Harper Government Record

A compilation by Crux of the Matter:

There are “62″ accomplishments on this list. They are only examples of the many Harper government achievements.

h/t: Newsbeat1

Rae: Let's hold on to 2nd place

Bob Rae, former NDP Premier of Ontario and now federal Liberal MP and leadership contender, was in Saskatoon yesterday to give his party some strategic advice for the closing days of this election campaign.

"In the last 10 days, we've really got to focus on what are the real choices. And I honestly believe the NDP is not a viable choice anymore," Rae said after rallying about 40 supporters.

This man, who came close to becoming the leader of the Liberal Party in 2006, drew a crowd of only 40 supporters to a rally during the election campaign! That says something about the sorry state of the Liberal Party.

That plus the fact that Rae is effectively recommending that, by shifting their focus against the NDP, the Grits should give up on winning this election and try to hold on to second place.

He even urged "the anti-Conservative electorate to avoid splitting their votes between the Liberals and New Democrats". That sounds a lot like strategic voting to me. Not a tactic usually employed by a party intent on winning.

The real battle in this election is going to be who forms the Official Opposition, the Liberals of the NDP.

The knockout punch of the debates

Too many debates to watch last night, if you can call that attempted ambush and gang rape of Canadian PM Stephen Harper a debate. The VP candidates in the US were much more civilized and interesting.

I'm not going to analyze either of them, other than to say that 1) Harper clearly won by not lowering himself to the level of "the gang of three and a half" opponents and that 2) Governor Palin delivered very nicely thank you against Senator "Papa Joe" O'Biden, who for his part uttered a number of falsehoods which should provide McCain with some good ammunition for new commercials going into the home stretch of the campaign.

There was really only one knockout punch delivered in the entire evening. It begins at the 2:05 mark of this interview of former Clinton advisor Dick Morris on Fox News Hannity and Colmes.



Ouch! It must hurt to be Alan Colmes.

Update: American Thinker has the list of Biden's Big Lies All 14 of Them

Gore: time for civil disobediance

Via the Wall Street Journal on-line, the Goracle is now preaching civil disobedience to his flock:

But then Mr. Gore really got going and told his disciples to head -- literally -- to the barricades to "stop" coal.

Speaking last Wednesday on a celebrity panel in New York, the Nobel Prize Laureate proclaimed: "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration." He added, "clean coal does not exist."

Mr. Gore didn't explain how far he thinks his young acolytes should go in their rage against the coal-burning machines that provide about 50% of U.S. electricity. Sit-ins? Marches against power plants? How about trashing power lines: What could he mean by "civil disobedience"?

This is dangerous talk from an ex-Vice President and a man who was almost elected President of the United States. As the Journal opinion article says, figures like Gore who hold the public trust and...

"such rhetoric is wildly irresponsible, not least for the fanaticism and even violence it could incite".

Another example is NASA scientist James Hansen:

The NASA scientist and influential global warming swami recently testified on behalf of the "Kingsnorth Six," Greenpeace activists who caused £30,000 of criminal damage at an English coal utility while attempting to shut it down. Mr. Hansen argued they had a "lawful excuse" because of the imminence of climate doom; they were acquitted.

While Hansen defended civil disobedience, Gore goes him one further and actually promotes it. But the Journal says Gore is defeating his own argument.

New U.S. coal plants use modern scrubbing technology, which means less traditional air pollution. They're also far more efficient -- that is, they get more energy out of the same amount of coal (i.e., carbon) compared to older models. Often this results in power companies mothballing parts of a more carbon-intensive fleet.

That's it Al. Stop the construction of new cleaner coal plants and keep those older dirtier ones running.

But then it's not really about reducing pollution, CO2 emissions or going green. If it were, the Goracle wouldn't own one of the highest energy intensive mansions in the country.

No. It's all about revving up the Faithful. For the Revolution.

CBC Apologizes for Mallick Smear

The CBC has apologized for the hateful attack by Heather Mallick on Alaska Governor and VP candidate Sarah Palin.

TORONTO - The CBC has issued an apology and retraction for posting a controversial online column by freelancer Heather Mallick about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin earlier this month.

Following 300-plus complaints from readers, and attacks from Canadian and American media organizations, including Fox News, publisher John Cruickshank said the public broadcaster had erred in its editorial judgement and the item should never have appeared on the CBC website.

In an online statement, Cruickshank said reaction to the column has caused the CBC to install new editing procedures that will ensure inappropriate work won't appear.

"We are open to contentious reasoned argument but not to partisan attack," he said in a statement posted on the broadcaster's website.

Global Carbon Emissions Beyond IPCC Projections

A post today at the alarmist Science Daily states:

Despite the increasing international sense of urgency, the growth rate of emissions continued to speed up, bringing the atmospheric CO₂ concentration to 383 parts per million (ppm) in 2007. Anthropogenic CO₂ emissions have been growing about four times faster since 2000 than during the previous decade, despite efforts to curb emissions in a number of Kyoto Protocol signatory countries.

Dr. Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project said "This new update of the carbon budget shows the acceleration of both CO2 emissions and atmospheric accumulation are unprecedented and most astonishing during a decade of intense international developments to address climate change."

Emissions growth for 2000-2007 was above even the most fossil fuel intensive scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (SRES-IPCC). While the developing nations of China and India continue to increase emissions, China has improved the carbon intensity of their economy since 2005, based on data from the National Energy Administration in China.

Three points need to be made concerning this article.

1) a decade of "intense international developments to address climate change" has done nothing to curb CO2 emissions and they continue to rise at "unprecedented" rates. This is an admission that the Kyoto Accord is an absolute failure.

2) China, now the single largest emitter of CO2 "has improved the carbon intensity of their economy". This is the exact same measure that Stephane Dion endorsed when he was the do-nothing environment minister in Paul Martin's Liberal government, but now as leader of the Opposition he opposes and criticizes the Harper government for its use of intensity targets.

Reading the Science Daily article, one would think that communist China was setting a fine example by reducing their carbon intensity. Oh but then they're socialists.

3) The 3rd point is based on what this article doesn't tell us. And that is despite all these "unprecedented" increases in CO2 in the past decade, the Earth has actually been cooling since 1998. As a matter of fact, there is strong evidence to suggest that we may be headed into a prolonged cooling cycle caused by, of all things, a marked decrease in solar activity.

This is deception by omission. And it omits this very important fact because it does not fit the alarmist model. How can the Earth cool when CO2 emissions continue to rise at "unprecedented" rates?

There must be something else at work here.

On the bubble

These two videos about the housing/mortgage/credit crisis are over a year old but still very effective: First: US Home prices adjusted for inflation plotted as a roller coaster.



Here's the graph from the video:



Next video: Irrational exuberance.

Condi on the UN

My favourite US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice weighs in about the UN:

"The United States of America will be asking that the Council convene again to take up the matter of one member of the United Nations calling for the destruction of another member of the United Nations, in a way that simply should not be allowed, if you will pardon my saying so in polite company."

The UN needs to deal with this problem called Iran soon or they may find themselves dealing with Rep. Trancredo's UN Eviction Act.

BTW, did anyone watch the McCain-Obama debate tonight?
John really beat up Barry pretty bad over Iran.

"I do not believe that the Iranian people as a whole hold these views," Rice told the council on Friday, "but their president has said that another member of this body, the United Nations, should be wiped from the face of the map, should be destroyed, and should not exist.

"That is simply unacceptable," she told the Security Council.

Tancredo: boot the bums out

An idea whose time has come...

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) introduced legislation today that would effectively move the United Nations headquarters out of the United States. The legislation is being introduced amid incessant anti-American and anti-Jewish political grandstanding from the podium of the General Assembly.

“The U.N. has coddled brutal dictators, anti-Semites, state sponsors of terrorism, and nuclear proliferators – while excluding democratic countries from membership and turning a blind eye to humanitarian tragedies and gross violations of human rights around the globe,” Tancredo said. “The U.N.’s continued presence in the United States is an embarrassment to our nation, and the time has come for this ineffective organization to pack its bags and hit the road.”

Tancredo’s bill, dubbed the U.N. Eviction Act, would direct Attorney General Michael Mukasey to initiate condemnation proceedings against all United Nations properties within the United States, and sell the property to the highest bidder on the open market. The proceeds will be given to the Treasury Department to pay down the national debt. The bill would also bar the future purchase of property in the United States or U.S. territories by the U.N. or any of its agencies, and revokes the diplomatic privileges and immunities that U.N. officials and representatives currently enjoy.

“I refuse to sit idly by while Americans are forced to host Islamofascist dictators, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so they can spew anti-American rhetoric just blocks from Ground Zero,” Tancredo continued.

Not to mention the corruption (Oil for Food) and scams (Kyoto).

h/t: Hot Air

Elections Canada clears Friends of Science

Elections Canada has cleared the Friends of Science Society of accusations of wrongdoing during the 2006 federal election by running radio ads without registering with Elections Canada as a third-party advertiser.

Jean-Claude Bernais, the chief investigator at Elections Canada, concluded that the Friends of Science was not required to register as a third party during the campaign since the radio ads did not fall under the definition of "election advertising."

"The audio statements do not refer to the election nor do they mention any political party or candidate," wrote Moise in a separate letter from Sept. 21, 2007, to an individual who filed the initial complaint. "They do not promote or oppose a registered party, or the election of a candidate. They take the position that the public have been misled about global warming. To the extent that all of the major parties in the 2006 federal election acknowledged the problem of global warming and were taking steps to address it, though in different ways, (the Liberals, NDP, Bloc Quebecois with the Kyoto accord, and the Conservatives with a Made in Canada approach) it would be difficult to conclude that the audio statements by taking a position on global warming, were targeting one particular party or candidate or a particular party's policy."

At the University of Calgary, Professor Barry Cooper is quoted:

"It was a frivolous and vexatious compliant," Cooper said. "It was also an attempt - fortunately unsuccessful in this instance - of stifling debate."

See also the Friends of Science website.

David Warren

is interviewed by Greta Van Susterin re the recent hate piece about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin by the CBC's Heather Mallick.
Warren takes a jab at the Canadian Human Rights Commissions at the end of the video.

h/t: Hot Air.

Dion shifting away from Green Shift

The current leader of the Liberal Party, Stéphane Dion has been gradually shifting away from his proposal for a shifty green carbon tax.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said today that his Green Shift plan featuring a controversial carbon tax is not a major part of his election platform.

"You have said it was but never me," Dion told reporters.

His surprise declaration follows by a day campaign appearances in the Toronto area where he failed to mention it once in his speeches.

Not a major part of his platform? What nonsense! The Conservatives published this today.

Stéphane Dion used to say that his risky carbon tax scheme was “the heart of our strategy”. (Kingston Whig Standard, July 26, 2008)

It is true though that Dion has been mentioning his "Green Shift" tax less and less often in his election speeches per this graph from the CPC website:

Dion's Green Shift has been criticized because a) it is too difficult to understand, b) the details have yet to be worked out, b) Canadians doubt it will be revenue neutral as promised and c) Dion attempts to explain it only confuse rather than clarify.

Dion has trouble explaining any policy, let alone how a hefty new carbon tax could be a good thing. Take this comment for example:

Rudy Ammeter, the owner of an area farm where Dion released his agricultural plan today – he pledged $1.2 billion in green funding for farmers – told reporters that he wished the party leader would back away from it.

"I have a hard time figuring it out," he said.

The "green professor" Stéphane Dion seems to have realized that Canadians are not buying his shifty green carbon tax and wants to shift the dialog to other issues. But somehow I think that the other parties are not going to let him off the hook on this one.

Update: this has to be the quote of the day...

"Stephane Dion distancing himself from the Green Shift is like Tim Hortons distancing themselves from the donut," Harper said. "Just because the carbon tax is now a hidden agenda, doesn't mean it's going to go away."