1. Pinecrest Drive
White space
Pincecrest Drive in North Dartmouth is among the most dangerous streets in HRM. Yesterday, a man was stabbed in an apartment on the street:
At 12:53 a.m. police responded to a report of a stabbing in the 100 block of Pinecrest Drive. Upon arrival officers located a 56-year-old man who appeared to have life threatening injuries. He was transported to the hospital by EHS.
Following an initial investigation officers arrested a 45-year-old woman, who is known to the man. She remains in police custody at this time and the investigation is ongoing.
Also yesterday, police announced they’ve arrested two people in the Derek Miles homicide investigation:
Investigators with the Special Investigation Section of the Integrated Criminal Investigation Division have arrested two men in relation to the homicide of Derek Miles.
On January 19 at 4:25 p.m. police responded to a report of a man in medical distress in an apartment at 89 Pinecrest Drive in Dartmouth. The man was pronounced deceased at the scene.
On January 20, the Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide and identified the victim as 42-year-old Derek Miles of Dartmouth.
At 10 a.m. today investigators arrested a 30-year-old man in the 6000 block of Highway 207 in West Chezzecook and a 52-year-old man in the 200 block of Windmill Road in Dartmouth in relation to Derek’s homicide. The two men remain in police custody and charges are anticipated.
(I haven’t yet placed Karen MacKenzie on the North Dartmouth Murder Map; she went missing from her Highfield Park Drive apartment in February, and her boyfriend Owen Nelson has been charged with crimes related to the disappearance.)
2. Fracking
“The Town of Antigonish won’t be joining the Municipality of the District of Guysborough in asking the province to remove its ban on fracking any time soon,” reports Anjuli Patil for the CBC:
Council voted unanimously Monday night against the request by Guysborough, which had previously asked Nova Scotia communities to urge the province to lift the ban.
3. Igloo
“Billy Lenihan decided back in December that he was going to build an igloo,” reports Colleen Jones for the CBC:
A landscaper, Lenihan’s work dries up in the winter, so he looks for a project.
…
It wasn’t any easy job and Lenihan said there’s no easy answer as to why he built it so big.
“I have no idea, to tell you the truth. I built a small one last year, in front of the house. This year, I just decided to make it bigger,” he said.
…
Lenihan covers his igloo with a tarp to protect it, especially if there is a big rainstorm.
He figures the igloo will last until May and, given the thickness of the ice, he won’t be surprised to see ice in the front yard in August.
4. Lantz Field House
The Lantz Field House has collapsed, reports Francis Campbell for the Chronicle Herald:
[T]he air-supported dome collapsed during last week’s windstorm and management awaits word from the manufacturer, the Farley Group of southwestern Ontario, about its repair.
…
[The collapse was caused by] a breach in the polyvinyl chloride-coated vinyl material that makes up the dome. The result left the dome lying on the ground, propped up only by doors and equipment sheds underneath. Luckily, it happened overnight when no one was in the dome.
They should call Billy Lenihan.
There’s a three pigs-like lesson here about using the correct building materials: ice versus air. But also, perhaps, about the pluckiness of the persistent Nova Scotia landscaper contrasted to the fancy pants managers contracting out their work to some company in Ontario.
The Weather Network has a video report on the doomed dome.
5. Whale deaths
It’s too soon to say what’s behind the death of a humpback whale that washed up on Nova Scotia’s Fundy Shore near the community of Ogilvie, N.S.,” reports Cassie Williams for the CBC:
The humpback is one of two large whales found washed up along the Nova Scotia coast this weekend.
“It would definitely take a pretty thorough examination to find out what might have killed it,” said Andrew Reid, response co-ordinator for the Marine Animal Response Society (MARS).
He said his organization got the call about the carcass on the Bay of Fundy beach late Sunday. “On first appearance it does look relatively thin-ish but that’s something that we’d have to confirm with closer inspection.”
Observers at the scene had told Reid the whale is about 12 metres long. At that length, Reid said, the whale has reached maturity.
Government
City
Tuesday
City Council (Tuesday, 1pm, City Hall) — here’s the agenda; I’ll be live-blogging the meeting via the Examiner’s Twitter account, @hfxExaminer.
Accessing Affordable, Healthy Food (Tuesday, 5:30pm, Sackville Public Library) — Round 2.
Accessing Affordable, Healthy Food (Tuesday, 6pm, Musquodoboit Harbour Public Library) — Round 2B.
Wednesday
Audit and Finance Standing Committee (Wednesday, 10am, City Hall) — the Khyber building.
Accessing Affordable, Healthy Food (Wednesday, 3pm, Halifax Central Public Library) — Round 3.
Halifax and West Community Council (Wednesday, 6pm, City Hall) — here’s the agenda.
Province
Tuesday
Legislature sits (Tuesday, 1pm, Province House)
Wednesday
No public meetings.
On campus
Dalhousie
Tuesday
Help Design the Bicentennial Commons (Tuesday, 10am, Alumni Lounge, Sexton Campus) — the Dalhousie’s Campus Master Plan calls for a redesign of the area at the top of University Avenue, adjacent to the Killam Library. More info here.
Plasmon-enhanced Solar Energy Conversion in Metal-semiconductor Heterojunctions (Tuesday, 12pm, Room 226, Chemistry Building) — Nianqiang (Nick) Wu from West Virginia University will speak.
Relations for Clifford+T Operators on Two Qubits (Tuesday, 2:30pm, Room 319, Chase Building) — Xiaoning Bian will speak. I don’t know what that means, either.
Fair Pricing for Journals: Public Consultation (Tuesday, 4:15pm, Room 229, B Building, Sexton Campus) — rescheduled from last week because of the snow. From the event listing:
The “big deal” as a model for purchasing scholarly journals is no longer sustainable for mid-sized universities like Dalhousie. The five largest bundles we subscribe to have increased in cost by 78% since 2010. One bundle costs $850,000. In another bundle, fewer than 40% of the titles are being used by Dalhousie researchers, scholars and students. We subscribe to dozens of bundles. This year, we are examining over 7,000 titles in six bundles that are up for renewal. We want your input. Attend a public consultation and select which journals are important to you at: https://fairprice.library.dal.ca
Activism in Words and Songs (Tuesday, 6pm, Room 307, Dalhousie Student Union Building) — panel discussions, spoken words, songs, and a Zambian dance by Mulenga Kasutu, to celebrate the 2018 Commemoration of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Day.
Lion’s Love […and Lies] (Tuesday, 7pm, Room 406, Dalhousie Arts Centre) — a screening of Agnès Varda’s 1969 film.
Muskrat Falls (Tuesday, 7pm, Halifax Central Library) — Jerry Bannister will speak about “Muskrat Falls and the Maritime Link: Politics, Myths, and Hydroelectricity in Atlantic Canada.”
Wednesday
Voice Recital (Wednesday, 11:45am, Sculpture Court, Dalhousie Arts Centre) — students of Michael Donovan perform.
Preserving the Rights of Aging Prisoners (Wednesday, 7pm, Room 2-29 Lecture Theatre, NSCC Cumberland Campus, Springhill) — Adelina Iftene will speak.
Saint Mary’s
Wednesday
War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (Wednesday, 7pm, in the theatre named after a bank in the building named after a grocery store) — Noel Sharkey, a Chmmr from the University of Sheffield, and Duncan MacIntosh, a Nanomech from Dalhousie University, will fight to the death while they argue over the impact and implications of autonomous weapons and killer robots.
In the harbour
2:30am: Aristomenis, container ship, sails from Pier 41 for Kingston, Jamaica
3:30am: Asian Sun, container ship, sails from Pier 42 for sea
5am: Atlantic Sail, ro-ro container, arrives at Fairview Cove from Norfolk
8am: North Atlantic Kairos, oil tanker, sails from Pier 9 for sea
10:30am: Asterix, replenishment vessel, sails from Dockyard for sea
3:30pm: Miraculous Ace, car carrier, sails from Autoport for sea
6pm: Atlantic Sail, ro-ro container, sails from Fairview Cove for Liverpool, England
Footnotes
Slow news day, which is just as well as I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do.
Due to impending weather, Prof Iftene’s talk in Springhill tomorrow night has been re-scheduled for April 11. Same time, same place.
It’s really a shame that we build such crappy stuff. We have computer-aided design and simulation, we have the entire world’s history of architecture mostly known to us, and we have high-tech materials. And yet we built nicer stuff 100 years (and more) ago. It’s expensive to get novel building designs engineered, stamped, and insured, to be sure, but they manage to build interesting buildings in Europe at a far greater pace than we do in North America even though Europe has lots of regulations too. Of course, Europe gave us the commieblock and the upscale capitalist version, the “machine for living”, so it’s not like they’re innocent either.
Of course, it’s safer for the managerial class to go with “best practices”, and go with an inflatable plastic dome that can’t even maintain its structural integrity without a constant energy input. The inflatable plastic hockey dome is a perfect symbol for the built environment of postwar North America, Europe and Asia.
If you look dispassionately at humans as just another one of the many animal species inhabiting this planet, it’s not hard to feel like one of the mice in Calhoun’s experiments. I wonder if any of the mice became bitter, misanthropic cassandras the way people like Kunstler have?
We need our governments and agencies to stop referring to monies which are expected as windfalls. It is not free money and it should not be used for pet projects which have not been properly discussed and debated.