Munk Debate is tomorrow

I am still in San Fran Cisco ( I see this truck parked outside of a very upscale market in Berkeley), so I won't get to see the debate between this nasty, elly may and the climate realists Lord Lawson and Bjorn Lomborg, Given recent events I expect the climate realusts to wipe the floor with the ever shrill ellie may and the depressed monbiot. I will post the link for watching the event when I get it tomorrow. So don't forget to watch, tomorrow.

Peer review

I am not a scientist. I don't publish scientific papers. I have many close friends who are very accomplished scientists who have published in very good journals. The peer review process is based on honest review by expert colleagues in the field. In some fields that can be a very small number of reviewers. If one of the reviewers is a competitor or enemy that can cause a lot of trouble. That's usually why there is more than one reveiwer. In the cause of the great fraud, the reviewers seemed to have colluded to prevent opposing research from being published. Science depends a lot on peoples innate honesty and good intentions. Science shuld be a search for the truth, not a political agenda. here's another problem for the fraudsters, their methods include using computer models, which many experts in that field say are faulty. These computer models are becoming more prevalent in science. This article makes some very good points.


Scientists have let a massive flaw slowly creep into the scientific review system as they have ignored the gradually increasing significance and complexity of computer software. Standards created to deal with relatively simple and standardized scientific hardware no longer work to double-check much more complex and nonstandard scientific software.

Eric S. Raymond, the famous computer scientist and writer, has called for open source science. I think this is the way we should go. In the past, it cost too much to print out all a study’s data and records on paper and ship that paper all over the world. With the internet, we have no such limitations. All scientific studies should upon publication put online all of their raw data, all of their protocols, all of their procedures, all of their records and the code for all of their custom-written software. There is no practical reason anymore why only a summary of a scientist’s work should be made public.

Scientific software has grown too large and complex to be maintained and verified by a handful of individuals. Only by marshaling a scientific “Army of Davids” can we hope to verify the accuracy and precision of the software we are increasingly using to make major public decisions.

In the short term, we need to aggressively challenge those who assert that studies that use complex custom software have been “peer reviewed” in any meaningful way. In the long term, we have a lot of scientific work to do over again.

grit rebuilding will take years

This is an interesting article in the hill times. It seems the grits need a lot of time to rebuild. It would have been better for the grits if there weren't constant election threats. The grits though prefer their misery to a Tory majority. It's all too funny. It is the grits who keep threatening elections. It is the grits who have a messiah complex. It is the grits that have no policies. Now their latest saviour is republican donolo. Apparently from the comments of these grit MPs it will be years before the grits are actually ready to fight an election or to be in government. They need to re engage their grassroots? What exactly have they been doing for the last 4 years. Did anointing a leader engage the grassroots? Is having a policy week with only grit dandies going to engage the grassroots? It is time to introduce more of the Tory open agenda. The not ready for prime time grits will not defeat us. To start let's get rid of section 13.1 of the hrc act, cut spending, reduce the civil service, reduce red tape, continue with free trade agreements ( I would love to see free trade agreements across the Anglosphere), privatize a lot of Crown corporations, get rid of the wheat board and decrease federal intervention into areas of provincial jurisdiction. I even think maybe we should try this.


Mr. McTeague said he does not believe Mr. Harper would benefit if he attempts to interrupt the Liberal consolidation by engineering an election himself.

"Let me put it this way, I think the prime minister and everybody has learned that the public is very leery about an election. If he does that, he will wear it," said Mr. McTeague.

Red star quotes HM PM Harper

It seems the allegations of wrongdoing by colvillel are not very credible. He has been denounced by the Red Cross. HM generals are not impressed.Christie Blarchford finishes off his credibility here. I like HM PM's statement quoted here.

Let me just say this: living as we do, in a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform, based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you."

Investigating climategate

2 universities involved in agw research have annouced investigations into the hoax. I am waiting for the granting agencies and federal US prosecutors to launch investigations. This is fraudulent use of Federal research money. A RICO investigarion is in ordr.


Penn State University has announced that it has begun an investigation of the work of Michael Mann, the director of its Earth System Science Center, following revelations contained in the Climategate documents that have emerged from East Anglia University in the UK. This decision follows close on the heels of a decision Saturday at East Anglia University to release climate change related data, a reversal of its previous stance. In addition, according to East Anglia’s press office, it will soon be announcing details of its own investigation.

The announcement of the chair of the East Anglia inquiry and its terms of reference are expected to be made Monday.

HM PM Harper continues to denounce ...

a proposed wicked Ugandan law.

Stephen Harper slams Uganda on anti-gay bill
Posted: November 29, 2009, 4:08 PM by Scott Maniquet
An anti-gay bill in Uganda that proposes the death penalty and long prison sentences for homosexual acts is deplorable, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Sunday.

Harper told reporters he met privately with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni during the Commonwealth leaders’ summit to express “Canada’s deep concern and strong opposition to the bill.”

“We deplore these kinds of measures,” Harper said. “We find them inconsistent with any reasonable understanding of human rights.”


HM Minister of State Peter Kent has also strongly denounced this proposed law.

Our position is that the proposed Uganda law is reprehensible, vile and hateful and it's appalling that such legislation would be brought to the parliament of a commonwealth democracy," said Kent, who's scheduled to leave for the meetings Thursday.

"At the Commonwealth summit, we'll convey Canada's position that if that law is in fact passed, Canada would consider it unacceptable and a gross infringement of human rights in Uganda

L.Ian macdonald

L.Ian macdonald has a more positive spin on HM Pm Harper's positions on climate. I oppose a cap and tax regime for Canada, but it seems inevitable. I do believe HM Government is trying to minimize the effects of these policies on our lives. I do wish the Tories would show more climate realism. I know that is difficult given the propaganda machine of the envionmentostalinists, but it would be nice and show back bone.

Obama is stepping up and playing a role of moral leadership on climate change. What he's taking to Copenhagen as the American proposal is essentially the bill that narrowly cleared the U.S. House. It is far from clear that Obama will return from Copenhagen with the votes to pass it in the Senate, where Kyoto died on the watch of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

Harper, on the other hand, will have no problem getting a cap-and-trade regime through the House, and he should have a bill in his pocket by the time he chairs the G8 and G20 in Muskoka and Toronto next June, so he can show the world some positive results on what he has called "the most important issue of our time."

Not that he'll get any credit from the environmental activists, who would rather shout at the rain than achieve results. "Bordering on criminal" is how the Sierra Club put its allegation that the PM has neglected the issue.

I've been to this movie. In 1992, all the environmental interest groups were invited to the Langevin Block for their advice on a speech setting the Canadian agenda for the Rio Earth Summit.

The Climategate Rogue's gallery

(h/t)

Salim Mansur climate realist

My friend Salim Mansur is also a climate realist. He also is a jihad realist..

Climate change as a result of the natural cycle of warming and cooling of the Earth has occurred throughout history.

The proposition that, beginning with the industrial age, this natural cycle might have been adversely affected, causing the Earth's temperature to rise unnaturally and threaten some sort of planetary disaster, is worthy of scientific investigation.

But the proposition became a consensus premise of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with its first report in 1990.

The IPCC, established by the UN through the efforts of its two organizations -- the World Meteorological Organization and UN Environment Program -- reports that increased emissions into the atmosphere as a result of human activity are causing a greenhouse effect by raising the Earth's surface temperature.

For nearly two decades, the IPCC-backed "scientific" establishment made this proposition the official dogma of the environmental movement.

It has pushed the policy of forcefully reducing carbon emissions by industrialized and industrializing countries through UN-backed international treaties such as the Kyoto Agreement of 1997.

A fundamental error

Apparently these scientists didn't remember their high school science class. When one does an experiment, one is seeking the truth. One should not care which way the result goes. This is a big cause of scientific error. Bias of the observer. Given what has been revealed of some of the biggest scientists in the scam, they had an outcome that they wanted to push. They are no longer scientists , but advocates or politicians. People like gore can be excused, they are not scientists, but Mann and Jones must wear their shame as defilers of science.

Nothing about the revelations surprises me. I have maintained email correspondence with most of these scientists for many years, and I know several personally. I long ago realized that they were faking the whole exercise.

When you enter into a debate with any of them, they always stop cold when you ask an awkward question. This applies even when you write to a government department or a member of Parliament. I and many of my friends have grown accustomed to our failure to publish and to lecture, and to the rejection of our comments submitted prior to every IPCC report.

But only recently did I realize that I had evidence of their fraud in my possession almost from the birth of my interest in the subject.

Tory Backlash in the UK

David Cameron still doesn't get it. Do our Tories get it? I like to think so. Climate change is a scam.


Conservative leader David Cameron has issued a statement reiterating his party’s commitment to “tackling carbon emissions” to deal with the “real danger of climate change” and describing the Copenhagen summit as of “historic importance.”
And the party faithful don’t like Cameron’s Copenhagen Kool-Aid Consumption one tiny bit.

Marc Morano on climategate

I have met Marc Morano of Climate depot a couple of times. He is relentless in his goal of exposing the hoax. He is smiling these days.

He does a great interview here.

The best part of the interview, at least from my point of view, was at the end where Marc drew the analogy between the global warming alarmists, and pretty much every single episode of Scooby Doo, where at the end of the episodes, the bad ghost/ghoul/monster that was trying to scare everyone away from the truth is unmasked as a fraud for all to see, only to say "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those darned kids." Indeed, the whole house of cards now tumbling down was caused, in the end, by one person that leaked the data.

liberals hate Alberta

Rex has a funny piece on Goring Alberta. What is about Alberta's massive oil wealth that makes liberals want to attack. trudeau and his gang wanted to steal Alberta's oil wealth with the hated NEP, apparently Alberta's oil and Tories are just evil. Perhaps when the goreacle needs to light his massive house or refill his jet he will change his mind. The United States will need oil for many years to come, not so the goreacle. His lies are being exposed. Even BO wants Alberta's "dirty" oil.


It is very refreshing when the possible extinction of the human race can be reduced to such manageable practicalities.

But, you know, I had a very naughty thought. Mr. Gore was, after all, speaking in Toronto. Was it even slightly possible he villainized the oil sands during his Toronto visit – not quite the same thing as doing it in Fort McMurray – knowing it was both safe and provocative. Were we seeing a little of that famous political guile that almost – almost, mind you – brought him victory over the wily, deep-thinker George Bush coming into play here? As I say, it was an unworthy thought and I repent it.

What I now take away from all this is very simple. The oil sands are the problem. Cancel them. We're saved. Civilization is saved. Global warming over. And Al can rest.

Mark Steyn on climategate

Steyn has a lot to say about the environmentostalinists. All of it scathing.

My favorite moment in the Climategate/Climaquiddick scandal currently roiling the "climate change" racket was Stuart Varney's interview on Fox News with the actor Ed Begley Jr., star of the 1980s medical drama "St Elsewhere" but latterly better known, as is the fashion with members of the thespian community, as an "activist." He's currently in a competition with Bill Nye ("the Science Guy") to see who can have the lowest "carbon footprint." Pistols at dawn would seem the quickest way of resolving that one, but presumably you couldn't get a reality series out of it. Anyway, Ed was relaxed about the mountain of documents recently leaked from Britain's Climate Research Unit, in which the world's leading climate-change warm-mongers e-mail each other back and forth on how to "hide the decline" and other interesting matters.

Nothing to worry about, folks. "We'll go down the path and see what happens in peer-reviewed studies," said Ed airily. "Those are the key words here, Stuart. 'Peer-reviewed studies.'"
FILE - This 2003 file photo released by Subhankar Banerjee shows a polar bear walking in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Since an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas pollution was signed in Kyoto, Japan, in Dec. 1997, the level of carbon dioxide in the air has increased 6.5 percent. Officials from across the world will convene in Copenhagen next month to seek a follow-up pact, one that President Barack Obama says "has immediate operational effect...an important step forward in the effort to rally the world around a solution."


Hang on. Could you say that again more slowly so I can write it down? Not to worry. Ed said it every 12 seconds, as if it were the magic charm that could make all the bad publicity go away. He wore an open-necked shirt, and, although I don't have a 76-inch HDTV, I wouldn't have been surprised to find a talismanic peer-reviewed amulet nestling in his chest hair for additional protection. "If these scientists have done something wrong, it will be found out and their peers will determine it," insisted Ed. "Don't get your information from me, folks, or any newscaster. Get it from people with Ph.D. after their names. 'Peer-reviewed studies' is the key words. And if it comes out in peer-reviewed studies."

Charles Krauthammer on healthcare reform

Dr Krauthammer points out the obvious massive flaws in bo's so called healthcare reforms. The reforms ignore the obvious and are very very bureaucratic.

Then do health care the right way -- one reform at a time, each simple and simplifying, aimed at reducing complexity, arbitrariness and inefficiency.

First, tort reform. This is money -- the low-end estimate is about half a trillion per decade -- wasted in two ways. Part is simply hemorrhaged into the legal system to benefit a few jackpot lawsuit winners and an army of extravagantly rich malpractice lawyers such as John Edwards.

The rest is wasted within the medical system in the millions of unnecessary tests, procedures and referrals undertaken solely to fend off lawsuits -- resources wasted on patients who don't need them and which could be redirected to the uninsured who really do.

In the 4,000-plus pages of the two bills, there is no tort reform. Indeed, the House bill actually penalizes states that dare "limit attorneys' fees or impose caps on damages." Why? Because, as Howard Dean has openly admitted, Democrats don't want "to take on the trial lawyers." What he didn't say -- he didn't need to -- is that they give millions to the Democrats for precisely this kind of protection.

The grits terrible year

Its been a very good year for the Tories. There is no sign of an election any time soon. I am told grit fundraising is down. The hst vote should give iffy a lot of headaches. we need to pick off the right leaning grits. They clearly have no place in the leftist grits.
2010 will be a great year for the Tories as well. There will be the 2010 Olympics, the G8 , the G20 and HM will be in Canada. iffy will not even be on the radar.

"Lets not exaggerate,” said Université Laval political scientist Jean Crête. “Big parties like that have a lot of resources and can rebound. A big party like the Liberals doesn’t disappear just like that.” But he agrees that today’s Liberal Party is a far cry from the force it used to be. “It’s not likely that the Liberals will disappear but it is likely the Conservatives could remain strong for some time to come. They don’t look like the habitual government any more.”

If anything, the Liberal Party looks to be in worse shape and with dimmer prospects than at any time in the past half century, worse possibly than since the days they were up against John A. Macdonald. In last year’s federal election the Liberals were cut down to 26.2 per cent of the vote, their worst popular showing since the country’s first election, in 1867. Latest polls have shown the Liberals deeply mired in that range of popular support with the Conservatives nudging toward the 40-per-cent threshold that would give them majority rule for another half decade.

Come January the Liberals will have been four years out of power, and with dimmer prospects of regaining it than at this year’s outset.

Barbarous

HM PM Harper has condemned a barbarous new law in Uganda.
This is truly sickening. Yet idiots like Claire short and the greenies want Canada expelled from the Commonwealth.
Gordon Brown followed Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, in telling Uganda that the legislation was unacceptable.

Mr Brown made his views plain in a breakfast conversation with President Museveni of Uganda on the margins of the Commonwealth summit.

Homosexuality remains criminalised in many Commonwealth countries, but the more liberal countries have been horrified by the new legislation.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 is going through Uganda’s Parliament after receiving its first reading last month.

According to Clause 2 of the Bill, a person who is convicted of gay sex is liable to life imprisonment. But if that person is also HIV positive the penalty — under the heading “aggravated homosexuality” — is death.

HM the Queen and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh

Will be in Canada for a royal Homecoming June 28-July 6, 2010


PM meets with Her Majesty the Queen at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting

27 November 2009
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

Sean Kilpatrick
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today met with Her Majesty The Queen of Canada during a private audience at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which marks the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth.

The Prime Minister welcomed the announcement today that Her Majesty and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh will tour Canada from June 28 to July 6, 2010, and will include stops in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba and the National Capital Region for Canada Day.

“The Crown endures as a symbol of our unique Canadian identity, uniting Canadians of every background and every region,” said the Prime Minister. “Canadians hold Her Majesty and the Royal Family in deep affection and high regard, a sentiment which is clearly mutual.”

The upcoming visit by The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh will be their first Royal Tour to Canada since 2005.

Further details on the dates, locations and program of the upcoming Royal Tour will be provided at a later date.

Whitewashing climategate

Look who is investigating climategate, a chicken little.

The appointment of Lord Rees, if confirmed, is especially worrying. It’s the rough equivalent of appointing King Herod’s grand vizier to investigate a mysterious outbreak of mass baby killing in Judaea.

First, Lord Rees – formerly Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal – is very much of the catastrophist mindset which helped launch the whole AGW scare in the first place. Five years ago, he declared:

“I think the odds are no better than 50/50 that our present civilisation will survive to the end of the present century.”

Second, he has previously suggested that there might be certain areas where frank and open scientific enquiry is not a good idea.

“He asks whether scientists should withhold findings which could potentially be used for destructive purposes, or if there should be a moratorium, voluntary or otherwise, on certain types of scientific research, most notably genetics and biotechnology.”

L.Ian Macdonald on the desperate pq

The pq embodies the politics of ethnic nationalism. It is the politics of fear and loathing. It will fail. Many Francophone parents want better English education for their kids. The pq is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Quebec, with only 20% of day-care-age kids in the country, has 50% of the daycare space in Canada, because of a heavily subsidized program that costs parents only $7 a day (out of the real costs of $50 a day).

Daycare is an untouchable pillar of social policy and is considered a model for liberal policy-makers in the rest of Canada. For the PQ to propose turning daycares into language laboratories is indicative of a party returning to its militant roots in an attempt revive its slumbering, and shrinking, base.

But it's quite shocking coming from Marois, who is clearly desperate for traction on something, anything. In another life, she was Quebec's education minister -- one of the best, on a short list of outstanding ones along with Paul Gerin-Lajoie and Claude Ryan. How sad to see her now hawking such bad, divisive ideas.

WSJ on the climate Fraud

Two excellent articles from the WSJ. This one discusses the nature of the fraud. and this one talks about the death of cap and tax in the US. The recession and the exposed emails are going to make it next to impossible to replace the kyoto protocol. There will be GOP gains next year in the house and the senate. Cap and tax will not be passed. The chicken littles will be defeated. bo is proposing Canadian numbers when he goes to copenhagen. I note that bo can't even get that passed in the US and the greenies think the Canadian numbers are wholly inadeqaute. Once again HM Canadian Government is quite impressive.

HM PM Harper must be on the right track..

if the greenies are this annoyed. This is truly laughable. The greenies are OK with Zimbabwe and Pakistan, but want the Senior Dominion suspended from the Commonwealth.

Kick Canada out of the Commonwealth for climate change inaction, greenies urge

desperate larry

larry martin, grit cheerleader , thinks the grits need to be more aggressive and use personal attacks against HM PM. Isn't that what the grits have been doing with catsmeat? The scary Harper attacks and the old quotes have been standary grit operating procedure for years. They are not working, They don't ring true. The grits have made any number of outrageous accusations against the Tories. They have backfired. larry, the grits need policies. Your advice reeks of desperation . Have you not been following Canadian politics larry?



What to do now? The only way for the Liberals to really batter the Conservatives is to give them a lethal dose of their own medicine. A strategy of total aggression, starting with personal attack ads aimed directly at the Prime Minister. Mimicking Tory tricks, use dated Harper quotations to pillory him. Drag out the old Harper lines that showed him smearing the country as second rate. Highlight his long list of flip-flops and displays of hypocrisy.

You think that might get his attention? Mr. Harper and his Tories would holler how unfair it was but, given their own track record for dirty pool, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Such a blitz would put an end to the Harper free ride. And it might very well make the Prime Minister think twice about going the gutter route again. If you know you are going to get brutally shelled in return, you are less inclined to shoot.

The Liberals don't need to go into a long, slow rebuild full of introspection and self-flagellation. If they are capable of losing 10 points in the polls in a few months – interestingly none of those lost 10 have gone to the Conservatives – they can gain 10 back in a few months.

Happy Thanksgiving

to all my American friends and family. Indeed I will be spending American Thanksgiving with one of my oldest friends ( we have been friends for 35 years) and his family in California. Times are bleak in the US, but there is still much to be thankful for.
We should all thank HM Forces and the Forces of OUr Allies that keep us free.

What's going on in Montreal?

The Gazette thinks we are having a wave of fire bombings of cafes because there is no dominant crime organization. I thought the police were supposed to prevent this kind of thing. It is very scary. I hope no one gets hurt and these criminals are caught.

The string of nine firebomb attacks on cafés, bars and restaurants in Montreal in the last four weeks is an indication of the power vacuum that exists among the city's organized crime factions following a wave of police crackdowns, an expert says.

"The Montreal underworld is a bit in disarray," said Pierre de Champlain, a former intelligence analyst with the RCMP's criminal intelligence bureau and the author of Mobsters, Gangsters and Men of Honour. "If there was a dominant criminal organization, as there was until recently in Montreal, it's sure this type of thing would not last long. If Vito Rizzuto (the reputed head of the Mafia in Montreal now serving a 10-year sentence in the United States) was here, it's certain this would not happen."

Even a chief chicken little gets it

It will be interesting to see what monbiot will say at the Munk debate. Lord Lawson and Bjorn Lomborg have had some pretty heavy duty amunition given to them lately.

I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can't possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.


The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people's denial. Pretending that this isn't a real crisis isn't going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We'll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.


It is true that much of what has been revealed could be explained as the usual cut and thrust of the peer review process, exacerbated by the extraordinary pressure the scientists were facing from a denial industry determined to crush them. One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

Hide the decline

An anthem for climate realism

barack, remember the Chicago Olympic bid?

update: The view from Senator Inhofe who will also be in copenhagen running a truth squad.

bo is going to kyoto2 with no US legislation in place, to agree to a deal that would have to be ratified by the Senate. Clinton and Gore couldn't get it through the Senate and this is sure to infuriate many American law makers. There is no agreement in place and he is going to a conference where agreement is very unlikely. He will just get more egg on his face. Hey, it's on his way to pick up the nobel peace prize. bo wishes to continue his record of non accomplishment. He continues his bipartisan party tricks. China and India have no intention of agreeing to curbs on their emissions. The European carbon trading scheme is on the verge of collapse. This should be interesting to watch. And none of these geniuses seem to have noticed the science behind this scam is becoming undone.

In Praise of Salim Mansur

Robert Fulford wrote a profile of my friend Salim Mansur, but the headline called him angry. I disagree. He is always cool. calm and collected.

Islamist violence, a dangerous many-headed beast, today roams the world, threatening both Islam and everyone else. This is a terrible fact for most people; but for honest and peaceful Muslims it’s also a matter of shame, as Salim Mansur demonstrates in his recently collected collection of columns and articles, Islam’s Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim.

Mansur has been called a moderate Muslim, but “moderate” doesn’t describe him. He’s angry at violent, evil men who have done their best to ruin the reputation of his religion. He’s equally furious at their many apologists in the West who explain away Islamist atrocities in the name of social justice. He has no tolerance for leaders of Muslim-majority states (Egypt, Qatar, whatever) who demonstrate that politics pollutes faith.

Here is my letter to the editor

A serene 'moderate'

Re: Canada's Angriest 'Moderate', Robert Fulford, Nov. 21.

Salim Mansur is a good friend of mine, so I enjoyed reading Robert Fulford's profile of him. Yet I must object to the headline. You will rarely meet someone as serene and thoughtful as Dr. Mansur. He is fighting the good fight against the jihadis who seek to hijack Islam, and in spite of death threats and fatwas, my friend remains a calm, cool passionate voice for the freedom of all people.

Roy Eappen, Montreal.



You should buy his book Islam's Predicament

Little support for Scottish Independence

The latest poll numbers show few people want to discuss Scottish independence. SNP support is also falling. I am glad. I like the United Kingdom. pq take note.

Independence and SNP support down, Telegraph poll shows
Support for Scottish independence has plummeted as Alex Salmond prepares to publish plans for a referendum next year, a new opinion poll conducted for the Daily Telegraph shows.

Rudd's Insanity

As I have written on this trip a few times, coal is a very important part of the Oz economy. So the republicans rudd and turnbull are jointly trying to criplle the economy of this wonderful land. It is a shocker, as me mate's mum would say. turnbull's leadership will be challenged eventually( I suspect he has doomed himself as liberal leader), but rudd seems to roll merrily along destroying jobs and the economy.

THAT was a day that will live in infamy and insanity and inanity.

We had a prime minister who declared economic war on his own country. And an opposition leader who spent the rest of the day trying desperately to make it unanimous. Finally, succeeding. Or, perhaps not.

As I wrote yesterday this is one case where the devil is not in the detail.

Norman Spector on the grits latest headache

Spector has some pretty funny cartoons on the Janine Kreiber Facebook posting. republican donolo's grits are on full damage controll mode, but it doesn't look good. Here are a few more grit cartoons for your amusement. I'm sure Prof Kreiber would enjoy them as well.


As to whether the rest of yesterday’s Liberal spin, which included personal attacks on Ms. Krieber, will succeed in limiting the damage to the party in Québec, the early reviews are not promising.

What Munk debate?

Lord Lawson and Bjorn Lomborg will debate Monbiot and ellie may on Dec 1, 2009. Monbiot has kind of recanted. Should make the debate very interesting.

It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.

Free Speech at McGill

My letter to the editor in the Gazette
Re: "Free speech trumps harmony" (Letters, Nov. 20).

I am a proud graduate of McGill University's faculty of medicine and I have donated money to my alma mater every year since I graduated in 1985. I also teach medical students at one of McGill's affiliated hospitals.

But I have to agree with my colleague Margaret Somerville. The actions of the McGill Students' Association - banning a pro-life group because of its position - is un-Canadian.

This seems to be a pattern developing at McGill. When Immigration Minister Jason Kenney came to the campus, noisy protesters tried to shout him down, prevented students from listening to him speak, vandalized property and held the people in the room and the minister virtually hostage until the police arrived.

Universities are supposed to be places for the free exchange of ideas.

Roy Eappen
Montreal

grit hypocrisy

( h/t )
I have been getting grit ten percenters from a variety of grit mps. They are usually mean spirited and attack the Tory government and particularly HM PM Harper. carolyn bennet sent some really nasty ones trying to bring fear to Native people. It is pretty funny to heat the grits whine that others are fighting grit thuggery with Tory ten percenters. Perhaps the latest Tory ten percenter has hit a nerve.
After all as Ezra writes today, Canadian Jews ( and almost everyone else) are deserting the grits.

In the case of the grits it really is the pot calling the kettle black. perhaps we should just put up more television and radio truth ads instead. Let the grits try and match them. From what I here grit fundraising has taken a nosedive. The grits are whining when we use any kind of advertising. Should the Tories just be quiet , so the grits can just lie about us unopposed? It's not going to happen. We have learned to fight the big red machine we must match and surpass any measure used against us. Sean Connery explained its how you fight the mob in the Untouchables.

Sydney and Melbourne

Sydney and Melbourne are amazing cities. I have been having a great time. In Sydney I had lunch with one of my Facebook friends Frank Sensenbrenner. In Melbourne I caught up with my friend Chris Reid. Both seem to confirm my impression that the republican leader of the Australian liberal party is totally ineffectual and must go. There is an open rebellion of the climate realists Nationals and liberal senators, but Turnbull keeps trying to help Rudd push through cap and tax. Lots of exemption ( remember my comments about Oz's multi billion dollar coal exporting industry).
This trip has been a lot about wild life. I saw many of Australia's fascinating animals and birds. One of the most interesting is the duck billed platypus. Unfortunately the Tasmanian devils were sleeping.




The scenery is breathtaking. Lots of things to do. Great restaurants.
I went with my friend Chris to the Melbourne War Memorial. It was a truly moving experience.
I also got to see the Phillip Island penguin parade. That was amazing. Thousandds of penguins marching home to their calling young.


It has been a wonderful trip.

Prof Margaret Somerville on McGill's problems with free speech.

I can't find my friend and colleagues' letter on the online editionj of the Gazette( I have emailed the Gazette asking why), so Dr Somerville graciously sent me a scanned copy and the reply of someone who doesn't really understand free speech at all. It is yet again the Tyranny of Nice.

The ridiculous pq

The pq is once again banging the drums of ethnic nationalism. This time I think many francophones will be appalled. Limiting access to English CEGEPS will hurt Quebec Francophones and their children. Even Jacque Parizeau is against this. The pq resents that there are still people who speak English in their midst. I doubt these latest moves will win the pq any friends. They pq just reveals their petty, vindictive nature. Chantal Hebert seemed pretty sure this measure wouldn't pass. I guess she underestimated how ridiculous the pq has become.


Parti Québécois delegates are pressing for new restrictions on immigrants and francophones opting for the English CEGEP system, an idea the party has always hesitated to endorse.

With the exception of a handful of PQ MNAs who said they are still mulling, a clear majority of PQ delegates at a workshop yesterday came down on the side of imposing the same restrictions to the English college system as apply at the elementary and high school levels.

PQ leader Pauline Marois has yet to take a stand but, when in power, her predecessors, Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry, refused to take that step - though Landry now favours the idea.

At a PQ national council devoted to language and culture issues, which opened yesterday at the Palais des congrès, 500 péquistes from across the province spent a full day sounding alarm bells on the state of the French language - particularly in Montreal. The CEGEP question was just one of many beefs.

Even SNL can't resisit bo as a target

More of Barack's accomplishments.

Salim Mansur on...

HM PM Stephen Harper's trip to the India. As usual I like Salim's take on the issues. Buy his book.


PM's trip about solidarity, not politics
There has been a little storm in a teacup over the itinerary of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent visit to India in the pages of the National Post.

Some people have expressed unhappiness with Harper for his journey to Amritsar in Punjab, the sacred city of the Sikhs, and in visiting the Golden Temple for political mileage with Canada's Sikh community.

Others were put off by the prime minister for going to Mumbai, the city terrorized by Islamist warriors (jihadists) sent from Pakistan in Nov. 2008.

In Mumbai, he visited the Chabad House of the Orthodox Jews where six people were murdered, including Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his pregnant wife Rivkah. Again, it is implied Harper was cynically exploiting his official visit to India for the political purpose of securing Jewish votes in Canada.

iffy doomed?

That's what this writer thinks. Iffy is taking shrapnel from within and outside the grits. Janine Kreiber ( dion's wife)
launched a blistering attack against iffy. This should make things easier for republican donolo. I wonder if frankie mckenna (soon to be an ex bank vice chairman I hope) will call her a thugs as well?



By dithering and declining, Ignatieff is now doomed to slide off into oblivion. He won’t go quietly though and perhaps still thinks he can somehow recover. But he can’t and won’t, and will probably have to be forced out by another leadership hopeful in yet another Liberal party coup d’état.

The red star's grit cheerleaders are sounding ever more desperate and pathetic.
Things are looking pretty good for the Tories these days.

Shamefull actions at McGill University

More on the sad state of free speech at McGill University. This young woman must be a big fan of barbara hall and jennifer lynch.
These student councillors need to be taught about free speech, it is obvious;y a foreign concept to them

The suspension of Choose Life is a witchhunt and a very serious breach of McGill's supposed dedication to free speech for all comers. Ms Woolf claims that "we take complaints seriously" but also noted that the suspension was the result of exactly four student complaints to Equity. Four disgruntled individuals took down an advocacy club! Is this SSMU's idea of democracy?

Ms Woolf ended our conversation with the telling remark, "We deal with what comes to our attention." If that is the litmus test for club suspension, let's see what happens when four McGill students lodge a complaint about some more politically correct club. Will SSMU stand by its own expressed principles? Wrong principles to be sure, but will they abide by them when, say, Zionists get "shamed" and subjected to "hate speech" by the SPHR and four offended students complain to the Equity office? Stand by for further developments.

Love Bites

Sydney is a beautiful city, more about that later. Australia has a really British feel to it. That's why their petulance towards the Crown I guess. It is like a rebellious adolescent.
I saw a play in Sydney called Love Bites. I must say I was disappointed with the Theater scene in Sydney. Not that much going on for a city of 4.5 million people. It is probably because I am here at the wrong time of year or I didn't look hard enough.
The play was a comedy about what else , love. It had all the now usual permutations. It was generally pretty funny. It was a series of vignettes told in song. The first half had the beginnings and the second half the endings. It did make a point to denounce the Christian church and denounce Oz for not having gay marriage. The songs were pretty cute. There were some very poignant moments about love and loss. Overall the play was alright, if a little too preachy and vulgar at times. The Piano player was amazing! Overall a good but not a great piece.

Lord Monckton in Minnesota

Always entertaining and informative, Lord Monckton has dire warnings for the people of the world. Our Freedom is at stake.

Climate Sceptics party of Oz

TV Ads from the Climate Sceptics party on Oz TV. ( h/t)

CBC chicken littles

Lawrence Solomon was interviewed by a believer of the church of kyoto and it shows. She also interviewed a chicken little. Listen here. You can hear the bias and the kid gloves she saved for preferred side of the debate. I guess it is good that she even allowed a climate realist on her show.

Solomon wrote an account of his ordeal in the FP.

You probably missed my heated on-air debate Thursday morning with Anna Maria Tremonti, host of CBC’s The Current. You certainly missed my superheated off-air debate in her studio immediately afterwards, when Tremonti lit into me for my skepticism of global warming orthodoxy. I don’t recall being berated after an interview by a broadcaster before, certainly not by a consummate professional like Tremonti. But Tremonti was visibly upset, so much so that she ended the second debate by turning away from me without the courtesy of a goodbye (she did properly thank me on air at the conclusion of our broadcast debate).



Anne Maria Tremonti is only slightly less biased than high priest suzuki ( a believer in nautropathy?, but HM Minister of The Environment Jim Prentice did talk to her.

No election until 2011?

That's the view of L.Ian Macdonald. Even catsmeat doesn't see an election any time soon.

This Parliament will last for a while

The NDP already negotiating terms for propping up the Conservatives

BY L. IAN MACDONALD, THE GAZETTENOVEMBER 21, 2009


There are several reasons why this minority Parliament is going to be in business for another year, until at least the fall of 2010, if not until the winter or spring of 2011.

The first is the Vancouver Games in February, which will delay the budget from its normal late February release, putting it back into March, when the country will be enjoying an Olympic afterglow, and in no more mood for a spring election than it was for one this fall. By then, Stephen Harper will be on the threshold of a world tour to brief leaders of the G8 and G20, whom he'll be hosting at Muskoka and Toronto next June. The summits will themselves set the stage for Harper's next summer announcement tour.

The second is that the Liberals need at least a year to regroup under the new management in the leader's office, and do a complete makeover on Michael Ignatieff. The unvarnished truth is that he has done nothing to improve his game, and needs to take it to a much higher level if he is to be competitive with Harper in an election.





Maybe nopno election until 2013.

The end of the sham

The hacked files from a chicken little home base reveals the treachery of the so called agw scientists. They are the opposite of scientists. They have a political agenda and manipulated their data. Funding agencies must look into these facts. Forging data is a crime. A lot of this was done using US government money. It is theft.
These people need to be held accountable for their actions. An immediate investigation of these chicken littles is needed.



But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.
Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:
Manipulation of evidence:
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
Suppression of evidence:
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:
Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Steve Crowder on Gitmo

Tories 38%, grits 23%

Those are the latest Angus Reid numbers. It continues the trend of the grits dropping and the Tories stabilizing at near majority levels. Wonder if ex pollster republican donolo wishes he kept his old job. It's now been more than 2 months that we see this pattern. I suspect that there will be no federal election for at least another 9-12 months. No wonder McKenna and his friends are calling us names. They are desperate. I used to think 30% was the grit floor. It is now a case of the a limbo to the bottom for the grits.

Happy Feet - Limbo Rock Mix (Chubby Checker)
by Schutzengerl1205

Fox News Poll

bo shouldn't be too happy.


Guess that's why the war with Fox news is over

Charles Krauthammer on obama's folly

I think these trials are a totally insane idea. revealing secret sources of information and allowing jihadis a public platform , not to mention endangering the people of NYC are all good reasons not to do this. Our intelligence agencies have allowed some jihadis to go free rather than compromise sources. Military trials from these enemy combatants are the way most Americans prefer.
Dr Krauthammer understands this.


Travesty in New York
By Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the "propaganda of the deed." And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 -- not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.

And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York. Just as the memory fades, 9/11 has been granted a second life -- and KSM, a second act: "9/11, The Director's Cut," narration by KSM.

September 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable -- a civilian trial in the media capital of the world -- from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.




Dr Krauthammer on Fort Hood jihadi

Dennis Miller on obama's folly

Dennis doesn't like this one little bit.





Even Lindsay Graham opposes it.

militant atheism

I am religious, I have many friends who are not. We get along just fine. Militant atheists are another breed. They are offended by my belief. I think this article does a good analysis of the unhappy militant atheists such as dawkins.

The Richard Dawkins-led anti-religious movement in many way resembles the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, on both Left and Right, which hated religion as rival sources of loyalties, and sought to drive it out. It’s a basic premise of liberalism, and of anti-authoritarian regimes generally, that people do not attempt to interfere with other people’s children, and the way their parents try to raise them. Whether people wanted to bring up their kids as Christians or Muslims, vegetarians, Marxists or Latin speakers, conservatives or liberals was up to them, so long as they did not abuse them, and society had a pretty agreed notion of what abuse was. So when Dawkins suggested that raising children as religious was a form of child abuse in itself he showed his true Stalinist colours.
Of course the real reason militant atheists interfere with other people’s kids is because they’re not having any themselves – in Austria, the only country where fertility and religious belief is recorded, atheists have a fertility rate of 0.85 per woman, which is probably similar to the UK figure. As non-belief becomes the norm across Europe, so the birth rate plunges, and the continent is forced to import third world workers to make up the shortfall, workers who have no such qualms about labelling their children. As the Chief Rabbi recently said, without religious belief Europeans have become too selfish to have children:

The grits are the true thugs

It is always amusing to watch a grit lose his cool. McKenna was trying to be some kind of grit elder statesman. He has said he thinks the Torys are thugs. This by a party who employs catsmeat as an operative. Who uses mocks the beliefs of Evangelical Christians. Who films funerals of senior grits to see if everyone had Communion propertly. A party where its leader pseudo chretin grabbed a protester by the throat. The Iggy ads do nothing but tell the truth about the accidental tourist. Mr mckenna your side did try and have ads to refute ours. They were a miserable failure. Your side had a $2million dollar ad buy. Our side used several times that number. Your party doesn't have the money to fight our truth ads. Iffy and frankie if you think it was hard before watch what happens when we have an economy on the rise, The Winter Olympics, two international leaders summits in Canada and more good work by the HM Government. We will continue to outfund raise you. We will continue to refute every nonsensical non scandal you try and bring out. We will expose every one of your weaknesses and we are the unpaid volunteers. Watch what our war room will do. We are not thugs, but we have a singkle minded purpose to restore Canada to the great land it was before the leftie grits destroyed it's culture of ambition and independence. We have not yet begun to fight. Wonder how long you will be working at the TD Frankie?

Frank McKenna is the sort of retired politician whose elder-statesman status usually keeps him well clear of the partisan fray. But the former New Brunswick premier and Canadian ambassador to the U.S., now deputy chair of TD Bank Financial Group, had some surprisingly hard-nosed advice for Michael Ignatieff in an interview with Maclean’s: hit back at Conservative “thugs” with some Harper-style attack ads of your own.

McKenna didn’t pull any punches when asked what the federal Liberal leader should do about Tory ads that label him “just visiting” and “only in it for himself.” “I think you have to fire back,” he said. “My inclination is to use attack ads when you’re attacked.” As for the sort of adversaries the Liberals are up against in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s tacticians, McKenna added, “They are dealing with thugs; they’ve got to fight back and fight hard.”

Every Canadian needs to...

read our new citizenship guide.
God Save the Queen of Canada







Written with input from many notable Canadian historians, this new citizenship booklet is much more entertaining and comprehensive than the old one, and succeeds in making Canada’s history seem both relevant and necessary. As such, it should be recommended reading for any current Canadian who has forgotten the facts on Vimy Ridge, the suffragette movement or the Riel Rebellion.

Beyond remedying the historical oversights of previous versions, the new citizenship study guide also provides a clear-eyed and forceful statement of the expectations of current Canadian values. Not to put too fine a point on it, but page nine of the 62-page booklet states: “Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation, or other gender-based violence.” It also reinforces the responsibilities of all Canadian adult citizens: including jury duty, getting a job and obeying the law. This was inexplicably missing from the old booklet.

At a time when many foreign cultures are viewed with some suspicion, it makes good sense to lay out the meaning and significance of the Canadian values we all must share. Ottawa’s new citizenship guide properly ensures every new immigrant will know what it really means to be a Canadian. But understanding our history and way of life is not something only new arrivals need to learn. Ottawa ought to give every Canadian a copy of its new citizenship booklet.

And they should also read Brian Crowley's new book.

Chicken littles refuse to....

see the obvious.


Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.



There is none so blind....

Very sad and frightening

If you are a Holocaust denier or noam chomsky you can speak at a US campus. Not if you support Israel or tell the truth about jihad.(h/t)

This time, Nonie, who is the founder of Arabs for Israel, was invited to speak at both Columbia and Princeton. The official invitation at Columbia came from the very distinguished CAMERA, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), and from a new student organization there: Campus Media Watch, a group which is not yet quite up and running. Darwish flew from the West Coast, and was already all dressed up and ready to travel to Columbia when she got word that she’d been canceled.

“How humiliating is that? To come all this way, to be almost out the door, only to be told that they had to cancel my speech because campus security felt they could not protect me. Everyone is trying to blame someone else. Even the campus Republicans were afraid to sponsor me. SPME kept trying to fix it, but in the end, they could not.”

True, in 2006, President Ahmadinejad of Iran was not able to speak at Columbia because the notice given was too short. However, in 2007, Columbia University was able to provide security for him. And yet they could not provide it for Darwish. In 2006, Holocaust-denier Norman Finkelstein spoke at Columbia and in 2009, anti-Zionist, Israeli journalist Amira Hass spoke at Columbia–both without incident. Neither speaker was canceled. Next week, Noam Chomsky is speaking there. In Darwish’s view, “I doubt Chomsky will even need any security.”

dem senators won't discuss cap and tax...

until maybe next May.

Senator Inhofe declares victory.


Inhofe declares victory in speech on global warming

Sen. Jim Inhofe
By JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau
Published: 11/18/2009 9:23 PM
Last Modified: 11/18/2009 9:23 PM

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, perhaps Congress’ most vocal skeptic of man-made global warming, essentially declared victory Wednesday in a lengthy speech on the Senate floor.
“I proudly declare 2009 as the ‘Year of the Skeptic,’ the year in which scientists who question the so-called global warming consensus are being heard,’’ the Oklahoma Republican said.

“Until this year, any scientist, reporter or politician who dared raise even the slightest suspicion about the science behind global warming was dismissed and repeatedly mocked.’’

Inhofe recalled his own 2003 remarks in which he said much of the debate over global warming was predicated on fear rather than science.

Chantal Hebert on old tired ideas

Chantal Hebert makes a an interesting parallel between the rusting grit ship and the rusting separatist ship. Both of these groups seem to be fighting some battle from long ago. The separatists and the grits are both talking to themselves and many Quebecers and Canadians have stopped listening.
It is interesting that pq is debating a motion to make Quebec Junoor colleges inaccessible to allophones and francophones. Even Parizeau thinks thats a bad idea. I hope the motion passes. It will show Francophones how petty and ethnocentric the pq really is.

As a result, sovereignists are increasingly preaching at one another. Within the confines of the ranks of the already converted, they are often coming up with self-defeating approaches to their cause.

Last spring, Marois's announcement that a future PQ government would use all its dealings with the federal government to up the constitutional ante went down like a lead balloon. A proposal to extend the restrictions of Bill 101 to Quebec's junior colleges that is to be debated by the PQ rank and file over the weekend may be promised the same fate.

Parizeau himself thinks it is a bad idea to block francophones and allophones from attending English-language CEGEPs. At a time when many Quebec parents are clamouring for better second-language training in English for their children, locking them out of the English-language collegial system could set the stage for a rare francophone backlash against the province's language regime.

Watching the PQ scramble to find a second wind, one can't help but draw a parallel with the struggling Liberal Party of Canada. Their fates have been interlocked in the past.

In the early 1990s, the unity crisis triggered by the demise of the Meech Lake accord provided Parizeau with the best shot ever at securing a referendum mandate for sovereignty and the Chrétien Liberals with a road back to federal power. But with their past epic battles behind them, the PQ and their old federal Liberal foes seem equally lost in the intellectual wilderness these days.

More Photos from

HM PM Harper's trip to India. I think the trip went very well in general. I am always a little concerned about Sikh Kalistan supporters, but they are almost 100% outside of India now. I must say I think that Mrs; Gandhi was wrong to storm the Golden Temple. She should have starved the khalistanis out. My uncle the Lieutenant General in the indian army at that time disagrees with me. In any case it is now history. I want canadian Sokhs to fully embrace Canada and in general they have. I am hearing whispers that the khalistan supporters are making a comeback. I hope that is not true. I do think my friend Tarek has a point.
Though I know Jason Kenney has visited all the groups mentioned, including my own Syrian Malankara Church of South India.
I don't like the ethic politics so much, but the Tories are not bribing ethnic groups with their own money. They are engaging these communities and explaining why their values are Tory values. Jason spends a lot of time bringing ethnic groups together not making ethnic muticutural ghettos.

Interview on Indian TV

The civil service?

Norman Spector has a piece on the politicized civil service. I have written before about obstructionist deputy ministers and even obstructionist clerks of the privy council. I am told , by people who have to deal with the civil service, that the problems have come at even much more junior levels. There are open invitations to block your political bosses. One of my friends suggested that this is also happening in our embassies and High Commissions, to the detriment of Canada. The civil service mostly hired under the grits has to understand that times are different. The Tories should not accept a culture of mediocrity. If civil servants don't get their jobs done or are openly insubordinate they should be fired. They are supposed to be working for the Crown the symbol of the Canadian people, not the grits. One of my friends suggested that a code of conduct should be introduced that clearly puts out the principles of excellence and non partisanship that should be expected from the civil service. I know that Yes Minister is a documentary series, but adding partisanship to the mix makes it much worse. The civil service unions are of course a big problem as well. Rewarding incompetence and mediocrity is a longtime union policy. Look how this partisanship helped the grits funnel millions away from the public trough. The Tories have played the game as well in the past, but as the article says the grits have had much longer to institute their operatives within the civil service. Both sides should remember that a non partisan civil services serve the interests of the Crown and therefore the people of Canada.
I hope, in order to reduce the deficit, the Tories start massive cuts to the civil service and everything else that government does.


“An affidavit prepared by the Public Service Commission for the Gomery inquiry sheds new light on the controversial hiring of a former Liberal aide to head the sponsorship program in 1999, including the role of a federal official who would become an aide to Prime Minister Paul Martin.
The inquiry heard conflicting testimony about how Pierre Tremblay, then the chief of staff to then public works minister Alfonso Gagliano, was hired to replace retiring bureaucrat Chuck Guité. Mr. Guité said he rigged the process at Mr. Gagliano's behest; the former minister denied any political interference.
The affidavit, which went unnoticed when it was tabled in May, shows that Mr. Tremblay's hiring was approved by a three-member selection board made up of Mr. Guité, Public Service Commission executive resourcing consultant Michael Carey, and Mario Laguë, a long-time Liberal supporter who became Mr. Martin's first director of communications when he became Prime Minister. The affidavit said Mr. Tremblay was hired “based on the recommendation of the selection board.”

Parizeau is at it again

I was 15 years old when the PQ won its first mandate in1976. It scared many of my friends and family who within two years had left Quebec. Hundreds of thousands left Quebec. My family didn't leave, My dad thought that's what these ethnic nationalists want, ethnic cleansing, so he wasn't going to help them. Separatism is not talked about much in Quebec, these days. Even separatists avoid the topic. Jacques Parizeau has left his vineyard in France and has written yet another tome which is being translated by crackpot Robin Philpot.
I hate to break it to you Jacques, Quebecers are not interested in your project. Lies and cheating didn't win you the referendum, even pseudo chretien's gross incompetence didn't win you separation. Find a new project, Perhaps find a way to wean Quebeckers off their massive unaffordable statist programs. Or maybe just return to France and make a new brandy. Stop wasting your old age. Go spend time with your family. You are becoming the court jester of Quebec.


Some still have apprehensions ... but fewer than before," Parizeau said. "So it's worth saying to each other, 'Let's try again.' "