News To Report

Oh the weather is just so terrible as far as I am concerned anyway. While we have not had a horrific winter with lots of snow storms, it has been much colder than last year. 

Even now, it just seems so cold outside no matter if the temperature is above 0°C these days. A couple of days ago, when it seemed that the weather was getting nicer, my wife and I went out for a walk. It turned out that we walked for about an hour because it was just so pleasant outside with a very high temperature. Now however I just do not want to go outside for merely a few minutes or else I have to dress up with a lot of clothes to stay warm. 

I know that it will get much more spring like soon and that I will enjoy the weather as it gets warmer. It will be interesting to see what the weather will be like this summer and whether we will have a pleasant time outside. 

Let me present some stories to you that I have read over the past little while that have given me the reason for staying inside these days. 

PRESERVING OUR GREAT LAKES 

It is good news seeing how Tecumseh's Mayor is acting these days. Take a look at this article that I just saw: 

"On World Water Day, the Town of Tecumseh’s Mayor is speaking out about proposed cuts to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). He is calling on politicians in Canada to join him in encouraging members of the U.S. legislature to reject the cuts and continue the work underway.  

“This is unacceptable, not only for those of us living in the Great Lakes basin but to everyone around the world,” said Mayor Gary McNamara. “We have a global responsibility to protect these irreplaceable resources, for now and the future. These cuts make no sense. All of the work that has been done to date will be lost and all of the strides we’ve made to clean up the Great Lakes will be gone.”   

The Mayor sent letters to elected officials in Canada and the U.S.—including the Prime Minister and Premier of Ontario and members of their cabinets—urging them to add their voice on cuts to the GLRI."  (Tecumseh, News Release,March 22, 2017) 

Of course, what he said makes a lot of sense to me.  What impresses me is that he sent his letter to so many key people in Canada and the US. I just wonder if he might have a much more important position, say an elected Member of Parliament, in the future and for which he is getting a lot of publicity today. 

WHAT A NICE SELLING PRICE 

Someone obviously wants to make a few dollars selling their rundown property in Detroit.  It might make an interesting lesson for people who may be asked to sell their homes so that some future project can be built. Of course it seems outrageous, but what the heck, there may not be any other way that this land can be purchased. It may be an interesting lesson to learn:

"A home just a few steps away from the new Little Caesars Arena has been called dilapidated, ugly and an eyesore.

It may net the owner $5 million, giving them the last laugh.

“Why wouldn’t it be worth $5 million?” asked Darren Johnson, the housing agent that re-listed the property last week after it failed to sell under the guidance of another broker.

“Keep in mind, we’re not selling the house,” added Johnson. “We’re selling the land and the location, location, location…”

The Red Wings have planned to play in downtown Detroit for quite some time, but the Detroit Pistons recently announced they’ll also play in the new arena. Johnson said it’s the sort of thing that will double the foot traffic, and supersize the profitability for the right investor."  (WXYZ, March 22, 2017) 

Whoever may have bought this property may well be doing extremely well today if the property is sold for a very large price:

"property sold for $25,000 to a family partnership in June 2002."

ARE WE EXPERIENCING WEATHER PROBLEMS

I just wonder if we are seeing something that could be quite negative for the future of our country and other countries as well around the Earth. Are we at the beginning stages right now?

As I said at the start of this article, as far as I am concerned, our weather is rather disappointing to me. It just seems so unusual. What is even more interesting to me is that the weather in my old city where I was born and lived for many years, Toronto, seems even worse now than when I had our family house there. There just seems to be some big snowfalls taking place in that area now compared with the time when I lived there. Could this be the reason why:

"There wasn’t yet much to see. Washington has just had its warmest winter on record (with a February that was warmer than an average March). The warmth brought many cherry blossoms to the cusp of a very early bloom, at which point they’re delicate. And when a cold spell came last week, it killed many, leaving them wilted and brown.

“This is something that has never happened in the 105-year history of cherry blossoms in D.C.,” Mike Litterst of the National Park Service told The Washington Post.

The real-world consequences of climate change are accelerating. The Great Plains is suffering its worst drought in a century, hurting many farmers. Pollen counts are rising, aggravating allergies. Warming oceans have killed huge sections of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, turning their glorious colors to a bleached white that’s as dispiriting as a wilted brown cherry blossom." (David Leonhardt, New YorkTimes, March 22, 2017)

Is all this because of Mother Nature so that this will happen regardless or is it happening because people, in the way that they are living these days, are doing things from an environmental perspective that is ruining this planet?

MORE BORDER LITIGATION

It is interesting to see that at least one lawsuit is now in the Court stage in relation to the possible border crossing relating to the Ambassador Bridge. Who knows, this case may help decide whether a new Bridge will be allowed to be built in the Sandwich area and, if so, what the real costs may be to do so:

"95-year-old Sandwich resident died Saturday, one week into a trial where he is taking on the Ambassador Bridge company for buying up houses in his neighbourhood, boarding them up and leaving them to rot. The Superior Court judge hearing the trial ruled Tuesday the case can proceed with Chaborek’s two daughters continuing the lawsuit as trustees of his estate.

Chaborek, who lived in the Indian Road home he built with his own hands in the 1950s, and a Sault Ste. Marie family who own two houses on Rosedale Avenue they bought when the sons went to university here, are suing a Canadian subsidiary of the bridge company, claiming $16.5 million in damages. They say the houses owned by the Canadian Transit Company are an eyesore that attract vermin and crime and constitute a “nuisance” under civil law.

The lawsuit by Chaborek and members of the Desando family are the first of five lawsuits by Sandwich residents to go to trial." (Sarah Sacheli, Windsor Star, March 14,2017) 

I am not going to get into a discussion about who will win the case because, ultimately, my view is that no matter who wins at the trial stage, there will be an appeal. Moreover, it will be interesting to see if and when a new Ambassador Bridge will be allowed to be built. What I found fascinating was the following:

"Bridge lawsuit continues in June with property valuations

 Doug Schmidt, WindsorStar, March 24, 2017

A multimillion-dollar lawsuit over the Ambassador Bridge’s boarded-up homes will resume in June with real estate professionals introducing competing property valuations.

Real estate valuators, one for each side, will offer the court their estimates for what affected properties in the shadow of the bridge are worth.

Following the submissions of these final expert witnesses, the lawyers for both sides then make their closing arguments before Superior Court Justice Thomas Carey in the $16.5-million civil lawsuit."

I just found the timing rather strange. Why wouldn't this testimony have been made right now as part of the trial? Why would it have to be delayed for so many months? Moreover, how long will it take the trial judge to make his decision and to have it publicized. Many more months?  If an appeal is made, how long would that take to be heard?

As far as I am concerned, all of the court hearings in all of the various lawsuits in both countries just do not make very much sense to me. We have heard that no one has denied that a second Ambassador Bridge should not be built and presumably it should be built where the Ambassador Bridge Company wants to do so. The only issue is whether a Government bridge can be built several miles away.

To be quite direct, if a second Ambassador Bridge is constructed, do you think it makes any sense to build a Government bridge that will cost many billions of dollars! It can hardly be economic to do so especially if there is not enough traffic to flow over 2 bridges to make them profitable. What this means to me as far as I am concerned is that the Governments on both sides of the river have been stalling the construction of the second Ambassador Bridge until such time as Matty Moroun is no longer in charge of the project and so that the Governments can buy this Bridge from his son, Mattthew.

I must admit that the Governments have messed up as well. Matthew will be much more of a competitor to their position with respect to the border crossing than they ever expected. He may not want to sell his Bridge at all and may well be prepared to continue litigation to prove that his family position on what can be done with the border as far as bridges are concerned may be correct. In other words, the Governments have no power whatsoever to build a second bridge where they want to do so in the Windsor area.

What we might see therefore is what happened with respect to the Keystone XL pipeline quite recently. The Governments might finally change their position with respect to bridge crossings here. That Keystone XL pipeline is now presumably going to be allowed to be built assuming that the US Government has the power to do so. The position of President Trump is completely different now from that of President Obama previously:

"During his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump repeatedly hailed the Keystone XL pipeline as a vital jobs program and one that sharply contrasted his vision for the economy with that of Hillary Clinton.

“Today we begin to make things right,” President Trump said Friday morning shortly after the State Department granted the pipeline giant TransCanada a permit for Keystone construction, a reversal of Obama administration policy. (Clifford Krauss, New York Times, March 24, 2017)