EU Leadership: Vaclav Klaus

There may still be hope for the European Union.

Leadership: Far from an effete welfare statist, the EU's next president is a bold free-market advocate who suffers neither fools nor the usual Euro-nonsense. In short, just what the doctored ordered for a sclerotic continent.

...Klaus, a student of the great F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, is exactly the sort of leader that Europe has to have. The liberty-minded defender of free markets has the opportunity to rock the continent out of its self-inflicted economic malaise.

(...)

Unlike his critics, Klaus has some experience in reviving a mundane economy. After helping the former Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 while serving as prime minister, he took the Republic from the depths of a former Soviet economy to where, according to the CIA, it is now considered "one of the most stable and prosperous of the post-Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe."

The Czech Republic's healthy per capita GDP of $24,500 far outpaces that of Ukraine, which has moved in almost the exact opposite direction.

(...)

Under Klaus' guidance, the Czech Republic became the first post-communist nation to be given an investment-grade credit rating by international credit institutions. Unemployment has been kept low and productivity is running high. This, from a state-owned economy in which the private sector produced a mere 3% of the national income in 1989.

Vaclav Klaus is just what Europe needs if there is any hope of the EU pulling itself out of its drift towards socialism. Klaus is right on track on another important front too.

More recently, Klaus has turned his attention to global warming, believing the environmental movement has become an assault on freedom, and to regulation, too much of which, he says, caused today's financial crisis.

Bravo Mr Klaus.

Blowing in the wind

Via the Telegraph:

The UK is at "real risk" of imminent power shortages as a result of attempts to shift to more environmentally friendly methods of electrictity production, a report has warned.

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The shortage has been caused by the increase in the level of demand for energy combined with a growing tendency to build wind turbines, at the expense of other, more reliable, electricity sources, it says.

The report estimates that around one quarter of the UK's energy plant capacity will close by 2015 as the country struggles to balance its carbon emissions targets with production of new energy sources.

Moon Report: Repeal Section 13

Richard Moon was commissioned by the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) to review its conduct. Today Moon released his report and recommendations.

1. The first recommendation is that section 13 of the CHRA be repealed, so that the CHRC and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) no longer deal with hate speech, and in particular hate speech on the Internet. Hate speech should continue to be prohibited under the Criminal Code2 but this prohibition should be confined to expression that advocates, justifies or threatens violence.

Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act has been used with much controversy by the CHRC to suppress "hate speech". The CRHC has been accused of acting like a Kangaroo Court and restricting free speech with its Section 13 rulings.

More on the significance of this ruling from Ezra Levant, who knows all too well what it's like to be accused under Section 13 of the CHRA. Levant also has a column in tomorrow's National Post. And he explains how the CHRC has set out to bury the Moon report.

Despite the contractual obligations on Moon to have his report cleared (twice) by Lynch, he apparently stuck to his guns.

There remain other flaws with this report, and I’ll discuss them later. But that’s not important right now. What’s important is that Richard Moon, Jennifer Lynch’s hand-picked white-washer, didn’t do what he was expected to do (expected to do by me or by Lynch!)

Will Lynch and her fellow bullies now concede defeat? Are you kidding? And admit that they’ve been conducting themselves inappropriately for thirty years? And admit that they are violators of human rights, not protectors of them? And lose all that power over people – the power to destroy and humiliate? And lose staff and budgets?

If so, then you don’t understand that being a bully is in the DNA of human rights thugs.

Lynch is already trying to throw Moon under the bus.

In her press release announcing his report, which you can see here, you’ll notice something is missing: Moon’s recommendation to repeal section 13. He uses the phrase repeal again and again in his report – but you won’t find it in Lynch’s revisionist press release.

I'll skip the obvious puns here about how the CHRC got "mooned" by its own expert. Or how the CHRC's chief commissar (Jennifer Lynch) is responding with a "Lynch mob".

There's more from Mark Steyn who is moonstruck.

Recently, at the Conservative party’s national policy convention delegates voted to repeal Section 13. And Liberal MP Keith Martin has re-introduced a private member's motion to repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

More at Five Feet of Fury.

Inhofe: Global Warming Theory has ‘failed consistently and dramatically’

From Marc Morano on Senator Jim Inhofe's EPW Press blog: Part TWO: ‘Planet Has Cooled Since Bush Took Office’ – Scientists Continue Dissenting – Gore Admits 'I've failed badly' - Global Sea Ice GROWS!

Washington DC - The bad news for global warming alarmists just keeps rolling in. Below is a very small sampling of very inconvenient developments for Gore, the United Nations, and the mainstream media. Peer-reviewed studies, analyses, and prominent scientists continue to speak out to refute climate fears. The majority of data presented below is from just the past few weeks. Also see: U.S. Senate Minority Report: “Over 400 Prominent Scientists (and rapidly growing) Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007” & ‘Consensus’ On Man-Made Global Warming Collapses in 2008 - July 18, 2008 & An August 2007 report detailed how proponents of man-made global warming fears enjoy a monumental funding advantage over skeptical scientists. LINK

Senator Inhofe has a lot more goodies for your reading pleasure here and here.

Today is...

November 22, 2008. More.

Not Evil Just Wrong

That's the title of a new film that atkes on the global warming hysteria.

A new Irish film claims that climate change guru Al Gore is an alarmist and that those who think they are saving the planet are only hurting the poor

IF THE ADVANCE publicity is anything to go by, Not Evil Just Wrong will do for Al Gore what Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 did for George W Bush.

"This is the film Al Gore and Hollywood don't want you to see," declares the website for the latest work by film-makers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer.

Here's the trailer...

The website goes on to say that their latest film - which takes on what are described as global warming alarmists - is "the most controversial documentary of the year". Indeed, it could very well be the most controversial. And Al Gore and Hollywood may well not want you to see it. And in that respect, Gore and co are actually succeeding for the moment. Because there is no completed film. Not yet anyway.

McElhinney and McAleer have raised almost $1 million (€799,000) but need a total of $4.5m (€3.6m) to allow for a full cinema release. They say they were acutely disappointed at being turned down for funding by the Irish Film Board, especially its conclusion that it was "repetitive and creatively thin".

Instead, they have gone onto the internet hoping to solicit donations in the style of Barack Obama. The finished product will be around 90 minutes long.

You can check out their website at www.noteviljustwrong.com

Remembrance Day 2008

Vimy, France – A solder is silhouetted against the names of men missing in action on the monument at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France. Lest we forget. Photo courtesy Department of National Defence.

Spector: Obama's election means Kyoto is dead

Norman Spector in the Globe and Mail:

...the Toronto Star's former environment reporter, Peter Gorrie, predicts that Mr. Obama is about to put the final nail in the Kyoto coffin:

"Obama will not commit the United States to meet the emissions target - a cut to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012 - that it accepted then rejected under the 1997 agreement. Instead, his goal is to get back down to 1990 levels by 2020.

Everyone wants and needs the United States to be part of the talks, and any solution. And, for the time being, Obama is unassailable. So, his target will be adopted.

Al Gore wouldn't commit the US to Kyoto's emissions targets either when he and then President Clinton declined to send the treaty to Congress where it faced certain defeat. Spector has more surprising news in his update:

On the op-ed page of Sunday's New York Times, Al Gore weighs in with advice for president-elect Barack Obama, which suggests that he, too, has given up on the U.S. endorsing Kyoto and its targets, notwithstanding it being an agreement he negotiated as vice-president.

Kyoto may be dead. That can't be a bad thing, but the real danger is yet to come in the form of an alternative, likely some type of cap and trade system, which will prove very lucrative to the likes of the Goracle.

Phoenix succumbs to global cooling

NASA thinks that it's Mars probe Phoenix is "almost certainly dead", apparently the victim of "the increasing cold and dark of an advancing winter." Via BBC News:

Phoenix's major achievement was in becoming the first mission to Mars to "touch water" in the form of the water-ice it found just centimetres below the topsoil. Chunks of ice were seen to vaporise before the lander's cameras.


Other key results included the identification in the soil of calcium carbonate, which on Earth is a chief component of limestone rock.

Phoenix also detected sheet-like particles, which were probably clays of some kind.

The significance of both minerals is that they form only in the presence of liquid water - which could have supported life.

(...)

Phoenix even recorded snowfall; and took more than 25,000 pictures, from the panoramas of its Arctic landing site to the atomic scale images of dust grains delivered to its microscope.

Phoenix was an historic mission. NASA says that the lander is experiencing temperatures of -100 Deg C. Now that's what I call global cooling!

An interview with Madhav Khandekar

This is Part 1 of the interview. See also: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.

Dr. Madhav Khandekar specializes in understanding extreme weather events in Canada and in other parts of the world. He holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics, a M.Sc. in Statistics from India (Pune University) as well as both M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Meteorology from Florida State University. As one of the world leaders in meteorology, Dr. Khandekar has worked in the fields of climatology, meteorology and oceanography for over 45 years and has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and scientific commentaries as well as a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling, published by Springer-Verlag (1989).

Madhav Khandekar is a retired Meteorologist, formerly with Environment Canada

IBD: Alarmists Still Heated Even As World Cools

Failure to notice the guerrilla in the room. An editorial from Investor's Business Daily:

Climate Change: It's been a bad year for global warming alarmists. Record cold periods and snowfalls are occurring around the globe. The hell that the radicals have promised is freezing over.

As the British House of Commons debated a climate-change bill that pledged the United Kingdom to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050, London was hit by its first October snow since 1922.

Apparently Mother Nature wasn't paying attention. The British people, however, are paying attention — to reality. A poll found that 60% of them doubt the claims that global warming is both man-made and urgent.

Michael Crichton

Author Michael Crichton has died of cancer. Best known for his best selling books like Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, Crichton was just 66.

Michael Crichton was a critic of the conventional wisdom regarding global warming. His novel State of Fear took on the global warming alarmists the environmental movement and the increasing politicization of science.

Michael Crichton. Rest in Peace.

Obama Plan To "Bankrupt" Clean Coal Would Cost Hundreds of Thousands Of Jobs

The folks at Western Business Roundtable are mad and aren't going to take it anymore.

Denver, CO (Nov. 3, 2008) -- A bipartisan coalition of business leaders is calling on Governors, state legislators and Members of Congress publicly express their opposition before tomorrow's election to proposals to "bankrupt" the U.S. coal industry and threaten to put out of work several hundred thousand Americans who work in coal-related industries.

The call was issued by the Western Business Roundtable following news reports that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama intends to make it so costly to build advanced clean coal power plants with carbon capture and sequestration that it will "bankrupt" any company that tries to do so.

"We are calling upon Democrats, Republicans and Independents from coast to coast to publicly express their support for advanced clean coal power generation and to distance themselves from those who say that we should bankrupt the coal industry," said Britt Weygandt, Executive Director of the Western Business Roundtable. "A lot of Americans are going to be listening in the next 24 hours to see which elected leaders stand up for clean coal and which don't."

Vampires and Hildabeasts working together for McCain

You know this isn't over when you see things like this:

I’m working hand in hand with people I’ve repeatedly villainized and called vampires through the years, some of whom I’ve even squirted with holy water in hopes they’d melt. The Republican Ladies Guild is working hard in my kitchen today for McCain/Palin despite never understanding our support for Hillary Clinton before (and some of them call us nasty names like “Hildabeasts”, and think we don’t know). But, ALL OF US are working together now, vampires and Hildabeasts, because WE ARE ALL AMERICANS, and America needs us.

Because Obama would not stop at coal. Coal is just the beginning. Who knows where it would end.

Obama, the Great Unifier has done the unimaginable. He's united Hillary Democrats and Republicans across the coal belt and brought them together in an all out effort to elect John McCain and Sarah Palin. Better click on the link and read the whole thing. These folks are on fire!

Tomorrow night is going to be interesting!

Obama to bankrupt coal

This video interview with the San Francisco Gate from back on January 17, 2008 surfaced yesterday at Naked Emperor News. In it Barack Obama says that he will use carbon regulations to "bankrupt" anyone who builds a new coal power plant.

"So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted."

Coal presently accounts for about 49% of US power production. Preventing construction of any new coal plants will only drive up the price of electricity as more expensive replacements must be implemented.

Not only that, but consider the effect these remarks may have in coal producing states like Colorado, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. These are battleground states, key states that are needed to win the election. And that's something that didn't go unnoticed today by Gov. Sarah Palin:

Palin told supporters to listen to the audiotape. “You’re going to hear Sen. Obama talk about bankrupting the coal industry,” she said. The Alaska governor also pointed to comments that Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden made to an environmental activist, promising no more coal-fired power plants in America. Biden was videotaped, likely without his knowledge.

“In an Obama-Biden administration, there would be no use for coal at all, from Wyoming to Colorado, to West Virginia and Ohio,” Palin said.

and by Senator John McCain speaking today in Pennsylvania:

"My friends, you know what Senator Obama said about a year ago, he said he had not been a, quote, coal booster," he said, as the crowd booed.

"My friends, I've been a coal booster and it's going to create jobs, and we're going to export coal to other countries and we are going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. That's going to help restore the economy of the great state of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

Never mind debating about greenhouse gases. Forty-eight hours before the election and the front runner says he is going to "bankrupt" the coal industry with carbon taxes. Just what a struggling economy needs!

One in seven voters reportedly remain undecided or willing to change their votes. This might just help them make up their minds.

Update: The Coal Tango.

Can McCain win?

As we approach the day of decision in the US election, the daily opinion polls are ranging from a wide lead for Barack Obama to a race that's within the margin of error and too close to call. One national poll yesterday even gave John McCain a one point lead. So what are we to make of all this?

Some feel that the polls are biased towards the Democrats and many pollsters in fact do over sample Democratic voters. But that's because the pollsters are attempting to get a true sample of likely voters and they are influenced by all the hype from the Obama campaign and the media proclaiming a massive turnout by new Democratic voters.

But despite what the opinion polls are telling us every day, a good number of political analysts think that John McCain can still pull out a victory on Tuesday:

Ezra Levant:

I predict that John McCain will win the U.S. presidential election next week.

I believe many Americans are uneasy because Obama has masked himself (with the media's aid). He's masked his past, his friendships and alliances, his philosophy, and even his family details. But every now and then the mask slips and reveals a cultural radical; a constitutional radical; a socialist radical; a foreign affairs radical. And though the mask is quickly fixed back on, and the slip duly papered over by the MSM, I think doubts linger with middle America.

Steven Hill at HuffPost:

All the polls show Obama with a lead, but with polls having a mixed track record, we don't really know how sizable. Meanwhile, there seem to be a fair number of undecided voters who historically have broken for the Republican candidate. The Democratic candidate is African-American with a known Bradley effect out there, though the impact is difficult to quantify. There are unknown questions lingering about defective voting equipment, faulty election administration, purged voters, and Republican attempts to disqualify Democratic voters. What will be their impact, ultimately, on vote totals?

Given all these factors, is there a plausible scenario in which McCain could win? I would say yes, absolutely. Perhaps not likely, but certainly plausible. There is also a plausible scenario in which Obama wins handily. The truth is, there are too many moving parts in this election to know for sure. But if all the above factors line up just the right way, the nation could be in for a shock on Election Night.

And finally el Rushbo:

Now, if you were with us yesterday and you remember the blog post at HillBuzz by the Obama campaign worker named Sarah who basically threw the lid off what is actually going on in the Obama campaign. They're not nearly as far ahead as they have convinced everybody in the media, and a lot of voters. Everything about their campaign, seminar callers, seminar bloggers, seminar responders on YouTube, seminar everything; it is all image; it is being done to craft this notion that there is no stopping Obama, that it is a fait accompli. The only problem is Obama is not behaving that way. Obama is now trying to lower expectations. He's going to states that were in the bag. Let me share with you another post from another anonymous person, this also from the Obama campaign. It's a woman, and what we're picking up out there is that there really are a number of angry Democrat women. They are angry over the way this Democrat party is treating traditional Democrat voters, trying to destroy Joe the Plumber, an average blue-collar guy; trying to destroy Sarah Palin. These women do not like it. Let me read you part four of this latest anonymous post for an Obama campaign worker. This is a different one than Sarah P. from yesterday. This is a long post. I'm just going to read you this one point, number four.

"The Bradley Effect. Do not believe these public polls for a second. I just went over our numbers, found that we have next to no chance --" this is regarding Obama, "-- in the following states: Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada. Ohio leans heavily to McCain but it's too close to call it for him. Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa are the true toss-up states. The only two of these the Obama campaign feels confident are Iowa and New Mexico, but now Obama's headed back to Iowa on Monday. The reason for such polling discrepancy is the Bradley Effect, and this is a subject of much discussion in the campaign. In general, we in the Obama campaign tend to take a ten-point percentage in allowing for this, a minus ten-point percentage for allowing this and are not comfortable until the polls give us a spread well over this mark."

The bottom line is that the polls could be very, very wrong. The Obama campaign, with the full support of most of the main stream media, has successfully created the illusion that Obama is unstoppable and will win in a landslide. And that has influenced the sampling by the pollsters. But it ain't necessarily so.

In the post above, Rush referred to a post by an Obama campaign worker named Sarah P. who warns us not to believe the hype. Here's the link:

Hillbuzz: Confession of an Obama Blogger - by Sarah P

and another, Hillbuzz: Three things the Obamedia will do to depress Republican turnout
which are, in short all designed to demoralize Republicans enough that they don't bother to get out and vote: 1) create the illusion that Obama is unstoppable, 2) create the illusion that Obama is winning large in traditional Republican states and 3) that there's going to be an unbeatable turnout by blacks and youth in support of Obama.

Don't fall for it.