Here, at long last, is the final and conclusive proof that several of those old adages that your mom, dad, grandma and grandpa were flinging about for all those years were really right after all. I’m talking about those little homilies that left you scratching your youthful head in utter befuddlement, wondering whether or not the old folks had finally reached that point that people referred to as “ready for a home,” whatever the heck that was supposed to have meant. Those little nuggets of wisdom that so often only make any sense at all in hindsight.

You know the ones I’m talking about:
“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”
“Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.”

You can now add another one to that list:
“Even the CBC will broadcast some sense sometimes.”

I even found proof…

Okay, show of hands now… Who would have ever guessed that the Ministry Of What You Should Think’s redeeming virtue would be found in Rex Murphy??? 😯

Everybody — or at least, everybody that comes here with any frequency — knows damned well that I like to go on and on about things that tick me off.  It’s what I do.  Every now and then, though, something comes down the pipe that just… well, speaks volumes for itself.

The latest idiocy is nothing less than a thinly-velied appeal to vulgarity.  Nothing more, nothing less.  But then, really, just what can we expect from a carpet knight?

Here’s a little something that’s sure to piss the Kult of Kyoto right off. As most of you have likely heard already, Britain’s Channel 4 has recently produced a short (75 minutes without commercials) documentary titled “The Great Global Warming Swindle” which knocks the wheels of the Kyotology bandwagon with all the ruthlessness of a Kyoto Kultist screaming for the head of a global-warming-denying heretic. No doubt the money-grubbing Marxist granola grinders from the errorless echelons of the Exalted EnviroEnlightenment Eggheadocracy® will bromidically bitch and bawl endlessly about what harsh language their critics have begun using. To them I say, “if you can’t take it, quit dishing it out and shut the hell up!”

In the opening seconds, the accusations “The ice is melting, the sea is rising, hurricanes are blowing AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!” flash across the screen, only to be immediately followed by “Scared? Don’t be; it’s not true.” One by one, the errors, delusions and outright lies of the Enviroloony elite are laid bare calmly and in plain English that is conspicuously devoid of the kind of bafflegab that saturates the rhetoric from the other side of the issue.

I’ll have plenty of time to shoot my mouth off on the topic later so, in the meantime, just sit back and enjoy the show.

[If, for some reason, you are unable to play the video in this window, just click this direct link to go directly to the video page and try there.]

A hearty thanks to Channel 4 for this excellent, non-powerpoint-presentation production. Keep up the good work, lads.

As most of you that have been here a few times before already know, My blogging habits tend to be rather cyclical. And when I find myself in one of those slow patches, I have a bit of a habit of falling back on the ol’ suggested reading post. Slapping up links to things that have caught my eye one way or the other in the past few days.

As you’ve likely guessed by now, this is one of those slow patches. So, without further ado, here’s a listing of things I’ve tripped over on the net lately that I think are worth a look (for one reason or another)…

Sliding into an abyss
Michael Coren, TO Sun

Sometimes we in the media merely play a game, making little ripples at the side of the water rather than diving right in to make an almighty splash.

In other words, we run around the edge of various problems and debates but are afraid to shine light on the authentic dilemmas of our age.

Whether it’s politics, economics, culture or morality, the culture, society and various pundits always assume that things are getting better — that we’re making progress and that what we have and what is to come is superior to what was.

Problem is, it’s mostly nonsense.

Cheating has become a way of life
Ted Byfield, Cowtown Sun

When a columnist in one of our leading financial newspapers last year casually asserted telling lies is indispensable to the efficient functioning of business, I was doubly shocked.

First, because the paper published it. Second, because no reader so far as I know questioned this remarkable contention.

Disturbing reality buried
Licia Corbella, Calgary Sun

In the news business, it’s called burying the lead.

It means you missed the most important or interesting part of a story and led with something less significant.

Dion’s politics shift with wind
Ezra “the Lip” Levant, Calgary Sun

Stephane Dion, the new Liberal leader, says he’s against renewing the provisions of Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act.

Because the Conservatives don’t have a majority, and the Bloc and NDP are notoriously soft on the war on terror, Dion holds the balance.

And he’s voting not to renew our security laws.

He’s pretending it’s still Sept. 10.

Pardon me for being astonished
Ian Robinson, Cowtown Sun

OK, I’ll bite.

What in the name of all that’s holy does somebody have to do to be well and truly punished by the judicial system?

[…]

I guess to be truly punished, you’ve got to videotape yourself raping high school girls that you kill later and then get caught and have your wife testify against you.

That would make you Paul Bernardo.

Of course, if you’re Paul’s partner-in-crime, Karla Homolka, you get a taxpayer-funded university degree in a prison so lax that you get to enter into loving, lesbian relationships — and model lingerie.

Deadline on Kyoto not doable
Rory Leishman, Da Freeps

In forcing a bill through Parliament that gives the Harper government 60 days to come up with a detailed plan for fulfilling Canada’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the three opposition parties are simply playing Canadians for fools. The leaders of these parties know full well that no government — not even one led by them — could possibly meet this absurd deadline.

Under terms of the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is supposed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below the levels set in 1990 by 2012. The previous Liberal government signed this Kyoto Protocol on behalf of Canada, but failed to devise a plan for fulfilling the commitment.

Go west, young man, to find Canada
Jordan Michael Smith, Ottawa Sun

I moved to Calgary recently, to work at the Western Standard for a couple of months. I’ve only been out here a few days, but I feel well-versed enough in the city’s ways to say this: Calgary is unlike any large city I have ever seen.

Calgary has about a million people, so you’d think it would feel like a big city. You’d be wrong.

The Kyoto horror show
Lorrie Goldstein, TO Sun

  Here’s my list of the “top 10” problems with the Kyoto accord on global warming. Feel free to add your own.

My own Inconvenient Truth
Rachel Marsden, TO Sun

A U.S. Congressional hearing on climate change was cancelled this week because of a massive snowstorm in DC. I’m just wondering, how many academic degrees are required for a person to find that funny?

An article in the Los Angeles Times perfectly sums up global warming quackery: “As glaciers from Greenland to Kilimanjaro recede at record rates, the central icecap of Antarctica has been steadily growing for 11 years, partially offsetting the rise in seas from the melt waters of global warming, researchers said.”

The “experts” claim to be able to measure the temperature of the Earth. (I don’t want to know where they stick the thermometer.) They travel to remote regions and declare that because ice is melting somewhere and growing somewhere else, that means the Earth is (drumroll) warmer! Duh. Of course it does.

Knock yourselves out, kids.  More of my own rantings as soon as I can grab some spare time again… 🙄

Where, oh where, oh where do I begin with this one? Let’s face it, boys and girls, we all knew damned well that it wasn’t going to be too long before the Librano$ got to the point where the itch to get their hands back on the national till and back to the business of buggering up the country got to be just too much not to scratch. Lo and behold, in the Commons yesterday, the Fiberals got that collective hind leg up behind their ears and went at it like a 70-year-old viagra addict in a $2 cathouse with a fistful of fifties.

On the off chance that you’ve been either spelunking or in a coma for the last few days, here’s what happened: Greener-than-thou Steffy took his stiffy a little too seriously yesterday and led the Kyoto Kook parade even further off to the Loopy Left when they passed Bill C-ThroughRoseyGlasses (AKA Bill C-288), demanding that the Conservative government under HMPM Harper come up with a plan to meet Kyoto’s “why yes, the moon really is made of green cheese” targets by 2012 . . . within 60 days. Yup, two months. Bibbitty-bobbitty-boo; just like that. Come to think of it, I do know exactly where to begin with this! Now why in the world didn’t I think of it in the first place?? It’s so obvious…

Dear Santa,

Thank you very much for heeding my letter that I sent you back in November. I know that I asked for a Rae Bomb and I should have trusted in your judgement (after all, you’ve been at this a lot longer than I’ve been around). The gift of Steffy “no relation” Dion as national UberGrit is clearly MUCH better and more fun than a Rae Bomb would ever have been. I’ll never doubt you again.

Your friend,
Dennis

This really is an early Christmas present for a guy like me. And it fits in so nicely, too, with the theme that I was going to work on before I got so rudely interrupted there…

Just who the hell does little M. “Do You Think It’s Easy To Make Priorities” think he is, anyway? This little arsehole — along with the Blocheads and Taliban Jack!’s YGBKMP — actually has the gall to demand that Harper do in two months what his party, and he himself as environment minister, utterly failed to do in more than a decade in power: come up with a plan to implement Kyoto by 2012.

And if that didn’t get your bullshitometer up to the redline, try this one on for size: li’l Steffy himself said, on the record to columnist John Ivison, that there was NO POSSIBLE WAY TO IMPLEMENT THE KYOTO TARGETS WITHIN THAT TIMEFRAME and that “energy will be the next crisis for the economy of the world.” See for yourself (emphasis mine, of course):

Dion admits Liberals’ Kyoto goal impossible

National Post 2006-07-01 John Ivison

OTTAWA – Former environment minister Stephane Dion has conceded that a future Liberal government would be unable to meet its Kyoto commitment of reducing greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels.

Mr. Dion, a candidate for the Liberal leadership, said that if he became prime minister after an election next year, he would try to reduce emissions, which are thought to contribute to global warming.

“In 2008, I will be part of Kyoto, but I will say to the world I don’t think I will make it. Everyone is saying target, target. But … it is to be more than to reach a target. It’s to change the economy. It’s to have resource productivity, energy efficiency when we know that energy will be the next crisis for the economy of the world.”

Canada signed up to reduce emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012, but government statistics suggest they are currently around 35% above that level. The Conservative government has said it will not be able to meet Canada’s targets for the first-phase of the Kyoto accord — an admission that has led Liberal critics to charge that the Tories have abandoned Kyoto.

The Liberal party maintains its climate-change plans would meet the 2012 deadline. Mr. Dion is the first senior party figure to cast doubt on that claim.

A spokesman for Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said Mr. Dion’s comments were cause for concern. “It is concerning that the Liberals were prepared to mislead Canadians on the Kyoto targets even though the former Liberal environment minister now admits the targets were unachievable.”

Mr. Dion defended the Liberal record on Kyoto by saying Canada signed on for far-tougher targets than many other countries. “If France does nothing between 1990 and 2010, their emissions are likely to grow by 4%. If Canada does nothing, emissions grow by 44%.”

He said the election of George W. Bush, and the subsequent U.S. decision to pull out of Kyoto, left Canadian industry, and some Cabinet ministers, uneasy with the government’s climate-change plan. [of COURSE! It’s all Bush’s fault!! Gimme a fucking break 🙄 -D]

Mr. Dion advocates binding commitments for industry to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through a domestic trading system. Companies able to cut their emissions below target levels could then sell credits to less energy efficient businesses. He said he is also working on environmental tax reform and would put the environment at the centre of government. “All my ministries will be green. Maybe I’ll make one department of industry and the environment — a department of sustainability. That’s not a commitment, but if you want to change the mind, you have to change structures.”

So, he does nothing, admits that nothing can be done, and then screeches like a shrill schoolmarm at the Tories for not waving the magic wand and making it all disappear. The Grits even try to accuse Harper of “act(ing) like an emperor” if he chooses to ignore their little parliamentary temper tantrum (which I think he should).

Hell, even Green Party Ubertreehugger Elizabeth May isn’t being fooled by this bullshit publicity stunt. I can’t help but wonder, though… Which do you think is going to get through the Fiberal-dominated Senate first, hmmm? The Federal Accountability Act (which would make the kind of corruption that is the Grits’ stick-in-trade one hell of a lot harder in the future), Bill S-24 (the Senate Tenure Bill), or this little Grit-spawned publicity stunt? Anybody feel like laying some money down on it?

All I can say is: Please, please, please let this trigger an election!! And let it happen BEFORE John Q. Canuck has the chance to doze back off again. Let it happen before the Canadian public can foget that Dion has flip-flopped on everything from Kyoto to Afghanistan to antiterror legislation. Real quick, in point form:

• Librano$ sign Kyoto (a pipe dream), do nothing, blame Tories
• Librano$ pass antiterror measures, now call them draconian
• Librano$ send troops to Afghanistan, now want to run away
• Librano$ to nominate candidates based on crotch plumbing, not merit
• Librano$ get to boot for Adscamâ„¢, Dion welcomes back scammer into the party fold

It’s one thing to be a populist; it’s another thing entirely to make a political career out of twisting in the wind of public opinion. I could go on, but why bother? The facts are that he’s out of touch with regular Canadians, he’s an elitist and he’s weak. The Grits picked everybody’s third choice to lead their party and, as the ads said, Stephane Dion is NOT a leader. Never has been and never will be. The little snot even mewled like a petulant child when someone pointed out that there really IS a problem with wanting to be the leader of one country while being a citizen of another!

Yup. Best Christmas present a little Rightwing nutjob like me ever got. Can we go to the polls now?

. . . Unless we give ourselves over unquestioningly to the bloated bureaucracy of the environmentalists, which will lead us to the Promised Land of Kyoto; flowing with the milk and honey of granola-grindin’ Gaia-goodness.

So speaketh the High Priests of The Environment and all their apostles; with one voice, for apostasy against Kyotology will not be tolerated. And don’t fool yourselves, this shit really has become one hell of a lot like some loopy cult. As Pale, over at IAM(also)CANADIAN, put it a few days ago [links added]:

The Church of Kyotology reminds me of Scientology (without the cool alien thing!)

Kyotology attacks free speech. Any questioning of the god Kyoto results in cries of “Global Warming” denier!

Kyotology says that public statements against Kyotology such as writing anti-Kyotology letters to the papers and in blogs is a “Suppressive Act” – a high crime, according to “Introduction to Kyotology Ethics.”

In accordance with this policy (and others like it), Kyotology has tried to silence all criticism.

Kyotology betrays the trust of well-intentioned people by falsely claiming to have a scientifically-proven technology to save the world.

Couldn’t have said it better myself (which, of course, is why I plagiarized Pale). The maniacal, rabid reaction of the enviro-Left to anyone that doesn’t unquestioningly bow down before whatever the latest prophecy of doom happens to be is downright alarming. You don’t even need to outright argue with them to get yourself branded a heretic, either. Just asking for clarification or, Goddess forbid, proof 😯 of their wild claims is enough to earn you the kind of contempt usually reserved for twitchy loners parked near playgrounds with cars full of candy.

Before we go any further, let’s get a few things straight, shall we? I like the outdoors, Bambi’s mom is pretty damned tasty (especially as sausages) and when I go fishing, I have this funny habit of wanting to actually eat what I pull out of the water. Hell, I even used to work for Greenpeace, for cryin’ out loud.  So yes, I do give a shit about the environment, just not for the same reasons as the Cultists of Kyoto. So, you ask; if I’m such an environmentally-friendly guy, why do I have a problem with Kyoto?

Actually, I don’t have a problem with Kyoto, I have a lot of problems with Kyoto. AND with the whole “global warming” thing in general. Going into each and every damned one of them here and now would make for one hell of a bulky posting — and likely give me carpal tunnel syndrome in the process — so what I’m going to do, just for a start, is to list a few of the things about “global warming” that get on my nerves. I’ll get into each one in more detail in later rants but for now, here are the the beefs that just pop off the top of my head:

1. They’re bullshitting me.
   “Global warming,” as in the human-cause-only scenario that’s being shrieked about so much now, is only a theory and is NOT scientifically proven as a fact like we keep being told.
2. Ad Hominem cuts no ice with me.
   And that’s the method of choice for the EnviroNazis that come up against anyone that questions them. As Orwell once said: “Some things are true even if The Daily Telegraph says they are true.”
3. Environmental science has been hijacked by political agendas.
   This has been happening since the fall of the Soviet Union left an assortment of Marxists and other miscellaneous malcontents adrift in the sea of their failed ideas, looking for someplace to put in to port.
4. Their story keeps changing.
   Their mid-range prediction for temperature rise in the next 100 years has dropped by more than a third and they chopped the mean sea-level rise prediction by more than 50% — just since the last IPCC report in 2001. I have yet to find any number that isn’t constantly getting fudged. Who’s running these figures? The guys at Enron??
5. I’ve heard all this before.
   All the same different dire predictions, the same rhetoric against critics, all of it. Just with a different boogeyman. None of the predictions came true.
6. They are fanatics.
   As Churchill once observed, “a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” And, like true fanatics, they adamantly refuse to listen to any explanation not approved for their consumption by the high priests of their “movement,” no matter how sound the reasoning may be.
7. They misrepresent themselves.
   They claim a “consensus” amongst experts even when those same experts — like Dr. Christopher Landsea, a leading expert in the field of hurricanes and tropical storms, who resigned as an author of the IPCC 2007 report because the IPCC was “motivated by pre-conceived agendas” and was “scientifically unsound” — have no such unanimity whatsoever.
8. Even if they DID have it, consensus does NOT equal truth.
   Once upon a time, consensus was that the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the earth and Milli Vanilli were singers. And we know how those turned out.
9. They attempt to silence those who disagree with them.
   This, more than anything else, is a sure indication that there’s something rotten in Denmark. You don’t need to read Nineteen Eighty Four to know that anybody that wants their side to be the only one heard has only their interests in mind. Truth is a funny thing; it doesn’t need to be the only voice heard in order for it to survive. It does just fine without any suppression of dissent being needed.

Not a bad list for stuff just off the top of my head. Keep an eye open for the next few days or so while I address each one separately.