"One should doubtless keep an open mind...though open at both ends, like the food pipe, and have a capacity for excretion as well as intake." -- Northrop Frye, 'The Great Code'
... the prime minister's government is also quietly bankrolling one of the largest social pilot projects ever seen in Canada, paying generously for cutting-edge research that is changing the lives of hundreds of homeless people.
... taking their cue from Harper, officials decided to zero in on a sub-group: the mentally ill.
... Then they narrowed their focus further. In five cities across the country, they targeted a particularly vulnerable sector of the mentally ill homeless population.
Interesting story, but I have trepidations. As long as this is research oriented, limited in scope and under Conservative watch I don’t mind the feds taking the lead. The targeted group is certainly the most deserving of help. And it beats the hell out of “safe injection sites”. However, how long will it be before this morphs into an unsustainable “national strategy” to fulfill the peoples’ bogus “right to housing”. A Lib/Dipper coalition would certainly attempt to turn it into that in a heartbeat - shades of their National Daycare Plan.
... When governments, both federal and provincial, see the final results, he is convinced they will see the need to take housing-first to a national scale and someone will step up with funding.
And don’t proponents of these schemes always promise that they will be saving a pile of money? Sure they do:
"Once it's finished, we're going to make sure that every government in the country knows we saved them a whole pile of money,"
... [leftism] causes otherwise decent and kind people ... to say and/or do cruel and sometimes evil things.
...a major new scholarly book, "Pathological Altruism" (Oxford University Press), explores this phenomenon of people wanting to do good things yet ending up doing bad. It applies to The New York Times ... columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who has a deep altruistic urge to bring peace to the Middle East. But because he sees the world through the liberal/left prism, he says morally reprehensible things ...
... Leftism poisons everything it influences -- from journalism to the arts to universities to religion to government to male-female relations. And ultimately leftism poisons character. This does not mean that everyone with left-wing views becomes a bad person [or] that everyone with conservative views is a good person....
... But it does mean that leftism leads to pathologic altruism, ... Just as Mahatma Gandhi's hatred of violence led him to tell the Jews of Europe not to resist Hitler, so too has leftism led decent people who would weep at Israel's destruction to mouth the very same lies about Israel as those who seek its annihilation.
Ok, that sort of fits with the idea that much, if not most, of what passes for "altruism" is narcissistic do-goodism, mainly a trait of the left. Perhaps that (plus the malign sentiments and consequences) is what makes it "pathological" (and leftist).
The December issue of my alumni journal included the University of Manitoba’s statement of apology for its supposed role in the Indian residential school system. Some excerpts [subtext in brackets added]:
The University of Manitoba wishes to take a leadership role in helping expose the national shame of the Indian Residential Schools system and the consequences of such a system. [The back of the line is over there.]
... For over 130 years, the University of Manitoba has worked to create, preserve and communicate knowledge. Moreover, our academic institution has a long history of encouraging debate, building excellence and fostering innovation. [Admittedly, back in the day, the residential schools and assimilation innovations were all the rage in academia].
... it is clear that we did not live up to our goals, our ideals, our hard-earned reputation or our mandate. [Even though our predecessors’ goals and ideals included residential schools.]
... That was a grave mistake[with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and currently fashionable political correctness]. It is our responsibility [No it isn’t]. We are sorry. [Boo hoo!]
...Instead of being positive influences on Aboriginal peoples, education and religion became tools of assimilation, thus undermining the rich diversities of First Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures, communities and families. [If only our crude and ignorant ancestors had known better.]
... Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized ... The next day, then Manitoba Premier Gary Doer ... and Northern Affairs Minister Eric Robinson ... Churches that operated schools – Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and United – have also issued statements of apology and reconciliation. [And we thought: “We’ll look really bad if we don’t climb on this bandwagon!”. And so,]
... Today the University of Manitoba adds our voice to the apologies ... ... We apologize to our students. ... We apologize to our Indigenous faculty and staff. ... We apologize to First Nations, Métis and Inuit leaders and Elders. ... [We, the uninvolved, apologize to everyone.]
[There, that feels much better!!]
Signed, David T. Barnard, President and Vice-Chancellor
There's something weird and unseemly about people who had little or no role apologizing for the decisions and actions of well intentioned predecessors who operated under different assumptions and knowledge. I wonder if they give any thought at all to the possibility that what they are doing today their distant future successors might feel obliged to apologize for - eg: suppression of free speech on campus; rampant political correctness, and; the indoctrination of students in highly dubious theories of multiculturalism, radical feminism and postmodernism (and that's the short list)? I think not.
Further to my two previous posts here's a video of Grant Mitchell bloviating on climate change:
Mitchell is a closed-minded true believer. I left these comments at YouTube where Grant's approval is required. Will he approve?
There is no scientific debate about AGW? Really? If Mitchell believes this it's because he keeps his head buried in the sand, listening only to proponents of the AGW hypothesis and catastrophic AGW alarmists. The scientific literature is replete with peer reviewed work that is at odds with that hypothesis. Open your closed mind Senator Mitchell, and learn to think for yourself.
See the previous post re the Senate Energy and Environment committee hearings (video at the 1hr 50min mark) for the remarks of committee Deputy Chair, Senator Grant Mitchell (Liberal, Alberta). Note that earlier he had declined to ask the first question (as is his normal routine) stating he preferred to go last. From his remarks it's easy to see why. The man is a complete asshole!
Senator Mitchell (a political 'scientist' and smirking full time), said that while he didn't doubt the sincerity of the four contrarian scientists, there was an "overwhelming concensus" [there we go again!] of equally sincere scientists who subscribe wholeheartedly to AGW as a serious problem requiring action. He referred to the IPCC as "the strawman that's been raised here") [Uh oh!] adding that many scientists who hold the opposing view are not IPCC scientists but "independent scientists all over the world". To believe these (skeptical) arguments is "to believe some kind of strange conspiracy theory" and to believe that "theHarper government is clamping down on scientists to enforce elite climate science concensus" ... "it's the last government that would enforce concensus". Before ending Mitchell claims that "there is devastating science that confronts and overwhelms what you are saying" and it's "the same as saying that vaccines are dangerous ... that cell phones cause cancer or that evolution is not true.... If humans aren't causing this we have to be very, very afraid ... then we can't fix it." [Wow! Just wow! Them's fighting words! Mitchell is a closed minded twit and an asshat!! Is he alone on the committee in this line of thinking? Perhaps not but he's the only one to show his true colours here. And note that he gave a speech with no intention of asking questions and getting a response he clearly isn't interested in hearing. He pretty much ran out the clock.] Prof Veizer asked whether he could speak off the record to address Mitchell's remarks. I think given the chance Veizer would have clocked the pr*ck (verbally of course).
Now we're getting to the nub of the problem. That there is "scientific concensus" is widely accepted dogma. Senator Mitchell certainly has no doubts.
Excellent presentations by very credible people - Ross McKitrick, Ian Clark, Jan Veizer and Tim Patterson. There was a goofy event during Ian Clark's (U of Ottawa) briefing on CO2 and the paleoclimate record in which he used several graphs which unfortunately were not being displayed. The chair, Senator Angus interrupted Prof Clark (at about the 27 min mark) to explain that the graphs were not being broadcast to TV and web audiences because they were not bilingual. Idiotic but, hey, this is Canada. Happily, this lead to a good discussion by Clark of greenhouse gases and the dishonesty exposed by the Climategate emails.
Professor Patterson hit one of my favourite contentions - that global cooling is a much greater threat than warming, especially to Canada. If we were properly looking out for our own interests we'd be promoting anything that might lead to warming not trying to suppress it.
Senator Paul Massicotte (Liberal) brought up the "concensus" issue. He asked why should he, a non-technical political decision maker, believe the skeptics when the vast majority of scientists including government scientists believe in AGW? Tim Patterson attempted an answer but Massicotte wasn't impressed.
Senator Banks (Liberal) believes that we should be following the precautionary principle. Gaaakk! He laid out four extreme but uncertain scenarios and asked: Where should we place our bet? McKitrick responded that Banks had set up an impossibly difficult decision-making problem and suggested that rather than betting on one of a set of bad options a carbon tax based on global temperature could be set up (McKitrick's T3 Tax).
Senator Richard Neufeld (Conservative) said he agreed with Massicotte. They hear from scientists on one side that it that it's so simple, AGW is happening [probably that's all that they've heard until this session] and from the other side not so or not necessarily so. He said he's not sold either way and asked how many scientists would be "on the same wave length" as the four presenters. "Are there a lot of them? Are they just quiet? Why are they quiet? Because the other side is very loud." [Good point! Thank you Senator!] The chair, Sen Angus, then spoke up to confirm that the committee had heard much, much more from AGW true-believers (not his words) than from skeptics. Good answer from Prof. Veiser starting with a bandwagon analogy and his experience with bandwagon thinking in communist Czekoslovakia. He moved on to the corruption in the UN IPCC process, including suppression of contrary views and intimidation tactics.
Senator Robert Peterson (Liberal) brought up the tipping point ("break point" or catastrophic AGW) scare. Clark said these "break points" are based on speculation about the predictability of how climate will behave. Climate is too complex to reliably predict. He referred to such talk as "alarmist" and "wild speculation" (giving as an example the prediction by the scientific advisor to the British government that "in 100 years the only habitable place on the planet will be Antartica").
More to follow (next post) re idiot Senator Grant Mitchell's disgraceful, insulting remarks (see video at 1hr 50 min mark).
"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences." -- C. S. Lewis
