Some New Year’s wishes

With the arrival of 2013 I hope we’ve seen the last of these annoying topics/people:
"Fiscal cliff": Obama, Dems, Republicans and the media - drop dead!
"Idle No More": Indians - please, be idle no more - get a job and STFU!
"Bullying" and "Amanda Todd": the Vancouver Sun - enough already!
"Gangnam Style": Psy, please get lost!"Justin Trudeau" and his media groupies: go away!
"Mark Carney" and his media sycophants: ditto!
...
...
That’s just for starters.

"Idle No More" - "Occupy" for Indians?

The Black Rod breaks it down for us:

... Admit it.  You have no idea what the  Idle  No More protests were about except that it was a bunch of aboriginals complaining about something --again. 

This time we can't even blame the mainstream media for failing to  clearly  explain what's motivating the protestors. That's because Idle No More is  a  goulash of rehashed complaints (housing, poverty, blah blah) mixed  with  trendy new complaints (the environment, we hate oil, we're all  gonna die) tied  with ribbons of quasi-legal jargon and Marxist spin ...

... to save the world, the aboriginals behind Idle No more want to stop Bill C-45, and along with it to force the government to recognize that Canada belongs to the Indians and anyone else who is here are "settlers"  

... Here's the best part in the Idle No More manifesto:

"The spirit and intent of the Treaty agreements meant that First Nations peoples would share the land, but retain their inherent rights to lands and resources."

... Nothing about this statement is true. In Manitoba at least. ...

As for "Occupy", "Idle No More" has the full support and approval of the rabble.ca and the usual suspects (eg. Naomi Klein, Judy Rebik).  That's proof positive that this "movement" cannot lead to anything even remotely constructive.

[via]

Merry Christmas!

Justin Trudeau - naive dhimmi or partisan panderer?

Decide for yourself - here's the full text of young Justin's speech to the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference in Toronto last night:

As-salamu Alaykum.

... mostly, I am here today because I believe in you.

I believe in the contributions you have made to our country.  ... 

...

I'd say both.

Blazing Cat Fur.  Oh Shiny Pony! 

A supremely muddled Supreme Court

Barbara Kay on the Supremes' ruling on witnesses wearing the niqab in court:

... Unfortunately, the ruling ... leaves the door open for exceptions to the rule in other cases. For this reason, I would have preferred that the dissenting opinions of Justices Louis Lebel and Marshall Rotstein — that the veil is never to be worn during testimony — had been the majority view.   

... This is an excellent moment for the government to step up to the plate and, with this ruling as impetus, create a law that prohibits face cover for all those giving testimony in court, with no religious exemptions at all.

Right on, Barbara! In fact I'm now closer to the view that wearing the niqab in public, anywhere, be banned entirely.  Allowing niqabs leads to Supreme Court "decisions" like this one.

Christmas prayers for pessimists

Peter Foster offers Christmas prayers for a few of the perennial pessimists, gloomsters and doomsters who try to darken our lives:

... I am thinking of those who are inclined — particularly at this season — to condemn capitalism’s cornucopia as so much crass consumerism, culpable materialism, superfluous gift-giving, and planet abuse.

... poor little George Monbiot ... who recently wrote a Christmas cavil with the upbeat headline “The Gift of Death.”  ... Georgie Porgie doesn’t make girls cry by forcing kisses upon them but by berating their shopping habits. ...

... Next up for our prayers is Harvard’s Michael Sandel, who seems blind to all but the wackiest fringes of modern Western society ... The deepest recesses of Prof. Sandel’s troubled psyche were exposed by an article he wrote earlier this year: “If I Ruled the World.”

... Canadian Mennonite Aiden Enns, co-founder of the “Buy Nothing Christmas” campaign. ... Mr. Enns firmly established himself as another Eeyore who sees doughnuts only as holes.

... Malthusian Jeremiah Jeff Rubin — author of downer tomes such as Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller and The End of Growth. ... Mr. Rubin hankers for more poverty and less choice ...

Well done, Peter!

The NRA - sneer along with Jonathan Kay

Jonathan Kay’s column "The NRA’s monstrously stupid plan to put gun-toting guards in every school" was printed as an editorial in today’s National Post. [Here’s the NRA statement.]

As is typical of many of Jonathan Kay’s "arguments", he relies heavily on sneering, sanctimony and strawmen.

Kay writes: "...the National Rifle Association (NRA) has come forward with a truly batty idea for keeping American schools safe: posting a gun-armed sentry in every schoolhouse in the nation."
[Batty? At first glance, it seems quite practical and affordable.]

Kay: "... [the NRA’s notion that] protecting America can be accomplished simply by getting as much firepower as possible into the hands of "good guys." The very notion that a population can be divided into "good" and "bad" in any useful way is itself problematic, since many of the country’s most notorious killers were unknown to police before striking."
[Don’t be so obtuse, Jon. The NRA isn’t proposing to identify ALL the good guys and ALL the bad guys. The people the NRA identifies as possible armed guards seems like a pretty good first-cut suggestion for who could effectively greet would be killers when they show up at the schoolhouse door (self-identify).]
 
Kay: "Mr. LaPierre envisages an alternate plan that relies on citizen volunteers instead of police. ... The people most likely to volunteer for such a program are ... the sort of hotheads who we often see on cable news, pleading "stand your ground" defences after shooting first, and asking questions later."
[Another dopey strawman. The NRA isn’t proposing to do the selection of guards from a list of volunteers. Almost certainly that would be done by the local school officials and police who know their communities.]
 
Finally, the NRA’s statement was not intended as the be-all, end-all solution to the problem but an answer to the question: What can be done, "... starting right now ..." to protect school kids from the immediate threat (copy-cats, etc)? "There’ll be time for talk and debate later."

Jonathan Kay’s column is a hyperbolic, knee-jerk reaction to a reasonable proposal from an organization he detests to begin with.

Thin skinned "albino rights" activist files complaint with BC "Human Rights" Tribunal

Kelly McParland:

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has agreed to hear a complaint against a restaurant chain that sells a beer called Albino Rhino, because a woman who suffers albinism considers it offensive.

... Ikponwosa Ero, a 31-year-old immigrant from Nigeria, says Earls restaurants Albino rhino and wings combo is no different than offering an “Alzheimer’s appetizer,” or “Down syndrome daiquiri.”

... Earls [has] been selling Albino rhino beer for 25 years without complaint

This is beyond ridiculous. Though it's no surprise that the BCHRT is hearing the complaint.  They're just doing what grievance mongers and enablers are inclined to do.

Both Ero, a professional albino rights activist, and the BCHRT deserve maximum ridicule.  And judging from the comments on McParland's column they're getting it.

Not a bad column by McParland but he's way too accomodating:

... both parties in the dispute have valid enough arguments [No they don't.]

... Earls also has a reasonable case. [... ie. Ero has a "reasonable" case.  No she doesn't.]

... could Earls have maybe avoided some bad publicity and needless legal expense by agreeing to quietly relabel the suds “white rhino” over an extended period? Would it have been so difficult? [B.S. Why should Earl's modify a perfectly respectable brand of 25 years to satisfy one professional complainer's unreasonable complaint.]

Kudos to Earls for not knuckling under.

Richard Feynman's lesson for AGW true believers

[Via]

Connecticut massacre - "meaningful action"

One mother's thoughts about what to do:

... it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness ...

See also Christie Blatchford's column which makes reference to the novel and film "We Need to Talk About Kevin".

Update (Dec 17): Five-Point Action Plan for President Obama to Reduce Violence by the Mentally Ill

Connecticut school massacre - gun control, etc

In his remarks yesterday about the massacre of  school children in Connecticut, Barack Obama stopped just short of explicitly mentioning gun control, saying:

"... we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics." [Best of luck with that.]

Not that he had to be explicit, since just about everyone else who was so inclined brought it up within a matter of seconds after the news broke.  It's Godwin's law for gun control. Predictably "everyone .. so inclined" includes many foreigners from Britain, Europe, Canada and even China.

Speaking of China, those who believe that gun control is "the answer" to preventing these horrific events should keep in mind that killers hell-bent on killing will resort to any means:

A series of uncoordinated mass stabbings, hammer attacks, and cleaver attacks in the People's Republic of China began in March 2010. The spate of attacks left at least 21 dead and some 90 injured. Analysts have blamed mental health problems caused by rapid social change for the rise in these kind of mass murder and murder-suicide incidents.

Consider also the deadliest mass murder in a school in U.S. history. With no guns involved:

... 38 elementary school children, two teachers, four other adults and the bomber himself; at least 58 people were injured. Most of the victims were children in the second to sixth grades (7–11 years of age[1]) attending the Bath Consolidated School.

[h/t]

A side note.  Obama's tearful address began with: 

"We've endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years. And each time I learn the news, I react not as a president, but as anybody else would as a parent. And that was especially true today. I know there's not a parent in America who doesn't feel the same overwhelming grief that I do." [With all due repect, the parents of the dead and injured might feel somewhat more overwhelming grief.]

IPCC AR5 draft leaked

IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing – as well as a lack of warming to match model projections, and reversal on ‘extreme weather’.

Matt Damon's anti-fracking propaganda flick reviewed

A review by Phelim McAleer:

... Damon and Krasinski have produced a flawed movie not because they don’t understand movie-making but because they don’t understand Americans.

... a bigger reason why “Promised Land” fails in the second half. Damon and Krasinski don’t really like or trust most Americans, and it comes across. The residents are either good (and thus on the side of the environmental movement) or stupid and greedy, people who’d sell their grandmother for money.

... Damon and Krasinski believe that renting your property to a regulated and insured American company is the equivalent of selling your daughter to a whorehouse.

Middle America will probably respond to these attitudes by staying away from “Promised Land”; Tinseltown may well respond with multiple Oscars.

Also, Damon denies knowing that the Arab Emirates funded his film:

Soaring F-35 hysterics

The supposedly skyrocketing cost of the F-35 program has been hyped for weeks and months by the media and opposition parties.  Jerry Agar injects some reality:

A play about Walter Duranty and Pim Fortuyn

PJTV:  "Bill Whittle interviews authors Sheryl Longin and PJTV's own Roger L. Simon about their new play, “The Party Line.” This drama intermingles the lives of Walter Duranty -- the New York Times' Moscow correspondent during the 1920s and 1930s -- and Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch politician assassinated in 2002 on the brink of becoming prime minister of that country. Duranty whitewashed Stalin’s mass murder of the Ukrainians, and he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Fortuyn raised the dangers of radical Islam, and he was ultimately assassinated for his views."  A parallel is drawn between the 'Penthouse Bolsheviks' of Duranty's time and the 'Limousine Liberals' of today.

Environmental shakedown artists

A business model similar to Acme Window Smashing and Glazing

Earlier this week, the Polaris Institute, a left-wing NGO, released a report that purported to demonstrate, via public lobbying records, “how some of the biggest companies in the world are using well-oiled lobby machinery to directly manipulate policy making in Canada.”

... Meanwhile, Polaris’s claims beg a question: If oil companies are so all-powerful in the political process, why are the oil sands under siege? How was it that Keystone XL was blocked? Why is Northern Gateway’s future looking so rocky?

The simple answer is hugely effective campaigns of misinformation supported by organizations such as Polaris.

... But corporations have also funded their ENGO persecutors by buying them off as “consultants” and kowtowing to a business model analogous to that of the Acme Window Smashing and Glazing company: create environmental hysteria, then offer your services on how to deal with hysteria. [Where "dealing with hysteria" means creating more of it and further abusing corporations who (stupidly) cough up even more funding].

Nexen and Progress sales approved.

Harper government approves foreign takeover bids:

... the Harper government declared Friday in approving CNOOC’s $15.1-billion takeover of Nexen, while warning that state-owned enterprise takeovers of oilsands companies will only be permitted on “an exceptional basis only.”

... also approved a $6-billion takeover bid by Malaysian national energy company Petronas for Calgary-based natural gas producer Progress Energy Resources.

Terence Corcoran: Rocky road ahead for foreign investments in Canada

Monckton booted from Doha(haha) climate confab

From Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in Doha, Qatar

I have been a bad boy. At the U.N. climate conference in Doha, I addressed a plenary session of national negotiating delegates though only accredited as an observer.

... The microphone was just in front of me. All I had to do was press the button. I pressed it. ...

Quietly, politely, authoritatively, I told the delegates three inconvenient truths they would not hear from anyone else:

• There has been no global warming for 16 of the 18 years of these wearisome, self-congratulatory yadayadathons.

• It is at least ten times more cost-effective to see how much global warming happens and then adapt in a focused way to what little harm it may cause than to spend a single red cent futilely attempting to mitigate it today.

• An independent scientific enquiry should establish whether the U.N.’s climate conferences are still heading in the right direction.

As I delivered the last of my three points, there were keening shrieks of rage from the delegates. They had not heard any of this before. They could not believe it. Outrage! ...

... I was amiably accompanied out into the balmy night, where an impressive indaba of stony-faced U.N. officials were alternately murmuring into cellphones and murmuring into cellphones. ...

Heh. Outstanding show, Lord Monckton!

Steyn and Hannity discuss the "fiscal cliff"

P*ssing on the poor - Calif. Teachers' video pushes class warfare

This animated video fairy tale (narrated by Ed Asner) purporting to "explain poverty" has one segment depicting a rich fat cat peeing on the less fortunate. Classy!  Obama will be proud.



[From The Blaze]

Big Data: Is Hayek Dead?

Proponents of “Big Data” hail it as a “managerial revolution”. What would Friedrich Hayek have said?

Terence Corcoran:

... Many decades ago, The Economist declared "Keynes is dead,"

... As we know, Keynes was resurrected ...

... Given the state of government policy around the world, it's beginning to look like it's time to ask the question: Is Hayek dead?

... Hayek's warning was aimed at the menace of central planning, but it likely also applies to big data corporate planning. Regardless of volume and quality, he said, data and statistics are about the past and are notoriously incapable of predicting even the smallest of changes in economic behaviour. Big data may have uses, but a management revolution based on terabytes of data and YouTube views? Let's hope Hayek isn't dead yet.

This also brings to mind “climate change”. Whether applied to directing an economy or managing “climate change” (which inevitably leads to attempts at directing the global economy) central planning is fatally flawed.  Both climate change and economics have in common: 

Huge complexity   |
Faulty theory       |
Faulty data          |  >> Disastrous policy
Faulty models       |

Hayek is alive and well.

How Mark Carney wooed his wife

From a wag in the comments to a Telegraph story on Mark Carney:

... By all accounts she's one of the world's great champagne socialists, so I presume the words "I am a banker and have ambitions to make myself exceedingly rich" were sufficient for her to immedately drop her knickers. ...

Speaking of "champagne socialists", the Telegraph had reported:

Mrs Carney, who is the vice–president of Canada 2020, a Left–wing think-tank, is the sister of Lady Rotherwick, whose estate in Oxfordshire plays host to the Cornbury rock festival, which has been attended by David Cameron at least four times.

Andrew Weaver's political science

In past posts I've referred to prominent UVic climate 'science' Prof Andrew Weaver's field as 'political' science.

Well, now I see he's made it official.

Mark Carney walks on water because ...

... he's best buds with a fawning pack of Canadian media party suck-ups.  BC Blue compiles the evidence from the Twitterverse and beyond (here and here).  Implicated are the National Post's John Ivison, Maclean's Paul Wells, CP's Bruce Cheadle ... and more.

Why does the Jewish-owned media hate Israel?

Lawrence Solomon in his NatPo piece, The Jewish press and Israel, refers to a tweet from Rupert Murdoch which asks: Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?

Naturally Murdoch got leftist blow-back:

Many in the left-wing press immediately pounced on Murdoch’s comment, claiming, as a Guardian writer did, that Murdoch had “slipped into an anti-Semitic usage.”

A CNN commentator called Murdoch’s tweet “beyond outrageous to offensive, truly offensive … reviving the old canard about Jews controlling the media.”

Solomon defends Murdoch: noting that many of the largest, most influential media outlets (including NYT, LATimes, Chicago Trib, NBC, CBS, Viacom, MTV and ABC) are a) Jewish-owned and b) anti-Israel.

Anti-Semites who believe Jewish ownership leads the press to show favouritism toward Jews haven’t been paying attention. The New York Times during the 1930s and 1940s played down the Nazi atrocities, burying stories of concentration camps and Jewish mass murders in small stories in the paper’s interior. In recent decades, the Times has been consistently anti-Israel.

... Anti-Semites looking for media coverage sympathetic to Israel would be hard-pressed to find it in the Jewish-led press (Mort Zuckerman’s New York Daily News and U.S. News and World Report being notable exceptions). The narrative the anti-Semites are most comfortable with, ironically, comes from Jews.

Loathsome atheists

Enabled by loathsome "human relations" commission:

... a Pennsylvania-based restaurant ...has been offering a 10 percent discount for individuals who bring in a church bulletin on Sundays.

... Citing this action as discriminatory, John Wolff, a local atheist, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC). Now, the restaurant will be forced to offer discounts to any individual who brings in a pamphlet involving religious faith — including atheism.

"Discriminatory"? Sure the restaurant was being discriminatory.  That's its right and no business of the bleeding government.

Note that the PHRC polices human 'relations' rather than human 'rights'.
Note also that the PHRC designates atheism as a "religious faith".  The atheists can't be too happy with that.

The UN’s ‘utterly regrettable’ decision to recognize Palestine

Baird hits out at UN’s decision:

Foreign Minister John Baird said today that Canada was “considering all available next steps”

... Palestinians erupted in wild cheers, hugging each other and honking car horns after the vote of 138 in favour, nine against and 41 abstentions.

... Baird said the resolution will set back any two-state negotiations in the Middle East.

... Israel, the United States, Canada and a handful of other members voted against what they saw as a largely symbolic and counterproductive move by the Palestinians...

  Good show Canada!  Most of the rest of the world ... Booooo!


Update 9 (Nov 30): Defiant Israel approves 3,000 new settlements after UN vote

Benghazi coverup - UN Amb. Susan Rice has a history of political deception

From Rwanda to Benghazi, Susan Rice's Record of Political Cronyism

... Many people on both sides of the political spectrum are well aware of Ms. Rice’s history of political cronyism and her tactic of twisting truth to protect the political fortunes of the administrations in which she has served.

... Ms. Rice stated, in her attempted defense of the Clinton Administration’s inaction in response to the genocide that was taking place in the tiny African Nation of Rwanda in 1994, “If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November congressional election?"

... It was later revealed that President Clinton, along with Madeline Albright, Anthony Lake, Warren Christopher, and Ms. Rice were all part of a coordinated effort not only to block U.N. action to stop the genocide, but to work behind the scenes to craft public opinion on the issue by removing words such as "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" from official State Department and CIA memos.

Radical eco-feminista from BC is latest Liberal leadership entrant

Joyce Murray [former BC Environment Minister] enters federal Liberal leadership race:

... called ...for an end to all oilsands pipeline projects to the B.C. coast
...  favours the legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana
... supports a national carbon tax
... endorses cooperation between "progressive" parties at the riding level to defeat ... Stephen Harper
... vowed that if she becomes prime minister, a minimum of 40 per cent of her cabinet, and the same percentage of appointees to federal boards, agencies and commissions, would be women. 

It's shaping up to be quite a lame contest - with light-weight Justin Trudeau as reputed front runner.  It says volumes about the state of the Liberal Party. Little wonder that Mark Carney declined the invitation to run.

The $50 dollar lesson

(A story from an American citizen that is worth more than a hundred studies on how to end unemployment and welfare)

Recently, while I was working in the flower beds in the front lawn, my neighbors stopped to chat as they returned home from walking their dog. During our friendly conversation, I asked their little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be the President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, “If you were President, what would be the first thing you would do?”

She replied, “I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.”

Her parents beamed with pride!

“Wow, what a worthy goal!” I said. “But you don’t have to wait until you’re the President to do that!”

“What do you mean?” She asked.

So I told her, “You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and trim my hedge, and I’ll pay you $50. Then you can go over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out and give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.”

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?”

I said, “Welcome to the Republican party.”

Her parents have stopped talking to me.

[Shamelessly cribbed from William Gairdner]

ABC science show host equates climate skepticism with pedophilia

Graham Young - Paedophilia, climate science and the ABC:

In today’s Science Show Robyn Williams smears climate change sceptics by comparing scepticism of the IPCC view that the world faces catastrophic climate change because of CO2 emissions with support for paedophilia, use of asbestos to treat asthma, and use of crack cocaine by teenagers....

... The government, via the Australian Research Council is involved in suppressing dissent. 

Williams’ comments are part of an interview he conducted with Stephan Lewandowsky, a professor of psychology who has received over $2 million worth of ARC funding to support his efforts to equate climate change scepticism with mental disorder. ...

... Heads must roll over this, including Williams’. But the problem is obviously more widespread and involves the University of Western Australia, where Lewandowsky holds his chair, the ARC, the ABC, and possibly even the government.

Jo Nova - Skeptics equated to pedophiles ... Time to protest.

Anthony Watts - Climate Ugliness goes nuclear

Lubos Motl - Climate propaganda in Australia

Conservative approach noted as a lesson for the GOP

Glenn Reynolds:

... This kind of outreach, done right, would do more good than amnesty bills.

Britain's "great wind terror"

James Delingpole:

...[Who's responsible for] the despoliation of our matchless landscape with view-blighting, fuel-poverty-creating, sleep-denying, sick-making, flood-exascerbating, price-inflating, property-value-trashing, greed-stoking, puke-making, bird-slicing, bat-chomping eco crucifixes…[?]

I'm talking about [Ed Miliband, Opposition Labour Leader] the North London Marxist trustafarian ovoid who was, as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, more responsible than any man or weird egg-creature alive for establishing the framework for Britain's disastrous wind policy. ...

[...]

Ed Miliband commits Labour to 2030 decarbonisation target ...

... committing Labour to delivering a virtually carbon-free electricity system by 2030. ...

Justin Trudeau's media groupies

Most of the MSM has abandoned any pretence of being objective news organizations and instead are behaving like infatuated groupies for Justin Trudeau.  And worse, they've apparently signed on as part of his campaign team, covering up his anti-Alberta comments while criticizing and debating Conservatives.  They have no integrity as "news" professionals and no shame.  CTV, CBC, ... - how pathetic!

David McGuinty to Alberta MP's "[agree with me] or go home"

Liberal MP David McGuinty apologized and quit his critic position after sticking his foot in it:

... McGuinty apologized Wednesday and resigned his post as the party’s natural resources critic after he said Alberta MPs need to take a nationwide view of energy policies or go home.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper argued ...  that the comments reflect a long-held anti-Alberta attitude within the Liberal party ... “I find it shameful, I guess not surprising, but shameful, that 30 years after the National Energy Program, these anti-Alberta attitudes are so close to the surface in the Liberal party,” Harper said.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney ... said Alberta Conservative MPs and likely the vast majority of Albertans find McGuinty’s comments “deeply offensive.” ... Kenney said it’s “totally inappropriate” and “arrogant” for a parliamentarian to tell elected colleagues they don’t belong in Ottawa and that they shouldn’t be representing their constituents ... I don’t think he ever said that Bloc Quebecois MPs should go back to Quebec because they were elected to represent the interests of their Quebec constituents, but he seems to apply a double standard to Albertans ...

Common misconceptions about global warming

Friends of Science highlights Myths vs Facts about climate change.  The top ten are:

MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
MYTH 2:  The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus causing most of the earth's warming of the last 100 years.
MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.
MYTH 6:  The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
MYTH 7:  CO2 is a pollutant.
MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.
MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.
MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

The FOS web-page also links to an academic paper by Prof C. R. De Freitas (Univ. of Auckland, NZ) where these fallacies/myths and more are discussed in detail.

Environment Minister Peter Kent and his bureaucrats should read it to bone up for the Doha Climate Conference later this month.

[Via]

Cooling climate, heating rhetoric

Cooling Climate:

Over the last 10 years or so as new data have accumulated the general trend and likely future course of climate change has become reasonably clear. The earth is entering a cooling phase which is likely to last about 30 years and possibly longer. The major natural factors controlling climate change have also become obvious.Unfortunately the general public has been bombarded by the scientific and media and political establishments with anthropogenic global warming – anti CO2 propaganda based on the misuse and misrepresentation of already shoddy IPCC “science” for political ,commercial and personal ends.

Heating rhetoric:

Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent thinks recent extreme weather events are forcing politicians in both Canada and the U.S. to focus on the issue of climate change, and that includes members of his Conservative government's cabinet. ...

... In perhaps his most forceful comments on climate change to date, Kent says the recent Hurricane Sandy that devastated parts of the U.S. East Coast is putting the issue top of mind, as are recent examples of extreme weather in Canada, such as the increasing number of tornadoes to hit Ontario.

"Scientists tell us on a regular basis you can't connect individual incidents of extreme weather with climate change, but I think it's quite clear that we are seeing increased incidents of extreme weather, droughts, floods, the diminishing ice cap, ozone opening and closing over the poles, he said.

"You don't have to convince me that climate change is a very real and present danger and we need to address it."

Le's hope Kent's dopey remarks are just fog he's laying in advance of the UN's Doha Climate Change Conference.

Related: Cognitive climate change dissonance 

Universities destroying liberty

"... the most educated among us are also the most likely to live in the tightest echo chambers...."



And there's no reason to believe Canadian universities are any better.

[Via]

IEA report - a "690-page digital doorstop"

My previous post on the International Energy Agency's "2012 World Energy Outlook" noted the projected boom in North American energy production.

Peter Foster supplies a closer look at the IEA's "Anti-markets drivel":

... the IEA report contains a bucketload of irony and embarrassment both for President Obama and the kind of wonky thinking that pervades the IEA. The IEA’s reference to the contribution of “policy action” to the boom is almost satirical. Despite his Damascene “all of the above” conversion in this election year, President Obama is the most anti-oil president ever. ...

$150 and 690 pages - that's pretty pricey drivel. Thanks to Peter, for doing the heavy lifting.

Russell Brand - clueless degenerate

MooseandSqirrel on Pamela Geller's experience on Brand's new show:

Degenerate chickenshit lefty “comedian” jokes that child marriage sounds “interesting ...

"Obama makes Bush look like a Quaker"

S.E. Cupp Reduces Bill Maher’s Panel to Obscenities Over Obama’s Foreign Policy (Hilarious!):

Good news! Al Gore will be choked.

U.S. to overtake Saudi Arabia as world's top oil producer by 2017.  According to the International Energy Agency (IEA):

... The United States will become the world's largest oil producer by around 2020 ...

... with North America becoming a net oil exporter by around 2030 and the United States becoming almost self-sufficient in energy by 2035...

... The share of coal in primary energy demand will fall only slightly by 2035.

Fossil fuels in general will remain dominant in the global energy mix ...

One fly in that ointment - Obama.  And will any of this affect the Keystone XL decision?

Update:
But, maybe not so good for energy investors:

.... although the IEA is a respected forecaster, any long-term forecast must be taken with some degree of skepticism. Still, the report should raise the question of whether Canadian oil producers are sound long-term investments.

Al Gore's latest scary climate propaganda project

Leveraging fame and profits from "An Inconvenient Truth" (aka an inconvenient pack of lies) Gore is now working on 24 Hours of Climate "Reality": The Dirty Weather Report [my scare quotes].

Anthony Watts calls it "24 hours of Tabloid Climatology™".

Remembrance

CBC disrepecting our troops - again!

And just in time for Remembrance Day:



The despicable CBC never misses a chance to smear the troops.


[Via BC Blue]

Delusional lefty triumphalism knows no bounds

Newsweek's Obama cartoon on the latest front cover:

That squeaker was a "conquest"? Heh, very funny!

And note the pointer to David Frum's column across the top.












[Via]

No sign of Adam Smith during Sandy

Peter Foster:

... Both the Democratic governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, leaped into Sandy’s wake to assure their constituents that under no circumstances would they allow markets to work. The most immediate and obvious result of their interventions was four-hour lineups at gas stations.

... Governor Cuomo managed not merely to disrupt markets but to cause outright panic with the kind of initiative more associated with the likes of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. He promised consumers 10 gallons of free gasoline ...

Mr. Christie, ... imposed gas rationing over the weekend, allowing gas purchases on alternate days based on whether your licence plate is odd or even. He had already invoked collectivist solidarity by suggesting that “During emergencies, New Jerseyans should look out for each other ... Thus he suggested little or no ... grasp of Adam Smith’s two-centuries-old insight about the butcher, the brewer, the baker and the gasoline retailer: that they serve us best by serving themselves.

The biggest culprit? Public ignorance of  free market principles:

In the marketplace of what passes for political ideas, a primitive sense of “fairness,” condemnation of greed and selfishness, a belief that higher prices will advantage “the rich” (because only they can afford the pricier goods), and a seemingly immutable faith that government force is the answer will beat out Economics 101 every time.

Is there a chance that we'll see our school system begin to teach free market basics any time soon?  Nah, they're too busy flogging "social justice".

The morning after

Mary Matalin - Mendacity and Malice Won:

What happened? A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform.  Instead of using his high office to articulate a vision for our future, Obama used it as a vehicle for character assassination, replete with unrelenting and destructive distortion, derision, and division.

... Unfortunately and unfortuitously, forces of nature bookended the general election: Our convention was compromised by one weather disaster and our momentum stalled by another. Two human hurricanes also radically altered the political atmosphere: Bill Clinton’s unique windbaggery constituted a campaign updraft, while Chris Christie’s deplorable and gratuitous gas-baggery infused the campaign with a toxic political pollution.

John O'Sullivan - Barack Obama’s new ethnic majority:

... it was misleading [of Obama] to describe his 2012 election campaign as a continuation of his earlier ‘movement for change’. In reality, it has been a smoothly ruthless operation to distract attention from a record that has been disappointingly bereft of change. He triumphed over himself as much as over the hapless Mitt Romney.

... The coming majority implies a different set of political priorities for the US government. A younger, poorer, less self-reliant electorate, rooted mainly in minority communities, is likely to demand a larger welfare state, greater regulation, more unionisation, higher government spending and higher taxes, initially ‘on the rich’.

Victor Davis Hanson -Three Ways of Explaining Defeat

Conservatives are divided, acrimoniously so, over three schools of explaining The Defeat.

1. The Near Fatalists. ...
2. The Should’ve, Could’ve, Would’ve What If-ers. ...
3. The Big Tenters. ...

Dow Jones Industrials


















Conservatives have their work cut out.

Oh crap!

Charles Krauthammer: No mandate for Obama

"The world" wants Obama re-elected

How the world would vote in the U.S. election.

... Obama is preferred over Mitt Romney in 31 out of 32 countries in the UPI poll and 20 out of 21 countries in another BBC World Service/GlobeScan/PIPA survey. Fifty-one percent of respondents in the UPI poll said they would cast a ballot for Obama ...      

... There is really only one red (foreign) state in this election, and it's Israel. In a poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University last week, 52 percent of Israelis said a Romney win would be preferable for Israeli interests, compared with 25 percent who said the same about Obama. The divide was starker among Jewish Israelis, who backed Romney by a 57-22 margin, with support for the GOP candidate strongest among right-wingers. A plurality of Arab Israelis, by contrast, favored Obama (45 percent) over Romney (15 percent). ...

Note that Canada, Britain and Australia are solid blue Obama groupies. 
Peter Foster:

Polls that claim that a thumping majority of Canadians would vote for President Obama in today’s reportedly knife-edge U.S. election suggest either a badly broken polling process, or that the locals have taken leave of their senses....

With Obama as the Dem candidate, I think the latter is most likely.

Conservatism is calling

Outstanding video. Everything Americans need to know before voting:



[Via]

SNL does Bloomberg & Christie

Revenge Or Love Of Country?

Michael Mann's Nobel (non)prize

In his defamation claim against National Review and Mark Steyn, Michael Mann claims he's a Nobel prize winner (or is that 'whiner'?):

It is one thing to engage in discussion about debatable topics. It is quite another to discredit consistently validated scientific research through the professional and personal defamation of a Nobel prize recipient.

The Prussian neatly trisects Mann's claim:

... There are three problems with this line.

1. Being a Nobel prize recipient does not make you immune to even the harshest and the nastiest comments. ...

2. The phrase “Nobel prize recipient” is quite deceitful.  Most people when they hear “Nobel Prize winner” are quite impressed, for good reason.  This is the pantheon of Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg etc.  However, this line refers to the Nobel peace prize, and the peace prize is a joke, and a sick joke at that. ...

3.  The final and most important problem with Mann’s comment is that it’s a lie.  He is not a Nobel prize winner.  He was never awarded the peace prize.  So saith the Nobel prize committee. ...

[via Mark Steyn]

In the tank for Obama

But no matter who wins the White House on Tuesday, Moose and Squirrel's prediction is a good one:

Emails: White House knew of Benghazi terror attack as it happened

And while the fires were still smouldering at the Benghazi consulate Obama shuffled off to Las Vegas for a campaign event.
This is worse than Nixon's Watergate debacle.

Climate change absent from Presidential debates - for the first time since 1988

Marc Morano:

It is very surprising to see three presidential debates and one Vice Presidential debate pass without a single mention of climate change. This is the first time this has happened since global warming hit the national stage in 1988. Global warming activists are justifiably outraged by this. After all, Obama declared in April of this year to Rolling Stone that he would make global warming a key campaign issue in 2012. Obama let down a key part of his political base by going silent on climate.

What happened? How did climate change get reduced to a comedic punch line in the 2012 presidential campaign?

The answer is clear. ... ...

Comedian Mitt Romney cracks up the Al Smith Foundation dinner

Hilarious, funnier than Obama.

[Via]

Brian Lilley with Glenn Beck on Omar Khadr

[Via]

Ann Coulter with Bill Maher

[via]

Nobel peace prize goes to giant f'd up nanny state

NYT:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2012 peace prize on Friday to the 27-nation European Union ...

The Nobel Committee is certainly keeping up its reputation for dopey awards.

Laughing Joe Biden

Huckabee: Biden was like "an obnoxious drunk"

Krauthammer Nails the Outcome

[Via]

Jon Kay on the debate: blinded by contempt for the Tea Party

Jonathan Kay concluded his postmortem of the first Presidential debate with:

“... till last night, I supported Obama from afar, because I was alarmed by the degree to which the Tea Party fringe had co-opted the major GOP candidates, Romney included, on most of the major issues. Last night went a long way toward convincing me that a vote for Romney is not a vote for the Tea Party. ...”

It’s nice that Jon has seen the light but his “analysis” of the debate is blinded by his predictably misguided contempt for the Tea Party movement. As usual, he misunderstands and misrepresents its character and importance:

“... a raving Tea Party base that wants to gut government, destroy medicare and put copies of Atlas Shrugged in every hotel room bedside dresser, alongside the Gideon Bible.”

“... Romney sounded like a normal human being who cares about real flesh-and-blood people — the opposite of the Tea Party vision of America ...”

That’s a ridiculous, cartoonish, cardboard characterization. Sure, like the National Post, the Tea Party has a few extremists and flakes, but it’s a serious political movement with serious objections to Obama’s policies. It was largely responsible for the Republican’s regaining the House in 2010. Also, Paul Ryan, as a strong fiscal and constitutional conservative, is a Tea Party favourite. It’s one of the big reasons Romney picked him as his running mate.

Part of Romney’s problem (at least until the debate) was his inability to connect with independents and that he came across as a RINO (another John McCain) to more conservatively minded Republicans. However, Tea Party Republicans were delighted with Mitt Romney’s debate performance saying that he had never sounded so conservative. So, maybe Jon’s vote for Romney is a vote for the Tea Party after all.

Furthermore:

“... When the subject turned to health care, he didn’t talk about ‘death panels.’”
[Maybe not literally (he’s not an idiot), but he did say that under Obamacare there would be federal review boards deciding who would or would not get what types of care. It’s not a far stretch to “death panels”.]

“On green energy, he didn’t recite crank talking-points about global warming being an unproven myth or a UN plot.”
[Not in so many words (he’s not an idiot) but he said he’d get oil exploration and production, off-shore and on-shore, cranked up, big-time. Implicitly he was saying that global warming is not a serious consideration. Whatever it is, the economy trumps it. And, alternative energy is, maybe, sometime in the future, a possibility.]

"... Obama ... refrained from mentioning the “47%” meme, or similarly snide tweetables)...."
[Virtually all the American heavyweight media pundits, liberals and conservatives alike, were unanimous in being mystified why Obama didn’t use the 47% “meme”. One Dem supporter called it “political malfeasance” on Obama’s part.]

Canadian useful idiots and cougars for Al Qaeda

Don't count on luck

The Libya debacle (and cover-up)

Wall Street Journal:

... Imagine the uproar if, barely a month before Election Day, the Bush Administration had responded to a terrorist strike—on Sept. 11 no less—in this fashion. Obfuscating about what happened. Refusing to acknowledge that clear security warnings were apparently ignored. Then trying to shoot the messengers who bring these inconvenient truths to light in order to talk about anything but a stunning and deadly attack on U.S. sovereign territory.

Four Americans lost their lives in Benghazi in a terrorist attack that evidence suggests should have been anticipated and might have been stopped. Rather than accept responsibility, the Administration has tried to stonewall and blame others. Congress should call hearings to hold someone accountable for this debacle.

But the obfuscation continues.  Heads should roll, starting with Hillary Clinton's, and then, in November, Obama's.

Here's the Libya debacle timeline from Fox News.

Science versus activism

Donna Laframboise will be speaking in Calgary Oct 17th on this topic:

... Science isn’t about achieving the answer you expect, want, or believe will support a cause to which you are sympathetic. It’s about recognizing that, in the words of the late great physicist Richard Feynman, you yourself are the “easiest person to fool” and that every precaution must therefore be taken.

A while back I pointed out that a 1976 book authored by the Club of Rome spoke approvingly of political machinations within the scientific community. Page 133 of the Signet paperback edition of RIO: Reshaping the International Order (Chapter 7, Section 5) includes the following quote:

In many branches of science there are radical movements. Increasingly, both in the rich and poor worlds, scientists are involved in active advocacy which they see as an intellectual and ethical duty. [bold added]

... for the past four decades... The public has had no way of knowing whether the expert currently being interviewed is a dispassionate investigator – or whether we’re being fed active advocacy by someone who considers themselves a member of a radical movement.

Kay on debating abortion

Once in a while I actually like what Jonathan Kay writes.  Today's National Post editorial "It's no crime to debate abortion" is excellent:

Abortion ... Among great swathes of the political left, and even the centre, the very concept of possible legal reform is seen as tantamount to vicious misogyny.

Consider the reaction to this week’s free vote on Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s private members’ motion to create a parliamentary committee that would study the question of when life begins. ... Many suggest that the mere fact of the motion ..., and the yea vote by some Conservatives, constitutes a gesture of hatred. Or, in the case of female MPs, self-hatred.

Following several examples of rabid rhetoric from pro-choicedeath columnists and activists Kay concludes with:

It is to the great credit of Stephen Harper that he allowed members of his caucus to vote their conscience on Stephen Woodworth’s private members’ motion — even though he knew that it would be controversial. His gesture proves that some Canadians — even those such as our Prime Minister, who nominally supports the current laissez-faire status quo — understand that humane and reasonable people — including, gasp, women — hold different views on the subject. If only this spirit of tolerance and sanity might blow through the ranks of hard-left culture warriors, we might one day have the intelligent abortion debate that already has occurred in every nation on earth save ours.

More reasons to dump the U.N.

Lorne Gunter:

If ever there was an institution that deserved to be called feckless and useless, it is the United Nations.

... Mauritania, the last nation on earth to ban slavery (1981) — where an estimated 800,000 souls are still treated as chattel — has a place on the UN’s human rights council.

... This week and throughout the year, Western nations and culture will be denounced over and over again at the UN while real crimes against humanity elsewhere will be tiptoed around. ...

Coulter on why media ignoring Obama’s gaffes

[Via]

Canadian delegation to walk out on Ahmadinejad

CJNews:

... In the run-up to his Sept. 26 speech – which takes place on Yom Kippur – numerous groups and individuals objected to Ahmadinejad’s visit, with some urging the UN to ban the controversial leader

... As it has in previous sessions, the Canadian delegation to the UN plans to walk out as soon as Ahmadinejad took the dais.

“We absolutely will not be listening to his speech,” Rick Roth, press secretary for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, told The CJN.

... Asked whether the Canadian government would join Cotler’s call, Roth responded: “No government in the world has spoken more clearly and forcefully against the racist and antisemetic regime in Tehran than Canada. And we have followed these words with tough action.”

Ahmadinejad, Islamo-nutbar and sterling representative of Muslim mobs everywhere.

More.


Update:  Apparently he spoke today also [final speech Wednesday?]  Was Canada present today? Apparently the US was.

Honour killings on the rise in Egypt

FrontPageMag.com:

... Honor killings are becoming more and more common in Egypt since the toppling of Mubarak. ... These killings will increase as the days go by ...

Thanks to B. Hussein Obama's Muslim outreach and the "Arab Spring".

[via BlazingCatFur]

Another half-baked column on "attack-dog" politics

This one by Andrew Coyne in which he opines about what a scourge it is saying it isn't just the Tories.  Although his column cites "Tories" or "Conservatives" a half-dozen times while mentioning Libs and Dips just once.

This comment by "second class" captured fairly well my thoughts on it:

... the Media have a tremendous amount to answer for, in regards to the general level of discourse that envelopes the political sphere. In fact, the media are largely responsible for the way politics has evolved into its current state, and for the way it's played out for public consumption. Not only has the media perfected dumb, dishonest, attack dog style, overtly partisan journalism, they also invented it.

What about it, Andrew?

Greg Gutfeld on Obama's interview with Letterman

In praise of blasphemy

Robert Fulford:

The dark, blood-drenched word “blasphemy” has lately re-appeared across the world, like some grotesque monster from the depths of humanity’s unconscious. It is always bad news ...

... Laws against blasphemy have been favourite tools of all those who lust for power over their fellow humans — popes, kings, bishops, imams, theologians and professional inciters of the mobs.

...On Saturday “Canadians Against Blasphemy” will hold a protest meeting in front of the U.S. consulate in Toronto.

... Instead we should be praising blasphemy, in fact proclaiming its many virtues, rather than sheepishly apologizing for it as a necessary evil we must reluctantly tolerate because of our belief in the freedom of speech.

... In the Criminal Code of Code of Canada, blasphemy remains a crime ... Expunging it would be an appropriate symbolic act by the federal government. The best possible time to accomplish that reform would be before the end of this blasphemy-crazed year.

Fulford's idea is excellent.  A move, now, to expunge blasphemy from the Criminal Code would be an excellent response to the Toronto Muslim anti-blasphemy nitwits.  I think I'll write to the Prime Minister.

Update - My letter to the Prime Minister:

Dear Prime Minister,

In Toronto yesterday (Saturday) there was a protest rally organized by “Canadians Against Blasphemy”. Judging from the extreme slogans displayed on some of their protest signs, these people want blasphemy severely punished. This brazen effort to muzzle the free speech of Canadians is profoundly anti-democratic and should be strongly resisted.

In his column in Saturday’s National Post, Robert Fulford wrote an excellent piece titled “In praise of blasphemy” in which he points out that blasphemy is already (still) criminalized by Section 296 of the Criminal Code. This archaic provision should be expunged as soon as possible and, as Mr. Fulford suggests, this “blasphemy-crazed year” would be the best time to do it.

I urge you and your government to begin action towards removing the anti-blasphemy provisions from the Criminal Code of Canada. I would urge also that an announcement of your government’s intent to do so be made forthwith. It would be a fitting response to the organizers and participants of Saturday’s “protest” in Toronto.

Sincerely,

Upperdate: From Natasha (of Moose and Squirrel) in the comments, a link to an excellent article by Popehat.