City to frack CPD?

Wow. This is huge.

The contents of a previously confidential and completely fictitious City of Cape Town report which were revealed during routine business in the Western Cape High Court this morning look set to cause outrage across the city.
The report, commissioned late last year, outlines details of plans to move the Cenotaph from its present site on Adderley Street in the City Centre to a disused quarry on Chapman’s Peak Drive where it would be used as part of a hydraulic fracturing rig to extract the rich deposits of natural gas discovered at the site during preliminary survey work by the toll company Entilini last year.

The plan marries together three contentious issues which are described by the report’s anonymous author as “awkward problems which could prove potentially costly vote-wise at the next election, but which require addressing”. The author goes on to suggest that “tying the three together would likely limit the amount of negative PR generated by these issues should we address them separately”, but notes:

On face value, this plan makes good financial and political sense and makes the best of several difficult situations facing the City; namely, (a) that the position currently occupied by the Cenotaph is the preferred site for a MyCiti bus station, (b) that the City contract with Entilini requires that we must upgrade the Chapman’s Peak Drive toll plaza and a huge office park, and (c) that the natural gas deposits beneath Chapman’s Peak Drive are of such value that it would be foolish not to act upon them.
However, we should expect stiff opposition to each of these issues, given the historical significance of the Cenotaph, the emotional attachment of Hout Bay residents to Chapman’s Peak Drive, and the current negative publicity surrounding the process of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”).

The report suggests that certain environmental and financial points regarding the plans should be emphasised in media releases and interviews, including:

  • The convenience and improved carbon footprint of public transport when compared to private cars.
  • The recycling of the Cenotaph material and the return of those stones to their natural home in a quarry.
  • The cleanliness of natural gas when compared to electricity from coal.
  • The offset of expensive costs of new toll plaza and first stages of the Entilini office park through selling natural gas fracked from the Chapman’s Peak Drive site.

The confidential report appears to have been distributed to appropriate departments within the municipality.
City officials were unable to comment on the report at the time of writing.

Watch this one folks – I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing a whole lot more about it.

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The Parenting Bunny On Tour

I’m pleased and proud to say that I am Guest Blogger of the Day at Tanya Kovarsky’s Rattle And Mum blog today. Let’s hope that this endeavour goes better than last time I guest blogged, which ended up with me collecting an amazing range of personal insults and several (or more) threats to my life.

However, today’s subject is no less edgy [really? - Ed.], catchily-entitled Slaying The Stereotype Of The One-Parent, Two-Parent Family, and wherein I comprehensively fail to change anyone’s mind about how little paternal effort and thought typically goes into bringing up children.

That failure aside though, please do go and support my efforts anyway, but keep the insults to yourselves this time.

Thanks.

2 Comments | Tagged , , , | Posted in recommended site, the parenting bunny

Big Bang Bloopers

I’m really not into American situation comedy. I see it more as an oxymoron than anything else. I never got into Cheers or Friends or Frasier or… well, anything of that genre. Mrs 6k enjoys Will & Grace and I can tolerate it. But then, one day, on a flight to the UK, I ended up watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory and I have never looked back. Maybe it’s Sheldon’s character – a scientific genius not understood by the rest of the world - that somehow resonates. *cough* Either way, series 4 has just finished over here in SA and the final episode was one of the funniest things I’ve ever watched.

Here then, some of the outtakes from that fourth series.

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It was interesting to me to note that the characters are so well portrayed that even I almost expected the actors playing them to have the same traits and it’s rather strange to just see them as “normal people”.

Is there anything else I should try while awaiting series 5? And yes, we were told by virtually everyone to try Modern Family, but it was hugely disappointing. Thus, please don’t bother with that one and also be aware that I might not be be very impressed with your suggestions anyway.

9 Comments | Tagged , | Posted in positive thoughts, that's a bit mad

March desktop

Belatedly, I know. But I couldn’t find anything worth desktopping and I don’t want to give you rubbish, so I had to wait until I took this photo this weekend.

Twilight on Suiderstrand beach on Saturday evening, with the waves gently rolling in onto the pebbles as the sun sank slowly, but surely, into the South Atlantic. (f/8.0, 6s).

This one was edited in the new version of Picasa (v3.9) which has some lovely new features to play with and is becoming more like Instagram every day. Meanwhile, Instagram is “very soon” to be available for Android. I’ll certainly give it a go, but I’m still a huge fan of Vignette for Android.

You may also enjoy previous desktop background suggestions from January and February.
And there are a few more photos from this weekend here.

2 Comments | Tagged , , , , , | Posted in android, Cape Agulhas, flickr, positive thoughts, this is south africa

Gorgeous

From last week’s Flickr Blog.

   

Beautiful night by Jonina | Photo by SecondaryReality

See more via the links above.

Leave a comment | Tagged , | Posted in flickr, quota photo
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