Don't (blindly) buy local

Ezra Levant interviews "The Locavore's Dilemma" author Pierre Desrochers to talk about the "wisdom" of Ontario's Local Food Act:



There are many reasons not to buy local.

Cyprus - a lesson in the real reason for gun control

The people of Cyprus rolled over when Euro "banksters" raided their savings.  Would Americans?  Would Canadians?  Ezra wonders:

Big Wind is hiding the slaughter

Canada Free Press:

Since the early 1980s, the industry has known there is no way its propeller-style turbines could ever be safe for raptors. With exposed blade tips spinning in open space at speeds up to 200 mph, it was impossible. Wind developers also knew they would have a public relations nightmare if people ever learned how many eagles are actually being cut in half – or left with a smashed wing, to stumble around for days before dying.

.... Not only has the wind industry never solved its environmental problem. It has been hiding at least 90% of this slaughter for decades. In fact, the universal problem of hiding bird (and bat) mortality goes from bad to intolerable beyond the Altamont Pass boundaries, because studies in other areas across North America are far less rigorous, or even nonexistent, and many new turbines are sited in prime bird and bat habitats.

The real death toll, as reported by Paul Driessen and others, is thousands of raptors a year – and up to 39 million birds and bats of all species annually in the United States alone, year after year! This is intolerable, and unsustainable. It is leading to the inevitable extinction of many species, at least in many habitats, and perhaps in the entire Lower 48 States.

And what do the eco-freaks at the David Suzuki Foundation think of all this.  Well, predictably, they just love wind power.  And, no surprise, they just love birds.  And of wind machines killing birds? Not a peep.

This is all very characteristic of the true believing "climate change" crowd.  Their practice in dealing with information that contradicts or harms "the cause" is, rather than being open and honest about it, to go out of their way to hide it, suppress it or deny it; and if anyone dares report it, theyll mercilessly attack the messenger.

[h/t]

Human Achievement Hour

Celebrate human achievement.










Earth hour sucks.

Israel - the posterchild for nixing proportional representation

Lawrence Solomon:

... Israel, which has the world’s purest system of PR — winning just 2% of the vote entitles any party to sit in parliament. ...

... coalition governments are formed through back-scratching agreements with smaller parties who join the coalition in exchange for getting their way on issues they care most about. Under PR, not only does the tail wag the dog, this dog has many tails — at least one for each coalition member....

... our PR system would be Made-in-Canada, based on Canadian values. We could then protect any Canadian minority view able to muster 2% of the vote, and then with luck leverage that 2% into a conscription of 100% of the population. ...

....The deadly dull unfactionalized politics of Canada could be transformed, with Canadians never knowing quite what would come of their votes, even after they had voted ...

 Less government with "deadly dull unfactionalized politics" is what we should be aiming for.  But academics, media pundits, the flaky fringe and other assorted political junkies keep pressing for PR.  And they'll keep pressing no matter how many times the wise voting public says "NO!".

Mr. Solomon wrote about PR a few years back.

Greedy Lying Bastards

A movie review by Peter Foster:

According to the documentary Greedy Lying Bastards, action to address the earth’s greatest existential threat is being held up by twin corporate Towers of Evil: Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil. ...

... What this tedious film, and its hysterical title, confirm is the frustration from the left that their climate crusade — which was always rooted in hatred and demonization of industrial society — has inevitably crashed. That frustration is also evident in the frenetic campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline....
 

High praise for Stephen Harper

NR cover March 11, 2013

Leader of the West
"Conservatives, wherever they live, can be pleased with Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper. He is a leader of the West, and he is particularly interesting, not least because he is a surprise: a conservative flower that has bloomed in unpromising soil." By Jay Nordlinger

More climate fraud - "Hockey stick, broken again"

Powerline:

... effort by a group of climate alarmists headed by geologist Shaun Marcott to resurrect Michael Mann’s discredited hockey stick. The Marcott paper, as you would expect, received uncritical coverage in the liberal press....

... Steve McIntyre, who was principally responsible for showing that Mann’s original hockey stick was a fraud, has gone over Marcott’s data ... found that Marcott and his colleagues used previously published ocean core data, but have altered the dates represented by the cores, in some cases by as much as 1,000 years.

If this is not flat-out fraud–which, sadly, has come to typify the climate alarmism movement–then what is the justification for Marcott’s wholesale re-dating of samples?

... We are reminded of the NOAA/NCDC weather data on the U.S. ... Instead of reporting temperatures for prior decades, like the 1930s, as it did at the time and for many years thereafter, NOAA has now changed those temperatures downward to support the politically-motivated claim that the last years of the 20th century were the warmest ever.

... In short, the global warming movement is corrupt to the core.

... the publicly available evidence suggests that alarmist scientists have repeatedly committed fraud in research conducted and papers published that were paid for by United States taxpayers. It seems inconceivable that felonies have not been committed in connection with those frauds.

Update: Watts Up With That

Update (Mar 19th): Climate Audit

Not unexpectedly, William Connolley’s reaction to the problems with Marcott dating is the same sort of wilful obtuseness that characterized “professional” responses to Mann’s use of contaminated (and upside down) Korttajarvi sediments. Connolley pretended that this is nothing more than recalibration of radiocarbon dates.

 

Climategate 3.0 - Climategate email leaker leaks more

James Delingpole:

FOIA – the anonymous leaker who brought the Climategate and Climategate II emails to light has emerged briefly from the shadows. He has released to selected parties (not me) the password to the cache of Climategate II emails ...

I think it's worth dwelling on some of the clues he offers as to his identity and motivation. (I'm assuming it is a "he", btw):

That's right; no conspiracy, no paid hackers, no Big Oil. The Republicans didn't plot this. USA politics is alien to me, neither am I from the UK. There is life outside the Anglo-American sphere.

If someone is still wondering why anyone would take these risks, or sees only a breach of privacy here, a few words…

Delingpole comments further:

Rings true to me. It's certainly why I'm in this game – the cause, not (laughs bitterly) the money ...

Many terrible things have resulted from the great climate scam – the debasement of the scientific method, the corruption, the rent-seeking, the greed, the lies, the blighted careers, the malfeasance, the dissemination of ignorance, the waste, the environmental damage – but the worst thing by far is the human misery it has engendered. ...

For more - two of the selected recipients of FOIA's latest leak were WUWT's Anthony Watts and Bishop Hill blogger Andrew Montford.

University of Waterloo does it again

Pro-abortion loons prevent MP Stephen Woodward from speaking at the University of Waterloo.



Once again bigotted, fascistic bullies are permitted to shut down speech by someone they disagree with.  Once again pathetic, useless, cowardly police allow it to happen.

And once again we are offered proof that universities are wasting mountains of taxpayers' cash "educating" these fools.

"Deranged science, perverse policy"

Peter Foster recommends a new book:

In his brilliant new book, The Age of Global Warming, British writer Rupert Darwall notes a phenomenon known as “climate change derangement syndrome.” The phenomenon was on prominent display this week when NDP leader Tom Mulcair went to Washington. ...

Eat meat, save the planet

Anthony Watts: "one of the most important posts ever on WUWT":

How to reverse desertification, stop global warming and feed the world. Raise livestock.
An amazing TED talk by Dr. Allan Savory:



Just think, livestock, the environmentalists' most hated food source.  Dr. Savory must be right. His ideas are a winner on every level.

Update: Tim Ball's excellent response to Dr. Savory's presentation is here at WUWT.  The comment thread greatly extends the debate surrounding Savory's claims.

NYT editors to Obama: kill Keystone XL

Editorial from today's New York Times:

The State Department’s latest environmental assessment of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline makes no recommendation about whether President Obama should approve it. Here is ours. He should say no, and for one overriding reason: A president who has repeatedly identified climate change as one of humanity’s most pressing dangers cannot in good conscience approve a project that — even by the State Department’s most cautious calculations — can only add to the problem. ...

That's followed by several paragraphs of mostly bogus drivel straight out of the eco-loon propaganda manual.

Update:  Terence Corcoran weighs in: The New York Times calls for war on Canadian oil

... Following the Times’ advice, here’s a possible Keystone speech for Mr. Obama: “... I believe that climate change is one of humanity’s most pressing dangers. We need to decarbonize the world economy, and I think Canada is a good place to start ...."

Climate orthodoxy set to be pushed in US classrooms

As if millions of young minds haven't already been thoroughly washed with Al Gore's version of the 'truth',

"New national science standards that make the teaching of global warming part of the public school curriculum are slated to be released this month".

The Next Generation Science Standards,  released this month, recommend teaching the scientific consensus of human-caused climate change in all science classes. The nation's largest education publishers are already studying how to incorporate them into their materials.

New national science standards that make the teaching of global warming part of the public school curriculum are slated to be released this month, potentially ending an era in which climate skepticism has been allowed to seep into the nation's classrooms.

...The latest draft recommends that educators teach the evidence for man-made climate change starting as early as elementary school and incorporate it into all science classes, ranging from earth science to chemistry. By eighth grade, students should understand that "human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming)," the standards say.

This is indoctrination not science.

Coyne won't quit flogging the 'election reform' horse

For now it's just a proposal to use a ranked or preferential ballot in Toronto city council elections but he's hoping this will stimulate broader reform:

... its adoption by Canada’s largest city could change a great deal — not only in Toronto but across the country.

... Would Toronto’s adoption of the ranked ballot help or hurt the broader cause of electoral reform? Almost certainly it would help.

... So while a ranked ballot is not proportional representation, it would, crucially, mark the first breach in first-past-the-post’s monopoly in this country. The seal having been broken, the status quo might no longer exert quite the same grip on the public imagination. ...

I wish Coyne and other like-minded meddlers (eg. academics and fringe parties) would quit flogging the 'election reform' nag.  But, he (and they) won't, so maybe for his next exercise Mr. Coyne could venture beyond the theoretical and analyze actual cases where his suggested reforms have been tried (eg Italy) and what results they've produced. Have they yielded better governments or worse, and by what measures?   Have they produced better standards of living?  What were the unintended consequences?

Shell's latest fantasies

Peter Foster: Shell’s ­solar scenario fantasies

... its latest set of non-forecasts is that solar panels could be the most important single energy source by 2100. No word on the flying pig scenario....

... Five years ago, [Shell] was bemoaning the depletion of oil and gas from traditional areas, apparently unaware of the shale gas and tight oil booms on [its] doorstep....

... the main stresses on natural resources in the past four decades have come from one source: bad policy. Current and future stresses will have the same root....

... the costs of solar are not just linked to the inefficiency of the technology itself but to the fact that it requires conventional generating capacity standing by for when the clouds roll in...

... Instead of going the cheap and reliable route, they’ll go the Rube Goldberg way.

... The question still remains why such convoluted solutions would be necessary to self-inflicted problems. The answer lies in the ­climate derangement syndrome....

... the scenarios include a fair amount of climate porn, as in — “In the 2020s, a series of unusually violent storms leads to sea level surges in Asia, wreaking massive flood damage on major coastal cities etc., etc.”

... As Warren Buffett once said, “Forecasts tell you little about the future but a lot about the forecaster.” Presumably that applies to scenarios too.

Glavin on Justin Trudeau

Terry Glavin:

... Canada’s very own Liberal party ... is on the verge of handing its crown to someone it would not be entirely wrong to call a largely talentless and insufferably foppish celebrity drama queen. ...

More strikes against the Supremes' Whatcott decision

Rex Murphy: Choosing self-esteem over freedom of speech

Andrew Coyne:

... where has the Court been the last twenty years?

Supreme Court twists the Charter of Rights in its haste to limit free speech

George Jonas: Debating free speech

Ezra Levant: