My thoughts on Marine Parks, and "Free Willy" Campaigns.

     I'm a scuba diver, and a huge softie for marine mammals, and a strong believer that they should be protected and allowed to live their lives in peace. That said, I don't disagree with them being kept in marine parks, one bit. I object to them being removed from the ocean, or being kept in poor conditions. Face facts - the vast bulk of marine mammals in places like Marineland are born in captivity. One thing that "free the whales" activists never seem to mention is the story of Keiko - the "Free Willy" Orca star -  who *was* eventually released.

   Keiko, it turns out, was a resident of a marine park that was woefully inadequate.  Arrangements were made to move him to a better facility, purpose built, and to restore him to a fit condition to move back to the ocean.  After months of rehabilitation, Keiko was released into the wild. Alone. Now, granted, he was monitored. he was trained on how to fend for himself. It took years, and millions of dollars. And when he was eventually released, near Iceland - after 4 years contained in a "natural" sea pen - he actually did attempt contact with other pods. He was not accepted into them. In fact, he swam from Iceland to Norway... and immediately sought out *human* contact, in the harbour of Halsa. Please note - this is a marine mammal, released, free, *choosing* human company over seeking out another whale pod. Keiko died, 2 years later, alone, in a cove where he was tended by humans. No amount of spin can make this a successful release.

    Yes, he was free, and managed to cope, mostly. But these are social creatures, you can't just dump 'em in the ocean and say "you're free!" It amounts to murder.

    Keiko was born wild. What happens when you release a whale born in captivity?

    Now, in fairness, there is also the story of Springer - an Orca calf that was taken into captivity when it was observed to be in trouble. Springer was found a year after he mother died, lost, separate from her pod, and starving. They captured her, took her to an aquarium, nursed her back to health, and released her in close proximity to her family pod... She was out of the ocean for about a month, 13 years ago. She's been seen with her pod every year since then, and in fact has recently given birth to her first calf.

   There is, though, one huge difference in this story. Springer was a part of the Northern Resident Community... one of the most studied populations of orcas in the world. They knew immediately where Springer came from, where her family was, and what the behaviour patterns of this group of whales was. They took her home, and released her to her family.

 There is a movement on, right now, to release another orca. The Miami Seaquarium houses Lolita... and has done for the last 43 years. Lolita was taken from the Southern Resident Community, near Puget Sound... right before that population was declared protected. The argument is that as a Southern Resident, the same protection should hold for Lolita. I don't disagree... but it was, in part, Lolita's capture that *initiated* these protections. That doesn't excuse the removal of this creature from the wild, but it is good coming from bad.

   There are groups that want Lolita returned. I have the same concerns with this that I had for Keiko - this is a mammal that has been reliant on humans for most of it's life. It's been alone - which is is disgrace for a social creature - other then its human companions. Worse - the seaquariums facilities are barely adequate. I don't argue any of those facts. I do, however, argue that putting her back in the ocean is the best thing for her. Granted, there is more chance of a successful reintegration then there was with Keiko - her family is known, and well documented. But it's been 43 years. Lolita's mother is actually still alive, so that might help... but is Lolita even up to the task? Wouldn't it be better to move her to a better facility, with other orcas? Even a sea-pen would be an improvement... that's what they'd have to do to start training her to survive, anyhow. 

    All of the cases above, are mammals that were born wild. I don't think that there is any case at all for releasing whales born in captivity. They will die. Not immediately, but they will die. They aren't equipped to survive on their own, and they certainly are not prepared to consider humans as dangerous. They *will* seek out human contact, at some point or another, and when that happens, so will accidents.

   Marine parks , as much as people want to deny it, serve a purpose. I decided to learn to dive because of time spent at Marineland. I learned everything I know about marine mammals... because of time spent at Marineland. I learned to care deeply for these animals, again, because of time spent at Marineland. Without that interaction with "captive" whales, I wouldn't have the same appreciation that I do, now. That can't be a bad thing, regardless of the popular "cause" that says they are evil.

   One last little anecdote - while I can't seem to put fingers on the news report about this to check my facts, there was a story a few years back, from the Florida Keys, about a number of dolphins that escaped from whatever enclosure they were in - IIRC it was a netted off cove - where they had been trained to perform for tourists. They were found a couple weeks later... in another cove, not far away, doing *exactly* the same thing... performing for tourists. For handouts, of course, but isn't it interesting that these now free creatures would *choose* to do what so many people have decided is cruel and unnatural?

 My personal opinion is that they're a lot smarter then we are... and they prove it on a regular basis.  They are social, they understand us, far better then we understand them.  To believe that we must somehow be smarter then they are is arrogance, as far as I'm concerned.  I can't seem to remember Whale War I.  They are social, they communicate, they learn from each other, and from us... and from who knows what else. If we spent more time learning from them, perhaps we'd be a better species altogether. Marine parks may not be the best solution, but they are a huge bridge between humans and marine mammals.  I can't fault them for opening people's minds to the world that exists just off shore.  More people should go experience it themselves.

Sarah Palin. She can’t be for real…

John Cleese said a mouthful when he remarked “I used to think that Micheal was the funniest Palin on earth.”  He goes on to say that not only is she *not* good enough to run for VP, but that Monty Python couldn’t have written her better.

 

So who has? 

 

It finally dawned on me, when I heard the latest statements out of this clown’s mouth... “My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse,” Palin said during a speech in Calgary on Saturday. “Believe it or not — this was in the ‘60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada," that this woman can’t be an accident.  Someone is writing for her, someone is pulling the strings.  A US governor, even one from the backwater of Alaska, can’t possibly this airheaded.  She has to be some sort of a diversion from *something* else.

 

Who *is* this woman?  Where does she get off, coming to Canada, sponsored, no less, by Calgary’s publicly owned Energy company, to tell us that she’s spent perhaps the last 50 years scamming our healthcare system.  Fraudulently making use of the healthcare system that she’s spent so much time publicly reviling?  I’m officially asking for an investigation into how much her family owes Canadians.  What a great example to set – now the complaint that people are making about her is “It’s good enough for her, but what about people that don’t have easy access to Canada?”  Whoa!  Just living on the border *DOES NOT* entitle American’s to abuse our healthcare system, no matter what some scatterbrained wannabe politician might spew.

 

Apparently several well known Canadian politicians were in attendance.  Ralph, Stockwell... where are the cries of indignation over theft of services?  You should be making them.  Our government has spent decades trying to come up with more secure health cards…and this woman laughs about how easily they stole from taxpaying Canadians.

 

Hypocritical?  Sarah?  Wow, not *too* much, is she.  I guess when she said that we should dismantle our heathcare, she meant “unless it inconveniences the Palin family.”

Pravda – a Pseudo-Russian’s Inane Rant about Vancouver 2010.

Wow – sportsmanship is apparently a totally foreign concept to the journalistic staff at Pravda.  Or perhaps it’s just the fawning attempt of a pseudo-Russian to curry favour in his adopted country.  In an article Feb 19th, the paranoid ravings of one Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY (a good Russian name, that, we’ll come back to this…) appeared, accusing Canada of all sorts of wrong-doing in both the Olympic and in foreign policy.  Apparently we’re the “skinny and weakling bro to a beefy United States and a colonial outpost to the United Kingdom” and  that we’re utterly incapable of hosting a major international event.  He suggests proof: “Natalya Korosteleva was asked to provide a urine sample during a half-hour pause between the quarter-finals and semi-finals of a skiing event.”  Now that could be considered suspicious, if one were to totally discount the following statement by a Vice-President of the International Ski Federation: “There are some rules which I'm not going to discuss right now. In this case, Korosteleva was not right. She could have been banned from the race."  This VP, btw, also happens to be the President of the Russian Olympic Committee, Leonid Tyagachev. 

Hmm…the Russian President of the Russian Olympic Committee agrees that the skier was in the wrong, yet our Pseudo-Russian journalist cries foul.  Lets look at Mr. Bancroft-Hinchey for a moment...very little time spent searching turned up his Bio:

“I incidentally became involved with the world of music and even became one of the leading English song-writers of the 1980s. I took part in three Eurovision contests, released three albums, two maxi-singles and five singles. That was the time when I started establishing contacts with the press. "I had to give a lot of interviews for television and newspapers. I noticed that facts were reinterpreted on numerous occasions, almost always, in order to make an article correspond to ideas of a reporter. One fine day I realized that there was only one way to strive for the truth: to write a true story and to send it to mass media outlets. That's what I did."

I showed my first articles to a friend, a reporter, who expressed his interest in them and asked my why I did not take up journalism seriously. After that, I finished journalism courses, and worked as a freelance journalist at Portuguese, Spanish, Latin American, English and Romanian media outlets. However, journalism was not my only occupation. "I believe that there is nothing more boring for a journalist than to sit at table, working on the so-called news, which has already been picked out from the Internet by someone, retelling someone else's stories. In addition to that, it is proof of the absence of professionalism, it is not worth it, in the long run. I like to visit new places, to collect new material for my own articles."”

Ah, a silver-spoon communist ex-pat British subject, with next to no journalism background, no sporting background, no political background…nothing, in fact, more then a forum in which to spew misinformation.

 

But wait, there’s more.  In his Feb 28th “Goodbye, Vancouver” piece, this drooling paranoid questions whether the Canadian Men’s Hockey team were on drugs when they beat the Russian team.  Obviously, he says, that since they beat the Canadians 8 – 1 in the 80s  (His information, not mine, I’ve not researched it) and been “close” every year since then, well, we must have been drugged up this year.

I’d like to take a moment to rebut.  Perhaps *this* year…the Russian team *wasn’t* doped.  For a change.  See, ever since we trashed them 5 games to 4 in the Summit Series, in 1972, they’ve only ever been “close.”

Or here’s another thought.  We might just be better at the game.  See … if *our* athletes were doped, well, how does that explain the Russian team losing to Slovakia?  I guess they must have been doped up, too.

He points out, correctly, that there hasn’t been one single doping incident with a Russian athlete in Vancouver, but fails to point out that a number were disqualified for the games before they even booked their flights.  Oh well, perspective is everything.

Sochi will be better, he prognosticates while channeling the spirit of Nostradamus.  The host country will welcome everyone as friends,the judges will be fair, drug testing will be at the conveniece of everyone involved.

And Canada will show the world, once again, that Hockey is *OUR* game.  Other countries can dabble, but we own it.  Bring it on.

Recent CRTC Activity

So, after nearly 2 years of foot dragging, public hearings, and Bell obfuscation, we suddenly have more movement from the regulators then we can easily digest. First, a "decision" of sorts, on Usage Based Billing - the decision to decide nothing. At least they recognized that their interim approval was off-base, and reversed it.

A positive note was the proposed framework to decide if traffic management protocols are warranted and just. This might just affect the decision coming this week - the decision on Bell's current methods of UBB.


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Warning - Keep Broadband Competitive in Canada

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Another hit to Ontario's consumer

Now McGuinty says that, in addition to added cost for most retail items, he's not sure that he's going to go through with next year's planned raise to minimum wage. This year's increase from $8.75 to $9.50, scheduled for next Wed, will go ahead.

More news here.

Fighting for Taxpayers: Saskatchewan Rejects Sales Tax Harmonization#links#links

Saskatchewan has already rejected the idea of HST - because of the cost to the consumer.

Fighting for Taxpayers: Saskatchewan Rejects Sales Tax Harmonization#links#links