Tarnished reputations

If you're looking for a scandal, stop by Ottawa. We've got sexy political espionage and not-so-sexy sewage spills. Both have media crawling over one another and both have resulted in a job loss.

Let's go with sexy first. Maxime Bernier and Julie Couillard did it. CSIS denies involvement. Calls are out to get the RCMP to probe it. Meanwhile the media can't get enough of it and, as a result, the public can't get away from it. The only thing that could make this more exciting would be if we had to run to Munich during the Cold War to get the dirt on the girl. Oh wait, that already happened.

Speaking of dirt, the city has fired a staffer in connection with the sewage spill in 2006. Scapegoat? Investigations are ongoing and it seems each day a bit more info is released, raising a lot more questions. Even the Ministry of the Environment has stepped in (a year after they learned of the spill, if reports are even remotely accurate). If anything can be believed anymore, depending on how that pans out the city could be facing charges. Because... you know... the city and/or its elected reps aren't facing nearly enough trouble as it stands. (LRT? Bribery?)

Now, if a dog poops in the river and someone is there to witness it, chances are there'll be a call to bylaw and an uproar about pets at Petrie. For that matter, even confused cows mucking about waterways raises a stink. Yet over a billion litres of untreated wastewater can spew into the river without anyone mentioning it for two years. In some alternate universe, this might actually make sense.

As an aside, instead of worrying about the issue, some have decided the real problem is the use of the word "poo." Go figure.

Canada's crumbling capital

If you looked at the headlines on Tuesday, May 20 you might've assumed Ottawa was on the brink of disaster. The three top headlines online at CBC Ottawa were:

Flood shuts Canada's national archives
Ottawa recycling yard on fire for 2nd time in 3 days
Sewage plant problems blamed for Petrie beach woes

So a broken water main caused the archives to flood in the north. Broken water mains aren't that newsworthy, except for the traffic snarls they cause, but let's keep in mind earlier this month there was traffic problems when two different mains broke on major streets downtown. Add the potential damage to the archives and it makes you wonder what's happening below the pavement.

Meanwhile, in the south some dry fire hydrants made fighting the blaze at the recycling plant a bit tricky (apparently this is fire #3 for that place - best paraphrase ever in the article was when they indicated officials were going to look into why the place keeps "bursting into flames"). The city says the mains servicing the hydrants were decommissioned in November 2005 and, for whatever reason, the site wasn't on the list of disconnected hydrants. Why doesn't the city do what other municipalities do: paint disconnected hydrants black. It'll be an immediate indication to emergency response crews that the infrastructure doesn't function and they better search for something more colourful. That sort of visual cue would likely be more useful than a list any day.

To the east end now. The public has just been told that a sewage gate left open for 15 days in 2006 might have contributed to the high E. coli counts down stream at Petrie Island that year. Now everyone is demanding to know why it took two years to disclose this raw sewage spill to the public despite a report being sent to the province right after the malfunction was detected. Ooops. This one promises to be interesting as it plays itself out. The knee-jerk reactions have already started, as have the calls for someone to get fired. And since this little malfunction took place during the election, the conspiracy theorists are undoubtedly having a blast. It's a lot of noise for 15 days. That much raw sewage is gross, but let's remember the core has a combined system, so raw sewage often finds its way into the river. Plus, Petrie was seeing high bacteria levels that summer before the gate was left open, so this is likely just one of many problems the beach faced in 2006.

Of course, on top of this, 24 Sussex is falling apart. With all the excitement, we probably shouldn't even mention the leda clay in the east. Not yet, anyway.

Random insanity

Figured I'd test video on the site. Going with something streamed from youtube. This music vid always struck me as somewhat insane and totally random. Even the bird of prey at 1:27 looks confused. Stuff comes out of nowhere, and yet, somehow that makes complete sense. Although I'm still wondering what the shrub grass did to offend our hero at the beginning.

Responses to the video seem to range from awesome to retarded (or bragging about beating it on Guitar Hero). I post it here for your amusement... or merely to test stuff out.

Option 100,000: The O-Coaster

The O-Train looked so sad and lonely wandering through the drizzle yesterday, its three mostly empty cars moving along from Bayview to South Keys. It's one of those city experiments that really helped Carleton students but left the bulk of transit users stuck in buses stuffed with people. Ottawa's transit issue is being overplayed at the moment, mostly because everyone has a different idea to add to the ever growing list of so-called options being proposed by people who really aren't in a position to pretend they have some form of expertise on the matter. Normally I'd not touch the subject, being bored with it, but seeing the O-Train yesterday brought up an interesting point: There are probably roller coasters that move more people than the O-Train.

Along that line of thinking came the excellent idea of scrapping transit options one through a gazillion and instead introducing a roller coaster. Sure, it might mess with the hairdo and make drinking that morning cup of java an experience unto itself, but what a thrill going to work would suddenly become. If theme parks are any indication, people will leave their cars at home and line up for hours just to take a ride on the O-Coaster. And for all those "innovative" types on council looking to snag more revenue for the city, just think of the tourism dollars that could bring in. Plus we wouldn't have to dig a $1 billion tunnel.

Getting started

This new blog might be the solution to the bandwidth issues I was having with my last one. Work is in progress... In the meantime, I offer the following for your viewing pleasure. No, it's not New Brunswick. It's Belmont Ave. in Old Ottawa South a few weeks ago.