Iggy's Senate reforms

According to CTV News:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff laid out some broad Senate reform ideas Sunday, including term limits and a curb on the prime minister's ability to stack the Upper House with his own picks.

... More specifically, Ignatieff proposed a 12-year term limit on Senate positions and an arms-length committee tasked with vetting candidates.

Amazing! The only time a Liberal would ever suggest curbing the PM's ability to "stack the Upper House" is when a Conservative is in power and threatening to gain a majority there. And twelve year terms? Don't the Consrvatives favour 8 year limits?

And this was the result of an accompanying poll earlier in the day (Oddly it's disappeared from sight and has been replaced with one unrelated to this topic. I wonder why?Now here.):

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Glenn Beck #2 after Oprah

According to a recent Harris Poll:












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Glenn Beck alone is worth my subscription to Fox News.

Who's signing up to Copenhagen?

So far, nearly nobody:

Only four countries -- Australia, Canada, Papua New Guinea and the Maldives -- have signed the Copenhagen Accord so far ...

That's some list! Way to go Canada, that puts us in great company - a country run by a leftist AGW loon and two real nobodies.

Meanwhile the countries generating the greatest growth in atmospheric CO2 are sensibly re-thinking things:

The Indian and Chinese governments have had a rethink on signing the Copenhagen Accord, officials said on Saturday...

And, moreover:

With the Democrats losing in one of their strongholds, the chances
of the climate bill going through the US senate have receded dramatically.

[via FOS]

Update: To be fair and upfront, after further searching I admit it's difficult to find anything regarding Canada having "signed" on to the Copenhagen Accord. There's nothing to that effect on Environment Canada's webpages. And outside of the above link I could find no direct statements saying so. Another source reporting from New Delhi said:

... Canada, Australia, the Maldives and Papua New Guinea have disclosed
their intention to sign the Copenhagen Accord.

As for Canada's actual position coming out of COP 15, it's summarized reasonably well by the CBC here (and here). The video summary also shows that, as we all know by now, climate "activists" absolutely detest Harper's climate policy. So kudos to the Harper government for at least achieving that much.

The Prorogue Score - Harper is an amateur

So, Iggy and the Libs want to change the rules for proroguing parliament. Just for the record, here, from Lenny Walkerville (comment no. 5) [see update below], is the Liberal history:

Compared to a few Liberal PM’s, Stephen Harper is a proroguing amateur.

Chretien 4, Harper 2.

35th Parliament Chretien 1996/2/2

36th Parliament 1999/9/18

37th Parliament 2002/9/16,2003/11/12 ( the last one was done
to avoid the auditor generals release of the report on Adscam)

And if you really want a lopsided score how about this one:

Trudeau [and Pearson] 11, Harper 2.

26th Parliament Trudeau[Pearson] 1963/12/21,1965/4/3

27th Parliament Trudeau[Pearson] 1967/5/8

28th Parliament Trudeau 1969/10/22,1970/10/7,1972/2/16

29th Parliament Trudeau 1974/2/26

30th Parliament Trudeau 1976/10/12,1977/10/17,1978/10/10,1983/11/30

Now, where was all of the outrage on these 15 prorogation’s, and more importantly why are these numbers not front and center in the multitude of MSM stories on the topic?

Faux media led outrage at its best..

BTW Parliament is not prorogued until January 25th and will only last for 22 sitting days so when ever you hear such things as it lasting “3months” or statements implying that it is already prorogued, or that is unconstitutional etc, feel free to call BS on whomever said it and let them know we are on to their lies.

In our 143 years of existence as Canada, Parliament has been prorogued 105 times.

That is an average of about once every 1.4 years that this, very legal and constitutionally granted power, has been used.

Good job, Lenny Alberta Ardvark!

Update: It seems that Lenny may have cribbed from Alberta Ardvark's post. Also corrections have been made above to properly attribute the 26th and 27th Parliaments to Pearson.

Upperdate: Yesterday Ardvark also pointed to Bob Rae's record for proroguing the Ontarion legislature and notes that both of Harper's prorogues have been very short in comparison and produced budgets at their conclusion. "Ha!" Once again, why is it that info like this is so sparsely reported in the MSM? And the obvious answer is: they're more interested spreading partisan bullcrap and/or they're incompetent.

UpperUpperdate: It's been pointed out (in the comments) that Harper's current prorogue will actually be his 3rd - one in the 39th Parliament and two in the 40th Parliament.

Naomi Klein at the Sundance Festival

Gaaackk! Naomi Klein’s "The Shock Doctrine" is now a film entered in the 2010 Sundance Film Festival (in the schlockumentary category):

... Not to be outdone by bona fide movie stars, Naomi Klein hits Park City later in the week for the film version of her book Shock Doctrine, directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat (sic) Whitcross. Klein will appear alongside the filmmakers for a somewhat original premiere that will lead to a discussion moderated by none other than festival founder Robert Redford.

That ought to be an interesting discussion. Klein’s book and film are so bad that even the Toronto Star is panning them. Movies columnist Peter Howell rightly criticizes Klein’s looniest notions, though he still falls for the usual leftist claptrap about Milton Friedman’s connections to various situations around the world.

For some really credible commentary on Klein, "The Shock Doctrine" and Milton Friedman read Peter Foster and Terence Corcoran.

Say, I’ve got an idea! I’ll bet a lot of the Sundance crowd will be wearing Ché teashirts. They might benefit from viewing Glenn Beck’s "The Revolutionary Holocaust - Live Free or Die". Beck should consider entering it in the festival.

Obama vs Tiger - No contest

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[H/t Vinney]

"The Revolutionary Holocaust - Live Free or Die"

Glenn Beck's powerful documentary exposes modern leftist mass murderers and their boosters. Marx, Stalin, Hitler, Ché, Mao, Shaw, Duranty - he hits them all. It's a must see.

Part 1 of 6


Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Backgrounder.

US Climate centers now caught manipulating data

John Coleman at KUSI weather reports:

... It has been revealed that a "sleight of hand" was used in the computer program that rated 2005 as "THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” Skeptical climate researchers have discovered extensive manipulation of the data within the U.S. Government's two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. These centers are being accused of creating a strong bias toward warmer temperatures through a system that dramatically trimmed the number and cherry-picked the locations of weather observation stations ...

The report aired Jan 14th as part (see Part 6) of the TV program "Global Warming" The Other Side".



[via FOS]

ClimateGate: 30 years in the making

From JoNova comes Mohib Ebrahim's neat timeline documenting events leading up to ClimateGate.
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Some samples:

NEWSWEEK 28.Apr.1975: The Cooling World - "Almost unanimous the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century." [3]

1976 James Hansen publishes a paper on anthropogenic greenhouse gases

FEB 1979 -- First World Climate Conference organised by the World Meteorological Organisation

Aug 21, 1981 NEW YORK TIMES: Global warming makes the front page following Hansen sending them a copy of his paper, "Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide". Many scientists were critical of the approach taken by Hansen and others for damaging the integrity of science.

Oct 9, 1985 IPCC Conceived

Jun 1988 Hansen makes his famous ... appearance before a Congressional committee. Afterwards [he] tells journalists that it was time to “stop waffling, and that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here”. ... According to [climate historian Spencer] Weart, ‘respected scientists publicly rebuked Hansen,saying he had gone far beyond what scientific evidence justified’ [5]

[via FOS]

Googlegate: Google censoring climategate

Lawrence Solomon has picked up on Google's apparent censoring of climategate references:

... Google announced an end to its long-standing collaboration with the Chinese Communists — it will no longer censor users inside China.That’s good of it. Maybe Google will now also stop using its search engine to censor the rest of us, in the Western countries.

... in early December, Google began to minimize the Climategate scandal by hiding Climategate pages from its users. By Dec. 17, the number of climategate pages that a Google search found dropped by almost 10 million, to 22.2 million. One day later Google dropped its find by another 8 million pages, to 14.1 million. By Dec. 23, Google could find only 7.5 million hits and on Dec. 24 just 6 million. And yesterday, when I checked, Google reported a mere 1.8 million climategate pages.

The accusations against Google of censorship are wide-spread, involving schemes to elect Barack Obama, attacks on Christianity (key in “Christianity is” and Google will suggest unflattering completions to the phrase), and political correctness (key in “Islam is” and nothing negative is suggested).The bottom line? Google is as inscrutable as the Chinese, and perhaps no less corrupt. For safe searches, you’re best off with Bing.

For more on this, blogger Harold Ambler documents his efforts to get Google's executives to explain themselves. He asks them whether or not Al Gore had influenced their censorship. The responses from Google were less than convincing.

Google, in suppressing Climategate information, exhibits the same corrupt mindset displayed in the CRU email files. In fact, it is complicit in Climategate.

I'm taking up Lawrence Solomon's suggestion and switching to Bing with the hope that Microsoft isn't (or doesn't become) similarly corrupted.

Team Obama's (il)liberal fascism

Top Obama czar: Infiltrate all 'conspiracy theorists':

In a lengthy academic paper, President Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, argued the U.S. government should ban "conspiracy theorizing."

Among the beliefs Sunstein would ban is advocating that the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud.

Sunstein also recommended the government send agents to infiltrate "extremists who supply conspiracy theories" to disrupt the efforts of the "extremists" to propagate their theories.

...

Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" showed how it all works. Team Obama is providing more proof of the pudding.

[Via, in the comments]

Quebec,"the dumbest jurisdiction on the continent"

Peter Foster on the race to wreck the auto industry and the economy:

The Quebec government is this week to impose its own automobile emissions standards. It will thus leap past bankrupt California in the race for the title of the dumbest jurisdiction on the continent.

... the move ... will impose penalties of $5,000 per car on large manufacturers for new vehicles not meeting the required standards. It will also thus inevitably punish Quebec car buyers and auto dealers.

... Premier Jean Charest already embarrassed both himself and Canada by turning up at last month’s Copenhagen fiasco to harass Prime Minister Stephen Harper over climate policy. Mr. Charest thinks Mr. Harper should be doing more to cripple the Canadian economy with pointless environmental gestures.

... Before he was given the heave-ho last year, GM CEO Fritz Henderson suggested that the Volt was a “game-changer.” It is ... only the game is economic Russian roulette, and the Volt changes the game by putting more bullets in the chambers. Quebec meanwhile badly wants to rock down to Electric Avenue, and, in the words of the song, “take it higher.”

Assuming that “it” is unemployment.

Sarah Palin debuts at Fox News

And the left goes bananas. Fox's US competitors (greatly lagging in viewership) are all ramping up the derision. Our own Globe and Mail serves up a typically over-the-top reaction:

Palin fits in totally at Fox – standing up for ignorance and stupidity.

Nice. Palin sure seems to draw out the petty meanness in her critics. It's weird - they must feel extremely threatened.

Anyway, more power to Sarah and to Fox where ratings ought to rise even further above the competition.

"Lightskinned Blacks are smarter than darkskinned Blacks"

SNL

[via]

The "light-skinned Negro"

Mark Steyn on Dem Senator Harry Reid's remarks and recent apology:

... any Republican Senate Majority Leader who started musing on such matters would be dark-skinned toast in nothing flat.

... You can talk about how light-skinned and clean the Negro is and that's perfectly okay as long as you support the president's policies or (as Mr. Obama put it in his acceptance of Reid's apology) "social justice." But, if you go along to a town-hall meeting and say you oppose the health-care bill because you're very concerned at what you hear about waiting times for MRIs in Canada, you're obviously a knuckledragging racist who's itching to string that uppity Negro from the nearest tree.

And, as this guy writes:

... Hmm. This proves once and for all that Bill Clinton was the first black president because I opposed Hillarycare, too.

“Avatar” a leftist propaganda flick

Nile Gardiner - "the most expensive piece of anti-American propaganda ever made":

... Avatar is also a distinctly political work of art, with a strong anti-American and anti-Western message. It can be read on several levels – a critique of the Iraq War, an assault on the US-led War on Terror, a slick morality tale about the ‘evils’ of Western imperialism, a futuristic take on the conquest of America and the treatment of native Americans – the list goes on.

... director James Cameron has made it abundantly clear that the film is linked to both the war in Iraq and the War on Terror. In an interview with The Times he declared:

"We went down a path that cost several hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. I don’t think the American people even know why it was done. So it’s all about opening your eyes."

"We know what it feels like to launch the missiles. We don’t know what it feels like for them to land on our home soil, not in America. I think there’s a moral responsibility to understand that."

Quelle surprise! It’s a Hollywood production, after all.

Incredible - an industry that thrives on capitalism, wouldn’t exist without it, constantly spewing anti-American, anti-capitalist propaganda.

But with a promoter of left-wing propaganda in the White House (see Obama-NEA scandal), it can only get worse.

Time to resurrect Joe McCarthy.

Lord Monckton fires back at the Aussie PM

Back in November in a speech to the Lowy Institute Aussie PM Kevin Rudd dissed Lord Monckton ("Thatcherite"!) and other "climate change skeptics" accusing them, among many other things, of:

- having an agenda "... to destroy agreed global action on climate change abroad, and our children's fate"

- being global warming "deniers"

- promoting "conspiracy theory" from the "far right" with "zero basis in evidence"

- using logic that "belongs in a casino, not a science lab"

- holding the world to ransom, provoking fear campaigns [Old lefty trick: accuse your enemies of committing your own worst sins]

Also, Rudd accused his political opponents of:

... "absolute political cowardice".
... "an absolute failure of leadership".
... "an absolute failure of logic"

Via Watts Up With That, here is Lord Monckton’s response in an open letter to Kevin Rudd. Some excerpts:

I am writing to offer personal briefings on why "global warming" is a non-problem to you and other party leaders during my visit. For convenience, I am copying this letter to them, and to the Press.

Using the IPCC’s own exaggerated estimation methodology Lord Monckton compares the effect of implementing the Copenhagen Treaty with doing nothing:

Business as usual: [delta]T = 5.7 ln(408.0/388) = 0.29 C°
– Copenhagen Accord: [delta]T = 5.7 ln(406.5/388) = 0.27 C°
= "Global warming" forestalled, 2010-2020: 0.02 C°

One-fiftieth of a Celsius degree of warming forestalled is all that complete, global compliance with the Copenhagen Accord for an entire decade would achieve. Yet the cost of achieving this result – an outcome so small that our instruments would not be able to measure it – would run into trillions of dollars. [Remember, this assumes all nations comply perfectly and that the IPCC’s dubious alarmist projections are correct.]

... In a long career in policy analysis in and out of government, I have never seen so costineffective a proposed waste of taxpayers’ money as the trillions which today’s scientifically-illiterate governments propose to spend on attempting – with all the plausibility of King Canute – to stop the tide from coming in.

... Are you, personally, and your advisers, personally, and your administration’s officials, personally, willing to make the heroically pointless sacrifices that you so insouciantly demand of others in the name of Saving The Planet For Future Generations? I beg leave to think not.

... You say that climate-change "deniers" – nasty word, that, and you should really have known better than to use it – are "small in number but too dangerous to be ignored", and "well resourced". In fact, governments, taxpayer-funded organizations, taxpayerfunded teachers, and taxpayer-funded environmental groups have spent something like 50,000 times as much on "global warming" propaganda as their opponents have spent on debunking this new and cruel superstition. And that is before we take account of the relentless prejudice of the majority of the mainstream news media.

There’s much, much more and it’s all a must-read, especially by our own Prime Minister, his Minister of the Environment and the climate ‘experts’ in his department.

Ezra Levant defends our soldiers in the Star

Reps of the far left (Dosanjh) and nitwit (Kinsella) factions of the Liberal party have been playing fast and loose with accusations of torture against our military in its treatment of Afghan detainees. Ezra Levant has an excellent piece in, of all places, the Toronto Star where he offers Iggy some good advice on how and why he ought to get a grip on his party's position on this:

... The Liberals' increasing anti-troops radicalism shows how marginalized the party has become out of power. Four years ago, the Liberals could handle grave responsibilities of state like prosecuting a war. Now they indulge in sloganeering more suited to a permanent opposition party.

Ignatieff eventually apologized for his Israel war crimes comment. Will he ask Dosanjh and Kinsella to apologize for theirs?

[H/t: Joanne at Blue Like You]

Poll - the Globe's shamelss spin

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Republican’s “paranoid style”? To answer the poll at all we have to accept this spin. Republican criticism of “The One” and his administration’s fecklessness in the war on Islamist terrorism, recklessness in dumping trillions into bailouts, “stimulus” and the socialization of medicine are nothing but paranoia? Like many of its polls this one proves nothing beyond the Globe’s shameless bias.

Update: Paranoia? More like exasperation with bumbling, flip-flopping, fecklessness!