Senate "scandal" - much ado about not much

Conrad Black on the Duffy/ Wright affair:

- This week’s by-election results ...  suggest that voters are not too much concerned ...

- The PM’s chief of staff advanced his own money that was cycled on a fast track to the national treasury. It was the reverse of embezzlement. ...

- there is something very peculiar about a system that, as in the Duffy case, allows an RCMP corporal to publish such an inflammatory series of allegations against a distinguished figure of the private and public sector such as Nigel Wright. ...

- especially unbecoming, and has failed to impress anyone an all political sides, has been the swift evolution of Harper’s and Gerstein’s and others Conservatives’ references to Nigel Wright [throwing him under the bus]  ...

- overall, this remains pretty thin gruel as a scandal. ...

 Ezra Levant has similar thoughts:

"biting the Invisible Hand that feeds them"

Peter Foster reviews the latest in "The Hunger Games" movie series and finds:

... [the movie] hasn’t quite produced the flood of anti-capitalist flapdoodle that the first did, but one of its stars, Canadian actor Donald Sutherland, still hopes that it might send U.S. youth to the barricades.

One of the more intriguing aspects of our relatively free Western society is that it allows people such as Mr. Sutherland to become fabulously rich while biting the Invisible Hand that feeds them.

Donald Sutherland, another Hollywood Canuk in the dumb and dumber set.

Conrad Black's defence of Mayor Rob Ford

The salvation of Ford: Conrad Black on why Rob Ford can win again

... nothing has come to light that disqualifies him from fulfilling the mandate his electors gave him, and I do not believe that the City Council has any legal capacity to redefine the powers of the mayor ...

... Mayor Ford’s detractors should realize that instead of hounding him from office, they have probably, by their bestial self-righteous excess and implicit mockery of a large echelon of the population that identifies with the mayor, made him more popular than ever. They have mocked human foibles a great many voters share, without shame, if not proudly. ... The law of unintended consequences asserts itself again, and it will be interesting to see whom it strikes.

Conrad at his best. Love it!  Though I'd say that in addition to that "implicit mockery" there was a lot of explicit mockery and insult of Ford voters by many including Post columnists J Kay and A. Coyne.

See also, Peter Foster's: Unravelling the Fordian Knot

Consensus on global warming crisis

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis:

... Now that we have access to hard surveys of scientists themselves, it is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

David Cameron orders: "Ditch the green crap"

In yet another sign of a return to climate sanity:

David Cameron has ordered ministers to ditch the ‘green crap’ blamed for driving up energy bills and making business uncompetitive, it is claimed. 

The Prime Minister, who once pledged to lead the ‘greenest government ever’, has publicly promised to ‘roll back’ green taxes, which add more than £110 a year to average fuel bills. 

But a senior Tory source said Mr Cameron’s message in private is far blunter.  The source said: ‘He’s telling everyone, “We’ve got to get rid of all this green crap.” He’s absolutely focused on it.’

Politicians are waking up, one at a time - and none too soon.

[Via]

Update: On the other hand, James Delingpole writes: "On green issues no one talks more 'crap' than David Cameron"

 ... Let us not forget that only last week Cameron was explicitly linking Typhoon Haiyan to "climate change." 

... David Cameron talking about cutting green crap is like King Herod talking about improved babycare for male children in Judaea.

How modern climate hysteria resembles that of the Little Ice Age

Dr. Sally Baliunas discusses the history of people's reactions to extreme weather. Those skeptical of the official line are not well treated:

How fossil fuels are greening the planet

Matt Ridley explains why the greening of the planet in recent decades appears to be happening because of, not despite, our reliance on fossil fuels:



[Via]

Canada praises Australia for ditching its carbon tax

Statement by Parliamentary Secretary Paul Calandra on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's Introduction of Legislation to Repeal the Carbon Tax

Ottawa, November 12 2013 — Today, Paul Calandra, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, issued the following statement on behalf of the Government of Canada on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s introduction of legislation to repeal the carbon tax: “Canada applauds the decision by Prime Minister Abbott to introduce legislation to repeal Australia’s carbon tax. The Australian Prime Minister’s decision will be noticed around the world and sends an important message. 

“Our government knows that carbon taxes raise the price of everything, including gas, groceries, and electricity. Prime Minister Abbott has said that, in Australia, the repeal of the carbon tax will reduce the average household’s cost of living by (in Australian dollars) $550 a year, take $200 off household power bills and $70 off gas bills.
“Our government has reduced greenhouse gas emissions while protecting and creating Canadians jobs – greenhouse gas emissions are down since 2006, and we’ve created 1 million net new jobs since the recession – and we have done this without penalising Canadian families with a carbon tax.”

The Guardian and its readers, however, were appalled:)

... Canada has dropped any remaining pretences of supporting global action on climate change by urging other countries to follow Australia's example in gutting its climate plan.
... Australia is the developed world's worst polluter per head of population, but Canada, under the Harper government, is close behind at 16.2 tonnes .

Well, at least it's a small signal that things may be shifting in the right direction.  But the Harper government has also signalled that it will mirror whatever action the Americans take on the climate front.  And the Obama "Climate Action Plan" appears to include every crazy CAGW alarmist premise and myth out there.  It sure doesn't include any contingencies for the what to do about global cooling.

[Via]

The unsustainability of renewable energy

Lawrence Solomon:

Non-renewable energy is sustainable; renewable energy is not, not even close, not by any meaningful yardstick, not in our lifetime or in that of our children.

... Fossil fuels, in contrast, have gone from success to success for several centuries now, with no end in sight.

When governments try to impose large-scale renewable technologies, they lay waste to nature

Justin Trudeau's "China Derangement Syndrome"

Peter Foster:

Justin Trudeau’s mind may be a bit like a teenager’s bedroom, but the Liberal leader’s recent praise for Chinese dictatorship was surely more a case of careless wording than careless thought. He used “dictatorship” when he should have used something like “sustainable well-designed central coordination.”

... Dictatorship – that is, control of people’s lives — has always been the central motivating force of leftist ideology. Praise for dictatorship as a more efficient and even more moral system has a long history among not just Fellow Travellers and Useful Idiots on the left.

In Flanders Fields - importance of the poppy

John Robson explains:

a mockery of a mock trial

Once again Peter Foster does the heavy lifting and attends an event so that we don't have to.  This time it's the nutty left/lib fake "trial" of David Suzuki put on by and for Suzuki fans at the Royal Ontario Museum:

... The event was a cross between a mock trial and a bizzaro Soviet show trial. In show trials the victim had already been condemned. In the Suzuki version, the environmental celebrity’s innocence was never in doubt.

... The audience was treated before the show to sounds of chain saws, and giant projections of open pit oil sands mining and refineries. I think that’s called “priming.”

... Then came the vote. Would it be a nail biter? No, it was a Suzuki super landslide from the audience, and an acquittal from the jury. There were whoops of victory over, er, nobody except that tiny handful of brave masochists who had suffered through this charade then dared to put up their hands for “Guilty.”

.. the fact that a real judge and real lawyers took part brings discredit on the legal system.  The real lesson of this mockery of a mock trial was what it said about the objectivity and openness of Suzuki nation.  They reach consensus by having conversations in echo chambers. They try themselves, certain of acquittal. They claim persecution while suggesting their opponents should be silenced. If you want to know what’s wrong with the IPCC, and why there is still no real debate over climate, the trial of David Suzuki exposed it in microcosm.

Great column! Suzuki and his nit-wit followers will hate it.

Update: The Aussies take note.

Jim Flaherty's humanity to Rob Ford

Kelly McParland: Jim Flaherty’s humanity to Rob Ford sticks out from the baying mob

Jim Flaherty went up a couple of notches in my estimation on Thursday, when he found himself unable to speak coherently about the fix his friend, Rob Ford, is in.

... It appears the federal finance minister has failed to grasp that Rob Ford is no longer an extremely flawed human who has manoeuvred himself into a horror story of his own creation, but prey to a self-righteous pack that sees him only as a target to be brought down, and feeds on its shared callousness. He feels bad for the man; he doesn’t care about the story, which is what the mob cares about.

... The Star, which congratulates itself on its leading role in the unhappy tale, has abandoned even the pretense of civility.

... We’re not talking about anyone human here, just a target. He gets the thumbs down from the crowd, you stick a sword in him. It’s been going on for centuries.

Mr. Flaherty, at least, stands out for retaining some compassion. You won’t find any at the Star. I’m glad I don’t work there. If I did, I’d be embarrassed.

Meanwhile, about that video showing Ford's supposedly out-of-control rant -  "Rob Ford sounds like he’s doing a Hulk Hogan impression because… he’s doing a Hulk Hogan impression"

Well, that was fun!

NOT!  But it's good to be home (last night).

 It took a little longer than expected to be cleared from the cardiac recovery ward; though I have nothing but compliments for VGH's cardio surgery team and facilities from pre-op to surgery to recovery.  Everyone from the surgeon to the specialist doctors and nurses to the technical and the food service staff performed admirably with competence and good cheer.  I guess heart surgery is one of those areas that, thankfully, get a high priority and is well done in spite of the system.

Update: Looking good!

Surgery went well.  JR should be back home by Tuesday or Wednesday.