So, it’s been confirmed that there’s going to be an election on October 14th.

One of the reporters at the press conference on the grounds of Rideau Hall asked Stephen Harper about the possibility of a second minority government.  He responded by saying "… I believe with a second minority government we will be in a stronger position in the next government."

Huh?

Is he really aiming to be the least unpopular party, as opposed to the most popular party?  If I was a member of the Conservative party, I’d be a little upset about this.

I have no idea how I’m going to vote.  And it appears neither do some of my friends.

Have you noticed that it’s become fashionable for cities to ban bottled water?  It started earlier this summer with Vancouver declaring war on bottled water.  They feel that since tap water in their city is perfectly fine more people should be drinking it at home rather than buying bottled water.

If a city council wants to lead by example and ban the sale of bottled water on their premises, that’s not a bad thing.  In fact, it’s to be expected.  But they need to provide alternatives such as water fountains.

A lot of cities have vending machines in their buildings that offer a wide variety of soft drinks, power drinks, sports drinks, and bottled water.  Arguably, bottled water is the probably the healthiest drink in that list.  If you take away bottled water, people going to the vending machines will almost certainly be choosing the less-healthy alternative.

Last week, London announced it was jumping on the bandwagon by banning the sale of bottled water in city facilities.  Their rationale was that over the last few years they noticed that garbage trucks were getting lighter, rather than heavier.  They should have been getting heavier as time marched on and more trash was diverted to the recycling stream.  But they were getting lighter because the number of empty plastic bottles being thrown into the trash rather than the recycling boxes.  A non-trivial problem and since they can’t ban the sale of bottled water in their city, they chose also chose to lead by example and ban the sale of bottled water in city facilities.

North Bay, on the other hand, has indicated they’re not jumping on this particular bandwagon because they’d rather deal with some unrecycled plastic bottles in their landfills and have people pick a bottle of water over a bottle of pop.

“If people have the choice between bottled water and pop, we would rather they choose a bottle of water” — Alan Korell, North Bay’s managing director of engineering and environmental works (from an article in The Nugget)

It’ll be interesting to see which other cities hop on the anti-bottled water bandwagon and why.  Guelph looks like they’re getting ready and a couple of councillors in Ottawa have been making noises, too.

Any bets as to who’s next?

It appears that the weather has been exciting at the airport, too:

METAR CYOW 182000Z 22011G19KT 15SM SCT050CB SCT075 BKN230 27/19 A2969 RMK CB3AC1CI2 DIST LTNG SHS NW-NE SLP053=
SPECI CYOW 182003Z 31021G27KT 15SM TS FEW023 SCT045CB BKN075 BKN230 23/ RMK SC1CB3AC1CI1 OCNL LTGCG SHS NW-NE=
SPECI CYOW 182012Z 35023G32KT 12SM -TSRA FEW025 BKN045CB BKN075 BKN230 21/ RMK SC1CB4AC1CI1 OCNL LTGCG=
SPECI CYOW 182024Z 34023G29KT 1SM +TSRA BKN040CB BKN230 17/ RMK RA3CB3CI1 OCNL LTGCG CB OVHD=
SPECI CYOW 182024Z CCA 34023G29KT 1SM R07/4000VP6000FT R32/P6000FT +TSRA BKN040CB BKN230 17/ RMK RA3CB3CI1 OCNL LTGCG CB OVHD=
SPECI CYOW 182031Z 35011G16KT 3/4SM +TSRA BKN040CB BKN230 17/ RMK RA4CB2CI1 FQT LTGCG CB OVHD=
SPECI CYOW 182031Z CCA 35011G16KT 3/4SM R32/2800VP6000FT/D +TSRA BKN040CB BKN230 17/ RMK RA4CB2CI1 FQT LTGCG CB OVHD=
SPECI CYOW 182038Z 06009G16KT 4SM TSRA BKN040CB OVC140 17/ RMK CB5AC3 OCNL LTGCG CB MOVG SW VIS LWR S=

At one point, it looks like the wind was gusting up to 32 knots (59.2 km/h).

It’s stopped raining here, or at least let up enough that I won’t be soaked to the bone in three seconds with only my tired umbrella and my Tilley to keep me dry.

This popped up on my email a few minutes ago:

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING ISSUED For Ottawa BY ENVIRONMENT CANADA

BULLETIN ISSUED AT: 3:57 PM EDT MONDAY 18 AUGUST 2008
AT 3:40 PM THE RADAR IS INDICATING THAT A WEST TO EAST LINE OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS IS MOVING SOUTHEAST AT 80 KM/H. LARGE HAIL GREATER THAN 2 CENTIMETRES IN DIAMETER AND STRONG WINDS GUSTS OF 90 TO 120 KM/H ARE POSSIBLE WITH THESE STORMS. THERE IS ALSO A RISK OF A TORNADO.  THIS IS A WARNING THAT SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ARE IMMINENT OR OCCURRING IN THESE REGIONS. REMEMBER SOME SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS PRODUCE TORNADOES..LISTEN FOR UPDATED WARNINGS. EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ONTARIO RECOMMENDS TAKING COVER IMMEDIATELY WHEN THREATENING WEATHER APPROACHES.   SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH FOR OTTAWA NORTH – KANATA – ORLEANS CONTINUED  SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING.  THIS IS AN ALERT TO THE POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WITH LARGE HAIL AND DAMAGING WINDS.  MONITOR WEATHER CONDITIONS..LISTEN FOR UPDATED STATEMENTS. IF THREATENING WEATHER APPROACHES TAKE IMMEDIATE SAFETY PRECAUTIONS.

 

The Franktown radar at 15:40 Eastern showed:

The view from my office window is very impressive.  I can see a sharp line along the edge of the clouds to the south.  A couple of minutes ago I watched as the bottom layer of clouds was swirling in a vertical manner while the layer above it was moving south.  And there’s thunder rumbling and we’ve seen a couple of flashes of lightning.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone reports a funnel cloud because it sure looks like there might be a "comma" or two in the radar image.

Oh, and it’s just started to pour rain, to the extent that I can’t see the edge of the clouds any more.

Back in February, I wrote a couple of entries about taxi cab cameras and how they are a Good Thing.  At the time, taxi drivers were complaining because they cost money (which they were able to offset by some jiggery pokery that allowed them to keep the difference as the GST dropped).  Studies out there suggested that they had a positive impact on reducing crimes against taxi drivers.

Well, there was a taxi driver who was lured by a fare into an out-of-the-way spot behind a school and robbed by a group of men.  Fortunately, the driver was not hurt and had one of the camera systems in his taxi.  The police released a crystal clear faceshot of the fare (photo since removed as the person is a minor) on August 13th and CBC has reported that a 15-year old boy has turned himself in to the police as a result.

Hopefully, this will be enough proof to the naysayers that they do, in fact, work.

While poking around the CBC’s Olympics website, I noticed they had a BlackBerry icon for over-the-air download.  Unfortunately, the URL is long and ugly and not terribly conducive to being typed into one’s mobile browser, even with a full keyboard.

Fortunately, TinyURL let me turn http://www.cbc.ca/partner/researchinmotion/4-2/CBCOlympicsPageLauncher.jad into http://tinyurl.com/cbcBBolympics, which is much more mobile browser friendly.

Happy downloading!

The organization known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or PETA has come up with the following ad, which is based on the horrific murder and decapitation of a young man from Winnipeg on a Greyhound bus.

The English language does not contain enough adjectives to properly express my complete and utter disgust with this ad.  To compare the horrific murder and decapitation of the young man from Winnipeg on the Greyhound bus with what may go on in a slaughterhouse has stepped way over the line of what’s acceptable.

PETA, you should be ashamed.  You and your ad writers owe Tim McLean’s family, everyone who was on the bus, the trucker who stopped and anyone else affected by the incident an apology.

I will never, ever, donate one penny to PETA as a result and I will not knowingly ever buy anything from any company that supports PETA, and I encourage you to do the same.

Shame on you, PETA.

Read what other bloggers are saying about this and check out the story on CBC and on CNN.