Month: February 2005

Hockey At Work

Saturday sees hockey on the rink built over the last two weeks on Market Square behind work. From the tenuously linkability of the Whig:

Confirmed for Saturday’s Limestone Classic tournament, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the ice at Market Square, are: hockey hall of famer Dale Hawerchuk; retired Toronto Maple Leaf legend Wendel Clark; Joe Nieuwendyk of the Maple Leafs; Brenden Morrow and Marty Turco of the Dallas Stars; Mike Keane of the Vancouver Canucks; Matt Bradley of the Pittsburgh Penguins; former Leafs Dave Gagner, Nick Kypreos and Dave Ellett; former New Jersey Devils John MacLean and Joe Cirella; player agent and onetime Boston Bruin Mike Gillis; Hockey Night in Canada personality Ron MacLean, and Gord Downie, Gord Sinclair and Paul Langlois of the Tragically Hip.

Who would I like to say hi to? Wendel.

I Really Do Not Understand This

Presuming the alleged facts are as reported and as set out in the Statement of Claim, this will be a most interesting case to follow, as reported in The Toronto Star:

Romanian-born Alexandra Austin, who was adopted by an Ontario couple but sent back five months later to poverty and deprivation, has launched a $7 million lawsuit against her adoptive parents, the Canadian and Ontario governments and Swiss International Air Lines…[A]fter five months in the Austins’ Ancaster home, Alexandra was driven to the airport and put on a plane for return to Bucharest. Shortly afterward, the Austins adopted a Romanian baby girl…Canada had accepted her as a landed immigrant when the adoption was approved. But as she left the country before her adoptive parents filed a citizenship application, she never became Canadian.

The parents who adopted her are no longer in Canada, this person and her child are effectively stateless and Canada should be ashamed. How could such a thing occur? It is interesting that no reference to this case I have read, including the link above to the Star‘s full article, references the Criminal Code section that pops immediately into my mind and might have had similar wording at the time the one-way ticket to no one bought and used:

215. (1) Every one is under a legal duty

(a) as a parent, foster parent, guardian or head of a family, to provide necessaries of life for a child under the age of sixteen years…

(2) Every one commits an offence who, being under a legal duty within the meaning of subsection (1), fails without lawful excuse, the proof of which lies on him, to perform that duty, if

(a) with respect to a duty imposed by paragraph (1)(a) or (b),

(i) the person to whom the duty is owed is in destitute or necessitous circumstances…

218. Every one who unlawfully abandons or exposes a child who is under the age of ten years, so that its life is or is likely to be endangered or its health is or is likely to be permanently injured, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years…

I hope this sad case finds this person some meaningful remedy. Fortunately we have courts that allow for redress where these parents, these bureaucrats and all other adults involved failed if the facts prove out – but how could they not given she was nine?

Bettman Continues To Amaze

With news like this you have to wonder what some of the smaller team owners are thinking this morning:

The NHL players union broke from its long-standing position of refusing to accept a salary cap in their latest offer Monday night, but owners rejected the deal, according to reports…The union counter-offered with a $52-million salary cap. The players also proposed more aggressive tax rates on team payrolls and offered a 24 per cent salary rollback on all existing contracts.

By rejecting this astoundingly sensible offer and moving to the cancellation of the season Bettman can only be saying the problem is not the players but the number of teams.

Joe the Train

From the brother of the yellow press comes this item:

LONDON, England (AP) — Joe Strummer, lead singer of British punk band The
Clash, has been honored with a train named for him. Strummer, who died in 2002 at age 50, was remembered at a naming ceremony Saturday at a railway station in Bristol, southwest England. The Strummer train, a diesel locomotive built in 1965, follows a 200-year-old tradition of British trains being named after famous people. It will be operated in England by Cotswold Rail company. Strummer’s influential punk band rose to fame in the 1970s with hits including “London Calling” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Originally born John Graham Mellor, Strummer died of a heart attack at his home in Somerset, southwest England, in December 2002.

So will Thomas the Tank Engine come out with a version of Joe the Spitting Angry train?

Five Percent Is Not That Bad

The BBC reports that five percent increase in fuel costs would ensure 10% green power for the UK:

During the 2003/4 financial year, the amount of electricity generated from inexhaustible natural resources was 2.4%, just over half the target of 4.3%. The government hopes to double the amount of electricity from renewables to 20% of the UK’s needs by 2020, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by between 20 million and 27 million tonnes. The policy’s centrepiece is a commitment to stimulate green energy by making sure those who produce it receive more than the market rate for electricity – known as the Renewables Obligation. In addition, the government is providing capital grants to offshore windfarms, and to power stations that generate electricity from biomass and energy crops.

All sounds reasonable, paying for what you want to avoid what you don’t…unless I suppose you are 17 and love self-help-guru, Miss Take-a-lot 1957 Ayn Rand aka i-me-mine.

It Begins

BOSTON — In the first tangible sign that it is almost time for the Red Sox to begin their first World Series title defense in 86 years, the team’s equipment truck — stocked with some 30,000 pounds of freight — pulled out of Fenway Park early Friday afternoon and headed for the team’s Spring Training complex in Fort Myers, Fla.