Mock Turtle

The whole fuss about BPA in water bottles and baby bottles is making me crazy.

First, there is no good science that shows any deleterious effects in humans at normal levels of BPA consumption.

Second, it’s pretty hard to make polycarbonate water bottles (or baby bottles, for that matter) leach much BPA. Hard plastics like polycarbonate are pretty stable. You have to heat them up for a good while before you’ll get any significant BPA out of them — and even then, the amount that leaches is well under the recommended consumption limit.

Third, bottles are a wildly minor source of estrogenic compounds. That white stuff that lines cans of food, including baby formula? Full of BPA, and cans leach much more than polycarbonate baby bottles. Also, meat, soy, and lots of herbs and vegetables. But I don’t see anyone banning tofu or soymilk or celery or tinned tomatoes. Quite the opposite: the soymilk-and-tofu crowd have been loudly demanding action on polycarbonate bottles. Soymilk in a stainless-steel sippy cup isn’t exactly the improvement, estrogenically speaking, that they think it is.

But most importantly, it’s yet another example of worrying about the wrong thing — a ban on BPA-containing baby bottle is a small and pointless trick that gives the illusion of action and control, designed to make us happy while distracting us from the bigger issue. BPA is not the issue. The issue here is that we’re eating the wrong things because our system of food production is focused on “products”, not on food — and most definitely not on health. But it’s so much easier to take advantage of people’s poor risk-assessment skills to pick on one unfamiliar, unpronounceable chemical than it is to even mention that maybe, just maybe, we should do something about the way we produce and consume food.

2 Comments »

Canadian gas prices have risen (though they haven’t kept pace with the increase in crude oil), and by enough, apparently, to drive some change in behaviour. Unless, of course, someone steps in to subsidize the high cost of commuting. A story in today’s Careers section in the Globe outlines how some employers are responding to the pressure on their workers:

“Thanks to my company, the price of gas doesn’t bother me at all,” Ms. Byer says. “I can just imagine commuters in their cars thinking: ‘I wish our company had a van pool, too.’ “

Now, Enbridge employee Ms. Byer shares a van from cottage country to her office in Toronto for her 160-kilometre commute. Yes, 160 kilometres. It’s certainly better that several long distance commuters are in one vehicle, but it doesn’t negate the environmental damage caused by employing people who don’t live in the same municipality.

Another company’s assistance is even more destructive:

Douglas Adams became a hero last month when he decided to pay for the gas his employees use to commute. “It’s been an outcry of bravos, thank-yous and hugs. One employee who drives 60 miles a day each way even broke down and cried,” the chief executive officer of engineering parts distributor EFC International in St. Louis, Mo., says of the response to his offer last month.

He’ll be sharing his gift of unremitting emissions with Southern Ontario next month later this year, when he opens an office in Hamilton.

The article also features companies that are doing more environmentally-friendly things, such as encouraging working from home, providing bicycle storage and showers, etc. But here’s an idea that could make all of these innovations unnecessary: why don’t companies restrict hiring to people who live in the same Census Metropolitan Area? Lower commuting costs for employees, no subsidies required from employers, less smog — win, win, win.

10 Comments »

From an interview with Jeff Bezos:

Portfolio: Are you always extremely methodical about major decisions?

Bezos: With business decisions, yes. With personal decisions, I find that my methodical nature can confuse me, and so I think more about personal decisions, like what job you really want to take or whom you want to marry. Although I did have criteria for that.

Portfolio: You had a list for a spouse?

Bezos: I kind of did. It was a short list. I wanted a woman who could get me out of a third-world prison. It was really just a visualization for resourcefulness, because people who are not resourceful drive me bananas.

2 Comments »

2 Comments »

Rudyard Griffiths of the Dominion Institute, who has become a pundit-for-all-seasons, sees gloom ahead:

While the fear of a recession seems like the last thing on the mind of the average Torontonian, I for one cannot figure out how the Ontario economy can avoid a prolonged economic turndown, and most likely a nasty one at that.

Rudyard, you’re not alone. But for another take, perennially upbeat Doug Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO has just issued yet another numbered lists of reasons the Canadian economy won’t follow the U.S. into recession (leaving aside the possibility that some areas, namely Ontario, already have). The spin is in overdrive this time, as Doug’s usual list of four to five easily attacked assertions about the economy have now expanded to a top ten.

I won’t reproduce the entire list here — anyone interested can follow the link. It’s worth noting that “strong commodity prices” and “superpowerful, though almost imperceptible personal tax cuts” aren’t on the new list. Number one is “low inflation”, which Canada is certainly (if selectively) experiencing now, but will fail to be shielded by once the year-over-year numbers start comparing to last fall, when the Canadian dollar approached parity.

And number 10 is, as always, healthy housing markets. Sales across Canada are down by double-digits, and inventory has soared. Prices continue to march upward, though, which is a sign that more higher-end homes are selling as lower-income buyers are pushed out of the market. That explains continued price wars in central Toronto neighbourhoods, for example — as does the 40-year amortization product that expands affordability where it would otherwise have ceased to exist.

But ultimately, that’s a problem. Let’s not forget the housing market needs plankton as well as big fish.

No Comments »

Ran across this interesting little tidbit from the April 19 Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has given up its push for an international ban on sales of uranium-enrichment technology to nonnuclear states, a move that will complicate its nuclear diplomacy toward both Iran and India, and could open the way for a wave of new entrants into the enrichment club.

The concession was made under heavy pressure from Canada, which wants the right to build uranium-enrichment plants to export the lucrative enriched fuel for nuclear-power plants. It marks an about-face for President Bush, who called in February 2004 for a ban on new countries becoming enrichment powers. The U.S. then persuaded Canada and other reluctant members of the Group of Eight top industrialized countries to agree to a nuclear-sales moratorium, a ban the group has renewed every year since.

Apparently the outlook is that Canada [in an effort spearheaded by Saskatchewan, which produces a goodly chunk of the world's uranium] aims to produce an indigenous enrichment facility - something that we have not previously had - and may even wish ultimately to export the technology [!].

A couple related policy thoughts: a) let’s not emplace the cascades in a hardened facility, b) make comments about whether other countries ought to vanish from the pages of time, or c) elect any demagogic leaders that hew to the belief that righteous earthly authority is currently in occultation.

Some of these suggestions may need more work than others…

3 Comments »

If one ever needed confirmation that the component of the economy devoted to the care, maintenance and entertainment of geeks is large and thriving, look no further.

Yes folks, it’s a crew served, direct fire, nerf support weapon. Needless to say, I want one. Be afraid cats, be very afraid…

No Comments »

It’s about time. Acoording to Rex Murphy, “the days of Tim Hortons as an essential Canadian experience are dwindling and few”:

Their “roll up the rim” is a farcical gimmick. Their signature phrases — “double double” being the most familiar — gall more than they please. Their ridiculous lineups — in some places it takes longer to pick up a coffee than to pick up a licence at motor vehicle registration — have lost the kind of self-congratulatory charm they had some time back. People used to smile at each other for the silly indulgence of lining up for a not-very-good cup of coffee. They don’t smile as much any more. They mutter.

2 Comments »

I’m all for gentrification. It think it’s a natural part of urban evolution, as long as it doesn’t involve front-lawn parking pads. But I also find it entirely objectionable when a handful of people who overpaid for their tiny homes in a transitional neighbourhood suddenly start talking as if they own it. Case in point: neighbours and employees of neighbouring businesses of the new bridge housing for homeless men at the New Edwin hotel on Queen just west of Broadview.

First, a little about the project, which will be managed by local agency Woodgreen:

It is the first project of its kind in Ontario. The tenants — the homeless as well as those who have mental health or substance abuse issues — will be expected to pay a portion of their rent, but will receive support from on-site counselors.

According to Councillor Joe Mihevc, the project will offer “intense support,” with 48 counsellors attached to the hotel and medical experts, security, and other services on site. Residents will live at the shelter for up to three years. Oh, by the way, the hotel has been a low-cost hotel for low-income residents up until now, presumably without security. Not only is the shelter a much-needed project, it’s likely an improvement on what’s on the site now.

That Riverside (or South Riverdale, or Broadview Village, or whatever you want to call the not-exactly-neighbourhood that straddles the Queen-Broadview intersection) is (thankfully) still not the enclave of smug white hipness some residents may wish it was is brought home by this quote from Saradh Arachide of Pastry House, a new local business:

“Before, the strip club down the street was the major issue but I heard this news and I think this will be a major concern,” said Mr. Arachchide.

Trevor McCarthy of Prohibition/Booze Emporium describes encroaching gentrification in less delicate terms: “There is a certain element in this area that is slowly being filtered out.’’

A couple of business owners tell the Post they’re fine with the new project. It’s local resident John W who, in a comment on the Post post, raises the classic concerns about the prospect of homeless people flooding the rarified atmosphere of Queen-Broadview:

…this sort of transition home is perhaps not appropriate in a residential neighbourhood.

We are trying to attract families in south riverdale and I can definitely say as a parent that the prospect of having recovering drug addicts and people with mental illness in the neighbourhood causes me concern. I am all for social housing and would favour more projects as the Rivertowne project which integrates low income families within gentrified /gentrifying communities.

I don’t know how long John W has lived in the neighbourhood, but I’m curious that he is concerned about recovering drug addicts while Queen East, particularly at night, continues to feature a not-insignificant number of current crack addicts. As well, a stroll up Broadview between Queen and Gerrard would put you close to some active dens of iniquity. People high on crack are out of their minds and unpredictable. It’s drug addicts who may turn violent or break into your home and take something — anything — of value that they can turn into more drugs, not those in recovery.

And what is it about those magic words, “as a parent,” that makes people think whatever they say is reasonable? It seems you can preface almost anything with “as a parent” and get away with it — certainly generations have voiced their concerns about miscegenation using that same construct. A challenge to Mock Turtle readers who are parents — why not see just how far you can go in conversation using this phrase without eliciting objections? Report back in the comments section.

And lastly, I’m not familiar with the Rivertowne project (and I’m not a fan of the unnecessary “e”). However, John W seems to have misunderstood what really happens when a neighbourhood is gentrifying. When higher-income people move into lower-income neighbourhoods, the higher-income people are the ones who are being integrated into the neighbourhood — not the other way around.

6 Comments »

Concern about the coming (current?) recession seems to be intensifying:

The federal government says it will allow Canadians who are facing hardships to withdraw up to $22,450 a year from their locked-in Registered Retirement Savings Plans.

2 Comments »