Where Are The Freddie Mac Pension Funds?
Regardless of the crooks at the top of the Freddie Mac pyramid, it must be pretty damn tough to be an employee or retiree (of Freddie Mac) whose life savings were held up in the company’s pension fund.
Category > Whatevs
Greenpeace Bypasses Syncrude Security for Latest Stunt
From Greenpeace.ca:
Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada — Braving toxic fumes and the same toxic tailings waste that earlier this year killed 500 ducks, Greenpeace activists entered Syncrude’s Aurora North tar sands operation early this morning and blocked a pipe into the two-kilometre wide tailings pond.
While the tarsands tailings ponds are a concern, an even greater concern is the state of security at these mines. If activists can make it on-site with a rolled-up 60-foot banner, what’s stopping whackos with more sinister intentions from bringing an explosive device on-site?
From CBC.ca:
Greenpeace activists said they entered the site around 8 a.m. Thursday, and easily got by Syncrude security and made it to the lake of waste water.
Dave Martin, who speaks for the organization, talked to CBC News from the side of the tailings pond.
“It’s the pond where 500 ducks were killed in April, and we have another team putting up a banner on another major outflow pipe of tailings. We’ve got about a 60-foot large-scale banner we are putting up on the sides of the berm,” Martin said.
Related: Tom Clancy’s Endwar
Excellent Quote
I was reading Boing Boing today - THIS post in particular. It’s a video of Keith Barry, a.k.a. the Druid Master who has been selling out shows and freaking out journalists in Toronto lately.
At the beginning of the video, Keith tries to show people how easy it is to deceive the brain with a simple hand trick. You’ll be fooled, too, unless you notice the point where he pulls his hands apart. At about the 5:31 minute mark, Keith has this to say, in reference to a car stunt he pulls off in the video:
“A lot of people try to come up with a logical solution to what just happened. But because your brains are not trained in the art of deception, the solutions that you come up with will be 99% of the time way off the mark.This is because magic is all about directing attention. If for instance, I didn’t want you to look at my right hand, then I don’t look at it. But if I wanted you to look at my right hand, then I look at it, too. It’s very simple once you know how, but very complicated in other ways. “
I
We Want Your Soul
No car? No house? No collateral? Well, you’re in luck - you can now offer your soul as payment on a loan.
Above: Happy soul-selling customers.
We Want Your Soul, Inc. (WWYS®) is a global private equity firm with nearly 250 million souls under management.
WWYS® generates outstanding returns for its customers by employing cutting-edge proprietary soul extraction, containment and suppression technologies, including but not limited to genetic modification, operant conditioning, and thought control. Our firm’s history is long and celebrated, and has allowed us to evolve a global influence in all aspects and at every level of society.
(satire alert).
Related: Adam Vreeland - We Want Your Soul
Extended version: video.google.com
Leduc: ‘Hands off our land!’ Edmonton City Council: ‘om nom nom’
Edmonton is hungering after more land, and gazes gluttonously at the land in Leduc county that surrounds the airport - future home to Port Alberta.
Above: Edmonton goes ‘Om Nom Nom’.
From the Edmonton Journal:
A confidential staff report on the proposed annexation claims the city is running out of developable land and must extend its boundaries to allow for future population growth. Edmonton, says the report, is also in the best position to not only service the International Airport, but deliver rapid transit to its terminals.
This is not the first time city hall has plotted to annex the airport and lands in between. The last bid came during Bill Smith’s final term as mayor. Annexation caused a huge flap then and will cause a huge flap again, for good reason.
When Stephen Mandel replaced Smith as mayor, the city adopted a new strategy on the decades-old regional turf war.
Believe it or not: An Oil Company Goes Bankrupt
My Dad told me about this recent episode where an oil company bet wrong on its oil hedges (betting on falling oil prices), and lost the gamble.
Three Canadian oil companies listed as among the biggest creditors of bankrupt energy trader SemGroup LP said on Tuesday the U.S. company’s filing will have little impact on their operations.
SemGroup declared bankruptcy on Tuesday after $3.2 billion in oil trading losses torpedoed the formerly 12th-largest private U.S. company.
Its Canadian unit has also filed for creditor protection.
Official Press Release: http://www.semgrouplp.com
Blogger Asks Harper’s U of C Prof About His Weird Secret Society Membership
I recall reading the following from an old Walrus magazine article on Stephen Harper’s professors at the University of Calgary:
Not only are Flanagan and Morton U.S.-born, but Cooper is a member of the Bohemian Club, a fraternity of Republican movers and shakers who fork out a $10,000 initiation fee to gather every year in the redwoods outside San Francisco for a policy version of summer camp. In a crowd that has included Henry Kissinger and Vice-President Dick Cheney, Cooper gives a regular talk on Canadian politics – one reason the Calgary School’s views may hold more sway in Washington than Ottawa.
You can google the Bohemia Grove, Bohemian Club and all that booga booga on your own.
One blogger, the Corbett Report actually called Mr. Cooper to ask him about his membership in the club (more analysis and commentary at the link):
Dr. Barry Cooper—a professor of political science at the University of Calgary and mentor of Stephen Harper—joined The Corbett Report yesterday to talk about free speech, Leo Strauss, and his membership in an elite secret society known as The Bohemian Club. The Bohemian Club hosts an annual summer camp in a redwood grove in northern California each year. The membership roster of the club reads like a who’s who of political, commercial and academic elite, including the likes of David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and George H.W. Bush.
Find out more about the Bohemian Club and hear an excerpt from Dr. Cooper’s recent appearance on The Corbett Report by watching the video below:
Leaked Video - Bush: ‘Wall Street Got Drunk’
He thought the cameras weren’t rolling.
“Wall Street got drunk — that’s one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras — it got drunk and now it’s got a hangover,” Bush said Friday, according to a video obtained by Houston’s ABC affiliate KTRK
National Film Board’s New Beta Thingy
You can now watch National Film Board docs in their entirety online. You can Digg it, share it, embed it, etc. etc.
An explosion. Flames. Poisonous gas seeping into the air. This potential scenario haunts the people who live along the Clearwater River near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. Farmers and landowners all share concerns about the risks of a proposed sour gas well in their community. While the chance of an accident is small, it’s a gamble they don’t want to take. Worst Case Scenario takes viewers into the town halls, boardrooms and homes where a complex debate is unfolding. Residents opposed to the well fear the impact a deadly hydrogen sulphide leak could have on their lives. Shell Canada says it must drill to meet energy needs, and points to a track record of safety. When mediation talks break down, both sides anxiously await a ruling from Alberta’s Energy and Utilities Board. Capturing persuasive arguments from all sides, this spirited documentary reveals a growing conflict. On one hand, the citizens who fear for public safety - on the other, a prosperous industry that has long contributed to the economic well-being of Albertans.