Taking a day off to go golfing tomorrow, so I’m doing the end of the week thing a little earlier this time…

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According to the Globe, the Nova Scotia Minister of Natural Resources is considering a bounty on coyotes.

This has been prompted by increased concern about the potential dangers that these criters can pose to humans.

John MacDonell is expected to announce measures on Thursday to reduce the risk of coyote attacks, which have become a local media cause célèbre since several killed singer Taylor Mitchell last fall in Cape Breton. One option he has mentioned is offering incentives to reduce the population.

Sure, these animals can be dangerous. But is this not more of an issue of overlapping territories than coyotes becoming inexplicable more aggressive toward humans? Humans are forever expanding their communities and forcing animals into ever-shrinking territories. You can see it everywhere. My Mom has a bear as a frequent visitor on her porch.

And can someone please answer this question: is it coy-ote (silent e) or coyotE (long e)?

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So the skies over Europe are open again.

It looks like the worst of the volcanic ash threat is over- at least for now. The Icelandic President is warning the world that another volcano may be set to spew even more crap into the sky and disrupt air traffic yet again.

President Olafur Grimsson fears if the second volcano, Katla, blows, it could have devastating consequences worldwide.

Mr Grimsson admitted: “Katla is much bigger and usually erupts once a century. The last one was in 1918 so we have been waiting for some years.”

Katla is east of the smaller Eyjafjallajokull volcano which sparked the ash cloud and in the past has triggered subsequent eruptions from the Katla volcano.

Mr Grimsson added: “We have emergency plans in our own country, so I think that it’s high time for European governments and airline authorities to start planning.”

Airlines and aircraft manufacturers of the world? You should start right now to invest in technologies to protect aircraft from these threats!

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My 2nd favourite (Richard Dawkins is my fave) fellow atheist, Phillip Pullman, is publishing another book due out in North America early next month, I believe.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ looks at the Gospels a, uh, little differently than does the mainstream church.

In his new story, he writes that Jesus had a manipulative twin brother, Christ, who tempted him in the wilderness and betrayed him to the authorities.

Using the four Gospels as its source, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which will be published on Wednesday, has the naive young Mary giving birth to twins after a visit by a mysterious stranger claiming to be an angel.

The babies grow up into the physically robust, straight-talking, straightforward Jesus and the bookish, calculating, often morally tortured Christ.

Stay tuned as I am sure the righteous indignation, book banning and burnings are soon to follow… and just because a fellow human being dares to question notions that are held to be true by a large number of other folks simply because they are told to do so by a church.

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And if it is true that Rahim Jaffer did claim to be the “access point” to millions of dollars of green infrastructure money, as has been claimed by a couple of folks, then what I have been writing off as largely trivial has suddenl;y gotten hold of some legs.

Two businessmen who heard Rahim Jaffer speak last August at a Toronto-area restaurant believed the former MP would be their connection to millions of dollars in government grants.

The men, who spoke to the CBC on condition of anonymity, said they were lured to the Aug. 25 meeting by an email that boasted: “Rahim Jaffer, who is the Canadian government money access point for us, will be in attendance.”

“We left with the impression Jaffer was the source of funding,” said the president of one company who pitched to Jaffer and his business colleague Nazim Gillani, the author of the email and the organizer of the meeting.

Wow. If this is true, then the troubles may be just beginning for the Harperites!

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Tags: air traffic, atheism, coyote bounty, Phillip Pullman, Rahim Jaffer, volcanic ash

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Politics, Religion, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.