Keystone cop

Ezra's take on Obama's KXL rhetoric:

Barack ("Oil Slick") Obama

Obama is making noises dissing the Keystone XL pipeline project, again:

In a New York Times interview published Saturday, President Obama came out foursquare against the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that it would not create jobs. ...

Canada pushes back:



And we shouldn't forget that one of Obama's best pals invested $44 billion in a railway company (BNSF) that can haul tons of oil:

... Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said in an interview. If Keystone XL “doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul.”  

... Burlington Northern carries about 25 percent of the oil from the Bakken, said Krista York-Wooley, the railroad spokeswoman. The company can carry higher volumes from North Dakota or Alberta, she said.

Grieving for glaciers

Vancouver Sun (front page):

Fifty musicians trekked to Farnham Glacier in the Kootenays Saturday to perform for the glacier itself and express their grief about the melting of glaciers with the aptly titled composition Requiem for a Glacier.

... "It is farewell to a glacier, feeling sadness it will happen. We cannot stop it any more."

... "It brought tears to my eyes," said Nelson violinist Margot Zimmer.

This "requiem" belongs under the heading "Loony Toons".  You can't make this stuff up!

And (coincidentally?) sharing the same front page is "Fuelling India’s coal needs",  another of the eco-loons' favorite hobby horses - dirty coal:

... Environmental groups and some Lower Mainland residents are raising concerns over coal's contribution to greenhouse gases (coal produces more carbon dioxide than natural gas and oil), and increased rail traffic, diesel emissions and coal dust.

2013 "Council of the Federation" meeting a big flop

Andrew Coyne's excellent column today explains how the Premiers, instead of attending to matters within their own jurisdiction, wasted their time (and our taxes) telling the federal government how to suck eggs:

It is possible to imagine a situation in which it would be useful for the premiers to meet, just as it is possible to conceive of a reason why anyone should pay them the slightest attention [but just barely].  ...

[They could discuss taking action in many areas]: 

... the hundreds of inter-provincial trade barriers that still disfigure the landscape

...  to stop their professional bodies from discriminating against those who have received their training elsewhere. 

... to allow each other’s oil and hydroelectricity to cross their soil without being held to ransom. 

... to put their budgets on the same system of accounts, so the public could have some idea of how much they were spending, relative to each other.

These would all justify the premiers meeting.  ...  there is nothing to prevent the premiers from doing any of these. Because, you see, they all have the inestimable advantage of being within the premiers’ jurisdiction. ...  It isn’t just that they almost never agree to anything that is in their power to do ...  They barely even talk about it.

Instead, they talk about the feds: what Ottawa should do, how much money it should spend, and on what. On this, let it be said, they have no trouble agreeing. ... And, of all the things the premiers might think to suggest the federal government spend more on, what do you supposed tops their list? Why yes: themselves.

... And when they have finished all this — when they are done writing Ottawa’s budget, and amending the Criminal Code, and drafting federal safety regulations, and demanding to be consulted on everything under the sun — the premiers use whatever time they have left to complain about federal interference.

The Premiers ought to be embarrassed.  They've made a joke of their meetings. It's hardly much wonder why Harper ignores their invitations.  He'd have to be nuts to attend.

Leftist, anti-Zimmerman hate mobs strike fear into family

Family rescued by George Zimmerman after a rollover crash in Florida ...

... are terrified they will become targets for hate mobs who have made death threats to the neighborhood vigilante.

Mark and Dana Michelle Gerstle told friends they do not want to talk publicly about Zimmerman for fear they will be accused of portraying him as a hero - and face a backlash from those who consider he got away with murder.

'They are very grateful to Zimmerman for what he did, but they do not want to get involved,' said a friend, who asked not to be named.

... The heroic rescue took place less than a mile from where Zimmerman shot 17 year old Martin in February 2012. ...

This insanity is thanks:

1) to vile leftists who favor mob "justice"
2) to a vile leftist media and race-baiters for misrepresenting the Zimmerman case, and
3) Barack Obama for stirring up racial resentment to satisfy his certifiably nuts, far-left base.

Assuming this story is accurate, good for Zimmerman - obviously he's a stand-up guy.

As for Mark and Dana Gerstle, I have mixed feelings.  Given the leftist mob-justice mentality on display they're justifiably fearful for their family's safety.  On the other hand, it would be better if they showed some courage.  Maybe they'll step up soon.

[via]

‘Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,’ Barack Obama says

Let's finish that quote for him: "... I too would have beat the crap out of that creepy-ass cracker."

And here are a few more facts not covered by the NYT and other spinners: 


[via]

More boreal bullcrap (on the front page, above the fold)

Vancouver Sun, this morning - Huge swaths of Canada's boreal forest under threat

At least half of Canada's vast boreal forest should be strictly protected from any kind of development and the rest should be carefully managed to preserve or restore its ecological integrity ...

... The International Boreal Conservation Science Panel ... is sounding the alarm about Canada's 5.8-million square kilometre expanse of northern woods and wetlands ...

... Report co-author Jeff Wells, science adviser to the U.S.-based Pew Charitable Trusts, said in a statement that because of the "mounting pressures on boreal regions of Canada," ...

This is more anti-development propaganda brought to you by the same eco-radical ENGO bullies, thugs and shakedown artists who intimidated forest companies into signing the Canadian Boreal Forest "Agreement". [Recall that one company, Resolute Forest Products, located it's spine and sued for defamation.]

Neither forests nor forest wildlife are under any credibly realistic "threat".  Those most threatened (by eco-blackmailers) are people who make their living in the forests.  Eco-radicals brook no love for people.

People "who should know better" making false claims about climate change

Yesterday, Roger Pielke Jr. testified before the U.S. Senate environment committee:

... It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally. It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.  

... some activists, politicians, journalists, corporate and government agency representatives and even scientists who should know better have made claims that are unsupportable based on evidence and research.  

... Such false claims could undermine the credibility of arguments for action on climate change, and to the extent that such false claims confuse those who make decisions related to extreme events, they could lead to poor decision making. ["could lead"? - has led to massively expensive blunders, like Ontario's (and nearly every other governments') "climate action" plan.]

The Race-Baiter-in-Chief wades in deeper

Obama, in a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room, treated the world to his latest thoughts on the Zimmerman/Martin case:



Part 2.

Reaction:

... [David] Webb called Obama’s speech “disingenuous” and hit him for “placating his base and the people he needs to play to.” He criticized Obama for putting forth “the idea that the black community is one monolithic block, that most of us, black people, have been profiled. ...”

...“What the president has done is taken us backwards, not forwards,” Webb continued.

BC's revenue neutral (Not!) carbon tax

Willis Eschenbach's fourth of a four part series taking a comprehensive look at the "British Utopia" carbon tax:

... The first cost to me in this is the cost to common sense. Making energy more expensive is going in exactly the wrong direction. Forcing people to pay more for energy makes no sense at all. I want to see energy get CHEAPER, not more expensive. I cannot put this too strongly:

Cheap energy is the salvation of the poor ... This means that anyone advocating policies that add to the price of energy is actively harming the poor ...  slowing economic development in the parts of the planet that need it most.

... The second cost involves the concept of a “revenue neutral” tax. ... To understand the problem with this, let me try to disambiguate two concepts—“revenue neutral” taxes, and “sin” taxes. ... the more just and equitable the revenue-neutral sin tax is, the less it will affect behavior. In other words, in order for a revenue-neutral sin tax to be effective, it needs to be unfair …

... The third cost is one of fairness, and this one has huge ramifications. Children I know all over the world have a clear sense of what’s not fair. Despite being revenue-neutral, which the BC plan demonstrably is, the plan is far from fair.

... The fourth cost is the cost to the poor. I give them their own category because the poor are hit the hardest by rising energy costs.

The fifth cost is the tax on the tax. Of course, the Government of Canada gets to charge the Goods and Service Tax (GST) ...

The sixth cost is the overhead. You can’t run a complex program like a carbon-based energy tax without lots of paper pushers.

The seventh cost is the pensions. Every person taking your tax money today and faithfully giving it back to you tomorrow in blessed revenue neutrality will be taking your tax money for thirty years after they retire and not giving back a dime.

The eighth cost is the rent-seekers. These include folks like Sustainable Canada and other organizations for whom this is a grant-raising bonanza. ... They produce nothing useful, they are a dead weight on society, but they come right along with the tax, they mate for life.

The ninth cost is the cost of tax avoidance/evasion. ...under any definition there are several costs in this arena of what might be called creative responses to the BC tax.

The tenth cost is the hours people will spend filling out the paperwork.

The eleventh cost is official hypocrisy. One surprising thing I found out in researching this is that the good burghers of BC have fields containing evil natural gas …  and even more coal ...

The twelfth cost is officials denying inconvenient reality. The so-called “fugitive emissions” (meaning leaks) of methane are a big issue with the radical left who would like to end fracking (and civilization as well, apparently).

Live From Ryerson University - Violent, Racist, Anti-Semitic, Hate

Greg Renouf at genuiNEWitty:

... At about 2:45 Saturday afternoon the Livestream camera was handed to a young native man named Billy who says he comes from near the Conawapa Dam in Manitoba.

...  Billy explains his view on what indigenous people need to do to get attention for their cause:
“Us Indians have to do something really extreme to get the world’s attention, like forming a Taliban“

... He then moves on to discuss his feelings on Jewish people and Israel ...

Neo at halls of macadamia:

Seriously... where's a Human Rights Commissioner when you really, really need one? ... 

... Actually, [Billy]... I'm kinda hopin' you have a serious substance abuse problem... 'cos, otherwise, you're just full-on batshit crazy. 

The trial is over - the media keeps on pushing its disgraceful bias

This morning's Vancouver Sun:

"... Martin was walking to his father’s house carrying a can of iced tea and a box of Skittles when he was gunned down by Zimmerman ..."

And on it goes! This column is a continuation of the media's disgracefully biased coverage of the Zimmerman / Martin story.

The left/lib establishment (including, or especially, the media) had it's collective mind made up from square one, before any evidence was presented - a white man, George Zimmerman, was guilty of "gunning down" an innocent black teenager "carrying ... a box of Skittles".  They immediately and eagerly stoked the racial angle.  NBC news doctored the tape of a 911 call to make Zimmerman sound like a racist (while he's anything but).  Even the boneheaded President Obama weighed in with his "if I had a son he'd look like Travon" idiocy.

And whose opinion is quoted in this piece (besides the race-baiting Obama)?  The raving race baiter, Al Sharpton, and the disgraced (for, inter alia, soliciting hookers on the public dime) former NY Governor, Eliot Spitzer.

The trial is over, the jury has spoken.  But there's not a word in the Sun article of what was presented at trial and why the jury found Mr. Zimmerman not guilty. 

If this episode has stoked racial tension and racial division, the press and the left/lib establishment it represents need only look in the mirror to see who is largely to blame.

George Zimmerman found not guilty

Not guilty of murder, not guilty of manslaughter.

... The jury ... deliberated 16 hours and 20 minutes over two days. The six female jurors entered the quiet, tense courtroom, several looking exhausted, their faces drawn and grim. After the verdict was read, each assented, one by one, and quietly, their agreement with the verdict.  

... Saturday night when the verdict was read, Mr. Zimmerman, 29, smiled slightly. His wife, Shellie, and several of his friends wept, and his parents kissed and embraced. ...

Update (via sda): Robert Zimmerman with CNN nitwit, Piers Morgan

CBC Radio's top celebrity interviewer gets overheated on "climate change"

Peter Foster:

Jian Ghomeshi is arguably the coolest thing on CBC radio. However, Mr. Ghomeshi became uncharacteristically heated during his show, Q, on Monday morning over an issue that often raises righteous temperatures: climate.

The text for  Mr. Ghomeshi’s editorial, titled “Hot enough for ya?” was a new report from the World Meteorological Organization, WMO, which claimed that the decade to 2010 was one of “unprecedented high climate extremes.” ...

... Mr. Ghomeshi is an important and influential figure, but one suspects that he did less research on this editorial than he does for most celebrity interviews.  Next time he has Al Gore on the show, perhaps he can ask him about the British High Court judgment that found “An Inconvenient Truth” to be chockablock with scientific errors.

Excellent column.

A video about "liars, cowards, fascists and hatemongers"

Pat Condell defends the EDL, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller and exposes real "liars, cowards, fascists and hatemongers":



[Via]

Eco-terror in Lac-Megantic disaster?

Ezra Levant analyzes:



See also.

The chairman of the rail company is convinced that at least tampering was involved.

Meanwhile, the Vancouver Sun (on its front page today)  believes it's all about BC.

And Thomas Mulcair wasted no time blaming Harper.

Debate: Atheism vs theism

A seven year old debate worth revisiting, Richard Dawkins vs David Quinn.  The winner, David Quinn, easily:

Wind power, a near total bust

Not only is it proving to be an environmental blight and fundamentally uneconomic ...



... but new research shows that wind farms may be causing significant direct atmospheric warming:

Researchers at the State University of New York at Albany analysed the satellite data of areas around large wind farms in Texas, where four of the world's largest farms are located, over the period 2003 to 2011.

... The results, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, showed a warming trend of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade in areas over the farms, compared with nearby regions without the farms.

This could be a big factor in finally getting AGW fanatics and other environmental freaks to abandon wind power.

In environmentalists' favourite jargon, wind power is, on every level, unsustainable!

Egypt's Morsi gets the boot

Morsi Is Out as President, Egyptian State Media Says

Egypt’s military moved forcefully to seize power from President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday, deploying tanks and troops in Cairo and other cities ...

Ahramonline, the government’s official English-language Web site, said the military had informed Mr. Morsi that he was no longer head of state. There was no word on Mr. Morsi’s whereabouts ...

... Mr. Morsi’s senior foreign policy adviser [wrote]... "For the sake of Egypt and for historical accuracy, let’s call what is happening by its real name: Military coup." ...

Interesting.  Now what?

Home grown morons ...

become foreign inspired terrorists:

A man and woman from B.C. have been arrested and charged in a terror plot targeting the B.C. legislature in Victoria on Canada Day.

 ... John Stewart Nuttall, in his late 30s, and Amanda Marie Korody, in her late 20s, both from Surrey, B.C., built explosive devices they planned to detonate at the provincial parliament buildings as part of an attack inspired by al-Qaida ideology.

... A terrorism expert said it's likely the duo were converts to radical Islam and coached in the alleged plot. ...

Happy Canada Dominion Day!

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Some history on how "Dominion Day" was dumped in favour of the meaningless "Canada Day":

... In hindsight, it was a case of identity theft, an act of historical vandalism. A quarter-century ago, 13 members of Parliament hastily -- some say indecently -- renamed the country's national birthday in a swift bit of legislative sleight-of-hand.

At 4 o'clock on Friday, July 9, 1982, the House of Commons was almost empty. The 13 parliamentarians taking up space in the 282-seat chamber ... The whole process took five minutes. ... a private member's bill from Hal Herbert, the Liberal MP from Vaudreuil ...

Read on ...

That's how Liberals treat Canada's heritage - with skullduggery and contempt.