Questions for today

As yesterday was so filled with popular + newsy stuff (we can tell by the traffic patterns), I thought we’d back off today on scooping the DTM and provide you all with a few questions to ponder:

1. Why is Bruce Power advertising at the Skydome (Rogers Centre)? That audience is largely retail types, who can’t pick whether Ontario Hydro provides them with nuclear power, wind power, coal, or power generated by Niagara Falls. They brag about powering every fifth light bulb, but since we can’t pick you over something else, why waste the hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising to Blue Jay fans? If there are excess profits, lower the hydro bills.

2. When two Canadian soldiers (members of the Royal 22nd Regiment) died in Afganistan last week, why did the headlines read (at the Globe & Mail, among others): “Quebecers mourn”? Is it that folks from Ontario didn’t? Or that when a member of the RCR at Petawawa is killed, Quebecers don’t mourn? These soldiers are brave professionals. And they are proud Canadians. Why perpetuate the Conscription Crisis in this day and age? People from Calgary and Edmonton, for example, care when a soldier is wounded or killed, regardless of where their regiment is based.

3. When the central banks “put money into the system”, where does it actually come from, and where does it go? And how long is it there? 😉

4. How could a US$1.4 billion State Street fund called a “Limited Duration Bond Fund” lose 37% of its value in three short weeks? Who knew that “limited duration” meant that investors’ $ didn’t have a long shelf life?

5. The Transportation Safety Board and the U.S. FAA have concerns about the flaps on 1,000 Bombardier CRJs, according to the WSJ and Globe. This from the WSJ:

Citing serious and persistent safety problems with hundreds of older Bombardier Inc. jets flown by regional airlines around the world, U.S. and Canadian aviation regulators have slapped unusually tight restrictions on continued operation of the aircraft.

Increasingly frequent instances of stuck or improperly operating flaps on Bombardier CRJ 100, 200 and 440 jets have prompted safety mandates on both sides of the border after a decade of concern and remedial actions. Flaps are movable panels at the rear of the wing that are extended for additional lift during takeoffs and landings. No fatal accidents have been attributed to flap defects.

In separate but coordinated actions over the past few weeks, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada ordered airlines flying the small jetliners to make changes in their maintenance, pilot-training and dispatching practices.

Bombardier’s spokesman said: “It’s absolutely not a major safety concern.” Does that mean we are all flying in planes with medium or minor safety concerns? Isn’t that also why nail clippers were banned from on board luggage?

6. Why is the MaRS centre holding events featuring fiction books? Is its mandate so broad (or muddy) that it’s now competing with Indigo and the Toronto Public Library? How exactly are the commercialization needs of Ontario being met by a book club meeting on “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen:

Orphaned and penniless at the height of the Depression, Jacob Jankowski escapes everything he knows by jumping on a passing train—and inadvertently runs away with the circus.

MRM