I admit that I’m in a strange minority – better known as the minority of the strange. That’s because I actually read a hard copy of the news and, yes, I am equal opportunity strange in that I subscribe to both the left and the right wings of inkful knowledge.

To maintain my sanity, I mentally merge the two sides of opinion to come up with my own. This is very clever.

On one page, I see that the National Energy Board (NEB) has stripped the threads to another energy anchor bolt with a declaration that the, “Catch me if you can,” Energy East pipeline can’t be caught because it is becoming an illusion.

According to the direction given by the Trudeau funded and supported NEB, the pipeline must now produce GHG emissions data for both the upstream and downstream facets of the project. This means that TransCanada must somehow mathematically produce air-brained emission numbers, from the extraction of crude, to the purchase of gasoline at the pump or diesel at the rack. Neither we, nor TransCanada are privy to the formula that the NEBs have concocted to come up with a satisfactory answer for them.

I suggest that the NEB has no idea, and if we the public were presented with the numbers, we too would have no idea what they meant – nor would 90% of us care unless we were running in an election.

Why stop at the oil industry? Why can’t industry of any sock design be ’emissionly cross examined’ for a crime they didn’t know existed?

Does the ice cream industry, for example, need to provide the upstream GHG emission levels from the cow munching on whatever cows munch on, to the delivery truck that takes it to the dairy counter? Then what about the emissions to get to the dairy counter in our… can’t-park-it-anywhere SUVs?

But you see that’s why I am an ambidextrous hard copy newspaper reader guy.

The answer to TransCanada’s problem with pipeline construction (that is now in its ninth year), when we look at the Keystone XL Pipeline pathetogram, lies with the example the leadership of the Ontario government (oxymoron aside) has shown with the announcement of their plan to open a chain of 150 brick and mortar pot stores, which I have named Wynne’s Wacky Weeds.

These stand-alone retail outlets will be overseen by the Government run Liquor Control Board of Ontario, because the government views buying weed and a mickey of rye in one government owned-and-operated store as setting a bad example and precedent.

All of these stores, the infrastructure, and the Liberal red tape of taxes, will be in place in a little over two years. Take that TransCanada and Enbridge!

I suggest that they speed dial the person or persons who spearheaded (or is it stickhandled?) the Ontario ‘wacky tabacky’ concept and give it to the NEB and the perpetually concerned environmentalists, because the Energy East pipeline just got renamed – Energy Fleeced!