Afghanistan Study Group!?

Over at the "The Torch" there's an excellent entry concerning a column by Rudyard Griffiths in today’s Toronto Star. Griffiths proposes Canada’s very own version of the Baker/Hamilton “Iraq Study Group”. There's a link to an especially good rebuttal in an Army.ca forum.

Three points:
(1) wouldn’t we be in danger of ‘Americanizing’ our foreign policy decision process? :()
(2) there will be, no doubt, many supporters of the idea among the pacifists in the NDP, Liberals and Bloc, and;
(3) Taliban Jack Layton will be happy that someone validated his notorious call for negotiations with the enemy and its supporters and sympathizers.

B1-B straight down the centerline!

But forgetting to lower the landing gear can be costly!

Story and more photos.

(Thanks to Vinney Di)

Iraq Study Group waves white flag

(via The Corner)

Update: Hugh Hewitt; Editorial

Uperdate: Steyn

‘Sustainable development’ - Kyoto’s close cousin

Stéphane Dion, Mr. SD

Sustainable development (SD) is another of those 'big ideas' that is apparently beyond question. Like Kyoto it’s been effectively sold and is now widely accepted. SD is ‘the answer’ to all issues of conservation, resource management and ... you name it. Every government and every corporation touts SD as part of its 'corporate social responsibility' agenda.

Although SD is widely accepted, few have any real idea what it is. And on close inspection the concept is so fuzzy as to have little meaning at all. But, as with most platitudes, it sounds virtuous, so it must be good.

Peter Foster, in an excellent column in today’s National Post highlights newly minted Liberal leader Stéphane Dion's attachment to the notion and exposes it for the nonsense that it is:

The problem is that sustainable development is an anti-concept -- designed semantically to be beyond question or even fundamental discussion. After all, who speaks for unsustainable development?

That definition sure has a familiar ring to it. And SD, naturally, suffers the same difficulty as Marx’s dictum. Mr. Foster explains:

Sounds reasonable. But only a moment's reflection demonstrates insurmountable problems. What are "needs?" Are they synonymous with "wants?" If not, who decides which is which? And what are "the needs of the present?" .....it would be impossible to calculate or express the needs of even one person, let alone compare the needs of two. .....One thing is for sure, not all present needs are being met, so why should we consider catering collectively to those of the future, assuming, of course, that we have any idea of what "future needs" might be, which we don't, and can't.

The implicit assumption of the Brundtland formulation is that we live in a manageable, tribal world where needs are clearly defined and "collective-action problems" (as left-wing intellectuals love to call them) can be hashed out around the campfire.

And, finally, referring to Mr. Dion:

....anybody who embraces the glib nostrums of sustainable development is not merely at best a conventional thinker, he is not much of a thinker at all.

....the bland formulation provided by the socialist-packed UN Brundtland commission in 1987, that SD is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Kyoto - Speaking of heads in the sand!

Global warming as religion. Dogma as 'science'.

In today’s National Post is an article by Timothy Ball and Tom Harris on the Kyoto non-debate. Conservative MP Bob Mills, as opposition environment critic, once put forward a very sensible motion:

"That given the importance and impact of the Kyoto Protocol on Canada and the entire world, and given that this committee has never studied the science behind the Kyoto Protocol, that several prominent climate (and other related fields) scientists from both sides of the issue be invited to testify on the science behind the Kyoto Protocol before the Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development at a mutually agreeable time and date."

Very sensibly, Mills argued:

"To just hear one side of an issue is certainly not what I think a committee should do and it's not in good conscience that we can do that."

But Liberal MP Charles Cassia, disagreed:

"I couldn't think of a more undesirable use of the committee's time."

And "the motion was soundly defeated."

Now, with the Conservatives in power, Mills has done a complete about face. Apparently he, like the opposition Liberals, NDP and BQ, has become a Kyoto "true believer". There is no longer any need to hear from anyone who might have different ideas on climate science.

Well, as disappointing as this is, I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised. Kyoto never was about sound science. Despite the facts that the GHG hypothesis remains unproven, that there are good reasons to doubt it and that there are compelling alternate theories, human-induced global warming has become an article of faith. So, as with any religious dogma, it's sacrilege to question it. And since 'Kyoto' has been so effectively ‘sold’ to the public, it is now completely politicized. The Tories know if they don’t manage it carefully their re-election prospects could be seriously damaged.

So, non-true-believers are in a bind. Beyond continuing to delude ourselves that there will ever be real debate on the science, we can only hope our government doesn't do anything to wreck the economy for negligible effect. Because, even if Kyoto science were accurate, given the small size of our economy, no matter what Canada does, or does not do, its effect on global climate will be somewhere between unmeasureable and nil.

'Londonistan' - lessons for Canuckistan?

I’m in the middle of reading Melanie Phillips’ extraordinary book ‘Londonistan’. It’s a gripping account of how four decades of multicultural folly has resulted in Britain’s having become a centre for the Islamist global jihad against Western civilization. Those who are interested in the root causes of events like 9/11 and its British version - 7/7 will find them in this book. And for the many Canadians who have their heads in the sand, as the Brits did (and still do), it’s striking how whole sections and paragraphs remain true when ‘Canada’ is substituted for ‘Britain’. A sample:

The expression of British majority values therefore became synonymous with racism. Multiculturalism and antiracism were now the weapons with which minorities were equipped to beat the majority. Not all minorities, mind you — Jews were not considered to be a minority because of the prevalent Marxist analysis that racism necessarily involved power, and since Jews were seen to be powerful, they were part of the majority and so could never be victims. Anyone from the third world, however, was suitably powerless and therefore their values had to trump those of the majority. And anyone who resisted this was pronounced guilty of racism or xenophobia. This was the new "tolerant" society.

A highly recommended must read!

It's Stéphane Dion

In a fourth ballot 55/45 vote Stéphane Dion beat out Michael Ignatief for the Liberal leadership.

Now what is the Conservative braintrust to make of this!? Who knows, but in my opinion Dion was the least weasel-like of the three 3rd ballot front-runners. But he's still a Liberal (ie. an illiberal neo-liberal) so he's still a potential big-government disaster should he come to power. Worse, he's from the Québécois 'nation' which is infested with separatists, soft-nationalists and pacifists at the core of an economic basket-case nanny-province.

Dion ran on three priorities:

The economy - who didn't?
Social justice - the socialist mirage
The environment - Mr. Kyoto (yikes!)

Robin Sears on CBC's 'Politics' said Dion was the best bet for a Conservative victory. Don't know about that but I sure hope he's right.