In the heart of Thanksgiving/Christmas season, we are often confronted and reminded of a curiosity of human existence that has far wider repercussions than we realize. During big get-togethers (within health guidelines of course, speaking more historically here), many of us have been faced with the Phenomenon of the Perpetual Ass. It seems that in any sizeable group there is at least one person who will see it as their duty to putridly debase conversation, to offer ignorant and inflammatory … [Read more...]
Column: Four strong winds – Ottawa’s looming second carbon tax will hammer every poor part of this vast, cold country
Here’s a question, a cross-Canada, border-independent question, that might resonate with some: Have you ever pulled up to the pumps and put in ten dollars’ worth of gas? Or five? Or maybe you can recall a time when there was an unusually good payday or a tax return, and you decided to live a little, telling the gas jockey to fill it right up (in my historical instances, my eight-year-old Nissan bare-bones rust-bucket), right to the brim? That was feeling on top of the world; a full tank was like … [Read more...]
Hey Alberta: What do we want to be known for – the low road, or the high road?
Dress your best on your execution day… try to leave a good impression on the death squad by standing erect and proud…Be extremely courteous to your assistant when you lose money. Try not to blame others for your fate, even if they deserve blame. Never exhibit any self-pity. Nassim Nicholas Taleb In reporting on the energy scene, it is wearyingly necessary to monitor the news flow to see if there is anything notable or comment-worthy happening. It’s not easy, because news is no longer … [Read more...]
Column: Formula 1/Hypocrisy legend Lewis Hamilton signs on for a ridiculous “environmental awareness” racing series to roll through pristine wilderness – and we’re losing the PR battle to these loons?
People often comment to me that, with respect to the energy/hydrocarbon debate, we can get somewhere if we just “have a conversation”. Surely, the reasoning goes, if reasonable people sit down and discuss, we can move the needle in a positive way. I don’t know if that is a realistic scenario. The majority of rational people simply don’t care about energy for the same reason you’re not presently concerned with whether you’ll starve to death next month. Food (and energy) will be there … [Read more...]
Column: The remarkable power of energetic talent pools – and the energy sector has a great one
A few years ago, a new publishing phenomenon exploded onto bookshelves, an exciting development for music fans. A wave of books from aging rock stars appeared, oddly similar recollections of squalid and sordid lifestyles lived by a “lucky” few who pursued misbehaviour with a vengeance, to the extent their record sales allowed. This circle of musicians seemed to compete with each other to show how badly one could live their life, each reminiscing about the glory days of being shuttled through … [Read more...]
Column: Danielle Smith is right: Alberta needs both spending discipline and fresh, forward economic thinking
As one of the vast migratory herd of Saskies that came west several decades ago in search of opportunity, I clearly remember crossing that very real border. Leaving the motherland in search of greener pastures wasn’t easy, but there were upsides, one of which was obvious within 3 feet west of Alsask. The surrounding terrain looked the same – endless rolling crop fields – but the road changed from a frost-heaved, cratered, patches-on-patches mess to what felt like a billiard-table. It was like a … [Read more...]
Column: Cows, California and energy – a shocking lack of systemic thinking roils the world’s fifth largest economy
“Adding more milk to the milk already in a pail just gives you more milk, but adding another cow to the one you already have does not give you a larger cow. In the same way, pouring half the milk you already have into a second pail gives you two smaller amounts of milk, but dividing the cow in half does not give you two smaller cows. You may end up with a lot of hamburger, but the essential nature of ‘cow’ – a living system capable, among other things, of turning grass into milk, would be lost.” … [Read more...]
Column: The era of multi-decade infrastructure projects
You know the feeling you get when you’ve completed, say, a woodworking project, maybe making a deck chair or something, and it took forever, and screws and nails are embarrassingly sticking out in random directions, the legs are wobbly, right angles are scarce, and generally, the thing looks like it belongs in Picasso’s Guernica? Even with my “standards”, it takes forever to finish a project. And that's doing it at my leisure; imagine needing approval from all your friends and family for every … [Read more...]
Column: In the global game of geopolitics and energy, Canada looks like it got into the cannabis
Not everyone is like us, folks. Not like us Canadians, that is. Or even North Americans. Take one interesting example. Imagine a country where children are taught not to smile in school. Where beer wasn’t recognized as an alcoholic beverage until 2011. Where one region registered a voter turnout of 146 percent in a 2012 election. A country that spends $50 billion to host the Olympics, with a slogan of “Great, New, Open” then, within a month of the end of the games, invades and annexes part of a … [Read more...]
Column: You are about to be hydrogenated – Hydrogen’s star is rising, and that’s a very good thing
Way back in the early 2000s, shortly after the complete and utter Y2K letdown, I met a guy at some corporate golf event. He was polite and kind to both my disturbing golf game and my 50-dollar Canadian Tire bag of scarred up irons, even though he was a president of an oil company. Perhaps his humility and down-to-earth manner was due to the humble origins of his company: he’d started it with a $25,000 loan from his mother. I can only imagine the scoldings at board meetings ("No more equity … [Read more...]
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