10 January 2007
So much for progress...
Voices from fifty years ago that still seem contemporary:
"American capitalism is now in considerable part a military capiltalism, and the most important relation of the big corporation to the state rests on the coincidence of interest between military and corporate needs."
-C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, 1956
"For the current American way of life is founded not just on motor transportaion but on the religion of the motor car, and the sacrifices that people are prepared to make for this religion stand outside the realm of rational criticism."
-Lewis Mumford, The Highway and the City, 1958
"American capitalism is now in considerable part a military capiltalism, and the most important relation of the big corporation to the state rests on the coincidence of interest between military and corporate needs."
-C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, 1956
"For the current American way of life is founded not just on motor transportaion but on the religion of the motor car, and the sacrifices that people are prepared to make for this religion stand outside the realm of rational criticism."
-Lewis Mumford, The Highway and the City, 1958
09 January 2007
This time it's for real
I'm still here at fricking work wishing I didn't have to come in at all anymore. Actually my dream might come true sooner than I think. Once again we are threatened with layoffs and this year it doesn't look too good for my team. This is a major outsourcing (or "best-shoring" as the higher-ups are lovingly calling it) push that will virtually eliminate all in-house development and support teams at my company. I don't think I'm going to be able to escape the chopping block this time.
I'm essentially throwing my arms up in frustration and saying, "this time, freaking do it! Commit, you bastards!" Well, something like that. They've threatened us year after year, practically every year since I've been here. It's been more than a little draining on one's psyche and level of engagement. Just by the third quarter when you're starting to feel valuable and wanted again, they ramp up another initiative to threaten your livelihood and keep you twitchy and paranoid.
So what am I to do? We're being encouraged to look elsewhere in the business for positions, but I'm not so sure if I can cope on the business side of the dazzling railroad industry. At most, I'd become a glamorous business analyst I figure. I guess that's always an option, but then I miss out on the severance package too (six years = yummy). As far as my beliefs go, I should stick around and pad my resume with some business experience, but gawd - how can I stand the peon banality anymore?
I've begun looking at NGOs and non-profits -- I figure since I'm so passionate about the things some of these organizations stand for, why not contribute, push the agenda, and get paid for it? Hello, Sierra Club? David Suzuki Foundation? EarthWatch Institute? The sky's the limit. I'm okay with a financial hit. Money is not my driver anymore. I've grown tired of the short-term shareholder screw-over and option orgy that is perceived as the norm in Corporate Canada now. It's time to move to something more meaningful to me, I feel. If I can, I would love to opt out of the rat race for good and apply my efforts to an organization that is doing something good for the local, national or global community. Anyone have any suggestions or contacts I can start out with?
As well, Joe and I are into day two of being smoke-free. No, not the good smoking, but the bad smoking. It sucks. I have headaches, my mouth is sore (see? things are already starting to heal themselves! Mouth cankers, here we come!), I'm grouchier than hell (...hoo boy...you should have witnessed the head-to-head bitchfest at home last night), and I'm freaking tired. I think I might be coming down with something too. There's more than a few zombies wandering around the office spreading their gross post-holiday infections. I would love to just go to bed right now, but I must head to Peak Power for a workout (guilt, guilt, guilt). I'm so fat and need to lose some weight prior to beach time (see below). Hmmm...maybe since I have a meeting on Thursday, I'll go tomorrow and Friday instead? I like that idea.
Because the holidays were generally shitty being on-call with no time off, I've bought a ticket to visit my folks again this year in Texas, February 2-11. I'm so happy to be able to get away, sit on the beach and read books for a week. I've already ordered some new books from Amazon! The flights to Harlingen dropped dramatically after the holidays while the tickets to Houston went up, so, as I always had preferred, I'm flying via Houston to Harlingen (for $545!) and having Ma and Pa fetch me at the airport. Then it's to retirement community paradise!!! There's some good places to go running near the orchards, lots of pool time in the afternoons and a gym nearby with weighlifting platforms. I'm going a couple of weeks later than last year but still a month before Spring Break, so hopefully the weather will be good, SPI will be busier than last year, but not overrun with drunken sorority girls yet.
I've also been in touch with the scuba diving tour groups at South Padre Island and I'm planning to do some diving while there as well. I did some researching and there's actually quite a bit to see in the depths of the Gulf! More than Lake Minnewanka, anyways.
So yeah, whatever. Life is throwing more curveballs. I'm a hypocrite. I'm tired. I'm defeated. How do I react? Take a vacation.
Personality Disorder Test
| Disorder | Rating |
| Paranoid Disorder: | Low |
| Schizoid Disorder: | Low |
| Schizotypal Disorder: | Low |
| Antisocial Disorder: | Low |
| Borderline Disorder: | Low |
| Histrionic Disorder: | High |
| Narcissistic Disorder: | High |
| Avoidant Disorder: | Low |
| Dependent Disorder: | Moderate |
| Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: | High |
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! -- -- Personality Disorders -- | |
So I'm narcissistic, histrionic and dependent. Yep. That about sums it up.
A 2007 warning: the world's twelve worst ideas
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/worst_ideas_4228.jsp
Fred Halliday
8 - 1 - 2007
The world is full of conformism masquerading as profundity, says Fred Halliday, who explodes twelve global falsehoods.
In identifying error, two great models at either end of modern times exist. The first is part thirty-nine of Francis Bacon's Novum Organon (1620), with its four categories of idol: those of the cave (of individual men), the tribe (human nature), the marketplace (intercourse of men with each other) and the theatre (philosophical dogma). The second is Francis Wheen's How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions (2004).
Some errors are products of the unchallenged, the routine, the conventional. Some are new, products of fashion, of novelty, even of globalisation. Everyone has his or her own selection, born of profession, personality, place. The list could be a long one but, like Christ and his disciples, twelve seems a comfortable figure, at once extensive and compact. Here, for 2007, is one suggested list, in ascending order:
Number twelve: Human behaviour can be predicted
In the name of a supposedly "scientific" criterion of knowledge, scholars are berated for not predicting the end of the cold war, the rise of Islam, 9/11 and much else besides. Yet many natural sciences – seismology, evolutionary biology - cannot predict with accuracy either. Human affairs themselves, even leaving aside the matter of human intention and will, allow of too many variables for such calculation. We will never be able to predict with certainty the outcome of a sports contest, the incidence of revolutions, the duration of passion or how long an individual will live.
Number eleven: The world is speeding up
This, a favourite trope of globalisation theorists, confuses acceleration in some areas, such as the transmission of knowledge, with the fact that large areas of human life continue to demand the same time as before: to conceive and bear a child, to learn a language, to grow up, to digest a meal, to enjoy a joke, to read a poem. It takes the same time to fly from London to New York as it did forty years ago, ditto to boil an egg or publish a book. Some activities – such as or driving around major western cities, getting through an airport, or dying - may take much longer.
Number ten: We have no need for history
In recent decades, large areas of intellectual and academic life - political thought and analysis, economics, philosophy - have jettisoned a concern with history. Yet it remains true that those who ignore history repeat it; as the recycling of unacknowledged cold-war premises by the Bush administration in Iraq has devastatingly shown.
Number nine: We live in a "post-feminist" epoch
The implication of this claim, supposedly analogous to such terms as "post-industrial", is that we have no more need for feminism, in politics, law, everyday life, because the major goals of that movement, articulated in the 1970s and 1980s, have been achieved. On all counts, this is a false claim: the "post-feminist" label serves not to register achievement of reforming goals, but the delegitimation of those goals themselves.
Number eight: Markets are a "natural" phenomenon which allow for the efficient allocation of resources and preferences
Markets are not "natural" but are the product of particular societies, value systems and patterns of state relation to the economy. They are not efficient allocators of goods, since they ignore the large area of human activity and need that is not covered by monetary values - from education and the provision of public works, to human happiness and fulfillment. In any case the pure market is a fantasy; the examples of the two most traded commodities in the contemporary world, oil and drugs, show how political, social and cartel factors override and distort the workings of supply and demand.
Number seven: Religion should again be allowed, when not encouraged, to play a role in political and social life
From the evangelicals of the United States, to the followers of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to the Islamists of the middle east, the claim about the benefits of religion is one of the great, and all too little challenged, impostures of our time. For centuries, those aspiring to freedom and democracy, be it in Europe or the middle east, fought to push back the influence of religion on public life. Secularism cannot guarantee freedom, but, against the claims of tradition and superstition, and the uses to which religion is put in modern political life, from California to Kuwait, it is an essential bulwark.
Number six: In the modern world, we do not need utopias
Dreaming, the aspiration to a better world and the imagination thereof, is a necessary part of the human condition.
Number five: We should welcome the spread of English as a world language
It is obviously of practical benefit that there is one common, functional, language of trade, air traffic control etc, but the actual domination of English in today's world has been accompanied by a tide of cultural arrogance that is itself debasing: a downgrading and neglect of other languages and cultures across the world, the general compounding of Anglo-Saxon political and social arrogance, and the introverted collapse of interest within English-speaking countries themselves in other peoples and languages, in sum, a triumph of banality over diversity. One small but universal example: the imposition on hotel staff across the world, with all its wonderful diversity of nomenclature, of name tags denoting the bearer as "Mike", "Johnny" and "Steve".
Number four: The world is divided into incomparable moral blocs, or civilisations
This view has been aptly termed (by Ernest Gellner) as "liberalism for the liberals, cannibalism for the cannibals". But a set of common values is indeed shared across the world: from democracy and human rights to the defence of national sovereignty and belief in the benefits of economic development. The implantation of these values is disputed, in all countries, but not the values themselves. Most states in the world, whatever their cultural or religious character, have signed the universalist United Nations declarations on human rights, starting with the 1948 universal declaration.
Number three: Diasporas have a legitimate role to play in national and international politics
The notion that emigrant or diaspora communities have a special insight into the problems of their homeland, or a special moral or political status in regard to them, is wholly unfounded. Emigrant ethnic communities play almost always a negative, backward, at once hysterical and obstructive, role in resolving the conflicts of their countries of origin: Armenians and Turks, Jews and Arabs, various strands of Irish, are prime examples on the inter-ethnic front, as are exiles in the United States in regard to resolving the problems of Cuba, or policymaking on Iran. English emigrants are less noted for any such political role, though their spasms of collective inebriation and conformist ghettoised lifestyles abroad do little to enhance the reputation of their home country.
Number two: The only thing "they" understand is force
This has been the guiding illusion of hegemonic and colonial thinking for several centuries. Oppressed peoples do not accept the imposition of solutions by force: they revolt. It is the oppressors who, in the end, have to accept the verdict of force, as European empires did in Latin America, Africa and Asia and as the United States is doing in Iraq today. The hubris of "mission accomplished" in May 2003 has been followed by ignominy.
Number one: The world's population problems, and the spread of Aids, can be solved without the use of condoms
This is not only the most dangerous, but also the most criminal, error of the modern world. Millions of people will suffer, and die premature and humiliating deaths, as a result of the policies pursued in this regard through the United Nations and related aid and public-health programmes. Indeed, there is no need to ask where the first mass murderers of the 21st century are; we already know, and their addresses besides: the Lateran Palace, Vatican City, Rome, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC. Timely arrest and indictment would save many lives.
Fred Halliday is professor of international relations at the LSE, and visiting professor at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI). His books include Islam and the Myth of Confrontation (IB Tauris, 2003) and 100 Myths About the Middle East (Saqi, 2005).
Fred Halliday
8 - 1 - 2007
The world is full of conformism masquerading as profundity, says Fred Halliday, who explodes twelve global falsehoods.
In identifying error, two great models at either end of modern times exist. The first is part thirty-nine of Francis Bacon's Novum Organon (1620), with its four categories of idol: those of the cave (of individual men), the tribe (human nature), the marketplace (intercourse of men with each other) and the theatre (philosophical dogma). The second is Francis Wheen's How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions (2004).
Some errors are products of the unchallenged, the routine, the conventional. Some are new, products of fashion, of novelty, even of globalisation. Everyone has his or her own selection, born of profession, personality, place. The list could be a long one but, like Christ and his disciples, twelve seems a comfortable figure, at once extensive and compact. Here, for 2007, is one suggested list, in ascending order:
Number twelve: Human behaviour can be predicted
In the name of a supposedly "scientific" criterion of knowledge, scholars are berated for not predicting the end of the cold war, the rise of Islam, 9/11 and much else besides. Yet many natural sciences – seismology, evolutionary biology - cannot predict with accuracy either. Human affairs themselves, even leaving aside the matter of human intention and will, allow of too many variables for such calculation. We will never be able to predict with certainty the outcome of a sports contest, the incidence of revolutions, the duration of passion or how long an individual will live.
Number eleven: The world is speeding up
This, a favourite trope of globalisation theorists, confuses acceleration in some areas, such as the transmission of knowledge, with the fact that large areas of human life continue to demand the same time as before: to conceive and bear a child, to learn a language, to grow up, to digest a meal, to enjoy a joke, to read a poem. It takes the same time to fly from London to New York as it did forty years ago, ditto to boil an egg or publish a book. Some activities – such as or driving around major western cities, getting through an airport, or dying - may take much longer.
Number ten: We have no need for history
In recent decades, large areas of intellectual and academic life - political thought and analysis, economics, philosophy - have jettisoned a concern with history. Yet it remains true that those who ignore history repeat it; as the recycling of unacknowledged cold-war premises by the Bush administration in Iraq has devastatingly shown.
Number nine: We live in a "post-feminist" epoch
The implication of this claim, supposedly analogous to such terms as "post-industrial", is that we have no more need for feminism, in politics, law, everyday life, because the major goals of that movement, articulated in the 1970s and 1980s, have been achieved. On all counts, this is a false claim: the "post-feminist" label serves not to register achievement of reforming goals, but the delegitimation of those goals themselves.
Number eight: Markets are a "natural" phenomenon which allow for the efficient allocation of resources and preferences
Markets are not "natural" but are the product of particular societies, value systems and patterns of state relation to the economy. They are not efficient allocators of goods, since they ignore the large area of human activity and need that is not covered by monetary values - from education and the provision of public works, to human happiness and fulfillment. In any case the pure market is a fantasy; the examples of the two most traded commodities in the contemporary world, oil and drugs, show how political, social and cartel factors override and distort the workings of supply and demand.
Number seven: Religion should again be allowed, when not encouraged, to play a role in political and social life
From the evangelicals of the United States, to the followers of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to the Islamists of the middle east, the claim about the benefits of religion is one of the great, and all too little challenged, impostures of our time. For centuries, those aspiring to freedom and democracy, be it in Europe or the middle east, fought to push back the influence of religion on public life. Secularism cannot guarantee freedom, but, against the claims of tradition and superstition, and the uses to which religion is put in modern political life, from California to Kuwait, it is an essential bulwark.
Number six: In the modern world, we do not need utopias
Dreaming, the aspiration to a better world and the imagination thereof, is a necessary part of the human condition.
Number five: We should welcome the spread of English as a world language
It is obviously of practical benefit that there is one common, functional, language of trade, air traffic control etc, but the actual domination of English in today's world has been accompanied by a tide of cultural arrogance that is itself debasing: a downgrading and neglect of other languages and cultures across the world, the general compounding of Anglo-Saxon political and social arrogance, and the introverted collapse of interest within English-speaking countries themselves in other peoples and languages, in sum, a triumph of banality over diversity. One small but universal example: the imposition on hotel staff across the world, with all its wonderful diversity of nomenclature, of name tags denoting the bearer as "Mike", "Johnny" and "Steve".
Number four: The world is divided into incomparable moral blocs, or civilisations
This view has been aptly termed (by Ernest Gellner) as "liberalism for the liberals, cannibalism for the cannibals". But a set of common values is indeed shared across the world: from democracy and human rights to the defence of national sovereignty and belief in the benefits of economic development. The implantation of these values is disputed, in all countries, but not the values themselves. Most states in the world, whatever their cultural or religious character, have signed the universalist United Nations declarations on human rights, starting with the 1948 universal declaration.
Number three: Diasporas have a legitimate role to play in national and international politics
The notion that emigrant or diaspora communities have a special insight into the problems of their homeland, or a special moral or political status in regard to them, is wholly unfounded. Emigrant ethnic communities play almost always a negative, backward, at once hysterical and obstructive, role in resolving the conflicts of their countries of origin: Armenians and Turks, Jews and Arabs, various strands of Irish, are prime examples on the inter-ethnic front, as are exiles in the United States in regard to resolving the problems of Cuba, or policymaking on Iran. English emigrants are less noted for any such political role, though their spasms of collective inebriation and conformist ghettoised lifestyles abroad do little to enhance the reputation of their home country.
Number two: The only thing "they" understand is force
This has been the guiding illusion of hegemonic and colonial thinking for several centuries. Oppressed peoples do not accept the imposition of solutions by force: they revolt. It is the oppressors who, in the end, have to accept the verdict of force, as European empires did in Latin America, Africa and Asia and as the United States is doing in Iraq today. The hubris of "mission accomplished" in May 2003 has been followed by ignominy.
Number one: The world's population problems, and the spread of Aids, can be solved without the use of condoms
This is not only the most dangerous, but also the most criminal, error of the modern world. Millions of people will suffer, and die premature and humiliating deaths, as a result of the policies pursued in this regard through the United Nations and related aid and public-health programmes. Indeed, there is no need to ask where the first mass murderers of the 21st century are; we already know, and their addresses besides: the Lateran Palace, Vatican City, Rome, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC. Timely arrest and indictment would save many lives.
Fred Halliday is professor of international relations at the LSE, and visiting professor at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI). His books include Islam and the Myth of Confrontation (IB Tauris, 2003) and 100 Myths About the Middle East (Saqi, 2005).
08 January 2007
The greening of the oil sands
All the attention on greenhouse gases has raised fears in the energy industry, especially regarding development of the oil sands. To Robert Mansell, head of the University of Calgary's institute for sustainable energy, environment and economy - a green oil sands. Mansell says the future must marry what he calls the 3 Es, energy, environment and economy, using technology to increase recovery, reduce emissions and capture carbon dioxide. But the key, he insists, is the government taking charge, making hard and clear rules, instead of waiting and hoping industry will make the full push. “If governments aren't going to lead, it won't happen,” Mansell says. “We're a nation that's never achieved our potential. We've done okay but we've never reached the next level.” It's the lack of precise policies that discourages improvement and innovation, he said. “You have to have the market working for you. It needs the right signals, the right incentives. . . . It's like a mission to the moon. If we point people in the right direction, we'll come out with wonderful things.”
(Globe and Mail 070106)
The powers that be in Ottawa and Edmonton claim to be leaders (and love to pay themselves for the privilege of using this moniker), however very few of them appear to have the characteristics that would actually distinguish them as such. Let's just hope that we can find some quality leaders in the near future that will have the resolve and fortitude to stick to progressive plans to move the province and the country towards a more sustainable future with much lower GHG emissions and not simply pander to the corporations and the lowest common denominator of money to guide their decisions. Like that will ever happen. Corruption is to politics as the smell of shit is to shit.
Tougher greenhouse gas limits hit polluters
The federal government's new insistence on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions will have wide implications for the major industries that contribute to global warming, said the minister chairing the new cabinet committee on energy security and the environment. “It's very clear the environment is a priority for the Prime Minister and this government,” Native Affairs Minister Jim Prentice said in an interview Friday. “There are implications in that context for coal-burning electricity producers, oil-sands plants, pipeline companies and, of course, consumers in this country,” he said. Prime Minister Stephen Harper named John Baird as the new Environment Minister last week, putting green issues at the top of the government's priorities. Harper also named Prentice as the chair of the new cabinet committee on environment and energy security, showing the importance of the Calgary MP in shaping the government's overall agenda. Prentice inherited the committee's chairmanship as the minister officially in charge of the country's pipeline development, of which he is a major proponent. Harper has also called for increased development of Canada's role as an international energy superpower, which critics said has come at the expense of the environment. Environmentalists remains skeptical about the government's new green agenda. “It's very much complicated by having Mr. Prentice as the chair of this cabinet committee,” said Stephen Hazell, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. “He is such a huge booster of the pipelines.” The oil patch, on the other hand, is pleased to see Prentice inheriting a large role on environmental issues as the head of the cabinet committee. Baird will be vice-chair. “You have the Environment Minister in a leadership position,” said David MacInnis, president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association. “Having said that, you've provided a counterbalance to the environment in the form of another minister who is also very influential within the cabinet structure.”
(Globe and Mail 070106, 070108)
Despite my misgivings of having the Western-based conservative party in power of the federal government, there is one advantage. Because of the awareness in Ottawa of the implications of these environmental moves on the Western Canadian industrial base, there will be a lot more thought and pause given to any implementation of an energy agenda that will not look like the 1980 NEP plan. Not necessarily that anything they implement will be better or worse but here's hoping they analyze the possible outcomes better and reflect on the historic track record of these initiatives.
(Globe and Mail 070106)
The powers that be in Ottawa and Edmonton claim to be leaders (and love to pay themselves for the privilege of using this moniker), however very few of them appear to have the characteristics that would actually distinguish them as such. Let's just hope that we can find some quality leaders in the near future that will have the resolve and fortitude to stick to progressive plans to move the province and the country towards a more sustainable future with much lower GHG emissions and not simply pander to the corporations and the lowest common denominator of money to guide their decisions. Like that will ever happen. Corruption is to politics as the smell of shit is to shit.
Tougher greenhouse gas limits hit polluters
The federal government's new insistence on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions will have wide implications for the major industries that contribute to global warming, said the minister chairing the new cabinet committee on energy security and the environment. “It's very clear the environment is a priority for the Prime Minister and this government,” Native Affairs Minister Jim Prentice said in an interview Friday. “There are implications in that context for coal-burning electricity producers, oil-sands plants, pipeline companies and, of course, consumers in this country,” he said. Prime Minister Stephen Harper named John Baird as the new Environment Minister last week, putting green issues at the top of the government's priorities. Harper also named Prentice as the chair of the new cabinet committee on environment and energy security, showing the importance of the Calgary MP in shaping the government's overall agenda. Prentice inherited the committee's chairmanship as the minister officially in charge of the country's pipeline development, of which he is a major proponent. Harper has also called for increased development of Canada's role as an international energy superpower, which critics said has come at the expense of the environment. Environmentalists remains skeptical about the government's new green agenda. “It's very much complicated by having Mr. Prentice as the chair of this cabinet committee,” said Stephen Hazell, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. “He is such a huge booster of the pipelines.” The oil patch, on the other hand, is pleased to see Prentice inheriting a large role on environmental issues as the head of the cabinet committee. Baird will be vice-chair. “You have the Environment Minister in a leadership position,” said David MacInnis, president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association. “Having said that, you've provided a counterbalance to the environment in the form of another minister who is also very influential within the cabinet structure.”
(Globe and Mail 070106, 070108)
Despite my misgivings of having the Western-based conservative party in power of the federal government, there is one advantage. Because of the awareness in Ottawa of the implications of these environmental moves on the Western Canadian industrial base, there will be a lot more thought and pause given to any implementation of an energy agenda that will not look like the 1980 NEP plan. Not necessarily that anything they implement will be better or worse but here's hoping they analyze the possible outcomes better and reflect on the historic track record of these initiatives.
05 January 2007
Another race to the bottom?
Ethanol seen gobbling half US corn output by '08
(Globe and Mail 070105)
A surge in US ethanol production will demand half the country's corn supplies in 2008, more than double the amount forecast by the US Department of Agriculture, according to the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental advocacy group. Ethanol production from existing distilleries and those under construction across the US will pull about 139 million tons of corn from the 2008 harvest, Lester Brown, president of the institute, said on a conference call. Agriculture department data forecast ethanol production will consume about 23% of total US corn supplies by 2015. Rising demand for alternative fuels to gasoline will boost corn prices, which reached a 10-year high of US$3.94 a bushel in November, to $5 a bushel within the next two years. Rising demand for corn as a fuel source will reduce amounts available for animal feed or sweeteners, and reduce exports. The US is the world's largest corn producer and exporter. “We're looking at a fundamental shift in the global food economy,” Brown said. “The price of grains is going up to their oil-equivalent price. It could create urban food riots in poorer countries.” Brown recommends the US issue a moratorium on new ethanol plants, shifting to producing the fuel from switch-grass instead of corn, and improving the fuel economy of cars and trucks to reduce demand. US demand for corn used to make ethanol, a gasoline additive, will rise 34% to a record 2.15 billion bushels in the marketing year that began Sept. 1, the Department of Agriculture said Dec. 11. The 110 factories now producing ethanol in the US have boosted their annual capacity by 12% in the past six months, to 5.3 billion gallons, according to the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington. An additional six billion gallons of capacity will be added in the next two years as 79 new plants or expansions are completed, the association said.
So, I guess we're going to have to make a collective decision once again, and I fear we're going to make the wrong one, again.
It disturbingly seems more apparent by the day that North Americans are determined to keep their cars and the humungous infrastructure required to run them operating at the current level of utilization, no matter what the cost to our health, our environment, our economy, or the well-being of others not so fortunate. We've become so accustomed to having our vehicles intricately woven into our social and cultural institutions that we couldn't imagine a scenario playing out without them being a main variable in the equation.
So now we're willing to forego a secure, affordable food supply for everyone just to keep our affluent (and arguably undeserving) society's cars on the road? There isn't enough arable farmland on the planet to grow enough ethanol-producing crops to run our global fleet of personal and commercial vehicles. Of course, the oil flow is not stopping tomorrow and there are other options available, but why are the politicians and capitalists continually bringing up all these pie-in-the-sky alternatives that aren't even close to being the magic elixir they are marketing and/or hoping that they'll be?
Why won't anyone speak the truth? Because the truth would cause a panic and it's unfathomable in this society of instant self-gratification that people could ever understand that they aren't and never were the center of the universe. AND THAT WE'RE ALL IN THIS CLUSTERFUCK TOGETHER.
At this point in time, some of the best and easiest-to-implement options I see are:
1) increasing efficiencies in our vehicle mileages, power generation, etc. -- all of which are technologically possible, have lots of room for massive improvements, but these initiatives are constantly fought by the manufacturers and utilities. Despite the futility of this endeavor (the Detroit piggies aren't going to make it easy), it does delay the inevitable.
2) Conservation of what we've got. If every household could decrease their consumption of power and fuel by, say, 10%, wouldn't that be huge? Very easy to do on paper, much more difficult in practice to get Joe Lunchpail with a Grade Ten education to understand the need shell out some cash to install power-saving appliances, replace power-vampire appliances, adding water collectors, low-energy lightbulbs and efficient windows, doors, etc. and of course, riding a bike or walking when reasonable.
3) Getting used to living with less. This isn't a very popular option for the capitalists since it throws their entire economic model into question, but contraction is generally inevitable in the Western countries, despite how much immigration the powers that be want to throw at the problem. Why do we need all these excesses? Why do we feel obliged to 'buy now, pay later' when we were all raised to 'buy when you have the money to do so'? It's all very strange to me how our collective justifications for our out-of-control consumption and spiralling debt loads continue to become more and more bizarre and/or indefensible, in light of the growing evidence that we're heading into some very stormy waters economically, environmentally, and socially.
AT THE VERY LEAST, the Canadian government finally appears to be ready to have a mature dialog about climate change. It's a small, but significant step. At least that blow-hole Rona Ambrose is out of the picture and now spending more time with super-awesome Stockwell Day. How appropriate....
Yes, things are heating up, new environment minister says
Last Updated: Friday, January 5, 2007 | 9:37 AM ET
CBC News
Canada's new environment minister, John Baird, isn't saying what he'll try to do about global warming, but he suggested in a CBC interview on Friday that weird weather has eliminated any doubts that temperatures are rising.
"I mean, I grew up here in Ottawa, lived here my entire life, and I can't remember a winter where I didn't have to use my boots," he told Heather Hiscox of CBC Newsworld. "I left the house without even a winter coat this morning. So that's obviously a huge concern."
John Baird has replaced Rona Ambrose as environment minister.
(CBC) Baird, who stressed that he was just 20 hours into the job and still needs to be "briefed up," replaced Rona Ambrose, who had struggled to defend the government's have-it-both-ways stand on the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Under Stephen Harper's Tories, Canada remains a Kyoto signatory but rejects the main idea of the agreement, a schedule for substantial cuts in heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. A Liberal government under Jean Chrétien ratified the agreement in 2002.
Baird gave no hint of his thinking on the Kyoto targets, but missed no chance to accuse the Liberals of dissembling.
"Canadians … are pretty skeptical when it comes to climate change because they saw the previous government for 13 long years increase greenhouse gas emission by 30 per cent, at the same time wearing a cloak of green. So Canadians want to see some real action and one that will have results and not just rhetoric."
In his remarks on global warming, he was following the lead of Prime Minister Harper, who at times had seemed unconvinced it is a problem, but declared this week that Canadians deserve more action on both air pollution and climate change.
Baird said climate change is "a huge priority of Canadians," and one he intends to tackle as soon as he gets up to speed on the scientific and policy issues.
"Canadians want a minister who's going to be concerned," he said.
"I think [Liberal Leader] Stéphane Dion has clearly said he's very concerned about the issue, but people aren't going to look at what you say. They're going to look at what you do, and the Liberals' record on this is pretty bad."
Dion, in a separate Newsworld interview, said his own emphasis on environmental policy may have helped to push Harper to change his tone on global warming.
The prime minister "received a wakeup call, maybe from me, but from all Canadians," but it remains to be seen how serious he is about it, the Liberal leader said.
"It will not be difficult to do more than he did last year. Last year, he cut 90 per cent of the programs for environment and climate change. Last year, he embarrassed the country with his approach regarding Kyoto on the international stage.
"So I hope we will see some improvement, even though it will stay far from what we really need to do … and if he is willing to improve even a bit what he did last year, this will be very positive."
(Globe and Mail 070105)
A surge in US ethanol production will demand half the country's corn supplies in 2008, more than double the amount forecast by the US Department of Agriculture, according to the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental advocacy group. Ethanol production from existing distilleries and those under construction across the US will pull about 139 million tons of corn from the 2008 harvest, Lester Brown, president of the institute, said on a conference call. Agriculture department data forecast ethanol production will consume about 23% of total US corn supplies by 2015. Rising demand for alternative fuels to gasoline will boost corn prices, which reached a 10-year high of US$3.94 a bushel in November, to $5 a bushel within the next two years. Rising demand for corn as a fuel source will reduce amounts available for animal feed or sweeteners, and reduce exports. The US is the world's largest corn producer and exporter. “We're looking at a fundamental shift in the global food economy,” Brown said. “The price of grains is going up to their oil-equivalent price. It could create urban food riots in poorer countries.” Brown recommends the US issue a moratorium on new ethanol plants, shifting to producing the fuel from switch-grass instead of corn, and improving the fuel economy of cars and trucks to reduce demand. US demand for corn used to make ethanol, a gasoline additive, will rise 34% to a record 2.15 billion bushels in the marketing year that began Sept. 1, the Department of Agriculture said Dec. 11. The 110 factories now producing ethanol in the US have boosted their annual capacity by 12% in the past six months, to 5.3 billion gallons, according to the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington. An additional six billion gallons of capacity will be added in the next two years as 79 new plants or expansions are completed, the association said.
So, I guess we're going to have to make a collective decision once again, and I fear we're going to make the wrong one, again.
It disturbingly seems more apparent by the day that North Americans are determined to keep their cars and the humungous infrastructure required to run them operating at the current level of utilization, no matter what the cost to our health, our environment, our economy, or the well-being of others not so fortunate. We've become so accustomed to having our vehicles intricately woven into our social and cultural institutions that we couldn't imagine a scenario playing out without them being a main variable in the equation.
So now we're willing to forego a secure, affordable food supply for everyone just to keep our affluent (and arguably undeserving) society's cars on the road? There isn't enough arable farmland on the planet to grow enough ethanol-producing crops to run our global fleet of personal and commercial vehicles. Of course, the oil flow is not stopping tomorrow and there are other options available, but why are the politicians and capitalists continually bringing up all these pie-in-the-sky alternatives that aren't even close to being the magic elixir they are marketing and/or hoping that they'll be?
Why won't anyone speak the truth? Because the truth would cause a panic and it's unfathomable in this society of instant self-gratification that people could ever understand that they aren't and never were the center of the universe. AND THAT WE'RE ALL IN THIS CLUSTERFUCK TOGETHER.
At this point in time, some of the best and easiest-to-implement options I see are:
1) increasing efficiencies in our vehicle mileages, power generation, etc. -- all of which are technologically possible, have lots of room for massive improvements, but these initiatives are constantly fought by the manufacturers and utilities. Despite the futility of this endeavor (the Detroit piggies aren't going to make it easy), it does delay the inevitable.
2) Conservation of what we've got. If every household could decrease their consumption of power and fuel by, say, 10%, wouldn't that be huge? Very easy to do on paper, much more difficult in practice to get Joe Lunchpail with a Grade Ten education to understand the need shell out some cash to install power-saving appliances, replace power-vampire appliances, adding water collectors, low-energy lightbulbs and efficient windows, doors, etc. and of course, riding a bike or walking when reasonable.
3) Getting used to living with less. This isn't a very popular option for the capitalists since it throws their entire economic model into question, but contraction is generally inevitable in the Western countries, despite how much immigration the powers that be want to throw at the problem. Why do we need all these excesses? Why do we feel obliged to 'buy now, pay later' when we were all raised to 'buy when you have the money to do so'? It's all very strange to me how our collective justifications for our out-of-control consumption and spiralling debt loads continue to become more and more bizarre and/or indefensible, in light of the growing evidence that we're heading into some very stormy waters economically, environmentally, and socially.
AT THE VERY LEAST, the Canadian government finally appears to be ready to have a mature dialog about climate change. It's a small, but significant step. At least that blow-hole Rona Ambrose is out of the picture and now spending more time with super-awesome Stockwell Day. How appropriate....
Yes, things are heating up, new environment minister says
Last Updated: Friday, January 5, 2007 | 9:37 AM ET
CBC News
Canada's new environment minister, John Baird, isn't saying what he'll try to do about global warming, but he suggested in a CBC interview on Friday that weird weather has eliminated any doubts that temperatures are rising.
"I mean, I grew up here in Ottawa, lived here my entire life, and I can't remember a winter where I didn't have to use my boots," he told Heather Hiscox of CBC Newsworld. "I left the house without even a winter coat this morning. So that's obviously a huge concern."
John Baird has replaced Rona Ambrose as environment minister.
(CBC) Baird, who stressed that he was just 20 hours into the job and still needs to be "briefed up," replaced Rona Ambrose, who had struggled to defend the government's have-it-both-ways stand on the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Under Stephen Harper's Tories, Canada remains a Kyoto signatory but rejects the main idea of the agreement, a schedule for substantial cuts in heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. A Liberal government under Jean Chrétien ratified the agreement in 2002.
Baird gave no hint of his thinking on the Kyoto targets, but missed no chance to accuse the Liberals of dissembling.
"Canadians … are pretty skeptical when it comes to climate change because they saw the previous government for 13 long years increase greenhouse gas emission by 30 per cent, at the same time wearing a cloak of green. So Canadians want to see some real action and one that will have results and not just rhetoric."
In his remarks on global warming, he was following the lead of Prime Minister Harper, who at times had seemed unconvinced it is a problem, but declared this week that Canadians deserve more action on both air pollution and climate change.
Baird said climate change is "a huge priority of Canadians," and one he intends to tackle as soon as he gets up to speed on the scientific and policy issues.
"Canadians want a minister who's going to be concerned," he said.
"I think [Liberal Leader] Stéphane Dion has clearly said he's very concerned about the issue, but people aren't going to look at what you say. They're going to look at what you do, and the Liberals' record on this is pretty bad."
Dion, in a separate Newsworld interview, said his own emphasis on environmental policy may have helped to push Harper to change his tone on global warming.
The prime minister "received a wakeup call, maybe from me, but from all Canadians," but it remains to be seen how serious he is about it, the Liberal leader said.
"It will not be difficult to do more than he did last year. Last year, he cut 90 per cent of the programs for environment and climate change. Last year, he embarrassed the country with his approach regarding Kyoto on the international stage.
"So I hope we will see some improvement, even though it will stay far from what we really need to do … and if he is willing to improve even a bit what he did last year, this will be very positive."
04 January 2007
Kissing Hank's Ass
Weiners in buns, no condiments....BRILLIANT!
Sound familiar?
Who's Karl?
This is a seven-minute summary of religious belief systems. I've never heard it explained so succinctly.
Thanks to the guys at Nimpsy for making such a great little film! Wonderful!
Sound familiar?
Who's Karl?
This is a seven-minute summary of religious belief systems. I've never heard it explained so succinctly.
Thanks to the guys at Nimpsy for making such a great little film! Wonderful!
Get ready...
2007 likely to be hottest year on record, climate scientists say
Last Updated: Thursday, January 4, 2007 | 2:39 PM ET
CBC News
High levels of greenhouse gases and the reappearance of the cyclical warming trend El Nino make it likely 2007 will go down as the world's hottest year ever recorded, British climate scientists said Thursday.
Britain's Meteorological Office said there is a 60 per cent chance the average surface temperature of the Earth will match or exceed the current record from 1998.
In 1998, the average temperature was 0.52 C over the long-term average of 14 C.
The researchers say the forecast is based on expected greenhouse gas emissions from human activity and the impact of El Nino.
"This new information represents another warning that climate change is happening around the world," the office said.
"Because of the warming due to greenhouse gases, even a moderate warming event is enough to push the global temperatures over the top," said Phil Jones, director of the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia.
El Nino is the name for an abnormal system of warm currents in the Pacific Ocean that periodically shift east and appear off the west coast of South America, causing a disruption in weather patterns around the world. The El Nino phenomenon occurs irregularly, with the last one happening in 2002.
The current El Nino is considered moderate and will continue for the first few months of 2007. It has already been blamed for droughts in Australia and is seen as at least partly responsible for the unseasonable weather conditions throughout much of Canada this winter.
"El Nino is an independent variable," said Jones. "But the underlying trends in the warming of the Earth is almost certainly due to the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."
Last year was the sixth-warmest year on record globally. The world's 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1994 in a temperature record dating back to 1850, according to the United Nations weather agency.
A UN report issued two months ago said greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached record levels in 2005 and were expected to increase in 2006.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide both rose in 2005, the study's authors found.
"There is no sign that [the greenhouse gases] are starting to level off," said World Meteorological Organization climate specialist Geir Braathen. "It looks like it will just continue like this for the foreseeable future."
Under the Kyoto accord that went into effect in 2005, 141 nations have committed to reducing emissions by an average of five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
But the agreement does not include the world's biggest emitter — the United States — and also excludes developing countries like China and India.
Canada, one of the accord's signatories, has also backed out of its Kyoto commitments. In September 2006, then-federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said Canada had no chance of meeting its Kyoto targets.
The Conservative government replaced the Kyoto targets with a Clean Air Act with targets for reducing emissions beginning in 2010.
Looks like it's gonna be a scorcher, folks.
Last Updated: Thursday, January 4, 2007 | 2:39 PM ET
CBC News
High levels of greenhouse gases and the reappearance of the cyclical warming trend El Nino make it likely 2007 will go down as the world's hottest year ever recorded, British climate scientists said Thursday.
Britain's Meteorological Office said there is a 60 per cent chance the average surface temperature of the Earth will match or exceed the current record from 1998.
In 1998, the average temperature was 0.52 C over the long-term average of 14 C.
The researchers say the forecast is based on expected greenhouse gas emissions from human activity and the impact of El Nino.
"This new information represents another warning that climate change is happening around the world," the office said.
"Because of the warming due to greenhouse gases, even a moderate warming event is enough to push the global temperatures over the top," said Phil Jones, director of the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia.
El Nino is the name for an abnormal system of warm currents in the Pacific Ocean that periodically shift east and appear off the west coast of South America, causing a disruption in weather patterns around the world. The El Nino phenomenon occurs irregularly, with the last one happening in 2002.
The current El Nino is considered moderate and will continue for the first few months of 2007. It has already been blamed for droughts in Australia and is seen as at least partly responsible for the unseasonable weather conditions throughout much of Canada this winter.
"El Nino is an independent variable," said Jones. "But the underlying trends in the warming of the Earth is almost certainly due to the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."
Last year was the sixth-warmest year on record globally. The world's 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1994 in a temperature record dating back to 1850, according to the United Nations weather agency.
A UN report issued two months ago said greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached record levels in 2005 and were expected to increase in 2006.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide both rose in 2005, the study's authors found.
"There is no sign that [the greenhouse gases] are starting to level off," said World Meteorological Organization climate specialist Geir Braathen. "It looks like it will just continue like this for the foreseeable future."
Under the Kyoto accord that went into effect in 2005, 141 nations have committed to reducing emissions by an average of five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
But the agreement does not include the world's biggest emitter — the United States — and also excludes developing countries like China and India.
Canada, one of the accord's signatories, has also backed out of its Kyoto commitments. In September 2006, then-federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said Canada had no chance of meeting its Kyoto targets.
The Conservative government replaced the Kyoto targets with a Clean Air Act with targets for reducing emissions beginning in 2010.
Looks like it's gonna be a scorcher, folks.
02 January 2007
The Flying Scotsman
Still no word on a release date--it was supposed to be out on December 29, but is now in financial review again. It's had mixed reviews since its debut at the Edinburgh Film Festival in the fall. I'm happy they picked Jonny Lee Miller to play Graeme Obree. In addition to the fact that I think he's a pretty good actor and easy on the eyes, he's actually athletic and most likely brings credibility to the role. In addition to 'The Flying Scotsman', Miller is also currently working on a movie about the story of the London Marathon, surprisingly called 'Marathon'.
From the Jonny Lee Miller fansite:
SYNOPSIS
The inspiring real-life story of one of Scotland's greatest sporting heroes.
In 1992, Briton Chris Boardman shocked the cycling world when he won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics. It was well known that Britain simply wasn’t capable of producing first-class cyclists, yet Boardman wiped the floor with the competition.
Unemployed Scot, Graeme Obree (Jonny Lee Miller) was just as amazed at Boardman’s success. After all, he had occasionally beaten Boardman. With no prospect of a job, a young baby to feed and a mortgage dragging him ever deeper into debt, Obree - at 27, an old man in cycling terms – decided to have one last attempt to make a living from the sport, spurred on by his friend Malky McGovern (Billy Boyd) and wife Anne (Laura Fraser).
With no money, no sponsor and no backer, Obree decided to build his own bike. Using the boatshed of his friend and confidante, Rev. Douglas Baxter (Brian Cox), Graeme used metal he found in the gutter, bits of an old lock, tubing from a kid’s BMX bike and a cannibalised washing machine. Despite having no technical training, he invented a revolutionary riding position which looked like a downhill skier – by reversing and minimizing the size of the handle bars. He was laughed at wherever he went but had significantly improved the rider’s aerodynamics.
The laughter grew louder when Obree announced that he would make an attempt on cycling’s equivalent of the four-minute mile - The One Hour Record. Unbroken for 10 years, nobody else in the cycling world even dared try it. Whereas Boardman trained with computer-control-led isometric equipment and a support team of bike-builders, pacers, coaches and sponsors, financially-strapped Obree had nobody to help him. He couldn’t even afford a phone....
16 August 2006
JONNY'S NO.1 IN RACY ROLE
Daily Record
Beverley Lyons
JONNY LEE MILLER is so fit after playing ex-cycling champ Graeme Obree that he could compete for real - says the man who knows. Obree's rise to fame and subsequent health problems are told in new film The Flying Scotsman. At its premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival yesterday, Obree said: "Jonny is an exceptional athlete.
"He's more of a runner than a cyclist but I'm sure he'd give me a good run for my money in a biathlon."
Graeme also appears in the biopic - as Miller's body double. Eagle-eyed viewers will spot him as his legs are skinnier than the actor's.
Miller, BAFTA members and a posse of Scots media buffs headed to the capital's Cargo bar for the after-premiere party - but it wasn't to everyone's taste. VIPs had to queue on the terrace for "burgers like the type you get from a van". One showbiz luvvie was heard to moan: "You wouldn't get this in Hollywood."
Edinburgh Festival: The Flying Scotsman
The Herald
MILES FIELDER August 14 2006
The good news, given this film's troubled production, is The Flying Scotsman is a winner. Just as the protagonist of this sports biopic, Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree, had to overcome personal and professional obstacles in order to win the World Cycling Championships twice, so too the film's debuting director Douglas Mackinnon had to wrangle with various financing problems in order to finish his film. It's to Mackinnon and his cast and crew's credit that they managed that, and moreover that the result is a solid piece of film-making and a genuine crowd-pleaser.
Obree, for those who don't know, was an amateur enthusiast who in 1993 broke the world one-hour cycling record. Incredible enough as that athletic feat was, Obree, who ran a failing bike shop in Prestwick and subsequently paid the bills and supported his family working as a cycle courier in Glasgow, achieved it riding a race bike that he designed and built himself – with parts cannibalised from his washing machine. Old Faithful, as Obree called the bike, allowed the cyclist to adopt a new, more aerodynamic riding posture and thus shave off those few crucial seconds from each lap around the velodrome. But Old Faithful brought its designer into conflict with the World Cycling Federation, whose board members didn't appreciate the lack of commercial opportunities it presented (i.e. it couldn't be mass-produced and sold to the public) and went to great lengths to ban Obree from participating in championships.
Mackinnon's film dramatises this underdog story, but it also brings an involving personal dimension. Obree overcame the physical challenges of this gruelling sport and the obstacles placed in his way. But what proved to be his undoing were his personal demons. Haunted by bullying he suffered as a child at school, as an adult Obree suffered from crippling bouts of depression (there's a nicely realised scene in which Obree hallucinates that the bullies' full-grown ringleader pays him a deeply creepy home visit). It's these details that lift the film above the ranks of pedestrian biopic.
Otherwise, The Flying Scotsman is rousing and often very funny. As Obree's eccentric associate Baxter, Brian Cox generates the lion's share of the laughs. Billy Boyd and Laura Fraser, playing Obree's pal/manager and his wife, provide sterling support, and Jonny Lee Miller brings grit (and a fine pair of legs) to the role, crossing the finishing line a winning leading man.
The good news, given this film's troubled production, is The Flying Scotsman is a winner. Just as the protagonist of this sports biopic, Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree, had to overcome personal and professional obstacles in order to win the World Cycling Championships twice, so too the film's debuting director Douglas Mackinnon had to wrangle with various financing problems in order to finish his film. It's to Mackinnon and his cast and crew's credit that they managed that, and moreover that the result is a solid piece of film-making and a genuine crowd-pleaser.
Obree, for those who don't know, was an amateur enthusiast who in 1993 broke the world one-hour cycling record. Incredible enough as that athletic feat was, Obree, who ran a failing bike shop in Prestwick and subsequently paid the bills and supported his family working as a cycle courier in Glasgow, achieved it riding a race bike that he designed and built himself – with parts cannibalised from his washing machine. Old Faithful, as Obree called the bike, allowed the cyclist to adopt a new, more aerodynamic riding posture and thus shave off those few crucial seconds from each lap around the velodrome. But Old Faithful brought its designer into conflict with the World Cycling Federation, whose board members didn't appreciate the lack of commercial opportunities it presented (i.e. it couldn't be mass-produced and sold to the public) and went to great lengths to ban Obree from participating in championships.
Mackinnon's film dramatises this underdog story, but it also brings an involving personal dimension. Obree overcame the physical challenges of this gruelling sport and the obstacles placed in his way. But what proved to be his undoing were his personal demons. Haunted by bullying he suffered as a child at school, as an adult Obree suffered from crippling bouts of depression (there's a nicely realised scene in which Obree hallucinates that the bullies' full-grown ringleader pays him a deeply creepy home visit). It's these details that lift the film above the ranks of pedestrian biopic.
Otherwise, The Flying Scotsman is rousing and often very funny. As Obree's eccentric associate Baxter, Brian Cox generates the lion's share of the laughs. Billy Boyd and Laura Fraser, playing Obree's pal/manager and his wife, provide sterling support, and Jonny Lee Miller brings grit (and a fine pair of legs) to the role, crossing the finishing line a winning leading man.
Mackinnon's movie completes cycle
GARETH EDWARDS (gedwards@edinburghnews.com)
Scotsman.com
IT is an incredible story of determination to succeed against the odds, to push forward all the way to the finish line no matter what obstacles were put in the way.
Years of work, problems with funding, gruelling preparations, injuries, scandals, all of these dogged the task, but despite that no one involved gave up hope. And now as The Flying Scotsman prepares to get its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the end could finally be in sight.
For director Douglas Mackinnon, the process of bringing Graeme Obree's stirring success-story to the screen bears an uncanny resemblance to the struggles of the film's protagonist.
Despite being an amateur cyclist, lacking the funding and support of professionals, despite suffering bad falls early in his career and despite making his own bike out of parts of his washing machine, Obree stunned the cycling world in 1993. On "Old Faithful" and with his own unique cycling position, the tuck, Obree broke the world hour distance record, held for nine years by Francesco Moser. The feat is even more incredible as he had initially failed, but despite recommendations that he should rest for a few weeks, tried for the record again the next day and succeeded.
In bringing his story to the big screen with his first feature film, 45-year-old Mackinnon had to show similar strength of character. He was just weeks away from the original start of shooting on the film four years ago, when one of its main backers tragically died and the plug was pulled. It was three years before the funding was again in place and shooting was able to start, with Jonny Lee Miller in the title role and the crew filming at locations around Scotland and at velodromes in Germany. After the long struggle to get the shoot underway, Mackinnon then almost saw the whole thing collapse in front of him on the first day of shooting the main cycling sections of the film.
"Jonny had a really bad crash on his bike," he says. "You have to understand that these bikes have no brakes and the riders are strapped in, so there's only two ways of coming off them - you are either caught or you fall and Jonny fell. He was going really fast and everyone there, about 300 people, just gasped and went silent, apart from Graeme. He just said 'Now you're a real cyclist' ."
Fortunately for all concerned the actor was OK - "He had a really nasty wound on his leg, but he was actually quite proud of it" - and the shoot continued. Despite now being 40 years old, Obree, a technical advisor on the film, is still competing and winning regularly, and also did some stunt double work during the cycling shoots - "he's still incredibly fit" revealed Mackinnon.
But there was one moment that he didn't want to relive again. "He had a few nasty falls in his time and we wanted to show that, so we got in a stuntman," recalls Mackinnon. "Unfortunately there's no real way to fake something like that, so we had to have him fall quite badly. It looked horrible, but he was fine."
Following the gruelling shoot, the film was again hit by financial problems after the production company behind the project, Mel Films Limited, went in to administration, with many of the cast and crew still owed wages. The director managed to secure another £450,000 to finish post-production on the movie, but it has still to find a distributor. Despite this Mackinnon has never given up and is delighted with the support the Film Festival has shown for the movie.
"Shane Danielsen actually saw the finished film before I did," he says. "I had seen it all at various stages, but it had only just been put together when he arranged a screening. He loved it though, and obviously it's a fantastic sign of support from the Film Festival to choose us as the opening night film."
That support may lead to the film festival's gala event being disrupted by protests from cast and crew members still owed payment for their part in the film. But while Mackinnon, who himself is owed money from the production, has great sympathy for them, he believes they would be more sensible to stay away.
"The only way we can get the money back is for this film to be a success, so anything that could harm the chances of that would be counter-productive," he says.
"It's really hard for these guys, because they worked for a long time on the project, and Graeme Obree and I are still owed money, but there is no pot of gold to pay everyone.
"But Edinburgh is one of the best places in the world to find a distributor, so I am very hopeful. Last year Tsotsi came with no distributor and went on to get a release and win an Oscar, so I'd be happy with half that success!"
After his record success, Obree went on to win a host of awards, including the individual pursuit World Championship in 1993 and 1995, despite having the tuck and another cycling position, the superman, banned by governing bodies. If The Flying Scotsman goes on to pick up awards and recoup its costs, it would be a triumph against the odds fitting of the great man himself.
'Flying Scotsman' defies gravity
Variety
By ADAM DAWTREYWHEN THE EDINBURGH INTL. FILM FESTIVAL opens Aug. 14 with the world premiere of Douglas Mackinnon's debut movie "The Flying Scotsman," it will mark the climax of an extraordinary odyssey for the filmmakers.
What makes "The Flying Scotsman" unusual is not the 12 years it took to get made, nor the number of times the project collapsed and was resurrected before the cameras finally rolled last year.
No, what's remarkable is that the film, with a paper budget of $11 million, seems to have been made out of thin air, with no visible financing in place and no obvious producer (despite the 10 named in the credits). This is a movie that never got greenlit, never had a completion bond, never closed its finance, went into administration (the U.K. equivalent of Chapter 11) during post-production and still hasn't paid half its bills.
"It was a blooding beyond bloody for me," says Mackinnon. "Everyone tells me it's the worst scenario in terms of the politics and the money that they've ever come across."
"In hindsight, everyone was completely bonkers," says one industry veteran who was centrally involved in the project, but requests anonymity to spare his professional blushes. Yet the word from those who have had a sneak preview is that the movie might, just might, deliver on the crowd-pleasing, heart-warming promise that led one participant to pitch it as " 'Shine' on a bike." Certainly, Edinburgh topper Shane Danielsen has made a big statement of faith by opening his festival with the film.
"The Flying Scotsman" is the true story of Graham Obree, the amateur Scottish cyclist who built his own bike out of washing machine parts and rode it to gold at the world championships, despite battling mental illness and hostility from the sport's authorities. This classic triumph-from-adversity story attracted screenwriter Simon Rose in 1994. He hooked up with "Rob Roy" producer Peter Broughan, with Mackinnon eventually coming aboard to direct and Jonny Lee Miller to play Obree. In 2002, the death of a key American investor caused the project to collapse just days before it was due to start shooting. It took three years to pull it back together again. By then, Broughan had been joined by Damita Nikapota, a mysterious trans-Atlantic producer who sometimes used the pseudonym Sean Murphy. While negotiating with financiers, Nikapota secured pre-production cash flow from specialist outfit Freewheel, headed by Sara Giles. Broughan fell out spectacularly with Mackinnon and tried to fire him, but Mackinnon refused to walk and cameras rolled last July. It's not unusual for indie pics to start lensing before all the paperwork is finished. But in this case, although there seemed to be financing proposals on the table, the sums never quite added up.
"It was only during editing that it became blatantly obvious the producers couldn't close the financing," Giles says. Everyone involved, from Obree himself to Strathclyde Police, was owed money, but there was nothing in the pot. Giles decided the only way the creditors, including herself, would stand any chance of being repaid was to finish the film. That meant taking the production company into administration, and putting up more of her own money. Her eventual cash outlay topped $4 million.
"I inadvertently became the adoptive mother of the film," Giles says. "I want people to understand that I was not the financier who had let everyone down. I'm the single largest creditor. Everyone is owed something, but the only person who has not been paid a penny is me."
"It's only because of Sarah's faith in the film and her risk-taking that we're here today," testifies Mackinnon, who edited at night while shooting a TV show by day to pay his bills. All hopes now rest on how the film plays at its world premiere. A new sales agent will be announced imminently, and any distribution deals will be used to repay the debts. Now that really would be a triumph from adversity to rival Obree's own remarkable story.
MILLER DOESN'T HAVE THE LEGS FOR ACTING ROLE
ContactMusic.com
JONNY LEE MILLER's intensive training regime failed to prepare him for his role as cycling legend GRAEME OBREE in biopic THE FLYING SCOTSMAN, and the real life Obree was eventually brought in as a stunt double.
MILLER was thrilled to play the hero who rode a bike made out of washing machine parts to break the world hour-record in the 1990s, but was left embarrassed when his leg muscles didn't make the grade.
Obree says, "I'm the legs in the movie but Jonny did well.
"The film was a great experience and the scale of the thing was amazing. It's great to have a film made about your life and it's going to look really good."
From the Jonny Lee Miller fansite:
SYNOPSIS
The inspiring real-life story of one of Scotland's greatest sporting heroes.
In 1992, Briton Chris Boardman shocked the cycling world when he won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics. It was well known that Britain simply wasn’t capable of producing first-class cyclists, yet Boardman wiped the floor with the competition.
Unemployed Scot, Graeme Obree (Jonny Lee Miller) was just as amazed at Boardman’s success. After all, he had occasionally beaten Boardman. With no prospect of a job, a young baby to feed and a mortgage dragging him ever deeper into debt, Obree - at 27, an old man in cycling terms – decided to have one last attempt to make a living from the sport, spurred on by his friend Malky McGovern (Billy Boyd) and wife Anne (Laura Fraser).
With no money, no sponsor and no backer, Obree decided to build his own bike. Using the boatshed of his friend and confidante, Rev. Douglas Baxter (Brian Cox), Graeme used metal he found in the gutter, bits of an old lock, tubing from a kid’s BMX bike and a cannibalised washing machine. Despite having no technical training, he invented a revolutionary riding position which looked like a downhill skier – by reversing and minimizing the size of the handle bars. He was laughed at wherever he went but had significantly improved the rider’s aerodynamics.
The laughter grew louder when Obree announced that he would make an attempt on cycling’s equivalent of the four-minute mile - The One Hour Record. Unbroken for 10 years, nobody else in the cycling world even dared try it. Whereas Boardman trained with computer-control-led isometric equipment and a support team of bike-builders, pacers, coaches and sponsors, financially-strapped Obree had nobody to help him. He couldn’t even afford a phone....
16 August 2006
JONNY'S NO.1 IN RACY ROLE
Daily Record
Beverley Lyons
JONNY LEE MILLER is so fit after playing ex-cycling champ Graeme Obree that he could compete for real - says the man who knows. Obree's rise to fame and subsequent health problems are told in new film The Flying Scotsman. At its premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival yesterday, Obree said: "Jonny is an exceptional athlete.
"He's more of a runner than a cyclist but I'm sure he'd give me a good run for my money in a biathlon."
Graeme also appears in the biopic - as Miller's body double. Eagle-eyed viewers will spot him as his legs are skinnier than the actor's.
Miller, BAFTA members and a posse of Scots media buffs headed to the capital's Cargo bar for the after-premiere party - but it wasn't to everyone's taste. VIPs had to queue on the terrace for "burgers like the type you get from a van". One showbiz luvvie was heard to moan: "You wouldn't get this in Hollywood."
Edinburgh Festival: The Flying Scotsman
The Herald
MILES FIELDER August 14 2006
The good news, given this film's troubled production, is The Flying Scotsman is a winner. Just as the protagonist of this sports biopic, Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree, had to overcome personal and professional obstacles in order to win the World Cycling Championships twice, so too the film's debuting director Douglas Mackinnon had to wrangle with various financing problems in order to finish his film. It's to Mackinnon and his cast and crew's credit that they managed that, and moreover that the result is a solid piece of film-making and a genuine crowd-pleaser.
Obree, for those who don't know, was an amateur enthusiast who in 1993 broke the world one-hour cycling record. Incredible enough as that athletic feat was, Obree, who ran a failing bike shop in Prestwick and subsequently paid the bills and supported his family working as a cycle courier in Glasgow, achieved it riding a race bike that he designed and built himself – with parts cannibalised from his washing machine. Old Faithful, as Obree called the bike, allowed the cyclist to adopt a new, more aerodynamic riding posture and thus shave off those few crucial seconds from each lap around the velodrome. But Old Faithful brought its designer into conflict with the World Cycling Federation, whose board members didn't appreciate the lack of commercial opportunities it presented (i.e. it couldn't be mass-produced and sold to the public) and went to great lengths to ban Obree from participating in championships.
Mackinnon's film dramatises this underdog story, but it also brings an involving personal dimension. Obree overcame the physical challenges of this gruelling sport and the obstacles placed in his way. But what proved to be his undoing were his personal demons. Haunted by bullying he suffered as a child at school, as an adult Obree suffered from crippling bouts of depression (there's a nicely realised scene in which Obree hallucinates that the bullies' full-grown ringleader pays him a deeply creepy home visit). It's these details that lift the film above the ranks of pedestrian biopic.
Otherwise, The Flying Scotsman is rousing and often very funny. As Obree's eccentric associate Baxter, Brian Cox generates the lion's share of the laughs. Billy Boyd and Laura Fraser, playing Obree's pal/manager and his wife, provide sterling support, and Jonny Lee Miller brings grit (and a fine pair of legs) to the role, crossing the finishing line a winning leading man.
The good news, given this film's troubled production, is The Flying Scotsman is a winner. Just as the protagonist of this sports biopic, Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree, had to overcome personal and professional obstacles in order to win the World Cycling Championships twice, so too the film's debuting director Douglas Mackinnon had to wrangle with various financing problems in order to finish his film. It's to Mackinnon and his cast and crew's credit that they managed that, and moreover that the result is a solid piece of film-making and a genuine crowd-pleaser.
Obree, for those who don't know, was an amateur enthusiast who in 1993 broke the world one-hour cycling record. Incredible enough as that athletic feat was, Obree, who ran a failing bike shop in Prestwick and subsequently paid the bills and supported his family working as a cycle courier in Glasgow, achieved it riding a race bike that he designed and built himself – with parts cannibalised from his washing machine. Old Faithful, as Obree called the bike, allowed the cyclist to adopt a new, more aerodynamic riding posture and thus shave off those few crucial seconds from each lap around the velodrome. But Old Faithful brought its designer into conflict with the World Cycling Federation, whose board members didn't appreciate the lack of commercial opportunities it presented (i.e. it couldn't be mass-produced and sold to the public) and went to great lengths to ban Obree from participating in championships.
Mackinnon's film dramatises this underdog story, but it also brings an involving personal dimension. Obree overcame the physical challenges of this gruelling sport and the obstacles placed in his way. But what proved to be his undoing were his personal demons. Haunted by bullying he suffered as a child at school, as an adult Obree suffered from crippling bouts of depression (there's a nicely realised scene in which Obree hallucinates that the bullies' full-grown ringleader pays him a deeply creepy home visit). It's these details that lift the film above the ranks of pedestrian biopic.
Otherwise, The Flying Scotsman is rousing and often very funny. As Obree's eccentric associate Baxter, Brian Cox generates the lion's share of the laughs. Billy Boyd and Laura Fraser, playing Obree's pal/manager and his wife, provide sterling support, and Jonny Lee Miller brings grit (and a fine pair of legs) to the role, crossing the finishing line a winning leading man.
Mackinnon's movie completes cycle
GARETH EDWARDS (gedwards@edinburghnews.com)
Scotsman.com
IT is an incredible story of determination to succeed against the odds, to push forward all the way to the finish line no matter what obstacles were put in the way.
Years of work, problems with funding, gruelling preparations, injuries, scandals, all of these dogged the task, but despite that no one involved gave up hope. And now as The Flying Scotsman prepares to get its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the end could finally be in sight.
For director Douglas Mackinnon, the process of bringing Graeme Obree's stirring success-story to the screen bears an uncanny resemblance to the struggles of the film's protagonist.
Despite being an amateur cyclist, lacking the funding and support of professionals, despite suffering bad falls early in his career and despite making his own bike out of parts of his washing machine, Obree stunned the cycling world in 1993. On "Old Faithful" and with his own unique cycling position, the tuck, Obree broke the world hour distance record, held for nine years by Francesco Moser. The feat is even more incredible as he had initially failed, but despite recommendations that he should rest for a few weeks, tried for the record again the next day and succeeded.
In bringing his story to the big screen with his first feature film, 45-year-old Mackinnon had to show similar strength of character. He was just weeks away from the original start of shooting on the film four years ago, when one of its main backers tragically died and the plug was pulled. It was three years before the funding was again in place and shooting was able to start, with Jonny Lee Miller in the title role and the crew filming at locations around Scotland and at velodromes in Germany. After the long struggle to get the shoot underway, Mackinnon then almost saw the whole thing collapse in front of him on the first day of shooting the main cycling sections of the film.
"Jonny had a really bad crash on his bike," he says. "You have to understand that these bikes have no brakes and the riders are strapped in, so there's only two ways of coming off them - you are either caught or you fall and Jonny fell. He was going really fast and everyone there, about 300 people, just gasped and went silent, apart from Graeme. He just said 'Now you're a real cyclist' ."
Fortunately for all concerned the actor was OK - "He had a really nasty wound on his leg, but he was actually quite proud of it" - and the shoot continued. Despite now being 40 years old, Obree, a technical advisor on the film, is still competing and winning regularly, and also did some stunt double work during the cycling shoots - "he's still incredibly fit" revealed Mackinnon.
But there was one moment that he didn't want to relive again. "He had a few nasty falls in his time and we wanted to show that, so we got in a stuntman," recalls Mackinnon. "Unfortunately there's no real way to fake something like that, so we had to have him fall quite badly. It looked horrible, but he was fine."
Following the gruelling shoot, the film was again hit by financial problems after the production company behind the project, Mel Films Limited, went in to administration, with many of the cast and crew still owed wages. The director managed to secure another £450,000 to finish post-production on the movie, but it has still to find a distributor. Despite this Mackinnon has never given up and is delighted with the support the Film Festival has shown for the movie.
"Shane Danielsen actually saw the finished film before I did," he says. "I had seen it all at various stages, but it had only just been put together when he arranged a screening. He loved it though, and obviously it's a fantastic sign of support from the Film Festival to choose us as the opening night film."
That support may lead to the film festival's gala event being disrupted by protests from cast and crew members still owed payment for their part in the film. But while Mackinnon, who himself is owed money from the production, has great sympathy for them, he believes they would be more sensible to stay away.
"The only way we can get the money back is for this film to be a success, so anything that could harm the chances of that would be counter-productive," he says.
"It's really hard for these guys, because they worked for a long time on the project, and Graeme Obree and I are still owed money, but there is no pot of gold to pay everyone.
"But Edinburgh is one of the best places in the world to find a distributor, so I am very hopeful. Last year Tsotsi came with no distributor and went on to get a release and win an Oscar, so I'd be happy with half that success!"
After his record success, Obree went on to win a host of awards, including the individual pursuit World Championship in 1993 and 1995, despite having the tuck and another cycling position, the superman, banned by governing bodies. If The Flying Scotsman goes on to pick up awards and recoup its costs, it would be a triumph against the odds fitting of the great man himself.
'Flying Scotsman' defies gravity
Variety
By ADAM DAWTREYWHEN THE EDINBURGH INTL. FILM FESTIVAL opens Aug. 14 with the world premiere of Douglas Mackinnon's debut movie "The Flying Scotsman," it will mark the climax of an extraordinary odyssey for the filmmakers.
What makes "The Flying Scotsman" unusual is not the 12 years it took to get made, nor the number of times the project collapsed and was resurrected before the cameras finally rolled last year.
No, what's remarkable is that the film, with a paper budget of $11 million, seems to have been made out of thin air, with no visible financing in place and no obvious producer (despite the 10 named in the credits). This is a movie that never got greenlit, never had a completion bond, never closed its finance, went into administration (the U.K. equivalent of Chapter 11) during post-production and still hasn't paid half its bills.
"It was a blooding beyond bloody for me," says Mackinnon. "Everyone tells me it's the worst scenario in terms of the politics and the money that they've ever come across."
"In hindsight, everyone was completely bonkers," says one industry veteran who was centrally involved in the project, but requests anonymity to spare his professional blushes. Yet the word from those who have had a sneak preview is that the movie might, just might, deliver on the crowd-pleasing, heart-warming promise that led one participant to pitch it as " 'Shine' on a bike." Certainly, Edinburgh topper Shane Danielsen has made a big statement of faith by opening his festival with the film.
"The Flying Scotsman" is the true story of Graham Obree, the amateur Scottish cyclist who built his own bike out of washing machine parts and rode it to gold at the world championships, despite battling mental illness and hostility from the sport's authorities. This classic triumph-from-adversity story attracted screenwriter Simon Rose in 1994. He hooked up with "Rob Roy" producer Peter Broughan, with Mackinnon eventually coming aboard to direct and Jonny Lee Miller to play Obree. In 2002, the death of a key American investor caused the project to collapse just days before it was due to start shooting. It took three years to pull it back together again. By then, Broughan had been joined by Damita Nikapota, a mysterious trans-Atlantic producer who sometimes used the pseudonym Sean Murphy. While negotiating with financiers, Nikapota secured pre-production cash flow from specialist outfit Freewheel, headed by Sara Giles. Broughan fell out spectacularly with Mackinnon and tried to fire him, but Mackinnon refused to walk and cameras rolled last July. It's not unusual for indie pics to start lensing before all the paperwork is finished. But in this case, although there seemed to be financing proposals on the table, the sums never quite added up.
"It was only during editing that it became blatantly obvious the producers couldn't close the financing," Giles says. Everyone involved, from Obree himself to Strathclyde Police, was owed money, but there was nothing in the pot. Giles decided the only way the creditors, including herself, would stand any chance of being repaid was to finish the film. That meant taking the production company into administration, and putting up more of her own money. Her eventual cash outlay topped $4 million.
"I inadvertently became the adoptive mother of the film," Giles says. "I want people to understand that I was not the financier who had let everyone down. I'm the single largest creditor. Everyone is owed something, but the only person who has not been paid a penny is me."
"It's only because of Sarah's faith in the film and her risk-taking that we're here today," testifies Mackinnon, who edited at night while shooting a TV show by day to pay his bills. All hopes now rest on how the film plays at its world premiere. A new sales agent will be announced imminently, and any distribution deals will be used to repay the debts. Now that really would be a triumph from adversity to rival Obree's own remarkable story.
MILLER DOESN'T HAVE THE LEGS FOR ACTING ROLE
ContactMusic.com
JONNY LEE MILLER's intensive training regime failed to prepare him for his role as cycling legend GRAEME OBREE in biopic THE FLYING SCOTSMAN, and the real life Obree was eventually brought in as a stunt double.
MILLER was thrilled to play the hero who rode a bike made out of washing machine parts to break the world hour-record in the 1990s, but was left embarrassed when his leg muscles didn't make the grade.
Obree says, "I'm the legs in the movie but Jonny did well.
"The film was a great experience and the scale of the thing was amazing. It's great to have a film made about your life and it's going to look really good."
Giant Bicycles 6 Days of Burnaby
First Big Event of 2007
2007 will barely be a day old when some of the best track racers in North America will come to race at the Giant Bicycles 6 Days of Burnaby running from January 2 to 7. The Elite men’s 6 Day will be the marquee event with seven, two-man teams vying for a $3000 prize purse.
Highlighting the field will be five Symmetrics riders spread within three teams. Reigning Canadian National Champion Madison pairing Cam Evans and Christian Meier, Symmetrics gold and silver individual pursuit winners Svein Tuft and Zach Bell, and 2006 Burnaby 6 Day winner Marsh Cooper who will be paired with 16 year old star on the rise Cody Campbell of dEVo. Protour team Cofidis will be represented with Tyler Farrar pairing up with Northwest track legend Kenny Williams. National teams from the US and Canada will also be represented in the respective pairings of Cody O’Reilly/Austin Carroll and Martin Gilbert/“Fly’n” Ryan McKenzie. The final Elite team will be no less spectacular with newly crowned U-23 champions Daniel Harm of the US and Adrian Hegyvary of Hungary.
These seven teams will race a variety of three to five events each night including the Madison event with total laps gained and points scored determining the overall winners. While these endurance riders will be the highlight the best sprinters in Canada have been assembled to provide spectators with some extreme top end speed.
Cam MacKinnon, Matt Barlee, and “Supersonic” Monique Sullivan will highlight the sprint events. These three along with a bevy of young speedsters and experienced sprinters will tackle events such as the Electric Coast Urban Bicycle paced keirin where riders literally battle by any means for the best position behind the pacer as speeds increase to 50 kph and riders are left to sprint the remaining 500m at top speed. There will also be a round robin sprint tournament with each rider facing no less than nine maximum sprints in the morning with the winner potentially riding thirteen sprints in one day.
The 2007 Giant Bicycles 6 Days of Burnaby is not exclusively about the professional riders as there are races for A, B and C level riders as well as new racers, juniors, couriers, and women. The event will be run in the tradition of European 6 Day races with hot food, beverages, and a live DJ spinning tunes. Racing at the Burnaby Velodrome on 7564 Barnet Hwy begins January 2, 3, 4 at 7PM, January 5 at 6PM and at 10AM on January 6 and 7. For more details and a full schedule please visit www.burnabyvelodrome.ca.
This event is proudly supported by Giant Bicycle of Canada, Mercedes-Benz Canada, Karma Metal Works, ATAC Sports Wear, Pedal Magazine, and Roadie.ca. Food and beverages are being provided by the Mark James Group, Anducci’s Restaurant, and Booster Juice. DJ tunes are being provided by Vinyl Records of Vancouver. Nightly feature events are being brought to you by La Bicicletta, South Shore Cycle, Cap’s Westwood Cycle, and Electric Coast Urban Vehicle Co.
01 January 2007
2007
Happy new year, everyone. We are slowly getting mobile around the house again after another great party last night. As predicted (...well, I might add), despite the large number of people who didn't respond to the E-vite we sent out before Xmas, we figured for a group of approximately 25-30 friends to show up on Sunday night and we were pretty close to correct. A few groups showed up for a few cheers enroute to their next engagement, and we even had some show up after the midnight hour on their way home after their main party! In attendance were the irrepressable regular crew....thanks for coming guys! As well as a few pleasant surprises, like Dennon, Dan and Harri, Dennis and Curtis. It was great to see Mr. Plant (the only Synergy rep for the evening) as well as Patrick and Roger, Robert, Michel, Lynn, James and Shelley, Graeme and Ericka. It was good to meet Amber's new man Kevin and their friend Stefan. I'm so glad all of you guys came!
Joe didn't get off of work until 10:30 or so, so I was busy playing sole host for the earlier part of the evening and the camera didn't honestly get out as much as it should have that evening. I have a few pictures, but not many. As well, if this is a sign of things to come (oops), I was in the bathroom taking a whiz at the stroke of midnight! How's that for timing??? I hope it's not foreboding of my racing year...
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