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Red Deer man with photographic memory credited by RCMP for helping recover over 400 stolen vehicles!

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This story was sent to Todayville from Red Deer RCMP…

 

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Deer RCMP recognize citizen for hundreds of stolen vehicle tips

In a recent private ceremony, Red Deer RCMP recognized a citizen for his outstanding contribution in helping police locate multiple stolen vehicles each month, sometimes while the criminals were still in them. Over the past two years, it’s estimated that DM (not his real name) has helped police recover more than 400 stolen vehicles.

DM didn’t want to use his real name for this story because it’s the anonymity that allows him to spot and call in so many stolen vehicles. His job requires him to drive throughout the city every day, and that regular presence in every Red Deer neighbourhood grants him a kind of invisibility to criminals who are on the lookout for police. He’s also quick to note that he doesn’t call in the stolen vehicles while he’s driving; as a professional driver, he’s all too aware of the dangers of distracted driving.

DM’s interest in helping police recover stolen vehicles – and in seeing those responsible get arrested – started a few years ago after his own car was stolen when he left it unlocked and running. When he posted about it on social media, he says, “I got raked over the coals for leaving it running with the keys inside. It was a lesson learned.”

That experience prompted DM’s involvement with the Facebook group “Central Alberta Stolen Vehicles,” which currently has about 10,000 followers. It also created a new use for a rare skill he possesses – a photographic memory.

Every morning, DM checks the Central Alberta Stolen Vehicles page and other social media groups focused on stolen vehicles and makes a list of any outstanding stolen vehicles; thanks to his incredible memory for vehicle makes, colours, details and license plates, however, he rarely has to consult his list once he’s compiled it. “If I’ve seen it once, it’s almost guaranteed I’ll find it,” he says. “Often if a vehicle is stolen in the morning, I find it by afternoon.”

That dedication, combined with his photographic memory and his job, make DM an exceptional resource for RCMP and for the community. He sees his contribution as an important complement to the work done by RCMP, and enjoys the feeling of community involvement that comes with connecting online with victims and helping to find their stolen vehicles.

“It’s people’s livelihood – they need to be able to get to work, or get the kids to appointments. When they get their vehicles back it’s such a sense of relief that they don’t have to go out and spend money on another car,” he says. “These groups create a feeling of community – we do communicate with police, and yes, they are looking for these vehicles. I get angry when people put down the police because they don’t see all the work they’re doing. They’re hard working people.”

After his own car was stolen, DM reported it to the RCMP and then started looking for it himself. It didn’t take long for him to find it parked in a retail lot, still occupied by the suspect. He called RCMP and the man behind the wheel was arrested; DM notes that, at the time of the arrest, his car was full of stolen property from a Red Deer business. “Take it from someone who did it,” DM says of leaving his car unlocked and running, “I enabled him to get down to (the store) and clean them out.”

After his car was returned to him, DM notes he spent two days cleaning it. “You have that disgusting feeling – you feel violated. Someone has been in your space and you don’t know what they’ve done in it. I still have ‘what ifs’.”

He enjoys working with the RCMP and the call takers, who have come to recognize his voice and name, and appreciate the courtesy he shows when he’s asked to follow the same call logging procedure each time he calls – which is sometimes several times a day.

“It was a pleasure to see DM recognized for his contribution to our community in locating stolen vehicles, and it was also a great opportunity to let him know how much the call takers appreciate his patience and understanding when we’re taking his information for dispatch,” says one of the call takers who deals with DM regularly. “We’re such a busy detachment, and often he is put on hold while a more urgent call is dispatched or while we answer other incoming calls. He has left an impression on all of us.”

Superintendent Ken Foster, officer in charge at the Red Deer RCMP detachment, describes DM’s contribution as an extraordinary embracing of the police tenet that citizens are the eyes and ears of every community. The ceremony recognizing his contribution was hosted by Superintendent Foster, Inspectors Grobmeier and Lagrange, and former Red Deer RCMP Superintendent Scott Tod. DM was presented with a plaque at a reception in front of attendees including DM’s family, RCMP members, and several call takers who were glad to finally put a face to the voice they’ve come to know so well.

“This one individual has been an active part of the recovery of more than 400 vehicles over the past two years, and about half of those vehicles were occupied by criminals when RCMP arrived,” says Foster. “Not only has DM helped police return many stolen vehicles to their rightful owners, he plays an important role in helping us arrest many career criminals and put them before the courts. We’ve recovered firearms, drugs and large amounts of stolen identity documents from these vehicles. It’s astounding to see the positive impact that one person can have on a community. Red Deer RCMP commend his commitment to crime prevention and reduction and are grateful for his service.”

DM was surprised and touched to be recognized by Red Deer RCMP for the significance of his contribution. “It made me feel great,” he says. “I feel honoured.”

DM has two pieces of advice for citizens, and both come from his experience as a victim of crime and from seeing so many stolen vehicles in the course of his daily travels. First, he stresses the importance of never leaving your vehicle unlocked and running. And second, as a man who knows every inch of Red Deer thanks to driving its streets every day, he has this to say: “Something I want people to do is look out your window. You know your neighbourhood – you need to pay attention to what’s going on. Notice who or what doesn’t belong and report it to the RCMP.”

“Until you’ve been physically affected by (vehicle theft), you can’t relate,” DM says. “I’ve been a victim and I know what it feels like. I would never wish anyone that feeling. Now that I’ve seen it firsthand, I’m going to help as many people as possible.”

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CBDC Central Bank Digital Currency

Don’t Gaslight Me

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From the Brownstone Institute

BY 

No mention of excess mortality. No mention of the Forest of the Fallen. Nothing about the imminent WHO changes. Nothing about the dangers of Digital ID or the Misinformation Bill. Nothing about the risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies. Evidently the editor sees no “responsibility to our readers and to society in general” in respect of these issues.

An email from the editor of a major daily Melbourne newspaper has come into my possession. I won’t say how, since it might incriminate me as being part of a household that pays for a subscription. Let’s just say that it’s possible that the subscription was taken out using an email address that I have access to. Or something. The very first words of the email are:

As a subscription benefit, from today [masthead name redacted] editor [name redacted] will send you an exclusive analysis of the week’s most important stories each Friday. 

That’s what I call a ‘marmalade dropper,’ a statement so utterly preposterous that to read it over breakfast would cause such a fit of apoplexy that one would choke on one’s marmalade toast and drop it on the floor, for it to be consumed by the dog.

Luckily, I’d had breakfast already. Intrigued by this alleged ‘benefit,’ which might better be regarded as a ‘threat,’ I read on. The newish editor started off by quoting a former editor:

[Masthead redacted] “does certain things differently from other newspapers simply because … we’re not there as a means of simply passing a word from a mouth to an eye, we’ve a responsibility to our readers and to society in general.”

That is an unabashed endorsement of the practice of selecting and then framing the stories they deem fit to print, rather than simply reporting the bare facts. Then this:

Readers of [masthead redacted] want more than the kind of imitable journalism they can find on countless free-to-read news sites and unoriginal, uninspiring and sometimes unhinged publications.

The editor couldn’t resist, either through spite or an inferiority complex, a swipe at other news sites. Too gutless to name those he thinks ‘unhinged.’

It goes on:

…our readers want depth and quality, excellence and rigour. They want a publication with scruples that is willing to fight for its readers, its city, and hold power to account, without fear or favour. One that will doggedly pursue public interest investigations to shine light on the darkest parts of our society, but also celebrate Melbourne’s successes and be constructive and mature in its approach to difficult subjects.

“Fight for its readers?” Did it fight for those who were shot in the back with rubber bullets when Victoria Police corralled them at the Shrine of Remembrance? “Doggedly pursue public interest investigations?” Did they doggedly pursue the hotel quarantine fiasco? As I recall it was only Peta Credlin who had the guts to ask the then Premier any hard questions about this and other Covid crimes. Did they ever get to the bottom of who ordered the curfew? Was it the Premier, the Chief Health Officer, or the Police Commissioner?

“…be constructive and mature in its approach to difficult subjects?” What a string of weasel words that is! The translation is “ignore totally any concerns about vaccine safety and smear anyone who raises the issue.”

But there’s more. The email goes on to list the things they did talk about in the last 12 months. See if you can spot what’s missing.

…war crimes of Australia’s most decorated soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith. We promoted mature discussion about the future of Melbourne and its suburbs. We broke the news that the nation’s biggest plastic bag recycling scheme was continuing to operate even though its recycling function had collapsed, resulting in millions of bags being stuffed into warehouses across the country.

We exposed huge failings in the Department of Home Affairs across a range of stories that exposed a failure to prevent human trafficking and questionable payments of Australian taxpayer money to foreign officials. When we reported that the influential head of that department, Mike Pezzullo, had attempted to influence and cosy up to politicians, he was stood down pending an investigation.

We pored over every detail of the state government’s cancellation of the Commonwealth Games and exposed the shambolic management of that decision. We sent reporters to cover a war in the Middle East with huge emotional impacts on many in Australia, and indeed on domestic politics.

We led the coverage of one of the most extraordinary murder investigations in recent history. We’ve looked at the schools we send our children to and turned our attention to the burgeoning suburbs where Melburnians are increasingly choosing to live.

We fought for our readers’ right to know what is happening within the justice system, by opposing suppression orders and battling for access to court documents in the Magistrates’, County and Supreme Courts, all the way up to the High Court of Australia.

We’ve celebrated the city’s major events. We didn’t miss a beat during one of the great AFL seasons. We took readers inside the Lord’s Long Room at one of the most controversial moments in its history and we replayed the Bairstow dismissal as frequently as we possibly could.

What great stuff. Plastic bag recycling. Australian Rules football. Cricket dismissals. Phonics in schools. A reporter sent to a war zone. A spectator at the bankruptcy of third-world Victoria, epitomised by the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games and the Airport Rail.

There’s an enormous gaping hole in the coverage, just like there’s an enormous gaping space in the foyers of office towers all over the city, as the utter destruction of our once beautiful Melbourne echoes the utter destruction of lives and livelihoods caused by mask mandates, ‘social distancing’ and vaccine mandates.

Nothing about the morality of excluding people from daily society. No mention of excess mortality. No mention of the Forest of the Fallen. Nothing about the imminent WHO changes. Nothing about the dangers of Digital ID or the Misinformation Bill. Nothing about the risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies. Evidently the editor sees no “responsibility to our readers and to society in general” in respect of these issues. I’ll be waiting for an age, I think, to get that kind of coverage.

A final quote from the email is even more chilling:

You, our subscribers, made all this and more possible by supporting our journalism. And I can assure you, this is only the start of what we believe we can accomplish as a newsroom.

So what is it that they are only at the start of accomplishing as a newsroom? What is it, other than suppressing some stories and promoting others, that they want to do?

At least I don’t pay for this stuff. Oh, wait.

Republished from the author’s Substack

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  • Richard Kelly

    Richard Kelly is a retired business analyst, married with three adult children, one dog, devastated by the way his home city of Melbourne was laid waste. Convinced justice will be served, one day.

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Alberta

A Matter of Fact: AP news story misrepresents the oil sands by ignoring environmental progress

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A truck approaches Wapisiw Lookout, the first reclaimed tailings pond in the oil sands industry. Photo courtesy Suncor Energy

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

Producers reducing emissions per barrel, on track for absolute emissions reductions

A widely-circulated article this week by the Associated Press misrepresents Canada’s oil sands industry by ignoring its progress improving environmental performance and its commitment to achieving climate targets.  

Here are the facts.  

Fact: Canadian oil is not “the world’s dirtiest”  

The article repeats the false narrative that oil from the oil sands is far “dirtier” than other crudes produced around the world. This is not the case.  

Analysis by S&P Global found that average oil sands emissions per barrel are in the range of other crude oils consumed in the United States, the industry’s main customer.

Average oil sands emissions per barrel range from 1.6 per cent below to 8.6 per cent above, depending on production process, S&P Global predecessor IHS Markit reported in 2018. 

Canada’s oil sands producers are doing more to reduce emissions than operators in other countries, according to BMO Capital Markets.

Between 2013 and 2021, BMO estimates the average oil sands barrel shaved off more than 22 kilograms of emissions, compared to a reduction of just five kilograms per barrel for other major global oil producers.  

Fact: Oil sands producers reducing emissions per barrel, on track for absolute emissions reductions  

The AP article makes no mention of the success oil sands producers have achieved reducing emissions per barrel. That so-called emissions intensity is now estimated to be 23 per cent lower than it was in 2009, according to S&P Global.   

Further, there is no mention that the success reducing emissions per barrel is catching up to production growth, and total oil sands emissions may be close to their peak.  

Last year, for the first time since S&P Global started estimating the data, oil sands production went up, but emissions did not.

Total oil sands emissions were 81 megatonnes in 2022, nearly flat with 2021 despite a production increase of about 50,000 barrels per day. 

Last year analysts predicted that absolute oil sands emissions would start going down by 2025. The new findings indicate that could happen sooner. And that’s before shovels hit the ground for the Pathways Alliance’s foundational carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.   

Fact: Pathways Alliance collaboration is critical to emissions reduction 

The AP article leaves out any mention of the Pathways Alliance, one of the most significant environmental initiatives ever undertaken in Canada.  

Six companies representing 95 per cent of Canada’s oil sands production are working together with the goal of net zero emissions in their operations by 2050.    

With anticipated co-funding support from Canadian governments, the Alliance has announced plans to invest about $24 billion before 2030 in the first phase of its plan.

This includes $16.5 billion on the foundational CCS project and $7.6 billion on other technologies like switching to clean hydrogen and electricity to power oil sands operations. 

About half of the targeted 22 million tonne per year emissions reduction by 2030 will come from CCS, with a network connecting CO2 capture at an initial 14 oil sands facilities to a storage hub in northern Alberta. 

Fact: CCS projects in Canada are working 

The AP article perpetuates the inaccurate position that CCS is not a proven technology. But CCS in Canada has successfully operated for more than two decades.   

Canada has six of the world’s 39 commercial CCS operations, accounting for about 15 per cent of global CCS capacity even though Canada generates less than two per cent of global CO2 emissions, according to the International CCS Knowledge Centre. 

In Alberta, since 2015 two CCS projects – both tied to oil sands production – have safely stored more than 12 million tonnes of CO2, or the equivalent of taking more than 2.6 million internal combustion engine vehicles off the road.  

Fact: The world needs oil now and long into the future 

While activists trumpet the narrative that the world is rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels, the reality is oil and gas will be around for a long, long time.    

Even as more renewable and alternative energy sources become technically and economically feasible at a large scale, on the current trajectory the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that oil alone will still supply 26 per cent of world energy needs in 2050. That’s down only modestly from 30 per cent in 2022.    

Even in the IEA’s unlikely net zero scenario – which would require unprecedented global cooperation and includes more than a third of emissions reductions coming from technologies that do not yet exist – oil still accounts for 8 per cent of world energy supply in 2050.   

Oil demand for non-energy use (like pavement, which improves in quality when using oil from Canada’s oil sands) even continues to increase in the IEA’s net zero scenario, rising to 6 per cent of world energy use in 2050, from five per cent in 2022.   

Canada’s oil sands industry leads the world in its commitment to continuous improvement in environmental performance and emissions reduction, and this should be recognized by media outlets including the Associated Press.  

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