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Sunnybrook has been paying property taxes for 56 years. Was it good value?

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It is easy to travel around Red Deer and see examples of idealism meeting practicality and realism.

Unfinished roads going to non-existent bridges. Neighbourhoods like Timberlands, with a firehall and a high school and way too many undeveloped lots.

Capstone is a decades old work in progress that keeps hitting the taxpayers. In the beginning it was simple, move the dilapidated public works building out of downtown and turn the riverfront property into high end river view properties.

A wonderful vision but reality stepped in. The new public works, went with the high-end vision and the costs soared to north of a hundred million dollars and kept going. Re-aligning the roads took another 50 million, upgrading services, burying lines cost more.

After decades and about $200 million dollars we have 23 acres of empty vision. There is still talk of a $20+ million pedestrian bridge just metres away from Taylor Drive bridge. The costs for this unfinished vision is hitting $10 million an acre.

Enough with the eternal yet to be built projects, as more examples like the Dawe Arena twinning, north of 11A , 50m pool, Hazlett Lake, and the list keeps going.

Let us talk about the city’s tendency to build and abandon philosophy. The neighbourhoods that they cannot maintain.

Our Premier keeps talking or ranting about equalization payments, How Alberta has paid more to Ottawa than they have received back.

Our neighbourhoods can say similar sentiments when it comes to city hall. My neighbourhood, Sunnybrook is 55 years old. Our roads and sidewalks are 55 years old. We have been paying property taxes for 55 years. Did we get 55 years of property taxes back in return?

My 55 year old sidewalk got half of one crack repaired this year. The second time in the 20 plus years that I have lived on this street. I have shrubs growing in my sidewalk, I have pulled saplings out of the street in front of my house. My sidewalk has sunk to becoming a pool or an ice rink depending upon the weather.

The city said it cannot afford to maintain the 800 kms of sidewalks it now has. The population is static, population increase of 195 in 5 years, but we built 1299 new homes with sidewalks at the same time. If the crack is not at least 25mm (1”) wide and poses a tripping hazard it will not be repaired.

The city subsidizes the downtown with our taxes. They feel the downtown is a vital attraction for Red Deer. Sunnybrook was once named in MacLeans magazine as the Number 1 neighbourhood in Canada. Did the city capitalize on this national news item? No, it widened 32 Street and 40 Avenue and isolated and abandoned Sunnybrook.

The Bower Mall was built with the understanding that the Molly Banister drive would be extended to give direct access to Sunnybrook, Anders, Morrisroe, Inglewood, Vanier, Mountview, Deer Park etc. The Bower subdivision was built isolated from Molly Banister Drive by this commercial development.

The city wants to abandon that commitment.

Ideally, in another dimension, the Piper Creek would be this bubbling brook enjoyed by abundant wildlife and environmentally conscious Red Deer residents. Reality sets in.

The polluted, weed infested, algae prone creek by Bower Mall after flowing through 2 landfills, dead falls, blow downs, and a cow pasture, is isolated from the trail that comes out of the woods by Molly Banister Drive. The trail continues south in the grasses parallel with Barrett Drive on the west side.

The east side of the creek will have the old barb wired game proof fence that borders it, be replaced by the rear residential fences of 50 new homes, if the road allowance is removed.

Negating the bridge, eliminating the customer traffic, slowing emergency vehicles, forcing thousands of drivers daily to drive 4 extra kilometres in a city that CBC once reported had the poorest air quality in Canada. (September 9, 2015).

The city talks about a Garden of Eden, this wonderful wildlife corridor, where animals can roam except reality plays a hand. Traffic is a wall less barrier. 10,000 cars per day is the tipping point for wildlife. 32 Street is currently at 23,500 cars per day with expectations of 40,000 per day when it is widened to 6 lanes when Molly Bannister is not extended. 19 Street is expected to be widened to 6 lanes and traffic is expected to soar to even higher numbers.

The thing about 19 Street is that it too crosses the creek in this fantasy wild life corridor, on the south side of Molly Banister. There is no bridge, no tunnel, no safe way for animals to cross. There is talk about a pedestrian bridge for residents to cross. There is talk about a traffic circle for cars to have easier access to 19 Street. Where are the city councillors demands to protect the oft-mentioned wildlife corridor?

The proposed bridge for Molly Banister will take up an acre of land and the road will run along the creek similar to Barrett Drive in Bower and Selkirk Boulevard in Sunnybrook then run parallel with the power lines similar to 22 Street. The alternative being proposed is 50 houses along the creek taking up 16 +/- acres then a road to the power lines. Which is honestly better for wildlife?

The north connector encroaches on wildlife way beyond the Molly Banister Ext. yet silence from city councillors.

Realism plays a dirty hand at times, and the city seems to ignore this and you only need to look at future expenses the city incurred in their quests for unrealistic expectations. The million dollar annual payments for years to come for the winter games, the Exhibition Hall at the Westerner where councillors sat on the board, Capstone, Timberlands, North of 11A, Dawe arena, the unfinished bridge, the bus terminal’s green roof, and the list grows.

There are more options than (1)dream the impossible or (2) build and abandon? You could maintain what you have. Follow through on obligations and stop making rash decisions on immediate schemes.

There 300 families backing onto 32 Street that do not deserve to have their quality of life diminished. The same can be said of the families backing onto 19 St.

Thousands of families in neighbourhoods south of 39 St. do not deserve the traffic congestion forced onto their commute.

19 Street is becoming a valued asset to county businesses and Gasoline Alley will be easier to access than downtown. The downtown needs our help in more ways than subsidies.

I believed that the bigger the picture the more obvious the need for Molly Bannister to be extended.  So did we get good value for our property taxes? Will the attacks on our quality of life end? Does equalization even exist? We will see.

Thank you.

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Opinion

Some scientists advocate creating human bodies for ‘spare parts.’

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From LifeSiteNews

By Heidi Klessig, M.D.

The Stanford researchers admit that some people may find these ideas about clones repugnant but justify them on the basis of research already in progress.

In the 2005 sci-fi thriller The Island, Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor discover that they are clones, created as an “insurance policy” for wealthy people who might need them for “spare parts.” Now, scientists at Stanford are proposing that we make this dystopian fiction a reality. On March 25, 2025, Carsten T. Charlesworth, Henry T. Greely, and Hiromitsu Nakauchi wrote in MIT Technology Review:

Recent advances in biotechnology now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain. Many will find this possibility disturbing, but if researchers and policymakers can find a way to pull these technologies together, we may one day be able to create “spare” bodies, both human and nonhuman.

These researchers say that “human biological materials are an essential commodity in medicine, and persistent shortages of these materials create a major bottleneck to progress.” Using techniques reminiscent of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (in which fetuses destined for menial tasks are selectively poisoned to diminish their intelligence), they propose using human stem cells and artificial wombs to create human clones which they call “bodyoids.” The article describes it this way:

Such technologies, together with established genetic techniques to inhibit brain development, make it possible to envision the creation of “bodyoids”—a potentially unlimited source of human bodies, developed entirely outside of a human body from stem cells, that lack sentience or the ability to feel pain.

The researchers say that these neurologically impaired human clones could provide an almost unlimited source of organs, tissues, and cells for use in transplantation. They admit that some people may find these ideas repugnant but justify them on the basis of research already in progress. They correctly point out that we are already using neurologically injured people as research test subjects.

“Brain dead” people who are biologically alive but who have been declared legally dead are currently being used as test hosts for the implantation of genetically modified pig livers and kidneys. These brain-injured people who are being used as xenograft hosts are certainly alive (since they are stable enough to be used as test subjects for implanted animal organs) until they are killed at the end of the experiment for further anatomical and microscopic analysis. The Stanford scientists use this ethically problematic practice to justify creating human clones for research: “In all these cases, nothing was, legally, a living human being at the time it was used for research. Human bodyoids would also fall into that category.”

The scientists admit that human cloning raises ethical problems, saying that the use of bodyoids  “might diminish the human status of real people who lack consciousness or sentience.” But the article is clearly written in the spirit of the ends justifying the means. In their call for action, the authors conclude, “Caution is warranted, but so is bold vision; the opportunity is too important to ignore.”

On the contrary, the value of every human being is what is too important to ignore. We value and protect every person because they are made in the image of God, regardless of the way they were brought into the world. Using unconscious people as research subjects is wrong, both in the case of brain-injured people declared “legally dead” (under the logical fallacy of  brain death), and also with this new proposal for bioengineering human clones. Salve Regina University philosopher Dr. Peter J. Colosi explains it this way:

You, as the person who you are, exist even when you are not conscious, and this means that other human beings who are not conscious could also do that. In the branch of philosophy that I am calling Christian personalism, there have been many convincing arguments developed to show the reasonableness of the presence of a person in all classes of nonconscious or minimally conscious living human beings.

Also, it is wrong to create people with the sole purpose of using them to fulfill our own desires. Dr. Colosi makes this clear:

Furthermore, the creation of human beings with the deliberate intent to destroy some of them for the sake of others…is a clear example of what Pope Francis has referred to as “The Throw Away Culture”: The throwaway culture says, “I use you as much as I need you. When I am not interested in you anymore, or you are in my way, I throw you out.” It is especially the weakest who are treated this way — unborn children, the elderly, the needy, and the disadvantaged.”

Creating people to be used as commodities for “spare parts” is unconscionable. Do we really want to be spending our taxpayer dollars this way? Yet Stanford Medicine’s Center for Clinical and Translational Research and Education just received a $70 million NIH grant. The purpose of this grant is to “accelerate the translation of newly discovered biomedical treatments into interventions that improve patient care and population health.”

Rather than accelerating, we need to stop, expose, and defund these morally abhorrent attempts to purposely bioengineer neurologically impaired human clones as a source of “spare parts.” A pro-life ethic protects all human life from experimentation and abuse.

Heidi Klessig MD is a retired anesthesiologist and pain management specialist who writes and speaks on the ethics of organ harvesting and transplantation. She is the author of The Brain Death Fallacy, and her work may be found at respectforhumanlife.com.

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International

Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ defense shield must be built now, Lt. Gen. warns

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MXM logo  MxM News

Quick Hit:

Lt. Gen. Trey Obering (Ret.), former director of the Missile Defense Agency, is calling on Congress and the Department of Defense to move quickly in support of President Donald Trump’s vision for a next-generation missile defense system—dubbed the “Golden Dome.” In a Fox News op-ed, Obering argues that a constellation of up to 2,000 satellite interceptors could defend against modern threats from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran at a fraction of the cost of today’s ground-based systems.

Key Details:

  • The Golden Dome initiative will be presented to President Trump following his executive order mandating the development of advanced national missile defense.

  • Obering says a space-based system, enabled by AI and peer-to-peer networking, could intercept missiles earlier in their trajectory, significantly enhancing U.S. deterrence capabilities.

  • Estimated cost for the full satellite constellation would be less than the price of today’s 44 ground interceptors and global radar network.

Diving Deeper:

In a March 31 op-ed for Fox News, retired Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, who directed the Missile Defense Agency under President George W. Bush, laid out a detailed argument for why President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield is both technologically feasible and strategically necessary. “We can do this — and we must,” Obering wrote, emphasizing the urgency of the moment.

According to Obering, the current U.S. missile defense architecture—reliant on ground-based interceptors and radar systems—faces serious limitations in light of the increasingly sophisticated missile technologies being developed by U.S. adversaries. “Our existing missile-defense system cannot easily defeat some of our adversaries’ more modern, sophisticated weapons,” he noted.

The “Golden Dome” proposal envisions a network of up to 2,000 satellites in low Earth orbit, operating as both sensors and interceptors. The concept, which builds on Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative and the shelved “Brilliant Pebbles” program, is now achievable thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, satellite production, and space-based communications. “Each satellite has the knowledge of every other satellite,” Obering explained. “They all serve as both threat sensors and hit-to-kill interceptors.”

Obering pointed to real-world applications of this model in Ukraine, where a peer-to-peer software system—built using concepts from Uber—has helped the Ukrainian military effectively target Russian positions. A similar concept could be applied to satellite-based missile defense. “The networking concept has already proven its effectiveness on the battlefield in Ukraine,” he said.

Importantly, Obering stressed that while no missile shield is perfect, the deterrent power of such a system would be undeniable. “The capability and capacity now exists to defeat single and multiple missile launches, thereby creating strategic deterrence — or ‘peace through strength,’ in the words of both Reagan and Trump,” he wrote.

Cost is another key factor. Obering argued that this next-gen system would come in at a lower price than the 44 ground interceptors currently deployed in Alaska and California. He cited SpaceX’s Starlink, which already has over 7,000 satellites in orbit, as proof of concept for rapid and scalable deployment. “For a defense system charged with safeguarding countless lives and trillions of dollars in assets, this would be money well spent,” he said.

He also warned that bureaucratic delays must not slow the project. “We cannot allow unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles to stifle our progress,” Obering urged. He called on Congress to expedite confirmations of key defense leaders and fully fund the Golden Dome initiative, with the Missile Defense Agency as the lead coordinating body.

With China racing ahead in artificial intelligence and space defense, Obering concluded with a stark warning: “Golden Dome must be built first; the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.”

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