Happy Halloween!

[H/t: Hunter]

"Be nice to us or we will hurt you!"

Message to Fox News from hacker group 'Anonymous':



Pot, kettle?

[Via]

Gutless, pc, law-ignoring politicians, useless cops and Indian thugs

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

Shut up!

Atlas Shrugged, the movie - a plot rewrite

Peter Foster’s review of Atlas Shrugged (Part 1), the movie, criticizes its implausible plot lines and suggests a re-write:

... its slightly off-kilter, futuristic, film noir look does capture - at least to some degree - the wonderful weirdness of the book on which it is based.

... The movie is set in today's not-too-distant future, but has kept Dagny in railroads and Hank in metals by positing a massive oil crisis due to the implosion of the Middle East. The Dow at 4,000 we can believe, but oil at $37.50 a gallon? At that price, a Chevy Volt might actually not be such a bad deal. Domestic oil is once again king (despite being utterly unaffordable) but is being carried by train. Whatever happened to pipelines?

None of this makes much sense. ... it should have been thoroughly reformulated to reflect statism's new threats.

... How's this for a rewrite? Dagny now runs a pipeline company trying to build a huge new system for a form of oil previously uneconomic but now made available by wonderful advances in capitalist technology. Let's say this oil is located in Alberta and her line is to go to the U.S. refineries of the Gulf Coast, to replace imports from dictatorships.

... Hank is still in the steel industry but his new wonder metal is now to be used to build a cheaper, stronger and safer type of pipe. However, he is opposed not by other steel or pipe makers, but by [new villains:] ... a pack of meretricious, politically savvy environmental NGOs ... fronted by naive chanting muddle-heads, who have no idea where their rich lifestyles originate, and backed by capitalist foundations (the irony!) that have been hijacked by socialists, and by CEOs either too cowardly or stupid to say no (or by those who seek to take advantage of government handouts to produce throwback technologies). These NGOs claim that the oil is "dirty" and destroying the climate and that Hank Rearden's new and better steel in unsafe, and threatens aquifers and environmentally sensitive areas. Their hysterical claims are eagerly swallowed by gullible liberal media. Meanwhile politicians, despite high unemployment, are prepared to sacrifice tens of thousands of jobs because they, too, are cowed by the ENGOs, and in any case attracted by the unparalleled power prospects of aspiring to control the weather.

... I know this is all a bit farfetched, but we are talking a movie plot here. ... [:-)]

Works for me!

Kill the Canadian dairy cartel

The wheat monopoly is as good as gone. Now the dairy cartel needs to be put down.
William Watson responds to a column by Wally Smith, head of the Dairy Farmers of Canada:

... [US vs Cdn prices per 4 liters] Three and two-thirds bucks compared to more than six bucks. Anybody feeling milked? If not hosed?

... Why we pay more for dairy products couldn’t be simpler: Our dairy cartel artificially restricts supply.

... To make the legalized price gouging work, of course, it’s necessary to keep cheaper alternatives out of the market. Which is why, in addition to police protection against excessive production in Canada, we have enforcement at the border via outrageously high tariffs: 241% to 295.5%, including 277% for ice cream. Imagine! A country that puts punitive taxes on ice cream!

... Mr. Smith’s main justification for output restriction is that before it came along, dairy prices would fluctuate. ... (Note that one of OPEC’s official aims is “the stabilization of prices in international oil markets with a view to eliminating harmful and unnecessary fluctuations.” All cartels believe devoutly in “stabilization".)

The dairy cartel should go the way of the Wheat Board. But it'll be a tougher nut to crack given that it's a shared federal/provincial jurisdiction.

Ann Coulter on Obama's crony capitalism

At the 3 minute mark:

Boot the government out of our kitchens

I’ve long maintained that there is no such thing as junk food.  Today, Wendy McElroy provides more ammo against the food fascists:

... food is .. one of the main forms of self-control you exercise over your own life. It means something different to everyone, and that's what makes attempts by the state to set one standard for all so offensive.

... The typical counter-argument is to say that since society pays for our health care, we owe it to society to lead healthy lives. In short, your neighbour has a vested financial interest in what goes into your body. If you won't take care of it, the government will make you.

This line of reasoning - rather than justifying a Nanny State or a nosy neighbour dictating your personal choices - constitutes a powerful argument against socialized medicine, but it doesn't do much to say that the government should control what you eat. If socialized medicine had been advertised decades ago as a government mandate to control the minutia of your daily life, then it would probably have never been implemented....

... We need to kick the government out of our kitchens.

Read the whole column.

UN IPCC corruption, incompetence exposed, again!

Peter Foster on Donna Laframboise's new book about the thoroughly corrupt, incompetent UN climate change bureaucracy:

"... In a meticulously referenced and deservedly praised page-turner, Ms. Laframboise ... demonstrates how the IPCC is a thoroughly political organization. ... Far from objectively weighing the best available science, it cherry-picks egregiously to support its main objective: to serve its government masters. ... The organization, Ms. Laframboise demonstrates, has also been thoroughly infiltrated by environmental NGOs, in particular the World Wildlife Fund.

The book elucidates how the panel’s much-vaunted “peer review” amounts to a “circular, incestuous process. ..."

Book excerpt.  Buy the book.
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Yet Environment Canada is a participant in this charade and continues to publish this kind of crap:

"Climate change is one of the most important environmental issues of our time, requiring urgent action on the part of all governments and citizens."

Religion of peace

Islamic killers behead Christians.

[Via Blazing Cat Fur]

The National Post smells like the CBC

This latest lame screed from Jonathan Kay, attacking Mitt Romney and the Republicans while offering nothing but praise for Barack Obama, has a distinct whiff of CBC about it.

Kay complains that Romney, et al, fail to credit Obama for recent American successes in the war-on-terror (keeping Guantanamo open, drone attacks on al Qaeda, killing bin-Laden, killing al-Awlaki, etc.) and now for winning in Libya. He also thinks Republicans unfairly attack Obama for being a weak, even anti-American leader (dissing America’s friends while apologizing for it’s alleged past mistreatment of everyone else.)

First, the American right (eg. virtually every commentator on Fox News) freely credits Obama’s prosecution of the war-on-terror and gives him due credit for Libya.

Second, Obama’s global “apology tour” is a fact. Obama campaigned on weak-kneed multi-lateralism and anti-Bush rhetoric (plus “Hope and Change”). The apology tours came early-on in Obama’s presidency and produced no discernibly useful results. His war-on-terror creds came later, after he began to acknowledge the real world (but continues to bash Bush).

Third, you’d think Kay was completely unaware that there’s a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION in 2012 and that the Republicans are in the midst of choosing their candidate. Only an idiot would campaign for that job by praising Obama’s performance. There’s no way Jonathan Kay is dumb enough, or ill-informed enough not to know this.

Conclusion: Jonathan Kay is, just like the CBC, blatantly in the tank for Obama’s re-election.

What’s really weird is that he’s selling out his journalistic integrity on the dopey, narcissistic premise that what he writes might actually make any difference. How much more like the CBC could he be, short of actually joining them? It looks like the Post’s mega$ relationship with the CBC includes swapping editorial content.

Sun News v. the state broadcaster

Further to this is Ezra Levant ripping into the CBC:

[Video from blazingcatfur]

Soft on crime, short on sense

Jonathan Kay starts his column today with this nonsense:

The biggest problem for opponents of Bill C-10 ... is that criminals and prisoners have no political constituency.

I'm not exactly sure what he means by 'political constituency' but if he means political 'support' Kay is either being ridiculously naive or he's a brazen liar.  Criminals and prisoners have in their corner the entire political left, most of academia especially criminologists and sociologists and a large percentage of nitwit pundits like J. Kay.

Anyway, with that kind of a start you can be sure the rest of the column is a waste of your valuable time.  So let's skip to the end where Mr Kay closes his 'argument':

Stephen Harper and his cabinet ministers bristle when they are accused of inflicting an "ideological" agenda on Canada. So I put the question to them: In the absence of evidence or expertise to back up your policy, what other word would you offer me?

Well, we can be sure that they don't share Kay's ideology.

National Post shilling for the CBC

Glen McGregor at NP:

... In an unusual move, the CBC posted a “Get the Facts” news release on its website that alleges the Quebecor chain has received more than $500-million in public grants and subsidies over the past three years.

... The public subsidies have allowed Quebecor to make profits, yet it “complains that its TVA television network ‘competes’ against Radio-Canada,” CBC claims.

... A document attached to the news release ... itemizes $61-million received through the Canadian Media Fund and $13-million that flowed through the Canadian Periodicals Fund to Quebecor magazine titles such as 7 Jours, TV Hebdo and Clin d’Oeil.

... Quebecor’s Sun papers and TV channel rail against the CBC on a nightly basis.

Sun responds:

... "We are totally astonished; flabbergasted that CBC would do this on the eve of Quebecor's CEO appearing before a parliamentary committee," said Quebecor spokesman Luc Lavoie. "It's contempt of Parliament by a creature of Parliament."

... Of the more than $500 million in "benefits" that CBC claims Quebecor has received, it cites $333 million in "savings" from a wireless spectrum auction. In 2008, the federal government set aside a certain segment of the wireless phone market for new companies in the hope of fostering competition.

... CBC also claims Quebecor's TVA television network receives millions of dollars from the Canadian Media Fund (CMF), but does not note that Videotron, also owned by Quebecor, pays more into the system than TVA takes out.

... CBC is also a beneficiary of the CMF, but does not pay into it. The monies received from that fund are on top of the annual $1.1 billion subsidy....

Now, for his next assignment, maybe McGregor can write a column detailing how much business the National Post does with the CBC. How much of that $1.1 billion subsidy is the Post raking in?

Update [via Xanthippa]: Ezra Levant on The Source today. And here on YouTube from blazingcatfur.

Remember the Alamo!

The Mexicans are winning:

Students in a Texas public high school were made to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance....

"Evil corporations"

From Blazing Cat Fur.

"Karl Marx was wrong!"

A small sign of sanity at Occupy Toronto:



Bravo!

Occupy Adbusters!

Terence Corcoran - "March of the global anarcho-crazies":

... U.S. President Barack Obama said “the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration.” Mr. Obama obviously doesn’t read ‘Adbusters’, the anarcho-crazy Vancouver magazine that is credited with having started OWS last July with an editorial call-to-arms titled “#OCCUPYWALLSTREET: Are you ready for a Tahrir moment?”

... The bald and grotesque absurdity of comparing Wall Street (and the United States or Canada) with Egypt and other Middle East tyrannies should be enough to stop this exercise in juvenile political science.

... These are the same global anarcho-crazies — the same ideological anti-democratic trouble-makers who stormed the G20 in Toronto, attracted the Black Bloc, staged riots at free trade meetings, marched in the 1960s and 1970s — who are now using the same old violent property-seizing techniques they’ve always used to put forward an incoherent message that boils down to we don’t like the way things are, so let’s join a mob. ...

Never mind Occupy Wall Street / Vancouver / ..., someone, preferably CSIS and the RCMP, should occupy the Vancouver headquarters of Adbusters and start taking names and indicting nitwits. Adbusters’ declared aim:

Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we live in the 21st century.

In short the instigators of the “Occupy” mobs are engaged in treasonous agitation and promotion of insurrection against the most free, most successful political, economic and cultural system in the history of mankind. They want to “topple” it. To replace it with ... what?

"We Day"

In Vancouver yesterday:

... Some 18,000 students ...[at]Vancouver’s Rogers Arena Thursday.

... "we are building a school in Haiti...” said Jacob Gebrewold, ... one of those youth, ... 15, a Grade 11 student at Port Moody secondary. Gebrewold, who was attending his second We Day...
“... my parents are from Ethiopia and there’s a huge Ethiopian community here in British Columbia,” he said. And they’ve raised me and inspired me to believe in the fact that I am as big a part of the change as any senator, any lawyer, any president.

... a range of speakers and entertainers from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to NBA all-star Shaquille O’Neal, actress and activist Mia Farrow, the band Hedley, former child soldier Michel Chikwanine and others. [What?! GW Bush wasn't invited!]

Well it’s nice to see that kids are being encouraged to help the less fortunate. But that comes off as “the biggest part of ‘We’ is 'Me'" - exactly what we might expect from the narcissistic self-esteem generation. Young Jacob doesn’t seem to get that “senators”, “lawyers” and “presidents” may have done something to earn their status and positions of influence. Participating in “We” fests may be a start in that direction but no more than a start.

It would be more encouraging if we had some confidence that these students were getting a good grounding in the knowledge and skills needed for them to understand the real world and how it is that they came to be in such a privileged position, to be able to afford to help with “building a school in Haiti”. However, I expect they’re getting more “social justice” indoctrination - in the evils of racist, white, Western colonialism and capitalism - than anything.  Look for them to be participating in tomorrow's "Occupy Vancouver" day.

Corcoran disses 'Ethical Oil'

Terence Corcoran:
First with some praise:

... The ethical oil argument is a clever and compelling one, and good for a dozen laughs when it’s delivered — as it was at a Toronto Empire Club lunch the other day — by Mr. Levant. Most of the laughs come at the expense of the David Suzuki crowd, green campaigners and air-headed young campus leftists/activists such as Zoe, Mr. Levant’s caricature of a 20-something McGill student in vegetarian studies who has never been west of Hamilton but has a brain filled with ethical angst over dozens of global issues about which she knows nothing — human rights, environmental degradation, poverty, climate change and Wall Street domination. Zoe is probably preparing even now for Saturday’s march on Bay Street. ...

Then his objections:

... Ethical oil backers appear to have co-opted the liberal left’s concerns about rights and the environment by portraying the oil sands as a morally superior source of oil. In the end, though, ethical oil abandons the principles of free trade and cedes the economic argument to the anti-free trade left. Ethical Oil is too clever for its own good. ...

And Ezra responds:

Hi Terry. Thanks for coming to my speech yesterday!
Defending Canada's ethical oil does not mean creating trade barriers against conflict oil from OPEC dictatorships. For one thing, it's impossible: there is just too much conflict oil on the world market and too little of the good stuff. We see this now with economic sanctions against Sudan and Iran: America doesn't buy any of that conflict oil, but China, Japan and India are desperate to buy all they can.
The ethical oil argument is the opposite of a trade barrier; it is a call for more transparency in the marketplace to allow consumers to make a fully-informed choice at the pumps. Some people don't care if their oil is from Saudi Arabia. But others do. Why not let the market decide? Fair trade coffee shops don't depend on putting Tim Hortons out of business. They just give consumers a chance to pay for the goodwill inherent in ethical production methods. But the good news for energy consumers is that, unlike fair trade coffee or Polar Bear diamonds, ethical oil doesn't cost any more than the foreign stuff.
Terry Corcoran is worried about a fantasy scenario where world governments would sanction blood oil. The real risk is the opposite: right now the European Union, looking to distract from its own appetite for blood oil, is threatening to slap trade barriers on our Canadian ethical oil. Let's fight that real trade threat before going off to fight one that doesn't exist yet.

I'd add that Ethical Oil is a well reasoned response to relentless attacks by environmental radicals and other hysterics, on Alberta's oil sands ("dirty, immoral, environment destroying tar sands, Big Oil, capitalist pigs, ..., ...").  Big Oil was doing a crappy job of defending itself, so someone had to.  Ezra deserves high praise for demolishing all the nonsense and makes the case that, contrary to the dearest wishes of the anti-oil mob and whether or not AGW is actually a problem, there is no alternative on the horizon.  Furthermore, each of the various causes promoted by activists has to be addressed on its own merits.  They are not all morally or ethically equivalent.  Pushing for dubious "fair trade" in coffee beans is hardly equivalent to the anti-apartheid movement.

Jeremy Rifkin - Maurice Strong on stilts

Peter Foster:

... Mr. Rifkin is the archetype of that creature known as the policy entrepreneur. He is a consistent generator of bad ideas, and it is bad ideas, more than anything, that help governments grow.

... For decades, he has been exploiting technophobia, junk science, postmodern psychobabble and folk economics to peddle a long list of anti-capitalist, anti-corporate scares, along with matching Big Government “solutions.”

... Mr. Rifkin, like his predecessors since Karl Marx, is very keen to “retire Adam Smith,” which in fact amounts to the continued rejection of a bunch of ideas that Smith never promoted, such as an alleged “conventional, top-down, centralized approach to organizing economic activity.”

... He teaches in the executive education program at the Wharton School of Business, and is an advisor not just to Chancellor Merkel but to the whole European Union. He is likely to get an enthusiastic hearing tomorrow from all those Queen’s Parkers supervising Ontario’s Green Energy Act.

Rifkin sounds like Maurice ("Mo") Strong on stilts, big stilts. Given that list of "buyers" he's unquestionably a master "visionary" snake-oil salesman.

Gary McHale, a true Canadian hero

Gary McHale with Michael Coren providing a reminder that:

Gary McHale is a true hero;
Dalton McGuinty is a despicable, law-ignoring (if not law-breaking) weasel;
The OPP are contemptible enforcers of McGuinty's banana-republic lawlessness;
Julian Fantino - see OPP above;
Tim Hudack is a cowardly political weasel;
Stephen Harper should be ashamed of himself for appointing Fantino to his cabinet.

"Capitalism: Thumbs Up Or Thumbs Down?"

[Via]

Enrico Fermi's elephant and climate models

Freeman Dyson once related an anecdote about physical modelling:

... I asked Fermi whether he was not impressed by the agreement between our calculated numbers and his measured numbers. He replied, “How many arbitrary parameters did you use for your calculations?” I thought for a moment about our cut-off procedures and said, “Four.” He said, “I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.” With that, the conversation was over. I thanked Fermi for his time and trouble,and sadly took the next bus back to Ithaca to tell the bad news to the students. ...

Since global climate is so highly complex and poorly understood, to make them 'work' climate models are necessarily loaded with arbitray parameters.

The occupiers: What they want

Occupy Wall Street's Proposed List of Demands:

...
Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system.
...
Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand....
...
Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

...
Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all.
...

Looks a lot like Obama's agenda. 

The 'Occupy' anarchists

Mark Steyn:

Who was Steve Jobs? Well, he was a guy who founded a corporation and spent his life as a corporate executive manufacturing corporate products. So he wouldn't have endeared himself to the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd, even though, underneath the patchouli and lentils, most of them are abundantly accessorized with iPhones and iPads and iPods loaded with iTunes, if only for when the drum circle goes for a bathroom break. ...

[Via Blazing Cat Fur]

Delectable Lie: a liberal repudiation of multiculturalism

Via Xanthippa's Chamberpot:



Buy the book.

Message to PM Harper: "Defend the oilsands! Dammit!"

Lawrence Solomon:

Prime Minister Harper, it’s time to stand up for Alberta and for Canada. You and your government are allowing Canada’s oil sands to be tarred as an evil at home and abroad when they should, in fact, be seen as one of our greatest assets.

Two years ago, when Newfoundland and Canada were being vilified over another emotive issue — our seal hunt — you took our case to Europe during European Union trade talks. ...

... If a leader does speak up — as happened when Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, told Czechs that global warming is a fraud — public opinion will swing in his favour. Only 11% of Czechs now buy the global warming theory.

Mr. Harper, we didn’t hire you to duck as Canada’s reputation is trashed. We elected you to stand up for Canada.

Even in the highly unlikely event there were significant AGW, Mr. Solomon's appeal to PM Harper to defend the oil sands is still correct. There is no viable alternative to fossil fuels available and won't be for decades. Until then Canada's oil sands are an environmentally and ethically sound source of oil.

Email the Prime Minister.

"CBC out of control in Quebec"

Eric Duhaime in today's Ottawa Sun:

For those of you who are shocked when the English CBC lets its slip show to expose its left-leaning bias, it’s probably because you don’t know the French CBC, which doesn’t even bother wearing anything over its slip....

One example (of many):

... On Aug. 20, on a quiz show called Pouvez-vous repeter la question? (Can you repeat the question?), participants were asked which prime minister was the second-most popular in our recent history after Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

When the correct answer came out that it was Stephen Harper, the host apologized and let us know that he had not determined the answer....

CBC corrupts the entire MSM (except SUN)

Ezra's doing a great job of exposing the corruption sown by the CBC:



If Sun ever goes silent on the subject, we'll know it has begun to collect its share of that $1.1B CBC taxpayer subsidy.

More $billions down the climate drain

Environment Canada plans to restrict carbon dioxide from coal-fired electric generation plants at a cost to Canadians of $8.2 billion. The government's justification includes:

Issue: Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are primary contributors to climate change. The most significant sources of GHG emissions are anthropogenic, mostly as a result of combustion of fossil fuels.... [ie. the usual dubious UN IPCC dogma]

Cost-benefit statement: The proposed Regulations are estimated to result in a reduction of approximately 175 Mt CO2 of GHG emissions over the period 2015–2030. The present value of the costs of the proposed Regulations is estimated at $8.2 billion, largely due to the incremental natural gas costs ($4.8 billion), reduced net exports and new capital costs. The present value of the benefits are estimated at $9.7 billion, largely due to the avoided social cost of carbon (SCC) of $4.3 billion, avoided generation costs of $3.8 billion, and health benefits from reduced smog exposure of $1.4 billion. The net present value (NPV) ... blah, blah, blah ... [...avoided social cost and health benefits? Speculative, unverifiable malarky.]

The Friends of Science Society's response to the proposed regulations was submitted on Sept 30.

It's so maddening to see the Conservatives blowing this kind of cash to no effect except appeasing the green flake lobby.  As if they can ever be appeased by anything short of a completely wrecked economy.

Teacher "discipline" watchdog's teen sex fantasies

At Blazing Cat Fur - "Porno Pedagogy".  As written up in the T-Star:

The teacher in charge of disciplining wayward educators in Ontario has quit his post.

Ontario College of Teachers discipline chair Jacques Tremblay submitted his resignation Wednesday afternoon following a Toronto Star story detailing how he wrote a soft-porn book for teens. 

...The Sexteens and the Fake Goddess is a lurid tale of striptease, breast fondling, bum grabbing, orgasms, drugs and blackmail that features a deputy headmaster who sweeps a sex assault under the carpet and tells male students at a pep rally that if he was younger he would have sex with all the girls in the audience. Another teacher gives a boy advice on French kissing and as the plot unfolds we learn that the deputy headmaster and a third teacher once had a threesome with a female student.

... Tremblay said the book has “been endorsed by parents and educators.” He did not identify the parents and educators. [Not much wonder.]

You couldn't ask for better material to illustrate the dangers inherent in the TDSB's (and Ontario's) radical sex indoctrination program.

You also have to wonder at Tremblay's brazeness and/or stupidity.

Ontario's radical sex-indoctrination controversy

At Blazing Cat Fur:

This flyer is being circulated in Brampton and attacks the unsavoury Gay Agenda being foisted on children by the McGuinty government. ...

... I have no idea what the local Brampton school board has to say on the issue of "Heterosexism" and neither does the Jackal or the people behind this flyer. Both refer to a Toronto District School Board  Document "Challenging Heterosexism & Homophobia A K-12 curriculum resource guide".

... [Quote from a radical "Queer" web journal]: "I and a lot of other people want to indoctrinate, recruit, teach, and expose children to queer sexuality AND THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT."

People have for years been raising the alarm about the over-sexualization of children.  This TDSB (and Ontario government) led agenda of indoctrination appears bent on their hyper-sexualization.  You'd think that the official "education" rats-nest had been massively infiltrated by the likes of NAMBLA.

And just what-the-hell is "heterosexism". Oh, I know - it's the sex-indoc equivalent of "white male".

 

National Post caves to radical sex-ed agenda

Further to this post about an ad objecting to the TDSB's radical sex-ed for JK to Grade 3, there's disappointing (to put it mildly) news that the National Post has apologized for placing the ad (and worse).

Kathy Shaidle puts it a lot less mildly.

Mark Steyn with Chuck Colson

This interview has to be one of the best: