Merry Christmas!

Climate alarmist witch hunt

Ezra Levant with Marc Morano and Tom Harris:



 

Anti-pipeline ENGO thugs show utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law

Peter Foster:

... ForestEthics has muscled its way to a seat at the policy table by its thuggish tactics.

... Ben West ... Tar Sands Campaign Director of ForestEthics Advocacy ... declared “The Enbridge line will never be completed.”  ... clearly indicates his group’s utter contempt for legal and democratic processes.

... Surely there are more balanced voices within the ENGO community. What about the giant World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF? they are even more subversive when it comes to undermining democracy, and actually profit from ForestEthics’ anti-corporate antics. ... The head of WWF Canada, David Miller [mighta' known][declared that] Northern Gateway should be turned down whatever the NEB and the democratically elected government says.

Organizations such as ForestEthics, WWF, Greenpeace and the David Suzuki Foundation all despise short-sighted “ballot box” democracy because they claim to speak for the planet and future generations.  Significantly, neither entity is in a position to speak for itself. 

... The ultimate decision on Northern Gateway is, as noted, that of the federal government. That decision should not be subject to veto by a radical minority who are impervious to facts, logic or evidence, and whose careers depend on spreading alarm, threatening violence, and contempt for democracy.

Northern Gateway - glass half full / glass half empty

National Post:                                                                Vancouver Sun:

And coming up empty: Mulcair and Trudeau

Northern Gateway Pipeline approved with conditions

Financial Post:

In a decision that spans two volumes and nearly 500 pages, the three-member panel of environmental and energy regulators led by Sheila Leggett said the $6.5-billion project’s economic benefits outweigh the environmental burdens.

... approval includes 209 environmental, financial and technical conditions. Enbridge must set aside $950-million in liability coverage to cover costs of a potential spill, including at least $100-million available within 10 days in the event of a large rupture and $250-million of “no-fault” insurance, the panel said.

... Five conditions set by the B.C. government are still unresolved, and the pipeline remains deeply unpopular with some aboriginal groups and environmentalists. 

... Reaction from opponents was swift. Greenpeace vowed on Thursday to “do what it takes, from court cases to civil disobedience, to ensure this pipeline never gets built.” 

Vivian Krause shows that opposition to the NGP was largely the work of American ENGO, ForestEthics:

... a large percentage of the fuss over the Northern Gateway pipeline has been generated by a single, American organization: ForestEthics, based in San Francisco.... In its 2012 tax return ... ForestEthics claims credit for having generated fully 87 percent of the letters of comment sent to the National Energy Board regarding the Joint Review Panel for the Northern Gateway.

ForestEthics’s own words in its tax return: ... "... In the last six months of 2012, we amassed more than 25,000 new supporters for this campaign ... In August, we submitted to the National Energy Board 4,119 (out of 4,722 in total submitted) unique Letters of Comment on the Enbridge tankers/pipeline project, written by our supporters.”

... Since 2008, ForestEthics has been the workhorse of the Tar Sands campaign, co-funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

 There are many hurdles still to jump, not least those set up by paid agitators and radical eco-fascists organized and funded by foreigners. Also, the BC NDP is still calling for rejection and then there's Christy Clark's "fair share" shakedown to consider.  Et cetera ...

Kathleen Wynne's self-destructive opportunitic mercantilism

Peter Foster: Ontario’s anti-markets deal with Cisco a self-destructive case of ‘opportunist mercantilism’

The loudly-trumpeted news that the Ontario government is to give California-based Cisco Systems “up to” $220 million to create “up to” 1,700 jobs is a typical example of “opportunist mercantilism” — that is, “beating” other governments at self-destructive policies.

...The one relatively clear statistic is that the Ontario government seems to be ponying up well over $100,000 a job. This is nonsensical.

... This game bears little or no relevance to the voluntarily, non-criminal cooperation of the free market, but it does explain a lot about the government behaviour.  ... governments aren’t interested in economically optimal results. They are interested in gestures that will win votes, whatever the costs to the economy. They play. Taxpayers lose.

Ezra Levant's take:

Foreign Policy magazine editors and journalists are "naive children"

Donna Laframboise on FP's selection of the UN IPCC as one of 100 Global Thinkers of 2013:

... Oh, dear. A magazine that can’t write 283 words without using the phrase “climate-change deniers” twice, is out there. I mean, really out there.

... the editors and journalists at Foreign Policy magazine are naive children. They’ve mistaken eco-apocalyptic fairy tales featuring planet-saving superheroes and wicked climate deniers for reality.

The notion that anyone is depending on that magazine’s power of analysis with respect to foreign policy is downright frightening.

Also named among FP mag's 100 Global Thimkers is this quartet of geniuses for proving that the 
devastation of Superstorm Sandy was partly our fault:

... Using the tools of a field known as "climate attribution science," the researchers compared, correlated, and analyzed data on weather and anthropogenic pollution such as carbon dioxide emissions. They examined a dozen meteorological cases from 2012, including superstorms, retreating Arctic sea ice, heavy rainfall in Europe, and intense heat along the United States' Eastern Seaboard.... ["Climate attribution science" would appear to be a "science" of rationalizing preconceived conclusions.]

The media's Ford fetish

Apparently there's no limit to the media's loopy obsession with Ford.  Now it's Rob's brother Doug Ford's outrageous behaviour - handing out $20 bills to the less fortunate, at Christmas time.

The horror!

What is a human right?

Ezra explains:

WestJet Christmas Miracle

Christmas wishes come true.

... The airline promised when the video views hit 200,000, it would donate flights to reunite a family over Christmas through Ronald McDonald House.

 Three million views - now that's great marketing!

Windfarm victims speaking out

Watch this trailer for a one hour documentary, An Ill Wind, in which people living near wind turbines are interviewed by Dr. Nina Pierpoint:

...we didn't know the full effects,
...it's been sheer hell,
...cattle bleeding out of their noses,
...stray voltage,
...an empire of lies,
...gold rush mentality,
...people are afraid to speak up,
...Obama's Chief Economic Advisor is the principal of First Wind; before that, he was president of Harvard University, until he was fired,
...there is definitively this element of the con artist, the snake oil salesman, the evangelist; the con is alive and with us.

And then there's the the huge added cost to consumers, the unreliable and inefficient energy production, the visual pollution on landscapes and the killing of birds by the millions.  All thanks to "climate change" fanaticism and its accompanying "green energy" fetishism.

[Via FOS]

CPC 10th Anniversary - list of accomplishments

Via Joanne's post  at BLU is the Conservative Party 10th Anniversary Top 10 List of Accomplishments.  In the BLU comments, Sandy of Crux of the Matter points to her comprehensive list of 70 accomplishments 2006-2011.  Great stuff!

Question: I googled for a complete record of Conservative accomplishments and Sandy's excellent list was it, no others came close.  However, Sandy says she's given up on it, as it's too big a job.  Isn't this something the CPC should be doing and posting it on its web-site?  It's certainly worth bragging about.  Such a list, with links to the platform, would be a valuable reference for all conservatives, not to mention the general public.

Time to write another letter to the CPC.

Khadr's lawyer Dennis Edney - Scotland exporting its nitwits

"Omar Khadr's bigoted lawyer defends the terrorist while putting down Sun News Reporter Ada Slivinski"

Flaherty targeting enviro groups' abuse of charitable status

Mark Dunn:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is ready to play hardball with environmental groups that abuse their charitable status.

... "We're reviewing that. We spent some time on it last year and we're looking at it again now as I prepare the budget," Flaherty said Friday ...

... In last year's budget, the government instructed the Canada Revenue Agency to take a closer look...

OK, that sounds mildly encouraging, but it's long overdue.  ENGOs have been abusing their charitable status for decades. The Conservatives have been in power since 2006.  CRA was instructed a year ago to get a grip on the problem,  and "... we're looking at it again now... "?

C'mon, Jim, stop futzing around and just get on with it!  Thanks.

The distortion and corruption of science in the public square

Richard Lindzen's excellent paper Science in the Public Square: Global Climate Alarmism and Historical Precedents was recently published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons:

 ... in some fields, including climate, the government has essentially a monopoly on such funding.

... Expanded funding is eagerly sought, but the expansion of funding inevitably invites rent-seeking by scientists, university administration, and government bureaucracies.

... This is a crucial element in the climate issue, but comparable examples have existed in other fields, including eugenics and immigration, and Lysenkoism and agronomy. ...






The material for Prof. Lindzen's paper was first presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. Here's the video of his presentation:

Trying to appease anti-oil-sands thugs is a big mistake - sue the bastards instead

Peter Foster - Oil sands industry risks death sentence if it climbs into bed with its enemies.

The industry has been the subject of a global campaign of demonization, disinformation and intimidation, executed by a wide range of interlinked environmental non-governmental organizations, ENGOs.  That campaign has been based on false or grossly exaggerated allegations of toxicity, sickness and environmental destruction, in particular regarding the significance of the oil sands for global warming.

... Some are now proposing that rather than counter misinformation, the industry should legitimize it by sitting down with its ENGO tormentors. Even more bizarre is the suggestion that the industry might use the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, CBFA, as a model.

... The CBFA, does indeed offer lessons, but rather of which path to avoid. ...  the final months [of the agreement] were marked by ... Greenpeace’s assault on one of the corporate signatories, Resolute Forest Products.  Resolute fought back ... sued for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with economic relations.”

Some shills for the ENGOs, such as Avrim Lazar ... suggest that it doesn’t matter how the ENGOs came by their power. Since they have it, they have to be dealt with. [Sure, ends justify means. It doesn't matter how the Mafia comes by its power - murder, extortion, drugs, prostitution, robbery - you still have to negotiate with and appease them.]

Does the industry really want to sit down with these judges and negotiate its own death sentence?

Let's hope the oil industry unites and shows some backbone.  Resolute Forest Products has shown the way for it to fight the ENGO thugs.  Sue their asses off for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with economic relations.”. Surely the entire oil sands industry can come up with the bucks needed to fight that war.

MoveOn.org - American traitors

Buying anti-fracking protestors at $500 a pop:

Former Harper appointee calls Canada a "rogue state"

Eco-extremist and activist SFU professor Mark Jaccard rebukes Canada at Washington DC event:

... Mark Jaccard was one of the first people nominated by the Conservatives to the environmental file, when he was named in 2006 to the federal government's now-defunct National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

The environmental economist delivered a lengthy rebuke of Canada's climate-change performance at the event near the White House, as the Obama administration continued to grapple with whether to approve the Alberta-U.S. pipeline.

"On climate, Canada is a rogue state," Jaccard said ...

Jaccard is a rogue environmentalist with a long history of climate-nuttery. And there are few climate- related issues in BC that he isn't involved in.  It's hard to imagine that the federal bureaucrats who recommended his appointment in 2006 didn't have some inkling of who they'd be getting.

A misguided pope?

Pope Francis Attacks Capitalism, Calls for State Control

In a far-ranging 50,000 word statement released by Pope Francis on Tuesday, he illustrated that he is sympathetic to the tenets of liberation theology and hostile to capitalism. 

... Before the advent of  liberation theology, Catholicism hated socialism and communism, regarding them as “godless.” Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) wrote an entire encyclical condemning socialism.

But now Pope Francis seems to be embracing a condemnation of capitalism instead, and an embracing of socialistic principles.

Some of the Pope's conservative supporters, like Michael Coren, defend his rhetoric, saying that his critics misunderstand him:



I think Anthony Furey is closer to the truth, but even if you accept Coren's point of view the fact that so many on the loopy left just love what Pope Francis has to say is deeply problematic.  He's feeding them ammo.

About that quote from the Pope:

 His opinion of capitalism seems clear.  But he's dead wrong.  Free markets (under the rule of law) actually do "bring about greater justice and inclusiveness".  Everyone is free to participate, and if "justice" includes raising 100s of millions of people out of poverty, then the "facts" overwhelmingly favor free markets.

He's full of BS on everything else as well.  The "naive trust ... in the goodness of those wielding  economic power ..." he says has not benefited some ("the excluded are still waiting").

Capitalism excludes no one.  And what are they "waiting" for? The odds are that if they are waiting in poverty it's because they lack freedom and free markets, not because of capitalism.  One could just as well point to the Catholic Church, centuries old champion of the poor, as having failed those same supposedly "excluded" people.