[OBSCURA] Alex Russel, "Highway"

Highway a photo by xarq on Flickr.

And the Gardiner winds among the condos of the waterfront.

"(c) Alex Russel 2009 - www.alexrussel.com"

[CAT] "Tweety Was Right: Cats Are a Bird’s No. 1 Enemy"

80 Beats and Joe. My. God. both pointed to this article. Too true.

While public attention has focused on wind turbines as a menace to birds, a new study shows that a far greater threat may be posed by a more familiar antagonist: the pet house cat.

A new study in The Journal of Ornithology on the mortality of baby gray catbirds in the Washington suburbs found that cats were the No. 1 killer in the area, by a large margin.

Nearly 80 percent of the birds were killed by predators, and cats were responsible for 47 percent of those deaths, according to the researchers, from the Smithsonian Institution and Towson University in Maryland. Death rates were particularly high in neighborhoods with large cat populations.

Predation was so serious in some areas that the catbirds could not replace their numbers for the next generation, according to the researchers, who affixed tiny radio transmitters to the birds to follow them. It is the first scientific study to calculate what fraction of bird deaths during the vulnerable fledgling stage can be attributed to cats.

“Cats are way up there in terms of threats to birds — they are a formidable force in driving out native species,” said Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, one of the authors of the study.

The American Bird Conservancy estimates that up to 500 million birds are killed each year by cats — about half by pets and half by feral felines. “I hope we can now stop minimizing and trivializing the impacts that outdoor cats have on the environment and start addressing the serious problem of cat predation,” said Darin Schroeder, the group’s vice president for conservation advocacy.

Shakespeare is an indoors cat without any outdoors experience, but--I think I've mentioned this before--he has two kills. I believe this report.

[LINK] "MPs' report finds government in contempt"

It's a busy news cycle for Canadian politics, you know. Will the government survive the week?

The Conservative government is in contempt of Parliament, a report by a committee of MPs tabled Monday concludes.

The government's failure to produce all documents that had been requested from it or to provide a satisfactory explanation for withholding them impedes the ability of MPs to carry out their duties, the report said, and the government is therefore in contempt.

The 26-page report was tabled late Monday afternoon and 48 hours must go by before the House of Commons can vote on whether to accept the committee's report. The finding is a historic one and it paves the way for the Liberals, or any of the other opposition parties, to move a non-confidence motion on the matter and bring down Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government.

The procedure and house affairs committee began meeting early Monday morning to finalize a draft of the report that had been prepared over the weekend following two days of hearings last week. The committee was tasked with deciding whether the government breached the privilege of MPs by not supplying sufficient documentation on the estimated costs of corporate tax cuts, proposed crime legislation and the F-35 fighter jet procurement. Some amendments were made and the final report was made public Monday afternoon.

"This contempt report — a first in the history of Canada and the Commonwealth — is the result of the Harper regime's abuse of power," Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said in a statement. He added that the finding undermines the credibility of the federal budget that is set to be delivered Tuesday, because the government can't be trusted.

Tonight will be interesting. Will the NDP vote against the government and bring in a new round of elections?

[URBAN NOTE] "Mammoliti wants prostitution on the Islands, away from the city"

Among other things, this would require much improved transportation connections between the Toronto Islands and the mainland. Ferry routes which stop--in summer!--in the late evening wouldn't be enough.

A Toronto councillor has an idea to help the cash-strapped city raise a little extra revenue: build a red light district on the Toronto Islands.

Giorgio Mammoliti, the recreation chair on Mayor Rob Ford's executive committee, has advocated the establishment of legalized brothels before, and he reiterated the suggestion during a Tuesday morning show interview on radio 640, and proposed the islands as a suitable location.

“The Islands become an area that people are calling me on and saying ‘maybe you’re right, Councillor Mammoliti, perhaps it should be the Islands, away from the rest of the city,’” he said.

Mr. Mammoliti has argued that, as prostitution happens anyway, by allowing it in certain areas, the city could regulate it and collect tax revenue from it.

The North York councillor made the red-light district part of the platform for his mayoral campaign last year, along with the construction of a floating casino in the harbour.

[LINK] "The Commons: Who’s laughing now?"

MacLean's Aaron Wherry is--I think--properly scathing

In case anyone on the government side had forgotten, the leader of the opposition stood to recall where proceedings had left off a week ago and what else had arisen in the interim.

“Mr. Speaker, the government faces two RCMP investigations at once, one of them about Bruce Carson’s influence peddling right in the Prime Minister’s Office, and four members of the Prime Minister’s inner circle face accusations of election fraud that could result in jail time,” Mr. Ignatieff reported. “As if that was not enough, a committee of this House has found the government in contempt of Parliament.”

The government side chuckled at this last bit.

Democracy is, of course, a funny thing. An unruly, chaotic, competitive thing, compelled by unwritten rules and collective will, as much theoretical as it is practical and inherent. Ours is formally practiced in ancient dignity: “Mr. Speaker” this and “honourable member” that. A quirk that renders the proceedings both hallowed and peculiar, grounded and remote.

And from that do we arrive now at a finding—or at least a formal recommendation to that effect—of contempt.

It seems to be the government side’s feeling that this is not anything to be taken seriously. That this is all only to do with the fact that a majority of seats in the House of Commons are presently occupied by MPs who have pledged themselves to parties other than the Conservative side.

That may well be true. But to argue as much is, it seems, to question the entire legitimacy of our parliamentary system, from the power and purpose of the elected MP to the function of the political party to the role and representation of the voter in our democracy. By week’s end, this government may be the first in this nation’s history—the Liberal side claims this extends to the history of all other commonwealth governments—to be found in contempt of Parliament.

“This is an unprecedented cascade of abuse. The issue here is one of trust,” Mr. Ignatieff continued. “How can Canadians remain trusting of a government guilty of such flagrant abuse of power?”

The government side sent up John Baird to reassure the home audience. ”Mr. Speaker, it will not come as any surprise to the leader of the Liberal Party that I completely reject all of the misleading premises in his question,” Mr. Baird said, though it was unclear whether he meant here to dispute facts or meaning.

“There is no member of the government who is under investigation for a criminal offence,” he continued, previewing the Conservative side’s new election slogan.

There are actually four Conservatives, including two senators, being investigated for electoral fraud. As commenter notes, this hasn't affected polling--the Conservatives continue to lead the Liberals by double-digit percentages.

[LINK] "Opposition leaders reject federal budget"

The most important element in this news item lies in the fact that the New Democratic Party under Jack Layton--the only opposition party that had indicated it might support the budget, and thus the party that would determine whether the budget (as opposed to the contempt of Parliament charge) would trigger the election--joined the Liberals and Bloc Québécois in rejecting the budget as presented. Since Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the budget won't be modified, this signals election.

Opposition leaders immediately rejected the Conservative government's budget Tuesday, setting the stage for a possible spring election.

Within minutes of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tabling his "low-tax plan for jobs and growth" in the House of Commons, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe and NDP Jack Layton all said the budget didn't contain enough to warrant their support.

"We find that the priorities of this government are not the priorities of ordinary Canadians," Ignatieff said. The Liberal leader, who has been demanding a cancellation of corporate tax cuts and didn't get it, cited the lack of support in the budget for affordable housing and child care as other reasons why his party will not vote in favour of the budget.

"This is a government that doesn't seem to be listening to what Canadian families are telling us," he said. "We're forced to reject this budget."

Duceppe's rejection of the budget is based on the budget's silence on his demand for a $2.2-billion deal to compensate Quebec for HST harmonization.

NDP rejection signals government defeat
Tuesday's budget contained a number of measures related to NDP demands, including the renewal of the ecoENERGY Retrofit program and financial support for seniors, but they didn't go far enough, Layton said. The NDP leader said nothing in the budget persuaded him that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is willing to "change his ways" and work with the other parties to introduce measures Layton said would help Canadian families and seniors living in poverty.

"Mr. Harper had an opportunity to address the needs of hard-working, middle class Canadians and families, and he missed that opportunity. He just doesn't get it," said Layton. "New Democrats will not support the budget as presented."

With that declaration, the NDP leader increased the odds of Harper's minority government facing defeat over the budget.

[LINK] "Kakistocracy"

James Bow's post says what I'd like to say.

While playing [Balderdash clone Slang Teasers], I discovered a word within the dictionary: kakistocracy. The word is defined as a system of government by the worst or least competent individuals possible. Better yet, the youngest member of our group who played the game — I believe he was eight at the time — defined the term as “government by people whose minds are filled with kaka.”

Sound familiar? Here’s a hint: look at Parliament Hill today.

Writing this post, I’m forced to pull myself back from expressing myself too intemperately. Whatever favour I’ve felt towards Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have been whittled away by the man’s arrogance, his government’s incompetence, and his party’s depraved cynicism. Elected under a mandate to punish the Liberals’ arrogance and sense of entitlement, his government has become the very thing they campaigned against. Their promise for more open and accountable government remains unfulfilled, largely as a result of Harper’s own intransigence.

We still have no public appointments commission thanks to Harper’s four-year-old fit of pique, incompetent partisans have been appointed to senior positions of government, the public budget office remains woefully underfunded, and the government supplies basic information about its financial plans only when it suits them — only after they’re found in contempt of parliament. Bev Oda is found to have lied to parliament, and she’s still in Harper’s caucus, still taking a limousine from one end of Parliament Hill to another. And Harper cares so little about the tradition of parliament as a place for democratic debate, he prorogues the House whenever working with it gets seriously inconvenient. And a party that was elected to, among other things, punish a government with a defence minister who gave a consulting contract to his ex-girlfriend now has an ex-advisor from the PMO who may have lobbied cabinet on behalf of his girlfriend’s company.

I’ve grown sick of this government — as sick of them as I was of the Liberals after their thirteen years in power. I want to see them defeated in the next election.

Bow's point about the lack of appeal of the Liberals also bears repeating.

It gives me no end of frustration to think that the main alternative to the Conservatives seem equally unpalatable. Maybe the Liberals have learned their lesson after five years in the wilderness, but I’m not entirely sure. There are some bright spots in the caucus, but the overall complexion of the party gives me little to be enthusiastic about. And, note that the Conservatives campaigned for good things back in 2006: that all public appointments be reviewed by an all-party committee of parliament, that the budget office be independent, serving the public before the government. All Ignatieff has to do to secure my vote, in my opinion, is to campaign on the promises that the Conservatives made back in 2006 — promises the Conservatives have yet to fulfill. The Liberals have given no indication that they’re willing to beat that drum.

Go, read.

[URBAN NOTE] Happy 200th, Commissioners' Plan of 1811!

Facebook's Michael is to be thanked for letting me know that today is the two hundredth anniversary of the Commissioner's Plan of 1811, which articulated gridwork of streets in yet-to-be-inhabited areas of Manhattan, as described by the New York Times' Sam Roberts.

Henry James condemned it a century ago as a “primal topographic curse.” Rem Koolhaas, the architect and urbanist, countered that its two-dimensional form created “undreamed-of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy.” More recently, two historians described its map, regardless of its flaws, as “the single most important document in New York City’s development.”

Two hundred years ago on Tuesday, the city’s street commissioners certified the no-frills street matrix that heralded New York’s transformation into the City of Angles — the rigid 90-degree grid that spurred unprecedented development, gave birth to vehicular gridlock and defiant jaywalking, and spawned a new breed of entrepreneurs who would exponentially raise the value of Manhattan’s real estate.

Today, debate endures about the grid, which mapped out 11 major avenues and 155 crosstown streets along which modern Manhattan would rise.

The grid was the great leveler. By shifting millions of cubic yards of earth and rock, it carved out modest but equal flat lots (mostly 25 by 100 feet) available for purchase. And if it fostered what de Tocqueville viewed as relentless monotony, its coordinates also enabled drivers and pedestrians to figure out where they stood, physically and metaphorically.

“This is the purpose of New York’s geometry,” wrote Roland Barthes, the 20th-century French philosopher. “That each individual should be poetically the owner of the capital of the world.”

The grid certified by the city’s street commissioners on March 22, 1811, spurred development by establishing seven miles of regular, predictable street access. It also laid the groundwork for nearly 2,000 acres of landfill that would be added to the island over the next two centuries. The commissioners concluded that New York “is to be composed principally of the habitations of men, and that straight-sided and right-angled houses are the most cheap to build and the most convenient to live in.”

The grid, which incorporated some existing roads, would also prove surprisingly resilient. It accommodated motor vehicles (after sidewalks and stoops were pruned). It allowed planners to superimpose Central Park in the 19th century and superblocks like those of Stuyvesant Town and Lincoln Center in the 20th. In the 21st, the grid was extended west to include apartment houses on Riverside Boulevard.

“The 200-foot-long block is short enough to provide continuous diversity for the pedestrian, and the tradition of framing out the grid by building to the street-wall makes New York streets walkable and vibrant,” said Amanda M. Burden, the director of city planning.

“The grid does not limit us,” said Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president. “It gives us a foundation to adjust to and a way to navigate Manhattan.”

Me, I'm terribly fond of grids. I only wish Toronto had one to match!

[DM] "A profile of Tōhoku"

I've a post up at Demography Matters taking a look at Tōhoku, the region of northeastern Japan hit by the earthquake and tsunami and the rest. My prediction? The relative (and, occasionally, absolute) decline that the region has been going through for some time is only going to pick up. The region is never going to recover to its pre-disaster peak.

Go, read.