There's nothing about "climate change" that requires "urgent" action on anyone's part let alone Canada's. The evidence for AGW has always been weak. The recent Climategate scandal showing that key climate scientists have been tampering with data and interferring with the scientific review process makes the scare-mongering IPCC's case even weaker.
The only useful "turning point" will be when our governments come to their collective senses and start to demand verifiable evidence before wasting, or promising to waste, truckloads of taxpayers money.
Update: In the comments Halfwise notes that "Big Carbon", "the Spawn of Enron", was kept alive by Copenhagen. Here's how the carbon markets have been performing as indicated by iPath Global Carbon ETN NYSE:GRN which kicked off at $50 in 2008 and has fallen by over 50% since. Post Copenhagen it dropped from $28 to $23. Note also that volumes are 1000 shares a day or less:But, meanwhile, if it's a contest in climate la-la land between Mr. Prentice and greener than thou idiots like Charest or Campbell, give me Prentice any day!
But the truckers were having none of it:I find the editorial support for the Truck Light Parade amazing (Dec. 4). Eighty decorated trucks drive around the city, spewing exhaust for nearly three hours.
There are plenty of other light displays that bring delight and wonder and where collections can be made for the food banks. Let's make sure that this unnecessary contribution to global warming is not repeated next year.
Daphne Dunbar, Victoria
Bravo, Mike (and Harold and Dennis)!As a past president of the Island Equipment Owners Association, which organizes the Truck Light Parade, I take exception to the litany of attacks we put up with year after year from armchair environmentalists.
Many of the trucks cost thousands of dollars to decorate, and all this is done to create an amazing charity event that is most likely a bigger event than any other in the district. We collect and deliver thousands of pounds of food to the food
banks.Why don't you attack the Victoria Day Parade, the Oak Bay Tea Party or the Santa Claus Parade? We bring the Truck Light Parade to the communities rather than asking everyone to drive to it.
When the couch environmentalists can show me that they are living in mud huts they built by hand and light and heat by burning dried cowpies, drawing water by hand from a hand-dug well to clean the rabbit they are skinning for dinner, then they can come with their complaints.
Until you are so pure, the next time you see the Truck Light Parade, stop and say thanks for the nice house you live in, the parks you use, the school your child attends, the recreation centre that you swim at.
Also, you should thank us for helping all those people that the Truck Light Parade fed through donations brought out for the occasion.
Mike Cownden,
Past president, Island Equipment Owners Association
More here:... The HST is opposed by an overwhelming 82 per cent of British Columbians, according to a new Canwest News Service poll.
But it now appears the only way the HST will be stopped is if eight Liberal MLAs in Gordon Campbell's provincial government break ranks in Victoria.
After this week's show of political "bravery" in Ottawa, I wouldn't hold my breath.
... By a vote of 192 to 32, the House of Commons voted to approve a ways-and-means motion that clears the way for the government to introduce legislation as early as Friday that enables Ontario and B.C. to harmonize their provincial sales taxes with the federal goods-and-services tax.
... The Liberal leader has said that votes on the matter will be "whipped," meaning Liberal MPs will be expected to vote with the party.
However, 27 of the 77 Liberal MPs did not show up. The absentees included B.C. MPs Hedy Fry, Keith Martin and Joyce Murray, as well as such Ontario MPs as Mark Holland, Jim Karygiannis, Dan McTeague, Paul Szabo and David McGuinty, brother of Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty.
"The recent coolness was caused by transitory natural factors that temporarily masked the human-caused signal..."Bwaahhahaha! Riiight! All cooling is natural and all warming is caused by humans. Another pearl of climate wisdom for the nitwits at Hopenhagen or as one guy puts it, "Jokenhagen". Good grief, don’t these clowns realize how idiotic they appear/are?
Not only that but skeptics are nasty right-wingers:... Like other scientists working in the climate-change field, Weaver says they face a well-orchestrated campaign of harassment by global-warming skeptics. ["Well-orchestrated" by skeptics on a budget that is infinitesimal compared with massively funded climate scaremongers like Weaver.]
... Weaver worries that climate-change deniers, many funded by large oil companies, are succeeding in scaring or confusing people. [That’s hilarious! Compared to the miniscule funding skeptics get (from any source), the AGW scaremongers’s coffers are awash in Big-Oil funding.]
If he had any real integrity or courage Weaver would, like his fellow climate alarmist George Monbiot, be condemning the actions of the CRU climate scammers, and not ridiculously playing victim. Oh, and by the way, Andrew, even the UK Met Office thinks the CRU's global temperature data analysis is hopelessly tainted (but who'd trust them to do the re-analysis?)Many skeptics are libertarians who do not want government interference in their lives, Weaver said. Others have vested interests in discouraging change. [True, but skeptics genuinely distrust the weak science and shrill propaganda behind claims of impending doom. And who in his right mind wants our governments to waste billions and trillions gambling on Weaver’s toy climate models.]
... the level of animosity is surprising, he agreed. [Hardly "surprising" - understandable and entirely predictable given the warm-mongers' treatment of "deniers".]
...Tom Pedersen, director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions at UVic, has monitored most of the climate-change-denial blogs and has found the common thread is an animosity toward government regulation. [Unlike Weaver and co. who apparently love the idea of global regulation and micro-management of our lives.]
... The CRU materials also reveal paranoia on the part of scientists who believe that in trying to engineer "consensus" and alarm about warming, they are a brave and embattled minority. Actually, never in peacetime history has the government-media-academic complex been in such sustained propagandistic lockstep about any subject.
... Were their science as unassailable as they insist it is, and were the consensus as broad as they say it is, and were they as brave as they claim to be, they would not be "goaded" into intellectual corruption. Nor would they meretriciously bandy the word "deniers" to disparage skepticism that shocks communicants in the faith-based global warming community.
... The travesty is the intellectual arrogance of the authors of climate-change models partially based on the problematic practice of reconstructing long-term prior climate changes. On such models we are supposed to wager trillions of dollars -- and substantially diminished freedom.
Update: Here's a companion story featuring Weaver in yesterday's Post; and a couple of letters (one, two) responding in today's Post.
*Andrew Weaver is Victoria’s and one of Canada’s top 'political' scientists who, when he’s not telling tall climate tales, he’s fiddling with climate models to generate fodder for yet more tall climate tales.Yes, sure "out of context."[Kevin] Trenberth says the hackers took data out of context.
As The Wall Street Journal Europe put it, "The impression left by the Climategate emails is that the global warming game has been rigged from the start." The impression left by the performance of Anna Maria Tremonti and The Current is that they — wittingly or not — have been helping to rig the game in Canada.Just like the Western dupes that the Soviets once toured through their Potemkin villages so they could report back to their readers about the Soviet Utopia, we have useful idiots, now in the service of climatism.
We're talking multi-billions here. Why hasn't the issue been better publicized?... For a long-term investor, it will be the difference between an Audi and a Taurus, or golfing in Florida versus watching the Battle of the Blades on CBC.
... There are compelling arguments and precedent for not further taxing Canadian's retirement capital, but unfortunately they've fallen on deaf ears because of bad timing and the wrong messenger.
... The timing relates to budget deficits. .... the response from a higher authority has been clear and consistent: “This is going to happen because we need the money. Focus on implementation and we'll talk about the inequities later.” Recessions are a bad time for rational arguments and good policy.
... the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC) [has] done a good job of laying out the arguments why the HST is bad for Canadian investors. But IFIC is an organization whose membership is made up of too many firms that charge world-leading fees, and have been reluctant to share the benefits of their scale with clients. IFIC's association with Bay Street's fat cats has hurt its credibility when arguing against HST....
Read on.They tax our income. Then they tax our spending. Now they propose to tax our savings. It's time to seriously start considering a move to Alberta, or the Caymans.
Right on, Lorrie!... Now, if only NASA's space cadets could get their own doomsday climatologist -- James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies -- to stop preaching end-of-the-world hysteria about man-made global warming, they might do some good.
... Hansen, ... the first climatologist to start banging the Armageddon drum on global warming 20 years ago, keeps racing around the world hysterically preaching we only have a few years left to save the Earth ...
... how does a NASA "scientist" get to run around preaching democracy isn't working, get arrested for civil disobedience and lecture the U.S. Congress that energy company executives should be tried for "high crimes" against humanity?
If NASA is so concerned about hysterical claims of Armageddon scaring children, it should worry less about science-fiction movies and more about cleaning up its own house.
[h/t Vinney]The economy is so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.
It's so bad, I ordered a burger at McDonalds and the kid behind the counter asked, "Can you afford fries with that?"
The economy is so bad that CEO's are now playing miniature golf.
The economy is so bad if the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient Funds," you call them and ask if they meant you or them.
The economy is so bad Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.
The economy is so bad McDonalds is selling the 1/4 ouncer.
The economy is so bad parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children's names.
The economy is so bad a truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico.
The economy is so bad Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.
The economy is so bad Motel Six won't leave the light on anymore.
The economy is so bad the Mafia is laying off judges.
The economy is so bad Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.
Harper’s non-responsiveness sets Martel’s imagination (not to mention... Every two weeks for the past two years, Mr. Martel has mailed a book to the Prime Minister's Office. He tucks a letter to Mr. Harper inside the front cover explaining his selections...
... Mr. Martel has received only the most perfunctory letters from the Prime Minister's Office thanking him for his packages -- five letters in total, none of them signed by Mr. Harper himself-- a minimal response compared with the nearly 70 letters Mr. Martel has mailed.
"Obviously, Harper is a very bright man. Obviously he can process information, he can understand political and economic ideas. But with books you explore the other. You develop your sensitivity for the experience of others," said Mr. Martel. "Books make imaginative leaps into other lives. If he doesn't have that, that means he's only led his own narrow, intellectual life."And the absence of information about his reading habits makes Harper ... "scary" (of course) and cues yet more condescension:
He is not interested in debating the merits of reading fiction, which I find scary," Mr. Martel said ... "The reading of fiction is an essential tool of reflection."No doubt Martel thinks he’s doing something useful but he comes off more as an obsessive, hectoring kook. It’s not much wonder Mr. Harper doesn’t respond. In fact, he should consider getting a restraining order.
... a glimpse of a potentially fatal flaw at the heart of what we have called, since 9/11, the "war on terror."
... [Hasan's] superior officers and other authorities knew about his beliefs but seemed to think it was just a bit of harmless multicultural diversity – as if believing that "the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor" (i.e., his fellow American soldiers) and writing Internet paeans to the "noble" "heroism" of suicide bombers and, indeed, objectively supporting the other side in an active war ...
... we're scrupulously nonjudgmental about the ideology that drives a man to fly into a building or self-detonate on the subway, and thus we have a hole at the heart of our strategy ...
... that's the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy – in Afghanistan and in Texas.
Update: Ezra responds to comments from a well-wisher:... Maher Arar, the huckster who lied his way into $10.5 million of our tax dollars, has had less luck with the U.S. legal system than he had with ours. A U.S. appeals court threw out his nuisance claim against the U.S. government.
... had Arar actually gone to trial here, his case would have been thrown out, too. Arar's testimony would have been torn to shreds...
... Arar did not have good luck with our legal system. He had good luck with a politicized inquiry that bore his name -- the Arar Inquiry -- but in which he never testified. Of course he didn't: he doesn't want to answer questions.
Ezra Levant[,] You need to be sued right into the poorhouse. You need be be sued so your parents are living on the street. You need to be sued so your grandchildren will still be making payments.
Ezra's reply: I take it you think I'm defaming Arar. But truth is a defence. Have you bothered to look into the facts of his case? From his gun; to his lies about being whipped with a thick cord; to his refusal to be examined by an independent physician, etc., etc.? Do you really think a man who made out like a bandit would risk all of that by putting himself through litigation? And I mean real litigation, where he would actually have to answer questions, not fake litigation, such as a human rights commission, or his laughable "inquiry" in which he didn't even testify. Are you so naive as to think he'd jeopardize his life of luxury for that? Of course he wouldn't. He doesn't want to lose a lawsuit, to pay his lawyers and mine. And, more importantly, he doesn't want to lose the myth he has created: that he is a victim.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice ain't happy:Ottawa will have to lead a massive restructuring of the Canadian economy, with wealth flowing from the West to the rest of the country, if it is to meet its climate-change targets, a landmark report has concluded.
The Conservative government's goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 can be achieved, but only by limiting growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“The conclusions [the report] draws are irresponsible,” said Mr. PrenticeStill, the fact that the federal government appears to believe the ever more clearly dubious AGW hypothesis and continues making plans to waste huge gobs of money chasing that hypothesis is disturbing enough. And so is the fact that the
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And, coincidentally, here's Mark Steyn's timely column in Maclean's today: "Gullible eager-beaver planet savers". It's brilliant in it's exposé of statist Big Brotherism in the name of environmentalism. And good for Maclean's for publishing it. The TD Bank could use some of the same kind of intelligence and moxie.
Updates: Kevin Libin's "Carbon report’s bloody portent" [h/t Wilson in the comments].
Also see Peter Foster's "Muddled models":
... [the Pemina-Suzuki] report was leaked to The Globe and Mail, and ... the thrust of coverage appeared to contradict the smiley-faced conclusions of the report, which was titled “Climate leadership, economic prosperity.” Or, please hobble us so that we can run faster!
Under reasons for draconian action, the report quotes the widely discredited report from British economist and climate extremist Nicholas Stern....
Lord Stern is increasingly becoming a figure of ridicule. This week, he suggested that vegetarianism might save the world, and projected that attitudes towards meat eating might become like those towards drunk driving. He has also predicted climate change would turn Europe into a desert and turn the world back in time by 30-million years....
... The TD’s Mr. Drummond apparently doesn’t “endorse” the report. He told me he just wanted people to have “something to shoot at.”
But such a study, while an inviting target, should hardly be the starting point for rational analysis of the greatest policy threat to freedom and prosperity in living memory.
What it does confirm is how far the policy “debate” has been taken over by activists, supported by Big Corporate money.
Canadian Human Rights Commission head Jennifer Lynch, Q.C. ... literally made my jaw drop. ... her Cheshire Cat grin was wide enough for me to see her upturned lip. She came across as the smiling school marm, patiently explaining to everyone about how equality and freedom of speech need to be balanced.
Richard Warman was there. ... strikes me as quite young, young enough to be Jennifer Lynch's son [I think Deb meant "evil spawn"].
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Oops, wrong again, James!
And since AGW alarmist fanatics like Hansen are only interested in models that "predict" catastrophe they never will be.... What Mr. Hansen fails to acknowledge is that ENSO also has significant impacts outside of the tropics.
If and when GCMs like those used by GISS, and in turn by the IPCC, are capable of reproducing ENSO events and their multiyear aftereffects on SST, TLT, and OHC anomalies, they may be capable of determining Earth’s energy imbalance ... At present, they are not.
Bravo Lawrence Solomon! Read the whole thing.You are hearing at this conference that there is little doubt that human activity is causing profound and negative changes to our climate. Distinguished speakers are warning ... that Canada will need to be prepared for the chaos to follow, chaos that could include mass migrations of refugees, social unrest, pandemics, war and terrorism and riots born of social injustice.
I’m here to tell you that there are no such likelihoods. That there is no consensus on climate change. That the science that the doomsayers describe cannot credibly be seen as having the weight of scientific opinion behind it. ...
... All scenarios of catastrophe are based on nothing more than output from computer models that have been fed what-if scenarios. These models can’t even model the past, let alone the future. The climate is simply too complex, with too many variables, to project into the future with any degree of confidence.
... we need to be prepared for emergencies in the future. But we should base our preparations on real-world conditions, not the fantasies of climate modelers at computer keyboards.... the greatest threats to public safety and national security come not from man-made climate change but from man-made climate models. ...
... To date, attempts to mitigate global warming have caused enormous human suffering and ecological harm. With the globe not having warmed in the last 11 years — once again, to the surprise of the computer modelers — the safest thing we can do on global warming until we know more may be to do nothing; the most dangerous thing would be to continue to act boldly and in ignorance.
Only 50% of Democratic voters in the U.S. agree with President Obama’s belief that humans are responsible for global warming, according to a new poll from Pew Research Center released today. This figure ... represents the first time that a majority of Democrats have not endorsed the man-made theory of global warming.
Independent voters in the U.S. ... [o]nly 33% now blame us. ... 50% [last year] ...
... Republicans ... dropping from 27% last year to 18% this year.
Among all Americans, only 36% blame humans, the lowest figure yet. Last year, 47% blamed humans.
... Mr. Chen is the Toronto grocer who back in May performed a citizen's arrest on a serial thief, but now faces charges of assault, kidnapping and forcible confinement for his actions.
... Crown prosecutors made a plea bargain with Anthony Bennett, the thief, in return for his testimony against Mr. Chen.Lovely! The prosecutor bribes a thief to testify against the victim of his crime.
Some of the culprits:... a corporate-driven global PR machine, ... an avalanche of business-government co-operation the likes of which the world has never seen. ... the world’s leading environmentalists and green NGOs: The World Wildlife Fund, David Suzuki, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defence, Forest Ethics, the Pembina Institute and many more. Together with industry, they pressure government in the creation of the green industrial state. ...
The shape of the green industrial state rises out of a not-so-attractive place in history. The two great theories of modern statism are part of the recent past: Communism has been dead for two decades, discredited with the fall of the Soviet Union; and full-blown fascism, with government in total control of a subservient corporate private economy, has been a non-starter since 1945. What we have now rising out of the ashes to fill the void is climatism.
... the Forest Products Association of Canada, whose president, Avrim Lazar, threw Canada’s forest firms behind a World Wildlife Fund campaign to stop global deforestation.
... the Canadian ENGO-Industry Cap-and-Trade Dialogue ... a rogues gallery middlemen, energy consumers and green activists: The David Suzuki Foundation, Dow Canada, DuPont Canada, Environmental Defence, Forest Ethics, Pembina Institute, Royal Bank of Canada, Rio Tinto, Sierra Club of Canada, the Toronto-Dominion Bank and the World Wildlife Fund. ...
Any guesses as to what Canada’s position at the Copenhagen climate treaty will be?... In Ontario, the list of corporations supporting and circling the province’s new Green Energy Act is an appalling demonstration of climatism run amok. From TransCanada to GE, from wind farm developers to solar panel makers, it’s a corporatist free for all. All have joined forces with David Suzuki, Environmental Defence and other green groups in cahoots with government ...
... The model for Ontario’s green renewable schemes is Germany, where climatism is well advanced and where solar and wind power programs ... has created an economic fiasco.
... Last week ... a Canadian green business summit boasted Walmart, Maple Leaf Foods, Coca-Cola Bottling, McDonald’s, Home Depot as leaders, with a keynote speech by David Suzuki ...
Lord Monckton calls it the traffic light syndrome: Greens too Yellow
to admit they're really Reds.
Maldives and other island nations have been banging on this drum for a long time, supported and encouraged by the AGW alarmists. None of the dishonest bastards cares about the facts. And all Maldives wants is money.Open Letter
October 20, 2009
To: President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives
From: Nils-Axel Morner, Stockholm, Sweden... In 2001, when our research group found overwhelming evidence that sea level was by no means in a rising mode in the Maldives, but had remained quite stable for the last 30 years. ... I announced this happy news during an interview for your local TV station. However, your predecessor as president censored and stopped the broadcast....
... I have written to you twice without reply. Your people ought not to have to suffer a constant claim that there is no future for them on their own islands. This terrible message is deeply inappropriate, ...
... Let me summarize a few facts.
(1) In the last 2000 years, sea level has oscillated with 5 peaks reaching 0.6 to 1.2 m above the present sea level.
(2) From 1790 to 1970 sea level was about 20 cm higher than today
(3) In the 1970s, sea level fell by about 20 cm to its present level
(4) Sea level has remained stable for the last 30 years, implying that there are no traces of any alarming on-going sea level rise.
(5) Therefore, we are able to free the Maldives (and the rest of low-lying coasts and island around the globe) from the condemnation of becoming flooded in the near future.... Your cabinet meeting under the water is nothing but a misdirected gimmick or PR stunt. Al Gore is a master in such cheap techniques. But such misconduct is dishonest, unproductive and certainly most un-scientific.
Nils-Axel Morner
Head of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University, Sweden (1991-2005); President of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (1999-2003); Leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project (2000 on); Chairman of the INTAS project on Geomagnetism and Climate (1997-2003).
Meanwhile back on the home front:The Kyoto Protocol ..... was in some corners accused of being a covert wealth transfer plot, ... "a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations," was Stephen Harper’s assessment, long before he became Prime Minister.
With Copenhagen, however, there is no hidden agenda: its authors say that transferring wealth is exactly what they aim to do. ....It proposes in plain language an arrangement that will see nations like Canada guarantee to send billions of dollars every year for decades to the developing world as payment of a "climate debt"
... the Copenhagen treaty calls for the payment by rich countries of what can probably best described as climate reparations.
.... industrialized countries are to commit "at least 0.7%" of their annual GDP, above and beyond existing foreign aid commitments, to compensate the developing world for lost dignity and other distress (in Canada’s case, roughly $10-billion a year, ... on top of the $4-billion already spent on foreign aid)...
If Canada does sign the treaty, [an expert] warns, we "will lose all control over our sovereignty and resource base in a matter of years."
... [Unlike the Kyoto Accord] Copenhagen ... entrust[s] these billions to the management of the United Nations, whose administration of the severely corrupted oil-for-food program in Iraq bred widespread skepticism of the world body’s transparency and accountability....
... if the UN doesn’t like a certain country’s plan to cut greenhouse gases (GHGs), it has the power to deny assigned emission allowances until it sees a plan it does — potentially ... leaving countries without full control of their own environmental policy....
... "Any elected leader who signed the climate treaty would be signing the death-warrant of his nation’s democracy," says Lord Monckton ....
... Environment Minister Jim Prentice’s office would not say whether he or his staff was alert to the apparent and special risks to Canada in the current version of the Copenhagen treaty. "We won’t be commenting on drafts," said a ministry spokesman ...Copenhagen is a bureaucratic boondoggle of vast, global proportions as one might expect of a UN sponsored project. Governments and NGOs worldwide have been expending enormous resources over decades trying to figure out how to wreck the global economy. If the first world signs on to an agreement in Copenhagen that looks anything like the draft they’ll have succeeded.
.Melanie Phillips - "Barack Obama wins the Yasser Arafat prize: ... You have to have a heart of stone not to laugh."
Wall Street Journal - "The Nobel Hope Prize: ... Our own reaction is bemusement at the Norwegian decision to offer what amounts to the world's first futures prize in diplomacy, with the Nobel Committee anticipating the heroic concessions that it believes Mr. Obama will make to secure treaties that will produce a new era of global serenity."From the peons:
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... Maybe in the end material circumstances are not important. Maybe poverty would not prevent spiritual wealth. Maybe if we were poorer, we'd be happier, or more fulfilled. Most of us seem unwilling to take that chance, however. Thanks to the effort of those who came before us, thanks to our own efforts, we don't have to take that chance.Amen!
... Life might be better all round if as a species we weren't acquisitive. But we do seem to be acquisitive. And it has brought hundreds of millions of us to a standard of living that while probably pitiful by the standards of the future is astounding by the standards of the past.
... Excessive acquisitiveness we usually call "greed." Critics of capitalism, from Marx to Moore, see it as a system founded on greed. Acquisitiveness and self-interest are clearly key to capitalism. But is most people's acquisitiveness really excessive? Is the desire to work hard, to save and to better oneself really "greed"?
... who's to say what's excessive? One man's obsession is another man's passion. We admire obsession in sports, entertainment and the arts. [And let’s not forget science and the obsessions of people like Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman.]
... The only place such obsession is regarded as hurtful or evil is business. Outside business it's regarded as "dedication."
... some participants in capitalism probably are motivated by "greed." But the acquisitiveness that motivates the rest of us is normal and healthy and something we should be thankful for.
See also Christian Conservative.
Update: And Joanne's Harpemania at Blue Like You.
And here's an HD version.
According to one source that message is (was?) for real.
Update: On the other hand probably not. [Via Christian in the comments.]
[Ripped off from Halfwise]
Nice to hear Lord Monckton, former British science advisor, applaud the Nat Post's fearless skepticism of global warming at a luncheon today.
F**king politicians and their legal bureaucrats - scummy, lying, hypocritical, shakedown artists! The tobacco industry should countersue for $100B.... the Ontario government ... Tuesday launched a $50-billion lawsuit against a dozen tobacco companies for health services dating back more than half a century. British Columbia and New Brunswick already have multi-billion-dollar suits before the courts ...
... It is hard to avoid the impression that this is anything but a crude shakedown of an unpopular industry ...
Governments should just admit they are as hopelessly addicted to tobacco as any smoker, and end their duplicitous attempt to look pious on smoking while at the same time reeling in billions annually.
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"I believe we need to defend our system in order to help the president and help our neighbour's citizens to make sure that no child is born uncovered. This is, I think, our responsibility as a citizen of the world," Bennett said.
... I was asked to explain why we pay less but get better results ...
And, news flash:Former President Bill Clinton said Sunday that the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that worked against his presidency is alive and well ...
"It's not as strong as it was, because America has changed demographically. But it's as virulent as it was," Clinton said on NBC’s "Meet the Press."
... Clinton went on to say that the things being said about President Barack Obama are "like when they accused me of murder." [Oh, my!]
Clinton said that, despite their politically motivated tactics, Republicans ... blah, blah ...Republicans "politically motivated"? Who’d have known?
...followed by a bunch of quotes reminding us of Mr. Williamson's past statements on various issues.We wish Williamson luck. He’ll need that trying to explain federal Conservative positions on corporate welfare, global warming, massive deficits, over-spending and a whole host of other indefensible Tory policy....
... In the great public policy battle between global economic growth and global climate change, the G20 is going for growth. And if growth trumps climate at the G20, that spells the end of any hope of a major climate agreement in Copenhagen in December.
... Copenhagen was essentially sidelined yesterday at another event, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s Climate Change Summit in New York.
... At the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the most Mr. Obama committed to was “to work with my colleagues ... to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.” Good idea.
... Obama may have sealed his fate in Europe and other places as The Big O — as in zero.
... leaders at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh will pay little more than lip service to climate policy and will instead focus on the immediate business of being seen to be doing something about the immediate problem of economic growth.
... Bank robbery is a theme of the movie. In the latest issue of Vanity Fair, however, two veteran financial reporters tell a different story of how the banks were ordered to a meeting by Paulson who staged what they call a reverse bank robbery. "It was basically a reverse holdup, with Paulson holding the gun and forcing the banks to take the money." That’s statism, not capitalism. ...
Belmont Club:... What just happened ... is that the United States unilaterally abrogated the security agreement with two close East European allies [Poland and the Czech Republic] — so close that they had troops in Iraq and Afghanistan that supported us — at the behest and because of the pressure of the Russians.
... Now, number one is the timing. Apart from the merits of all this, the idea that we should renounce, on the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland, a security agreement that we had with Poland [because] of Russian objections is scandalously, indescribably amateurish.
Now, on the merits. If there is a secret agreement between us and the Russians ... in return for our capitulation on this issue… The problem is there is not a shred of evidence of a deal. And if not, what this is is a capitulation to Russia....
And imagine if the Poles and Czechs are upset about this, how the feeling is in Ukraine and Georgia. The Russians announced earlier in the week that if a Georgian ship is found in Abkhazian waters, which was a province of Georgia, it will be seized. So it has annexed part of Georgia and it has escalated the war of words on Ukraine.
This view from Europe seems just a little over-optimistic given Russia’s belligerent attitude. But the contribution from the American in the comments seems about right.... Eastern Europe has been Finlandized. But the withdrawals have not been reciprocal so far. Even as the US was exiting Russia’s former "near abroad",
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez continued to approach the Russians for nuclear power and weapons assistance....
... Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was to meet Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Friday after Russia risked Washington’s wrath by offering the fierce US foe help developing nuclear energy.... Putin made the nuclear offer after Russia this week delayed talks with the United States and other powers on fears Iran is developing nuclear weapons, concerns critics say have been exacerbated by civilian nuclear technology provided by Moscow....
Jimmy Carter now has done to his ex-presidency what he did to his presidency, which is to say that he has, through his incessant moral preening, converted mere incompetence into something more unseemly. ...
... The facile accusations of racism are both banal and cynical. And they are right on cue: Wolf-cries of "racism!" are a way to smother debate, which is something that Democrats, who are losing the health-care debate, must find appealing right about now.
...This showy self-righteousness is of a piece with Mr. Carter’s other forays into political controversy ...
...The inescapable conclusion is that Mr. Carter has defective judgment. We already knew that: We’ve known it since he clenched his fist and proclaimed energy conservation the "moral equivalent of war" while clad in a sweater....[Read on...]
... a common notion: A properly brought up Canadian is expected to feel guilty about reading a book that claims no pretension but to entertain.
And earlier in the series Barbara Kay observed:This priggish attitude toward popular fiction is deeply imbedded within our cultural establishment.
... "Popular fiction" has become a term of vulgar connotation, but it reeks of ironic paradox: obviously we sobersided Canadians ought to be reading unpopular fiction.
... I gave a workshop in popular fiction ... during which I was instructed by a Canada Council spokeswoman, in severe tones, that it does not support writers of crime fiction.
... It is to Canada's utter shame that William Gibson, with his vast trophy case of awards, has not been honoured in this country with a Giller or a G.-G. Meanwhile, Margaret Atwood is acclaimed for her speculative fiction.
... Douglas Coupland's scathing critique of Canadian literary pretentiousness: "There is a grimness about CanLit," he wrote, in which typically authors are supported by the government "to write about small towns and/or the immigrant experience." Coupland refuses to accept Canada Council money.
... the Brits knight their genre writers, the Yanks lionize them, but the Canucks (or at least our persons of letters) continue to treat them like unwashed in-laws tracking mud into the parlour. So sad.
... a numbingly familiar pattern of CanLit fiction: "Me, me, me and myFor this to persist in a country of 32 million suggests a good deal of intellectual inbreeding among the cultural establishment. Sad indeed.
extraordinary capacity for sadness. Welcome to the unrelenting self-regard of
CanLit, where it's all about nobly suffering women or feminized men."
The editor of the Victoria, BC, Times Colonist has laid down an explicit policy that she will not allow skeptical climate stories to appear–they cause too much fuss with green readers and consensus climatologists. I also know this is true from personal experience. For eight years I wrote editorials and columns for the TC (I now teach), so obviously I am a professional writer by journalistic standards, but my last four skeptical freelance opeds on climate change were rejected, as are anyone else’s. ...On the other hand, for every claim (no matter how lame) from AGW fanatics the TC seeks out commentary from local alarmist Andrew Weaver.
