The Slick Alberta Moonscape

Syncrude Tailings Pond
Originally uploaded by Stop the Tar Sands

Ah the joys of tar sand oil production.

In the news Wednesday it was reported how 500 ducks were killed by flying into a Syncrude tailings pond. Now it's not that I have a overwhelming love for ducks (they're alright, I like 'em well enough but they're no bees), but this event does highlight the environmental disaster that is oil sands reclamation.

Here's my proposal - let's get a handle on our greenhouse gas targets and figure out how to cleanly get the oil. If it takes until oil is $200 a barrel I don't think that's a bad thing.

Flickr

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Explaining the Financial Markets Crisis

A great segment from the Long Johns explaining Structured Investment Vehicles -- an integral part of the sub-prime mortgage debacle.

North Sea Strike sends oil near $120

Oil prices have hit a fresh high just below $120 a barrel after a strike at a UK refinery disrupted production from the North Sea.

BP shut down a key North Sea pipeline after staff walked out of the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland in a two-day strike over pensions.

Providing a third of UK oil output, the closure of the Forties pipeline has raised fears about supply shortages.

US light crude hit a high of $119.93 a barrel before edging down to $119.40.

Toyota No.1 Automaker?

Toyota took the global sales lead from General Motors in the first quarter, capitalizing on growth in China and Europe as GM saw its North American sales drag down gains in other markets.

Toyota Motor Corp. said yesterday it sold 2.41 million vehicles in the January-March period, compared with General Motors Corp.’s 2.25 million, prompting one industry analyst to predict that 2008 would be the year Toyota unseats GM in global sales.

Why it was scientifically advisable to leave OANDA

Boring jobs turn our mind to autopilot, say scientists - and it means we can seriously mess up some simple tasks.

Monotonous duties switch our brain to "rest mode", whether we like it or not, the researchers report in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

They found mistakes can be predicted up to 30 seconds before we make them, by patterns in our brain activity.