Chill, Bro!

                                   

An East Vancouver park that achieved infamy just over a year ago when a local prankster/artist surreptitiously renamed it “Dude Chilling Park” will forever be associated with the cheeky moniker thanks to a recent decision by the city’s apparently chill parks committee.

The little-known Guelph Park, southeast of downtown Vancouver, attained instant fame after an official-looking sign with the hip, new name was posted without formal approval.  The change was celebrated in local newspapers, trumpeted on social media, and Google Maps briefly began identifying the park by its new name before city staff ended the party.

Thanks to a recent decision by the Vancouver Parks Board, the change is now official and the comical sign will be returned to the park.

The moniker “Dude Chilling Park” was the creation of artist Viktor Briestensky, who was inspired by a sculpture of a reclining man that can be found at the park.

The creation of the sign as an act of street art was itself somewhat celebrated on the Museum of Vancouver website.

The sign’s demise led to a petition signed by more than 1,800 residents calling for its return.
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Authorities have charged a B.C. woman and her boyfriend because the woman’s 2-year-old daughter used their cellphones to dial 911 a total of 15 times last month and the cops got tired of going there!
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Bill Nye the Science Guy is set to defend evolution tonight (Feb. 4) in a debate with the founder of Kentucky’s Creation Museum, Ken Ham.

The showdown, which will take place in front of 900 people at the Creation Museum, will be broadcast in a live stream starting at 7:00 p.m. EST. You can watch it here on Live Science.

The stream will also be available on debatelive.org. .

 

Ham and his organization Answers in Genesis promote a brand of “young Earth” creationism that rejects evolution and interprets everything in the Biblical book
of Genesis as literal truth, like the claim that God created the universe in just six days a mere 6,000 years ago. (On the contrary, scientific evidence shows that our planet formed some 4.54 billion years ago and that the universe is 13.8 billion years old.) The Creation Museum even has exhibits showing the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs. [The Top 10 Intelligent Designs (or Creation Myths)]

http://www.livescience.com/43102-bill-nye-creationist-debate-watch.html
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Anti-abortion groups angry over what they see as the Girl Scouts’ support for abortion-rights advocates are organizing a cookie boycott.
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A new Coca-Cola ad featuring people of various ethnicities singing “America the Beautiful” in seven different languages shown during the Super Bowl has unleashed a fervour of racist comments on social media.

“Speak English or go home,” says one Facebook commenter. “Screwed up a beautiful song. No Coke for my family.”

The backlash is a disheartening example of how some Americans believe that English is the only language that should be spoken in their homeland, and a painful reminder of the ugliness that can surface in places where beauty is meant to be found.
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A storm working its way up from Texas will be brushing past Ontario and Quebec on its way to the Maritimes, dropping enough snow overnight tonight to make Wednesday morning’s commute into work a bit more treacherous.

This storm is delivering yet another major hit of snow and ice to the US Northeast and through Nova Scotia on Wednesday, but it’ll be swinging just far enough northward that southern regions of Ontario and Quebec will be seeing some of this snow as well. Around 5 centimetres of the white stuff is expected to be on the ground by Wednesday morning along a line from Windsor to Kingston, with another 10-15 centimetres expected throughout the day.

That should slow down both the morning and evening commutes in southwestern and central Ontario by a bit, due to some slippery road conditions and reduced visibility.
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Unlike Vancouver, Toronto has remained relatively untouched by the proliferation of laneway houses. But the idea makes sense: this city has roughly 250 kilometres of laneways, many of them in neighbourhoods with sky-high property prices, almost all of them still fronted by graffiti-covered garages and backyards.
Vancouver’s regulations require all houses built on public laneways to be under two stories – the upper floor can only be 60% of the height of the ground floor – and at least five metres from the back of the nearest home. They are typically just 55 square metres and since 2009 more than 800 units have been given the green light, suggesting a serious appetite for small-scale urban living out west.
Lanehouse on Bartlett doesn’t look like a Vancouver lane house – it’s a cluster of lofts and townhomes that just happen to be squeezed onto a service road off Bloor between Dovercourt and Dufferin – but, should it get the green light, the project could set a precedent for building on Toronto’s often overlooked back roads.
http://www.blogto.com/city/2014/02/can_this_condo_jumpstart_laneway_housing_in_toronto/
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This report from the Naked News department:
Ontario’s ombudsman is launching a major investigation into the billing practices of Hydro One, a perennial source of complaints from people who say the utility overcharges them and refuses to explain why.

Ombudsman André Marin said complaints to his office about the electricity giant have more than doubled in the last two years, reaching 600 since last April alone.

In some cases, people have complained that Hydro One estimates their bill, but won’t say how the estimates are arrived at, Mr. Marin said. In others, he said, the utility would not bill a customer for a long period of time, then suddenly send them a hefty catch-up invoice with little time to pay it.
The agency also faces accusations it takes too long to fix problems and doesn’t help people who believe they’ve been overcharged. Mr. Marin said his own office has trouble dealing with Hydro One.
“With Hydro One, it takes two, three, four calls, a couple of weeks and then we don’t get straightforward answers. We get the runaround,” he said at Queen’s Park Tuesday. “Sometimes it’s like wrestling with a slippery pig.”
Mr. Marin called on Hydro One customers who have had problems with the agency to contact his office. The investigation, he said, will take nine months, after which he will write a report with recommendations on fixing the situation.

Hydro One CEO Carmine Marcello said his agency changed over to a new billing system in May, and the implementation has caused problems for “a small percentage of customers.”

“We know that this level of service isn’t acceptable to our customers and it’s not acceptable to Hydro One,” he wrote in an open letter. “We have taken aggressive steps to fix the issues.”

Mr. Marcello promised to cooperate with Mr. Marin’s investigation.

The utility has also had problems with its smart meters, which sometimes fail to give accurate readings in rural areas where their signals are screened by trees and hills.

Liberal MPP Brad Duguid, a former energy minister, acknowledged that there have been complaints with the utility over the years.

“I do recall [problems] being raised from time to time when I was minister, and we hope the ombudsman has something constructive and interesting to say, and that Hydro One can respond to,” he said.

Mr. Duguid defended the use of smart meters, which the province brought in under his watch, but which some customers complain malfunction.

“[It’s] one of the best things we’ve ever done – we’re ahead of the rest of the world on it,” he said. “We’re seen as a model around the world.”

Mr. Marin’s investigation will focus only on customer service and billing problems. It will not address concerns with electricity rates.

The ombudsman said it is important to keep the investigation narrowly focused to make sure it delivers results in a short period of time. But he said he might revisit other issues at the agency in future.
“If need be, we’ll do a second Hydro investigation,” he said. “There’s a tremendous amount of grief over hydro rates, compensation, pensions, this kind of thing. But one step at a time.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/hydro-one-to-face-major-investigation-as-billing-complaints-mount/article16681447/?cmpid=rss1
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Jay Leno’s top targets for jokes during his time at the “Tonight” show, through Jan. 24, as compiled by the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

1. Bill Clinton — 4,607 jokes.

2. George W. Bush — 3,239 jokes.

3. Al Gore — 1,026 jokes.

4. Barack Obama — 1,011 jokes.

5. Hillary Clinton — 939 jokes.

6. O.J. Simpson — 795 jokes.

7. Dick Cheney — 673 jokes.

8. Michael Jackson — 505 jokes.

9. Monica Lewinsky — 454 jokes.

10. Bob Dole — 452 jokes.