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Alberta Premier Rachel Notley made history last Sunday with her carbon tax climate change announcements.
Depending on your point of view, Sunday was either a day of mourning or a day of rejoicing.
Sunday either marked the start of a long, slow economic decline that will see Alberta end up like Saskatchewan before Brad Wall. Or Alberta finally saw the light on climate change. Enlightened government policies will dramatically lower the province’s overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions AND still leave Alberta as a low-cost, low-emissions exporter of oil and gas.
Let’s have a little fun here, and present these two points of view – the progressive and conservative – as purely as possible.
THE PROGRESSIVE VIEWPOINT
Finally, a government is in power that cares about the people of Alberta, not just the business of Alberta!
The carbon tax is long overdue, is accepted by industry, and sends a signal to the world that we are sensitive to climate change and are determined to be a ...
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Breath-taking changes are afoot – the times they are a changin’.
Ride-sharing service Uber and the Airbnb home-stay app are the most visible of the new ways of exchanging goods and services, thanks to crazy new technologies made possible, in just the last few years, as wireless Internet, laptops and smartphones are filled with sophisticated, easy-to-use software.
Part of the new world is its “disintermediary” notion. For increasing numbers of sectors within the retail economy, the “old” intermediary – i.e. taxis – are no longer needed. Software and the Internet enable individuals to reach out directly to other individuals to provide goods and services more efficiently and at lower cost.
Even more profound is the self-regulating nature of the new person-to-person online exchange programs. Until these new technologies came along, government regulation (of taxicabs, for instance) was seen as essential for safety and security.
Today, “officia ...
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Kazoku Ramen
16518 100 Ave.
780-483-0448
www.kazokurman.ca
11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Six days a week, closed Tuesdays
Food: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 2 of 5 Suns
Service: 3.5 of 5 Suns
It’s all the rage amongst Edmonton’s many food bloggers.
Here a ramen, there a ramen, everywhere a ramen, ramen.
Ramen is nothing more than Japanese-style noodle soup. Your momma could open a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, dress it up with oriental accessories and proclaim it ramen.
Ramen is the Japanese equivalent to Vietnamese pho noodle soup, and likely has as many variations as pho. Done properly and according to family recipes as at Pho Du, Pho Hoan Pasteur or the King Noodle House, pho produces an intensely individual and delicious meaty meal in a bowl.
Ramen in Edmonton has never experienced the popularity of pho. Suddenly it’s in the in-thing.
Which sent us out, on a blustery November evening, to try the recently opened Kazoku Ramen and then comparison shoppi ...
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At last, a credible, achievable, made-in-Alberta plan to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has surfaced.
Capital Power’s ALTE Shift proposal would cut all Alberta power-plant emissions by 19% within three years, by 40% within 10 years.
Capital Power has submitted ALTE Shift to Premier Rachel Notley’s climate change panel. Notley plans to make a definitive statement in the next week or two on Alberta’s GHG reduction strategy, presumably to gain political capital before heading to Paris for the upcoming global climate-change gathering.
Capital Power’s proposal works for the environment, the customer, the investor and the government.
ALTE Shift proposes all Alberta’s older coal-burning power plants – the biggest GHG emitters in the province – be shut down within five years. Four coal-burning units due for shut down by 2019 would be moved up to 2017. Those due for retirement after 2019 would be closed five years ahead of time.
...
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El Cortez Mexican Kitchen • Tequila Bar
8230 Gateway Blvd.
780-760-0200
www.elcortezcantina.com
Tues. to Fri. 4 p.m. to late
Sat. 11 a.m. to late
Sun. 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.
closed Mondays
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 3 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two excluding drinks and tip: Basic, $25; loaded, $80
It’s more than food at the El Cortez Mexican Kitchen Tequila Bar.
You may think you’ve stumbled into a shoot-‘em-up spaghetti western set as you enter the splashy restaurant/bar on the edge of Old Strathcona. You half expect a young Clint Eastwood to be standing at the bar, downing tequila by the bottle.
But look a little closer at El Cortez’s murals and artwork. It’s as much Salvador Dali as Mexicano. Peering down on our table from the wall was a modern sea serpent with a light fixture doubling as its eye. Beside the bar was a larger-than-life mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The whole thing reflects the pop-sophistication o ...
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A Christmas Carol
Citadel Theatre,
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
To Dec. 23, 2015
Review by GRAHAM HICKS
How is it possible, after seeing a show on 16 consecutive opening nights, that one is still reduced to tears and gentle sobs of happiness/joy/sadness, at least 10 times through the evening?
Because it's A Christmas Carol, darn it! And not just any Christmas Carol but an adaptation for the stage by Tom Wood that is as classic as the brilliant book on which it is based.
It still must mystify its creators, Wood and director Bob Baker, that they produced such a gem of a production that it has hardly needed any tweaking since that original opening night on the Citadel's Maclab Stage in 1999.
Here's Christmas Carol, 2015, as popular if not more so than ever.
And if there are any rumours out there declaring this to be the last year Christmas Carol will be done at the Citadel, they are unequivocally, absolutely and utterly untrue, says Citadel General Manager Penny Ritco.
Why does thi ...
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You have marvelled at the speed of Google search engines, at self-teaching robots. You’ve been dumbfounded when, on your first visit to a medical specialist, she or she casually pulls up a program containing your entire medical history from the past 10 years.
“Machine learning” uses big data and the ability of today’s computers to sort through and arrange billions upon billions of “data sets” through mathematical formulas. The processes are also referred to as artificial intelligence or, more colloquially, Big Data.
The ability of massive computer power, harnessed by brilliant machine-learning scientists, is driving the 21st Century. The latest wave of global corporations– Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Lockheed Martin, Yahoo and that great survivor, IBM are all on the leading edge of machine learning.
Edmonton doesn’t have a Google or a Yahoo in our midst – the closest might be global video game producer Bioware, now a division of an ev ...
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Numchok Wilai Thai Restaurant
10623-124 St.
780-488-7897
numchokwilai.ca
Mon.-Sat: 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. (Friday 9:30 p.m., Saturday 10 p.m.)
Closed Sundays
Food: 3 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 2.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 2 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two excluding drinks and tip: Basic, $30; loaded, $60
Graham Hicks
780 707 6379
graham.hicks@hicksbiz.com
www.hicksbiz.com
@hicksonsix
There’s a category of family-run restaurants in Edmonton, and I suppose in every metropolis, that is frustrating.
Mom and dad originally start the restaurant as immigrants willing to work all the time for the sake of their children. Years later, the next generation takes over. The parents are now old. Dad is now gone, but mom still helps in the kitchen and the signature dishes are still her recipes.
The next-gen, however, doesn’t do much. The décor becomes dated, no thought is given to modernization. Table service is by whoever happens to be around. The food&rsqu ...
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e live in two solitudes.
Not the old ethnic/income divides, but the established “old” way of doing things, and the techno-savvy “new”.
On Sept. 4, the “old” tried to accommodate the “new”. Proposed revisions to the city’s Vehicle For Hire Bylaw were introduced as a compromise between the “old” highly-regulated taxi system and “new” self-regulating taxi systems, i.e. Uber. Public hearings on the draft bylaw are being held at city hall on Sept. 16 and 17.
On Sept. 9 and 10, the “new” celebrated its own identity and business culture at the Edmonton Economic Development-driven Ignite Festival.
The gap between “old” and “new” is quite magnificent. The “new” are 100% comfortable with the cascade of new computer-enabled technologies.
The “new” are comfortable with being contractors rather than employees.
The “new” expect to have multiple c ...
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FIRST POSTED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 07, 2015 10:18 AM MDT | UPDATED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 07, 2015 01:21 PM MDT
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley speaks during a press conference in Edmonton on Thursday, August 6, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dean Bennett
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