For an interesting counterpoint to Meili's position on the possibility of a nuclear reaction for Saskatchewan (see below), read Dr. Jim Harding's excellent essay on Dwain Lingenfelter's position, "Trapped by History". (Edit: Accidental Deliberations has more on this subject as well.)
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NEWS RELEASE
March 31, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nuclear Power: Not a Viable Solution
Ryan Meili calls of NDP MLAs to oppose SaskParty nuclear resolution
On Thursday, the Saskatchewan Legislature will debate a motion by Meadow Lake MLA Jeremy Harrison supporting the development of nuclear generation in Saskatchewan. NDP leadership candidate Ryan Meili has issued the following statement.
The Wall government’s uranium resolution falsely frames the debate on nuclear energy and uranium development.
Nuclear power is not a viable solution to Saskatchewan’s energy needs. It is too expensive. It is too risky. It is too slow.
I am calling on all 20 New Democratic Party MLAs to vote “no” on this misleading motion.
Nuclear power is being sold to us as a means to provide cheap energy, as a means of addressing immediate energy needs, even as a means of protecting our environment.
But none of these sales pitches are based on the facts.
• Nuclear power isn’t cheap. A nuclear reactor is a very expensive undertaking and the people of Saskatchewan will pay for it on their electricity bills for a long time to come, if it is allowed to be built. We pay 10 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity now. Whether its Bruce Power or SaskPower, no one will build a nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan for less than 20 cents per kilowatt hour – double the current price of electricity. That simple fact is why most private sector utilities in the United States have been avoiding nuclear power – they know there are too many hidden costs and that most nuclear power construction projects have huge cost over-runs. Add to that expensive repair bills, the high cost of disposing of radioactive nuclear fuel waste and the very high cost of decommissioning a radioactive reactor core. When compared to wind power at 11 cents per kilowatt hour and electricity conservation at less than 6 cents per kilowatt hour, nuclear power’s economics make no sense.
• Nuclear power puts our environment at risk. Yes, nuclear power can reduce the carbon footprint. But that assumed you ignore the massive carbon emissions involved in building the reactor – particularly if it is built in a remote area. A nuclear reactor will also produce intensely radioactive waste materials which no country on earth has successfully disposed of. Why should the next generation of Saskatchewan residents bear the burden of disposing of this radioactive waste material, with the worry that it must be kept out of ground water supplies for tens of thousands of years into the future.
• Nuclear power doesn’t address our immediate energy needs. Nuclear reactors are not designed and built quickly. Sites are not chosen quickly. Even if the process started today, it would be nearly 20 years before a proposed nuclear facility contributed a single watt to the energy grid.
• Nuclear power doesn’t address our long-term energy needs either. It is simply another non-renewable resource which, by current projections, will have exhausted itself well within a century and possibly within a generation.
The Wall government has appointed a committee to investigate the possibilities of nuclear power in Saskatchewan. As the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran bishops in Saskatchewan recently pointed out, this committee is not a balanced group of open-minded citizens. It is a committee hand-picked to give Premier Wall the answer he wants.
Many of us will remember countless expert panels on this issue over the years. My fellow leadership candidate Dwain Lingenfelter has proposed a panel of his own to study this issue. Many progressive activists have become quite cynical about these “studies / panels / commissions.” Too often, their final recommendations have appeared to be predetermined. That is certainly so in this case. It is likely to be the case regardless of who appoints the panel.
Nuclear power, on the evidence, is too expensive, too risky and which meets neither our short term nor our long term energy needs.
A far better approach – both more principled and more pragmatic – is to pursue real alternative and renewable energy sources: solar, wind, biomass, geothermal. Pursuing these in concert with well considered and effectively supported energy conservation initiatives will be far more effective in meeting our immediate and long term energy needs at less expense and with less risk.
We need to consider our energy future. Limiting that consideration to an either-or discussion of nuclear power narrows the debate and ignores our best options.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Malcolm French
(306) 550-2277
The text of Mr. Harrison’s motion is as follows:
That the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan supports the consideration of further value-added development of Saskatchewan’s uranium industry including nuclear power generation and recognizes the potential benefits to the growth and prosperity of the people of our province.
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Tuesday, March 31
Ryan Meili Calls on NDP MLA's To Oppose Sask Party Nuclear Resolution
by
Jason
on Tue 31 Mar 2009 05:30 PM CST
Monday, March 30
Music Monday - "Sitting alone/With the TV on/I fell asleep/I was hoping you'd call"
by
Jason
on Mon 30 Mar 2009 06:21 PM CST
Sunday, March 29
Correction to My Correction: Dwain Lingenfelter's Google Map *Is* Misleading (Just Not In The Way I Thought It Was)
by
Jason
on Sun 29 Mar 2009 10:28 AM CST
I guess if I'm doing corrections, I should make sure I use precise language. Correcting myself that Dwain Lingenfelter's Google Maps mash-up isn't misleading isn't entirely accurate either. It *is* misleading, just not in the way that I said it was.
It's not misleading in that it contains information about non-existent events as I originally thought. But it *is* misleading in that the map has poor usability and is potentially confusing for users - an issue that could have consequences for the Lingenfelter campaign. At the least, visitors to his campaign web site may click on the wrong spot on the map and think there's no event in their community, just a placeholder push pin (even when there is an event.) At the worst, they may make the same mistake I did and think that there are a lot less events happening than appears to be and think there is something fishy going on. On another note, Kent has replied to my correction saying I should delete the post. That's not something I believe in and it's not going to happen. I posted what I posted, when I was corrected, I admitted that I made a mistake. But the record of these events should remain for a couple reasons. I stand by the rest of my criticisms in that post and also think it's important to see the response that my post engendered from him. In all of our back and forth - and there's been a lot as I can't post a comment without getting yet another response from Kent - I have never resorted to personal attacks or questioning his motives. In my last post, for whatever reason, Kent has stooped to the level of calling me Karl Rove - a pretty extreme attack for what was an honest mistake. As I said, I still stand by my other criticisms of some of the things Lingenfelter is doing online. I have claimed that, to me, this appears to just be moving "politics as usual" online and I would also say that deleting a post to whitewash something that's happened is also "politics as usual" - and also shows that Kent doesn't understand quite how the internet works. The moment I hit "post" on my blog, the content goes out to Google and dozens of other sites/readers/subscribers/etc. and is impossible to "delete", even if that's something I was inclined to do. Kent, since I know you're reading this, here's my challenge. I did a legitimate list giving five reasons I thought Dwain Lingenfelter would make the best leader for the Saskatchewan NDP. Can you do a similar list for Ryan Meili?
Correction: Dwain Lingenfelter's Google Mash-up Map Isn't Misleading
by
Jason
on Sun 29 Mar 2009 09:03 AM CST
Loyal reader, Kent posted a comment in response to my last post about Dwain Lingenfelter's Google Map mash-up to tell me that I was wrong - the map does work and every push pin does have information about an event, you just have to click on the right *spot* on the push pin.
I'm big enough to admit when I'm wrong so I'll admit that now. But because he made some pretty harsh accusations about my motives in his comments, I'd also like to explain why I drew attention to this. As I said in my response to Kent's comments, this is something I probably wouldn't even have noticed or tried to draw attention to except for the fact that there is a history of this type of digital expectation-setting already happening with the Lingenfelter campaign - first, with the number of supporters Lingenfelter has from outside the country on his Facebook fan page and then with the gaming of the ActUpInSask leadership poll. Kent accuses me of ignoring the fact that other campaigns (Meili's and Pedersen's) are engaged in the same activities but I pointed out to him that I never excused this. I admitted that both campaigns are also doing similar things. My major problem is that Lingenfelter is doing this to a much larger extent - while both Pedersen and Meili have supporters from outside the province on their Facebook pages, neither has such a concentrated group of not only non-Saskatchewan folks but non-Canadian as well. Same thing with the leadership poll - all have gamed it to some degree (to the point that I think it hurts Act Up's credibility that they even host it to be honest) but Lingenfelter's supporters appear to have done it a much greater degree than any other candidate. The other problem is that this reinforces my point that Lingenfelter represents politics as usual in many ways. This is only my impression but it seems that his campaign is so concerned with cementing their front runner status that they are doing things like this to ensure that they are seen as the front-runner *everywhere*. Anyhow, as penance, I thought I'd post a list of reasons why Lingenfelter would be a good leader for the NDP: FIVE REASONS DWAIN LINGENFELTER WOULD MAKE A GOOD NDP LEADER 1. Dwain Lingenfelter's political experience stretches back over three decades so he'd bring unmatched history to the position of NDP leader. 2. His time working in government relations for Nexen Energy has allowed him to see the other side of the lobbyist game so that he will be well-positioned to make decisions based on what's best for the citizens of this province when he's leader of the NDP rather than what's best for lobbyists and corporations. 3. He has the support of the a large number of NDP MLA's so that makes a strong statement about who the party's upper echelon sees as their preference for leader. 4. All of the leadership candidates (except maybe Deb Higgins?) have attempted to show their connection to Saskatchewan's agricultural sector but Lingenfelter is the only one who currently runs a family farm operation. 5. This video of him playing with his kids in a hotel in Lake Louise, AB really humanizes him and reminds you that everyone has different faucets to their life - even somebody who's been in the public eye for as long as Link has. (Stayed tuned for my list of "10 Reasons Ryan Meili Would Make a Great NDP Leader" sometime in the near future!  )Saturday, March 28
Some Thoughts on Dwain Lingenfelter's Events Calendar, Political Optics, and What A True Commitment to Rural Saskatchewan Looks Like
by
Jason
on Sat 28 Mar 2009 09:21 AM CST
[Edit - 2009/03/29 - It has been pointed out that one of the criticisms in this post is incorrect. Dwain Lingenfelter's Google mash-up map doesn't work because of a usability issue, not because non-events are being posted.]
Recently, I did a post noting that Dwain Lingenfelter has about 26% of his support on Facebook from people who can be directly connected to our province via their network affiliation(s) while Ryan Meili gets 60% of his support this way. In pure numbers, Meili beats Lingenfelter 173 to 128. (This count was *before* a recent surge in online support that saw Meili's Facebook fan page jump by about 30 people while Lingenfelter has stayed static for at least a week.) In that post, I also touched on the current ActUpInSask.org NDP leadership poll which shows Lingenfelter as frontrunner by a large margin but has an inherent problem in that it is a poll that is easily gameable via people submitting multiple votes (a technique which likely is being done to a certain extent by all the campaigns. Well, maybe not by Deb Higgins as is pointed out in the comments to a post BuckDog did on the subject.) My latest exposure into the difference between what appears to be happening at first glance and what's really happening beneath the surface, at least in regards to the technological aspects of this leadership campaign, occurred when I took a closer look at the Google Maps mash-up Dwain Lingenfelter has displayed very prominently on his home page. Labelled "Link's Campaign Trail", the map shows the entire province of Saskatchewan with a bunch of green and orange digital push-pins across the length and width of the province. Green pins show where he's been and orange indicates where he plans to go soon. Fair enough - great use of technology, very interactive, very cool way to represent that Lingenfelter is running a province-wide campaign and trying to reach out to all parts of the province (of course, this also subtly hints at his apparent ability to set the rules he wants the other candidates to follow - but that's a different post.) Except that, as with the number of Columbia-based supporters Lingenfelter has on his Facebook fan page, if you look beyond the initial impression this Google map gives, you see something different may be happening. When you zoom in to see the text associated with each push-pin, many identify things like coffee parties, constituency meetings and the like that Link has attended or plans to attend. But there are also a number of push pins that include a generic piece of text, all posted on February 14: "Link is determined to rebuild the party membership province-wide. Throughout the campaign he will be visiting all 58 provincial constituencies and talking with New Democrats and potential supporters in every part of our province. Click on the green balloons to see where he's been, and the orange to see where he's heading soon..." If the pins with this text were all orange, I could (maybe) understand that they're placeholders showing communities he intends to visit but doesn't have an event to tie into or set-up for himself yet. But a number of the push-pins are green indicating that these are places he claims to have been as part of his campaign trail. Yet without a description, you don't know if it's a place where he held a formal event, a place where he stopped for gas and ended up doing some politicking at the nearby coffee shop or if he just passed through. Or if you were a really suspicious type, you might wonder if the person who did the mash-up just filled out the map with push-pins to make it appear that the campaign is doing more across the entire province than it really is? [Edit: I'm not going to delete this entire post as one reader demanded. But upon re-reading, I'm going to strike out this sentence as I think it crosses a line and was inappropriate.] Again, as with Link's Columbia support base on Facebook and the heavily gamed ActUpInSask poll, things like this aren't illegal. But my feeling is that this is so much more politics-as-usual and slightly immoral - bending the truth, framing the question and doing whatever else it takes to create the impression that you want to give. To put it another way, these things all appear intended to send a message: "I'm the oldest candidate in the race yet I also have the most online support - how can you not vote for me?" But this discrepancy between appearance and reality is a big part of why I'm supporting Ryan Meili. I don't think Ryan wants to play these same old games (although to be fair, his supporters appear to have gamed the ActUp poll as much as anyone) and wants to move beyond these type of techniques to a politics that has something that people of all political stripes would find very refreshing - honesty. As an example, in his latest blog post, Ryan admitted that a meeting he held in Wynyard was put together at the last minute and had a small (but mighty!) attendance. I don't know if you'd ever hear Lingenfelter admit to something like this and further, I think this is the type of thing that is *really* indicative of the generational shift that is much of what this contest is about. I believe that people of my generation feel a lot more free to be open, to express their opinions, to share their thoughts honestly without trying to frame things or manage the optics. Technology and its potential to facilitate this openness and sharing is a bit part of that so when I see someone using technology in what you might call an "old school" way, I guess it just shows me that you can have all the fancy Google Maps mash-ups you want but if the content isn't there, you're missing the point completely. One final point (and I know this post has been a bit all over the map - no pun intended). Like Meili, Link also had a campaign event in Wynyard. It was a coffee party on February 7. Ryan Meili's Wynyard event was held in the evening while he was in that geographic area, continuing to his work as a rural relief locum doctor. As with my technology-related examples, you can look at the surface appearance but the important thing is to look at what's really happening underneath. Lingenfelter comes to town and I'm sure he has a well-planned, well-oiled, well-attended event. Then he leaves. Ryan comes to Wynyard because he's in the area working in his role as a rural relief locum doctor. He has an event that's last-minute, poorly attended and comes after a long day at the local clinic. But if I'm living in rural Saskatchewan, I know which candidate is demonstrating a true commitment to rural Saskatchewan and which candidate, I would support for that reason. Friday, March 27
Friday Fun Link - Video to MP3 Convertor
by
Jason
on Fri 27 Mar 2009 11:56 PM CST
Sometimes you come across a really cool song on YouTube that you know you'll never get via iTunes or even the P2P filesharing services. That's where Video2MP3.net comes in. Copy the YouTube URL into this site, hit enter and a few minutes later, there's a downloadable link to a 128kbps version of the song you downloaded.
I haven't tried it but presumably this could work for any video on YouTube, not just music. So presentations, speeches, readings, comedy routines and pretty much anything else on YouTube could be easily converted to MP3 - for easy listening on your MP3 player while you're writing the bus each morning for example. (I was going to include a joke about sometimes wanting to just download "Womanizer" without wanting to download the entirity of Britney Spears' new album. I didn't - unless mentioning it counts? - but I do have to include the Lilly Allen cover of that song which is pretty good actually.) Thursday, March 26
Some Final Thoughts About FIMS From A Current Student
by
Jason
on Thu 26 Mar 2009 09:17 PM CST
Warren L. from Libre-arian has a post summing up his experiences at FIMS (including a shout-out to yours truly.) Not sure if I mentioned before but while I was at FIMS, someone told me that as soon as you're done the program (really, as soon as you hand in your last assignment because, really, if you make it that far, you aren't going to fail!), it just sort of drops away - all the stress, all the worries, all the politics, all the intensity. Done. Just like that. When I finally handed in my last Advocacy essay, that was my experience too. (Oh, and his tip about the four-month wall calendar? Golden. I seriously did that and it was was perhaps the single best thing I did at FIMS. I still have it around here somewhere - I want to get it framed someday!)
Wednesday, March 25
Majority of Canadian Internet Users Say File Sharing Is No Big Deal
by
Jason
on Wed 25 Mar 2009 08:38 PM CST
An article detailing results of Canadian internet users' views on file sharing.
Nearly 45% of respondents say those who use P2P and file sharing services to download music and movies are “just regular Internet users doing what people should be able to do on the Internet. An additional 27% admit these people are “doing something they shouldn’t be doing” but say “it’s not a big deal." Tuesday, March 24
The Sites I Use for Basic Research
by
Jason
on Tue 24 Mar 2009 11:55 PM CST
Our recent trip to Vegas made me think that I should do an entry where I list all of the sites I tend to visit (roughly in order) when you want to find out everything you can about any topic (ie. the "stay up until 4am the night before you leave" kinda topics).
* Wikipedia * YouTube - great for seeing home videos of the hotel rooms where we'd be staying. * MetaFilter and AskMetaFilter (especially if you look through entries tagged with your subject instead of using the search feature) * Facebook - some of the groups had interesting posts * BitTorrent - yes, seriously - as a research tool. Sort of. (We ended up watching Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher in "What Happens in Vegas" before we left which was ninety minutes of our lives we'll never get back.) * Technorati and Google Blog Search * Delicious - though I admit that this site is always one I forget about until near the end when I've exhausted all other avenues and then I always think "oh yeah - might as well check Delicious too." * Yelp although now we're getting into some of the tools I used that were for a specific type of query rather than those that could be used more generally to begin your research on anything. Ones I probably should've thought of but didn't... * Scribd * Slideshare Did I miss anything obvious? Monday, March 23
Music Monday - "Every word, every little look, every little sign, every little phrase"
by
Jason
on Mon 23 Mar 2009 07:00 PM CST
I wanted to keep the political theme of my last couple posts going so went a' searching for a relevant song I had in mind (in title if not in actual sentiment).
This live gem popped up hitting on a number of notes - it's from a concert in li'l London, it's from the first band to be featured twice on Music Monday, it involves a shout-out to UWO and it's just a hell of a good song! |
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