Collingwood’s municipal debt and 2014 budget

Collingwood / Municipal Politics6 Comments

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Tuesday, Council got a combined debt-and-budget presentation that set the stage for the upcoming, fuller 2014 budget deliberations starting next week. CAO John Brown gave us a recap of a report (produced by BMA Management Consulting) about the town’s debt situation and financial well-being. It was a mix of good news/bad news. The good is that it’s not as bad as it seems, certainly not as bad as some other municipalities, but mostly in the middle of the peer group selected for the report. The bad is that it’s not as good as we’d like it to be. But barring ……… click below for more ↓

Should councillors abstain from voting?

Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Provincial Politics2 Comments

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In an earlier post, I wrote that Collingwood’s Integrity Commissioner, Robert Swayze, proposed two changes to the town’s Procedural Bylaw: amending section 13.7 and deleting section 13.8. Last post I dealt with the former; here I will explain my concerns about the latter. Section 13.8 currently reads: 13.8 No vote – deemed negative – exception Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 13.7 of this By-law, every Member who is not disqualified from voting by reason of a declared pecuniary interest shall be deemed to be voting against the motion if he/she declines or abstains from voting. In other words, no member ……… click below for more ↓

Legal Versus “Personal” Conflicts of Interest

Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Provincial PoliticsOne Comment

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In May, 2013, I wrote my thoughts about Ontario’s Municipal Conflict of Interest Act and the effect it had on the governance and procedural behaviour of municipal councillors. Back then, I wrote, The Act allows no grey areas: there are no “perceived” conflicts in law, only clearly defined legal ones. This is obviously intended by the stringent wording that lays out what construes a conflict of interest. This clarity absolves everyone of trying to second guess the intention of the Act, or trying to interpret degrees of conflict. For the MCOI Act, only pecuniary – i.e. financial – conflicts matter: ……… click below for more ↓

BL2: Resistance is futile

Games & Gaming / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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I tried to resist. I really did. I avoided it for more than a year, skillfully averting my eyes from the store shelves where it sat, ignoring the emails with invitations, sales offers that dangled newly-released DLC packages before me. I looked the other way when ads popped on on websites. I have more serious things to do, I’d tell myself. Getting too old for games, I’d mutter under my breath. I have better things to do with my time. Like reading. Studying. Developing website material. Learning music. Besides, I’m running out of hard disc space. But then I saw ……… click below for more ↓

Amo, Amas, Amat…. and what?

Books & Reviews / Education & Learning / Language & Grammar / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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My well-thumbed copy of Eugene Ehrlich’s book, Amo, Amas, Amat and More, is dated 1985. It’s amusingly subtitled “How to Use Latin to Your Own Advantage and to the Astonishment of Others.” It’s still in print, it seems, or was as recently as 2006. I’ve read my copy on and off for the past 25-plus years, but have not been able to effectively astonish anyone with my grasp of Latin. Possibly the reason for this is that my grasp of Latin is small. Very small. I had a single year of Latin classes in high school; lessons mostly relegated to ……… click below for more ↓

Feb. 12: Happy Darwin Day

Atheism & Spirituality / Balderdash & Hoaxes / Critical Thinking / Education & Learning / Science & Technology2 Comments

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February 12 is international Darwin Day, the day when we collectively celebrate science and reason. And, of course, we recognize Charles Darwin’s birthday: February 12, 1809 (the same birthdate as Abraham Lincoln, by the way). If Collingwood made such declarations, I would propose we recognize the day in our municipality. Other Canadian municipalities have done so. Maybe we could raise a flag with Darwin’s face on it outside town hall. Darwin Day was first celebrated in 1995 and has been growing in recognition and popularity ever since. As Darwinday.org tells us the celebration was: …initiated by Dr. Robert (“Bob”) Stephens ……… click below for more ↓

Raisin and sourdough this week

Books & Reviews / Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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While I haven’t tried to make a sourdough raisin bread yet, that idea occurred to me while I was making my latest breads, this week. I’m sure it would be a good mix, but I’ll have to build my levain up again, since I used all my countertop levain in yesterday’s bread (about 350g). I still have a culture in the fridge, however, and will take some out to get it going in the warmer kitchen, today. I made a medium-sized sourdough loaf, and two smaller raisin-cinnamon loaves, Friday. Somewhat ambitious of me, but with mixed results. Two? You ask. ……… click below for more ↓

Corn and other breads

Books & Reviews / Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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The last loaf of January, 2014 was a machine-made corn bread, made using a recipe from Washburn’s & Butt’s 300 Best Canadian Bread Machine Recipes book that I’ve mentioned previously. It’s a good book for bread machine users. Unlike my previous efforts to tinker with bread recipes, I used the basic, printed 1.5-lb. recipe without any alterations this time (not even in the salt). Medium crust setting, basic (white) bread menu selection. The results were good, if not spectacular. The recipe calls for 1/3rd cup of cornmeal. I used a commonly-available, supermarket brand, the sort I often use for dusting ……… click below for more ↓

Debunking the Adam Bridge

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Pseudoscience & Quackery6 Comments

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    A story popped up on the internet in late 2013, recycled in early 2014, claiming “NASA Images Find 1.7 Million Year Old Man-Made Bridge.” Claptrap. It’s not a bridge. It’s simply a natural tombolo: “a deposition landform in which an island is attached to the mainland by a narrow piece of land such as a spit or bar.” The conspiracy theorists and some religious fundamentalists disagree. It’s been called the Adam bridge, the Rama, Sethu (also Rama Setu – setu is Sanskrit for bridge), Ramar and the  Hanuman bridge, and Setubandhanam. According to the legends in the Ramayana, ……… click below for more ↓

Running for re-election in 2014

Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Earlier this month, I filed my nomination papers for municipal council. I am running for a fourth term as Collingwood councillor. I will post a new election website with updated information and campaign content later this winter. I would appreciate your support, your trust and your vote. I believe I have earned them during my time on council, and will continue to do my best to serve the residents of Collingwood, and meet the needs of our growing community, when re-elected. Until the new website is available, I want to let any eligible Collingwood voters who wish to contact me ……… click below for more ↓

Reading Thucydides at last

Books & Reviews / History & Biography / Personal Reminiscences / Politics / War & Military / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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Somewhere on one of my bookshelves, is an old Penguin paperback copy of History of The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. It’s a bit worn, pages lightly yellowed, glue a little brittle. It’s been sitting on the shelf, stacked with many other paperbacks, piled two deep, floor to ceiling, for the past two decades and more. It’s never been read, not completely. I read the introduction, maybe some small sections, back in my wargaming days, 30 or 35 years ago. Like many of its companions on that shelf, it’s a book I put aside for the days when I expected to have ……… click below for more ↓

The Mac celebrates 30 years

Computers & Programming / History & Biography / Media Issues / My Writing / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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A recent article on Gizmodo shows off some previously unseen (or perhaps just forgotten) footage of a young Steve Jobs unveiling the Macintosh computer, back on January 30, 1984. Thirty years ago, this week. Seems like forever ago. But I remember it, and reasonably well. I remember where I was living then, what I was working on, and who I was with (I’m still with her…) The video clip also includes the famous Orwellian “1984” TV ad Apple used to launch the Mac. That’s worth watching for itself. It was a really cheeky ad, and generated a lot of chatter ……… click below for more ↓

Water, water, everywhere

Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Hydration matters. Not just to athletes and long distance runners. It matters to bakers. How much water is in your dough is crucial to how the crumb develops. It’s amazing how a few grams more or less of water can make a real difference in the resulting loaf of bread. This week I did a little experiment that got me thinking about hydration. I made a loaf of bread in the machine using the “French” recipe and settings, (see my previous post about making French bread in the machine) but this time substituting the same volume of K2 organic bread ……… click below for more ↓

For want of a nail…

Books & Reviews / History & Biography / Literary pretensions / My Writing / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Bought a book at Loblaws (of all places) this week, one by Harry Turtledove: The Big Switch. It’s one of his many alternative history novels, about what might have happened if things had happened a certain way – a different way from what actually transpired – in the opening years of World War Two. He’s written several in this vein and they’ve all been generally well received. I’ve liked what I’ve read of him in the past. Many authors have taken up this sort of speculative fiction, although none as frequently as Turtledove. What would have happened if Hitler had ……… click below for more ↓

The Short and the Tall of It

Books & Reviews / Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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This past week saw several new experiments in my bread laboratory. Okay, it’s a kitchen, but sometimes it feels like a lab, what with all the tinkering and testing I do. I just can’t seem to stop trying new things in bread. It would fee even more science-like if Susan would let me buy the implements and tools I want. First, however, the good news: my levain remains thriving and healthy. I have two batches now: one on the counter, the other in the fridge. The counter batch is used as a poolish right now; the fridge is the long-term ……… click below for more ↓

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