Prime Minister Harper's address to the British Parliament

Via the CPC:

Epic climate model failure, biased science

Roy Spencer:

... The modellers and the IPCC have willingly ignored the evidence for low climate sensitivity for many years ... The discrepancy between models and observations is not a new issue … just one that is becoming more glaring over time.

... Forgive me if I sound frustrated, but we scientists who still believe that climate change can also be naturally forced have been virtually cut out of funding and publication by the “humans-cause-everything-bad-that-happens” juggernaut.










The UNIPCC definition of "climate change":

"A change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods."

The UN is only interested in human factors. And, the definition implicitly assumes that natural variability is well understood ('...nothing to study here, move along..'). The whole game is rigged from the get-go in favour of proving humans are responsible and ignoring natural variability.

Junk statistics used to justify quotas for women on corporate boards

Terence Corcoran:

Rona Ambrose, federal Status of Women Minister, says she is leading a new committee of business executives to study the issue of women directors.  Aiming for bold action, Ms. Ambrose told The Globe and Mail “I [told the committee] I  wanted action-oriented recommendations for the government to immediately act on,” she said. “We’ve had enough studies and enough reports.” [That's quite an admission.  Why bother with her phony, loaded committee?]  
 
Laurel Broten, Ontario’s Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues.  “The statistics are very clear,” Ms. Broten told a CBC Radio audience ..."... Improved financial performance is what you see in a company that has more women on their board.”

Only junk statistics could possibly justify such an obviously junk idea as quotas for women on corporate boards, or quotas for women in any other role for that matter.

And why in the Hell do we still have Ministers responsible for "women's issues"?  Talk about junk politics and a waste of taxpayers' money!

Price fixing hypocrisy - criminal charges laid against chocolate companies

The charges, laid Thursday, come ... after Canada’s Competition Bureau ...  found evidence suggesting that a price-fixing cartel collaborated, agreed or arranged to set the prices of chocolate products.

... Criminal charges have been laid against candy makers Nestlé Canada Inc. and Mars Canada Inc., and ITWAL Limited...

... “We are fully committed to pursuing those who engage in egregious, anti-competitive behaviour that harms Canadian consumers,” said John Pecman, interim commissioner of competition, in a statement.

I agree, price fixing is, or should be, a crime.  Yet, ironically,  the milk used by those chocolate companies is produced by dairy marketing cartels that engage in egregious, anti-competitive, consumer harming, price fixing with full government approval.

Maybe right 90% of the time but scumbags 100% of the time

George Jonas on the ethics of his fellow journalists:

...“‘Think dirty, and 90% of the time you’ll be right.’” ...

Reading what some of my colleagues have been saying about public-figures-turned-media-targets ... makes me wonder ... Perhaps they’ll score in the end, for thinking dirty may well make one right 90% of the time, but the parallel fact is that thinking dirty is disgusting 100% of the time. [And at least 10% of the time they're guilty of defamation].

... publishing before the evidence is in, commenting on the basis of allegations as if they were proven facts, smearing people on the basis of rumours and innuendos, piling on, attacking like a pack of jackals an unfashionable target, going after someone who seems wounded and unable to defend himself — that’s disgusting, and not made less disgusting by a subsequent consensus or endorsement by public opinion. It’s especially ugly to calumniate people, then hide behind a climate of slander that the original calumny helped create. ...

Bravo! Well said, George!

Media Party circles the wagons in defence of crappy journalism

In yesterday's National Post there were columns by Andrew Coyne and Chris Selley discussing, in part, the journalism surrounding Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's alleged crack smoking.  At least the focus is on the real problem - the media, instead of the steady stream of innuendo about Ford .  But, to me, both columns are just more of the Media Party's circling of the wagons around their own, spinning their biases into a transparent rationalization of crappy journalism.

Towards the end of Coyne's column he says that the alleged Ford video couldn't have been faked because some alleged tech experts have said so. That's a highly dubious assertion. Such a video can indeed be faked, at least one sufficiently good enough to dupe gullible reporters on the prowl for dirt on Ford, who viewed it on a tiny screen in the back of a dope dealer's car, at night. The hard part about faking such videos is making them good enough to avoid detection on close inspection. Could this be the reason the video hasn't surfaced? This is precisely why the Star should not have published the story. They didn't have the video in their possession and were therefore unable to have it technically authenticated.

Coyne also yaps about the alleged sterling reputations of the Star reporters asking whether they'd risk them, along with possible "heavy financial losses", if they didn't have grounds to believe their story to be true. 

Here's a clue for Coyne: why don't you review the case of that once reputable, highly acclaimed journalist DAN RATHER?  You know, the one where Rather let his biases and enthusiasm for screwing George W Bush get the better of him when he published a smear based on a phony memorandum.  Sounds very similar to the Star story on Ford, doesn't it?

Near the end of Selley's column he defends the Star's ethically dubious journalism:

"Journalistic standards are important; but are the ones that journalism schools are teaching still appropriate? Much of the criticism the Star itself has endured — speak to standards that non-mainstream outfits can very profitably ignore, while greatly furthering the public interest."

Really?! How does publishing smear stories based on unverified, possibly unverifiable, videos "greatly further the public interest".  No doubt Selley believes Ford is guilty -  where there's smoke (generated by "reputable" journalists) there's inevitably fire. No evidence required.

Selley, like Coyne attaches significance to the reputations of the Star and its reporters. But there's nary a peep (by either) about the damage being unjustly done to the reputation of their victim, Rob Ford.

Corruption in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) + nitwit mayors and useless media

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) is holding its annual conference in Vancouver this year.  This is the conference attended by Mayors and municipal staff to share ideas (collude) on stuff like, you know, "green" plans, "sustainability" initiatives and "climate change" strategies (aka wasting wads of cash ripped off from taxpayers).   Ezra Levant describes it as a lobby group that received $550 million in taxpayer funds from the federal government. 

Ezra also pointed out in this segment how and why corrupt thugs from FCM blacklisted a Montreal contractor from its tradeshow for having the temerity to advocate more efficient, open and honest tendering of municipal acquisition contracts:



And where's the Media Party?  One wonders whether or not this FCM corruption was a topic of discussion at the conference, at least informally among attendees.   Also, was the corruption in Quebec discussed?  There's real corruption in the FCM and real corruption in Quebec municipalities, so you might think the media would give their reporters an assignment to ask some relevant questions.   Well, there was no sign of it on my local CTV news last night.  The one and only topic they saw fit to cover was: "Rob Ford criticism bubbles up at Canadian mayors’ conference".  [The mayors were all atwitter, like giddy schoolgirls sharing hot gossip.  Note that one scumbag mayor, Frank Leonard of Saanich, BC, skated close to slander by suggesting Ford should be in jail.]   A worthless media sinks farther into irrelevance.