Contract bridge was played at the Do Drop In on Dec.19 with top score by Gerry Craig and second high by Jack Smith. There is no duplicate bridge until next year.
There was only an inch or so of snow in the Taber, Alta. area Friday. There was more further north, but the drive down Dec. 23 with Brad and Kelly from Carstairs area went well before it started to snow.聽
Dec. 19, it was so windy around Calgary that three empty semi trucks were blown into the ditch and rolled near Clareshome and one near Airdrie. That day I had the chance to visit Ken in Olds, learn more of his China trip and see his photo album.
New word from one of his students was that the pollution in Beijing was so bad the week before, schools and factories were closed for five days. The hospitals had to bring in more doctors to treat the many people coming in with sore, burning throats and respiratory problems.
At times like this, the cars are allowed to travel only every second day as designated by their licence plate numbers, odd one day and even the next. The trucks travelled mostly at night. Now with the colder weather setting in they are back to burning coal, which adds to the already bad smog scene.
One home Ken visited was built into a hillside and the front was appealing with five pretty archways with brick trim. Each door opened into one room and one went outside to get from one room to another. They had electricity and running water and there was a shower built at one end of the house. To go to the toilet he had to go down about 100 steps to a shed in which was the squat hole. There are no railings or toilet seat. This student had bought his mother a washing machine but had not been home long enough to teach her how to use it. He lived seven hours away where he works.
Ken's ride on the speedy train was an experience in itself. There was complete silence, as the train is electrically driven and there is an air cushion between the wheels and rails. The one sound he heard was when they met a train going the opposite direction and it was 鈥渟woosh鈥� and gone. These trains are built to travel 600 km/h, but following a serious accident they are allowed to go around only 300 km/h. Ken said this one went 308 km/h, as there is a speedometer in each car to broadcast the speed.聽
Going through the Taber paper a couple of interesting items caught my eye. The finance department of the Town of Taber received the Canadian Award for financial reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada for the financial year 2016. The other item was the monthly report of the town council meeting. I have always felt people should know what goes on in both town meetings and rural municipality meetings, after all people's taxes are paying for everything they do. The cost of publishing them would be minimal if they put it in their local paper.
Back to the climate issue. These are figures off the computer of coal-fueled electricity plants around the world, including those in operation and new ones in the planning stages: Europe - 495, Turkey - 149, 麻豆传媒AV Africa - 103, Philippines - 79, 麻豆传媒AV Korea 84, Japan - 135, China 鈥� 3,534 and Canada - 24 with plans to close five in Alberta soon. Will shutting down five in Alberta save the planet? Five out of the total of 7,208 is .0007 per cent. One scientist said, "Canada could produce zero greenhouse gas and it would have no effect on the world." Maybe this carbon tax thing should be taking place somewhere else.
