Jordan Peterson’s case, meaning he has to take social media coaching.
Personally, I’m delighted - it’s about time someone took this blowhard to task for his hateful commentary. I’ve little hope for his social media coaching, however - he has long demonstrated that he is unfit to counsel anyone else, and that he lacks the empathy to be anything other than a grating prognosticator with a conservative agenda.
And I look forward to hearing the ranting from his fans and supporters - not!
I’m not sure that Peterson currently counsels. He has some ideas, and much posturing and self-regard, but I have only read a couple of his books. Celebrities often lack perspective, but it is also true tribunals sometimes overstep their seneschals. If the case raises no new legal issues or does not contain errors of law, my understanding is it does not merit the Supreme Court. But surely social media training will change little.
Peterson was attempting to appeal a ruling by the College of Psychologists of Ontario that held he had made comments that brought the profession into disrepute. This wasn’t the human rights tribunal, but the psychology accreditation body. From the article:
I agree that social media training won’t change anything, but it lays the groundwork for the College to further discipline him (suspend his license, most likely) if he goes about bringing the profession into disrepute more in the future.
Peterson can say whatever shit on Rogan’s podcast that he likes, but he can’t necessarily remain a member in good standing of the College of Psychology at the same time.
Final flight of the Martin Mars water bomber today
An historic final flight of the “Hawaii Mars” water bomber will take place this afternoon on Vancouver Island. The flight will be from Sproat Lake near Port Alberni, and make a circuit across Northern Vancouver Island to Patricia Bay near the Victoria Airport where it will be moved to the British Columbia Aviation Museum. The flight will be accompanied by The Snowbirds.
The Martin Mars was developed during WWII and only seven were built. Four of these were purchased by a Canadian company in 1959 and converted to water bomber service. Only two remain and only one of those is flight-worthy (the Hawaii Mars).
The plane is huge with a 200 foot wingspan which is about the same as a 747. It can drop 27,000 liters of water in one load. The four planes have been fighting forest fires for over 50 years in British Columbia and elsewhere in North America. Two have been lost to accidents. The other (Philippine Mars) will be donated to the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson.
The exact time of the flight hasn’t been divulged, but is expected to be mid-afternoon local time. You can track the flight on Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24
So what are we doing to replace the Martin Mars? Are we just using more waterbombers that are smaller? I could be wrong (I hope I am!), but it’s sure looking like we’re going to need a larger fleet of waterbombers to fight wildfires over the next decade!
It’s also strange, because I had just been using waterbombers in a discussion with a friend who actually believes in chemtrails. My point, such as it was, was that if that honking big plane dropping a huge load of water on or near a wildfire was having such a small effect, anything being sprayed from commercial jets would have to be so strongly concentrated that anything it landed on would get an obvious chemical burn. Well, my argument went about as well as you’d expect.
Around the same time, I found this article about Danielle Smith and the challenges she faces with some of the extreme anti-vaxx and chemtrail conspiracy theorists in her party. I have to say, I rather felt sorry for her reading this. I certainly couldn’t face a room full of people demanding I do something about chemtrails without snapping and saying something that would get quoted in the news for weeks!
The article is at this link - The cheers and jeers of Danielle Smith's private party summer | CBC News
The vast majority of water bombers operating in Canada are Canadair CL-415/De Havillland DHC-515 (and older CL-215), and have been for ages. The Martin Mars are cool, but a very tiny part of the fleet. The 215/415/515 are designed for the express purpose of firefighting, and are sized to be able to take advantage of the innumerable small lakes in the north for scooping purposes. While I am not an expert on the subject, I wouldn’t be surprised if the smaller size of the CL-415 is actually advantageous in terms of scooping from smaller lakes.
How about dirigibles?
Semi-serious… they could carry a tremendous amount of water. Need to think of a way to pump the water up into tanks. Probably useless over an active fire (wind and smoke) but maybe have some value soaking the ground ahead of the fire.
The problem with dirigibles is - hydrogen is easily available, but it’s too flammable. (And sadly, all anyone thinks about is the Hindenberg disaster…) Helium is great, but we’re starting to run out. And the works of Kenneth Oppel notwithstanding, I haven’t heard about any other lighter than air gasses that would work.
But I love dirigibles, and I wish they could make a comeback!!
May I introduce you to the glory that is Flying Whales?
They aren’t proposing firefighting in their model but rather general cargo operations to remote, landlocked areas including delivery of large power equipment , construction materials, emergency equipment and so on.
They’re still very much in development (I saw a recent video of a scaled down manufacturing/deployment test) and several years out from entering service, assuming all goes well, but the concept is awesome and I wish them luck!
Thank you so much for that! I knew nothing about them, but that’s a fascinating development. I wish them every success!
Fascinating to see how much depends on our two major railway lines. It’s been okay so far in Toronto, but that’s because I don’t have to travel to Hamilton or Milton today. Give it a couple of days, and we’ll all start to see what’s missing from the stores!
In other news, CBC reports that Canadians have the longest wait times in the world for US visas - Canadian residents face the longest waits in the world for U.S. visas | CBC News
I can attest to this first hand - I submitted my application for my Green Card in late October/early November of 2019. My visa application was ‘opened’ by the US in November of 2022, and my interview at the consulate in Montréal was 17 weeks and 5 days ago.
Right now, they’re teasing me by sending my documents back to me - does this mean it has been accepted? Or rejected? Or does it mean nothing other than they’re sending me my passport back and I still have to wait for word? No idea…
We actually aren’t, in any meaningful sense. I know this is a common enough statement, but helium reserves that we know of have centuries to go and they keep finding new ones. The price of helium tends to be very volatile because its discovery and extraction is tied in to other industries like oil, so events in that space can affect it. The Ukraine war hit helium prices hard because Russia is a major helium source.
The Earth keeps making it, of course, but very slowly.
The real problem with dirigibles is that they’re impractical and dangerous.