Assisted suicicide front and centre in BC news

Two days running now there have been front page stories in the Vancouver Sun (here and here) about Gillian Ryan's suicide.  That's suicide, not "assisted" suicide. She planned her own death and carried it out without involving anyone else.  Good for her, except that apparently she wanted to use the occasion to grandstand in support of doctor assisted suicide.  Naturally, the Van Sun and others obliged.

So, now's a good time to revisit Margaret Somerville's 2012 interview on the subject:

Albertans dying by the hundred from coal-fired power plant emissions!

So say a couple of scare-mongering Alberta doctors:

... two different modelling techniques (one from the Canadian Medical Association, and one from Environment Canada) showed dramatic health effects: 4,800 asthma days (missed work or school due to asthma), 700 hospital visits, 80 admissions, and approximately 100 deaths annually associated with coal-fired power emissions.

Not so fast, says Michelle Sterling (see also the Calgary Herald comment thread).  One of many flaws and oversights in papers cited by the doctors immediately casts serious doubt on their argument:

... [There was no mention of] the greatest factor in air quality in Alberta.  Wildfires. In 2011, wildfires dumped 1.9 million tonnes of toxic and carcinogenic human health problems on Albertans; coal-fired plants emitted just 1,800 tonnes of PM 2.5 (particulate matter) while powering warm homes and health solutions in clinics and hospitals across the province.

...  [it is] implausible that Pembina’s math would end up attributing half the deaths of Albertans to fine particulate matter – or coal-fired power.

There's much more in Michelle's debating points, but that is a biggie.

Who's the biggest name in Canadian broadcasting?

What we all know and have no difficulty admitting.   Go Ezra! :)

Obama congratulates Muslims for contributions "... to building the very fabric of our nation ..."

Robert Spencer came up with five: three profoundly negative "contributions" - slavery, a weakened economy and the TSA, plus two indirect positives - Columbus' discovery of America driven by the necessity of finding new trade routes because Muslims had closed the traditional ones, and, the Marine ethos arising from kicking Muslims' asses during the Barbary War.

[Via]

Obama - hypocrite-in-chief (example #101)

Via James Delingpole, a recently released U.S. Senate report hammers Barack Obama for his blatant hypocrisy:

In his 2010 State of the Union Address, President Obama famously chided the Supreme Court for its recent campaign finance decision by proclaiming, “With all due deference to the separation of powers, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections." In another speech [in 2013] he further lamented, “There aren’t a lot of functioning democracies around the world that work this way where you can basically have millionaires and billionaires bankrolling whoever they want, however they want, in some cases undisclosed. What it means is ordinary Americans are shut out of the process.”

These statements are remarkable for their blatant hypocrisy and obfuscation of the fact that the President and his cadre of wealthy liberal allies and donors embrace the very tactics he publically scorned. In reality, an elite group of left wing millionaires and billionaires, which this report refers to as the “Billionaire’s Club,” who directs and controls the far-left environmental movement, which in turn controls major policy decisions and lobbies on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Even more unsettling, a dominant organization in this movement is Sea Change Foundation, a private California foundation, which relies on funding from a foreign company with undisclosed donors. In turn, Sea Change funnels tens of millions of dollars to other large but discreet foundations and prominent environmental activists who strive to control both policy and politics. ...