Heads-up: rally against tankers and Enbridge on Tuesday

Quick heads up: if you're in the region on Tuesday August 31, head over to one of these two rallies being held to protest Enbridge's Northern Gateway Project and its tanker traffic.

No Tankers Rally (VANCOUVER)
Date and time: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 12 Noon
Where: Burrard and Pender (Meet across street from Enbridge HQ and march to Art Gallery)
For more information, contact jolan@forestethics.org 

Pipe Up Against Enbridge rally (KITIMAT)
Date and time: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 starting at 11:00 am
Where: Kitimat, B.C.
For more information, contact info@pipeupagainstenbridge.ca
Details: Come out to this family-friendly gathering outside the Riverlodge Recreation Centre. Listen to speakers from across the Northwest and hear live music from the incredible Rachelle van Zanten.

Check out Dogwood Initiative's information on the rally here.

You can still make some noise if you can't make the rally: send an Action Alert to the Prime Minister to ask for a permanent ban on oil tanker traffic off of the B.C. coast.

Don't be like this guy - educate yourself about sushi.

The other day on the Face-Book one of my brothers was all "Hey man, I ate some tuna, hope it was OK LOL LOL."

Mistake. There's no "LOL" involved when it comes to tuna. I immediately disowned him and wrote him out of my will, which, since his name is Will, was a bit confusing grammatically. Luckily it's no skin off my teeth as he was one of the minor brothers. He played no major role.

And good riddance to you, sir.

Don't let this happen to you! Educate yourself before your next trip to the sushi restaurant.

Challenging our basic assumptions is healthy

If you ever realize that you are not as bright as you thought you were and you want to keep the world from finding out, the best things to do are:

1. Keep quiet most of the time, unless you've really thought your stuff through
2. Grow a beard, unless you are a lady in which case you will be forced to go into the carnival  business
3. Pay attention on the rare occasions in which bright people give a glimpse into the mechanism of how they think, and try to copy to the best of your ability

I largely succeed on the first two. The third...not so much. 

Oil, plastics, and oceans: news from around the webs

Oceans-related internet news, sliced thin and served raw with dried seaweed, rice and avacado:

From the Tyee : when American cruise ships on the Seattle-to-Alaska beat are in Washington and Alaskan waters, they are subject to waste-disposal regulations with real teeth. So what do they do? They cross their legs until they hit Canada: American cruise ships are using British Columbia's waters as one huge outhouse. I'm going to lean out the window and give the finger to the next one that goes by. That'll show 'em.

King Rat: the spotted ratfish will outlive us all

Behold the glory of Puget Sound: the spotted ratfish. 

"I'm the glory of the what now?"
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

I've been planning on doing a blog post on these guys, but the Seattle Times beat me to it with an article that puts the little-known spotted ratfish into the limelight. And rightfully so: ratfish are the dominant vertebrate life form in Puget Sound, and one of the most dominant in the state of Washington: the article mentions that Puget Sound holds an estimated 30 ratfish for every single human in the state!

Knee-jerk hypothesis Monday

Happy Monday all ya'll.

Today, I would like to share a haiku about coffee that I am making up on the spot:

Black coffee tastes great,

Makes me cheerful, and keeps me

 From killing people 

FYI - while I was only innocently counting the syllables on my fingers, I have found that if you mutter "kill...ing...peo...ple" while staring at your moving fingers, your co-workers will leave you alone.

Lots of interesting news has accumulated over the past few days.

Bright Side Wednesday delayed: Suddenly all oil spills are really easy to clean up

What happens to a Bright Side Wednesday deferred? In order of occurrence, it:
     1. Dries up like a raisin in the sun
     2. Festers like a sore and then runs
     3. Stinks like rotten  meat
     4. Crusts over like a syrupy sweet
     5. Sags like a heavy load
     6. Explodes

Obviously, it's an unpleasant experience for me and for onlookers.

So yes, it's not Wednesday and therefore I shouldn't  be looking on the Bright Side. But there's awesome news out there: oil spills are apparently really, really easy to clean up! Yep, while just one week ago it seemed like every man-made Earth pore was spewing the stuff all over the place, this week authorities are falling over themselves to report that not only are the leaks all stopped, but they're all practically cleaned up already! Let's do a rundown of the success stories:

Obama administration repeatedly warned Enbridge prior to spill

Heading out on a paddle towards Robson Bight (which recently had its own brush with spilled hydrocarbons) in just a few moments, but before I leave I want to share a new bit of information about Enbridge's most recent oil spill: the Detroit Free Press reports that the Obama administration "repeatedly warned" Enbridge about the pipeline in question, and even summoned its officials to Washington earlier in the year to a meeting on "a series of major failures." The Free Press goes on to quote a federal official as saying that Enbridge was warned "in no uncertain terms that it needed to get its act together".

So there you have it. Make what you will of it, but methinks that if the U.S. federal government can't get Enbridge to fly straight, the "little people" (in BP-speak) in B.C. won't stand much of a chance of having their voices heard if Enbridge's Northern Gateway project is ever put in place.