March 12 Edmonton Headlines
It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote on that dirty van. (Photo: Derjis)
Happy Friday to you, my little Edmonton.
As was widely, widely, widely expected, the Alberta government has backtracked on its royalty rate hike (though, they’ve sort of cut some slack over the last few years) and is trying to spur more oil and gas investment.
Guess what? If a company’s business is oil and gas I can pretty much guarantee they are going to be coming for your oil and gas. Especially since Alberta isn’t a dangerous, war-zone kind of place or a nationalized energy jurisdiction. Our resource eh…
I’ll just put this soapbox back in the closet and we can get on with things. There’s some opinion on this in the Journal and Sun links, below.
Oh, I should mention the big, breaking story today is happening in the west end. Stay tuned to Twitter for real-time updates on the shooting.
from the Edmonton Journal:
Cost of borrowing for City of Edmonton projects up to $46M
Edmonton mulls reserved LRT parking (I’ve about had enough of Edmonton’s newsrooms having city hall “mull” things. This is becoming overused.)
Calgary may share public transit money
Website under attack (Is Edmonton Stories a waste of your money?)
Will royalty cuts placate oilpatch?
Who’s driving the royalty bus?
Alberta economy trails national growth rate
Edmonton’s Union expands (Not an actual union, you union-busters.)
Satirical anti-grizzly campaign launched in Alberta (Who doesn’t want to throw chainsaws and ATVs at bears?)
Katz’s fortune slips: Forbes Magazine (How surreal must it be to lose $100-million and not even really have to change anything?)
from the Edmonton Sun:
Parents voice concernd over possible school closure
from Metro Edmonton:
Fighters bringing mayhem to city (This just makes me think of the movie Kickboxer. The first one, not its sub-par sequels.)
from 630CHED/iNews880:
Capital Region plan gets provincial approval (Now, let’s all just get along.)
Candle light vigil at the ‘Ledge
Time to test your smoke alarm (It’s Sparky!)
from CBC Edmonton:
Seniors protest MacEwan pool closure
from CTV Edmonton:
Baby Isaiah taken off life-support, passes away in Edmonton hospital (When I was putting together the headlines yesterday I saw that a court appearance about Isaiah’s life-support was canceled. Something told me his parents wouldn’t have stopped the fight without a big reason…)
The Valley Zoo has another death on its hands. This time it’s a dead addax (think Antelope) at the zoo. This is the second animal to pass this year. But since this one isn’t cute like a meerkat we don’t know if it even had a name.
Wow, today kind of had a bunch of depressing news. Sorry to be such a downer.
So, how about I try to lighten the mood with a little self-promotion.
You found us!
If you could read my mind...you'd know that I wasn't dead. Oopsie by Canwest. (Great screen grab by ChrisD.ca)
What a day on the Interweb tubes!
First, there was the big Laura Secord story this morning. It’s back in Canadian hands, but we (people on Twitter) discovered that this chocolate has left town.
Thank goodness we have the awesome chocolate of Kerstin and Sweet Lollapalooza to fill our bellies. If it gets cold again I think some drinking chocolate from Kerstin’s is in order… (We’ve also been chatting up Edmonton chocolate spots at our Facebook page.)
Then, this afternoon, Gordon Lightfoot died. For about 25 minutes. Online only.
I love how people are blaming Twitter, an inanimate social media platform, for the rumours. Unless the machines are about to take over I don’t think “Twitter” was spreading rumours. I think people were. And they were using Twitter as they would their voice, e-mail or a pen and paper. Oh, and once you mix in some major news outlets, you get why this can spread. (Check the screen capture, from Winnipeg blog Chris D.ca, above.)
Where’s TMZ when you need them? Can Shaw buy that too?
But…onto what I actually wanted to ask you: How’d you get here?
I’ve recently aquired a sweet new BlackBerry, and my venture into the realm of smartphones has been great. I just got an RSS feed reader and I’ve never been more on top of my blog reading!
I also noticed, in our own visit stats (now Edmonton’s 93rd favourite blog), that more people are coming to our website and our stories via our RSS feed rather than just plunking theedmontonian.com into a browser. That blew me away! Until I got my feed reader.
So, I’m just curious, are you coming to the website directly, following links off Twitter, catching up with us on Facebook or waiting for your RSS reader to alert you?
There are no wrong answers. Heck, you could even be doing some combination of all of that.
But I want answers, Edmonton!
RIP Muriel
I’ve got some sad news to pass along, Edmonton.
One of the Valley Zoo’s mainstays, in their own meerkat manor, is no longer with us. Muriel, The Meerkat has died. Rather, she was put down on January 6.
Muriel was 14, which is quite old for the feisty animals.
She actually lived most of her life in the zoo’s administration building (likely doing data entrey and working overtime on weekends) because she was being picked on by the other meerkats.
The City says if you’d like to honour Muriel you can make a donation to the Zoo’s Makira Conservation Fund c/o Edmonton Valley Zoo, P.O. Box 2359, Edmonton, T5J 2R7.
1995-2010 (Photo: CoE)
