Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Debunked In Under 10 Seconds

Bishop Hill finds a GISS Climatologist (Andrew Lascis) saying bad things about the Executive Summary of IPCC Report Chapter 9 in the reviewers' comments pertaining to that chapter! Oh My! Another "Climategate" scandal!

But wait! Lascis had problems with the summary's first draft! By draft number three, Mr. Lascis' issues seem to have been addressed!

Carry on.

PS. What does this episode really show us? Scientists had a disagreement. They argued about it. They came to a resolution! The system worked!!

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Another Wildrose Pickup?


He's the guy got booted from the Alberta Tories after he criticized the provincial government after it cancelled plans for a long-term seniors' care facility in Fort McMurray. There's been speculation he might cross for at least a week or so now.

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$10,000,000 For A Beer Tent?

The feds have been taking some flack for the Canadian Olympic pavilion in Vancouver and, yeah, it looks like a beer tent. But this site shows a number of the big pavilions for comparison purposes, and for the most part they incline towards the ugly. Alberta House resembles a bus shelter. Saxony House looks like a ginger-bread chalet. And what the hell is that?
Its Irish House, and its definitely (and proudly) a gigantic beer tent. Being right located right next to a pub (Doolin's Irish), it even allows you to simulate an old fashioned Belfast pub crawl, as made famous in Jame Joyce's Ulysses. Just don't get nicked by the Bulls!

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Monday, February 08, 2010

Ezra Backdates

The amazing Buckets has now confirmed Ezra Levant's back-dating of a post that may well prove important to the defamation case being brought against him by CHRC lawyer Giacomo Vigna. Put crudely, Vigna has sued Levant for suggesting that he (Vigna) faked an illness to get out of a CHRT (Canadian Human Rights Tribunal) hearing; in his "Correction" , Levant admits that Vigna was indeed able to secure a doctor's note for whatever ailed him, AND that he turned said note over to the tribunal. All of which Levant had asserted previously was NOT THE CASE.

In the comments to a previous post, lawyer Ted Betts speculated as to why Levant's correction might have been issued in the first place:

By back-dating a post, it does not appear in the blog aggregator, exposing it to the eyes of so many more people. Try it with Liblogs or Progressive Bloggers.

A defamation claim is about harm to one's reputation because of the publication of falsehoods. In a defamation suit, therefore an apology is important for two reasons.

First, if you lose, you can claim the penalty should be less since the harm caused to the plaintiff's reputation was eliminated or at least lessened by a retraction or apology in the same publication. i.e. anyone who saw the first falsehood would have seen the retraction and therefore the reputation was unharmed.

Second - and this is fairly new law - it is an important defence to show that, even if the facts you relayed were false, you were not acting maliciously but based on what you thought was true and the moment you found out your information was incorrect, you apologized or retracted. In fact, the failure to apologize, clarify or retract a known falsehood when given the chance can be taken against you.

Which makes the back-dating even more interesting since, by back-dating it and minimizing the number of people who see it, it defeats the purpose of publishing it in the first place.

And this comes out a day before the case is due to start! Damn that's raw!

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Say, How DId That Happen... Part II

Yesterday, I suggested that Ezra Levant might have back-dated a post in which he retracted some of the false information he had been pushing re Giacomo Vigna, a CHRC lawyer that Levant will be meeting in an Ottawa courtroom tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM.

Buckets asked why somebody would care to back date a post? Well--and I am of course speculating here--when you have so many acolytes following your defamation cases, some of whom are also getting sued, often because they took your word as truth on some point or another, and you are forced to make an embarrassing factual concession to one of your legal opponents... Maybe you want to do so in a manner that will bring as little attention to the admission as possible. Stick your "correction" among week-old posts where most people are likely to miss it.

In any case, much of the evidence for back-dating came from the comments to this particular post. For one thing, there were only three there originally (plus one test comment I made yesterday) as opposed to the 30 or 40 a Levant post usually generates. Furthermore, while the post itself was dated January 18th, the earliest comment to it was from the 23rd, almost a week later.

Yesterday, sometime during the evening...those comments were made to disappear (as CC pointed out in my comments). By whom, I wonder? And to what end?

Cue the theme from The Twilight Zone!

Doo Doo Doo Doo
Doo Doo Doo Doo
Doo Doo Doo Doo
Doo Doo Doo Doo

...in the key of B minor.

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NANOS Confirms Collapse

The Conservatives led by nearly 10 points in mid-November…they are now at 35.6% while the Liberals are at 33.9%...the NDP is at 16.4% and the Greens are at 5.6%...in Québec, the Bloc is at 33.2%...the Liberals are at 29.3%...the Conservatives are at 22.2% and the NDP are at 10.5%.

Nanos last(?) poll had the Tories just short of 40%. owever, the improvement noted here and elsewhere apparently isn't enough to tempt federal Libs towards bringing down the government in March, which probably wouldn't work anyway with Mr. Layton not at 100% and, therefore, probably looking to avoid the stress of a campaign. One would hope though, that, the Libs will now oppose some of the pending legislation that's athema to their core support (C-391, anybody?) a little more forcefully. Some people, me at least, would like to see them win one or two as the opposition.

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Sunday, February 07, 2010

I Wonder

...if Tory MP Rod Bruinooge would explain where he gets information about "sex-select abortions" in Canada. He might also explain why the Tories have been systematically defunding the Canadian Federation of Sexual Health. When he gets a moment.

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Say, How Did That Happen

An interesting post from Ezra Levant dated January 18th. I say interesting because, well, I missed it at the time, which (if you know me) is a bit surprising. Also, such comments as were made in response to the post are all dated from January 23rd and later. The post's title: Correction, and in it Ezra retracts some false information he gave out re Giacomo Vigna, whose lawsuit against the Ez goes forward this week.

Wonder if there's any way to show whether or not the Ez wrote it later and back-dated it?

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Outta Dough?

Has Speechy Warrior Jay Currie discovered that, while speech may be free, web-space costs at least 5$ per month?

It wouldn't be the first time.

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Saturday, February 06, 2010

Could Two Wrongs Make A Right?

Could racist whackjob (and former Reform Party MP) Jim Pankiw pull enough votes from the homophobic but extremely hot Tory MP Brad Trost to throw Saskatoon-Humboldt to the NDP? Pankiw received 20% of the vote when he ran last.

And is it wrong to support Evil to prevent a Greater Evil? How about contribute to its campaign?

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On Stiffing The Grassroots

CPoC Central moves to protect Rob Anders, Canada's worst MP. This story has been unfolding for a couple of years now. Calgary West is one of the country's safest ridings: the Tories could run a three-legged gopher there and win by a mile. Yet attempts by the local riding association to find someone a little less embarrassing over the years have been constantly rebuffed.

PS. OT (but there is a Levant/Anders connection, click on 3rd link above), Ezra has been dinged by the Law Society of Alberta and, yeah, I was right, Levant v. Vigna kicks off next week.

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Friday, February 05, 2010

Jack's Back

...will force him to step down (temporarily?) as NDP party leader? Apparently not:

Karl Belanger, Layton’s press secretary, said in an e-mail to Canwest News Service that Layton is not stepping down. He also said he was not running for Toronto mayor.

Well, this seems to rule out a serious health issue. Thank goodness for that.

PS: Word on twitter is he will leave his leaadership duties for "several months".

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Harper War Room Cranks Up Smear Machine

[Sinister music. Deep voice. Grainy footage of a deep fryer.]

Onion rings.

They’re round.

Know what else was round?

Hitler’s head.

Apparently there's 10%er in the works as well, in which the onion ring is accused of anti-Semitism.

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It Is The "O"ne: Onion Ring Addresses Supporters

On the afternoon of February 4th, an onion ring, plucked from anonymity at a Swiss Chalet in Etobicoke (eh-TOE-bih-coh), Ontario, became more popular on Facebook than Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In barely more than a day, 35,000 Canadians spoke out, and their voice conveyed one message: we would rather be governed by a loop of battered & sauteed onion.

On Thursday afternoon the onion ring spoke to supporters on Parliament Hill.

Now, you're reading this here because MSM coverage of the event was scandalously poor. And since I'm writing it up for no money, you're not getting a full transcript. Fuck that. But, in brief, the onion ring has demanded Stephen Harper's resignation, and has offered to assume the Prime Ministership in his place. In a most magnanimous gesture, the onion ring attempted to reach out to Canadians who can't condone or have a moral objection to or simply don't like onion rings. It has agreed to participate in a coalition government with several other popular fast food items, a coalition of the grilling, if you will, although the French Fries are willing to be served au souvęreignist.

With help from Imp and artist friends.

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Thursday, February 04, 2010

Harper And The Senate: The People Have Spoken

And An Onion Ring Shall Lead Them All


I have just joined the Facebook group Can this Onion Ring get more fans than Stephen Harper? So far we are up to 9,000 "ringers". At 10,000 the ring will make its first public statement. It is rumored that it will demand fries.
Remember, when the onion rings, answer it.

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Stephen Harper: Cancel Easter!

OTTAWA – Stung by public criticism that they put Parliament on an extended Christmas break, the federal Conservatives want to cancel week-long breaks in March and around Easter, saying that MPs have a “lot of work to do.”

Both Libs and NDP have already said OK, so what did that accomplish? Not much of a trap. Meanwhile, the increasingly isolated Mr. Spector insists that the opposition parties are playing checkers, while Harper is playing an electric kazoo amped up to 11.

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

The State of Mann

Penn State's investigation of Michael Mann's scientific behavior, as brought to light by the hacked CRU emails, has completed its inquiry phase. The report can be found here. Quickly:

1) Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data?

No substance to allegation.

2) Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?

No substance to allegation.

3) Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to you in your capacity as an academic scholar?

No substance to allegation.

4) Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities?

After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee could not make a definitive finding whether there exists any evidence to substantiate that Dr. Mann did engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities. It is the case that there has been a public outcry from some quarters that Dr. Mann and his colleagues did deviate from what some observers claim to be standard academic practice. All disciplines and scientific fields work within broad bounds of "accepted scientific" practice that apply to all researchers. However, within different disciplines of science there are additional elements of accepted practice that may be specific to those disciplines and therefore are different from those of other disciplines and fields. For example, accepted practices in a field of pure mathematics, such as number theory, may differ markedly from those in a field such as socio-biology. This is axiomatic. That said, the committee could not make a definitive finding on this allegation for reasons that follow.

[...]


Decision 4. Given that information emerged in the form of the emails purloined from CRU in November 2009, which have raised questions in the public’s mind about Dr. Mann’s conduct of his research activity, given that this may be undermining confidence in his findings as a scientist, and given that it may be undermining public trust in science in general and climate science specifically, the inquiry committee believes an investigatory committee of faculty peers from diverse fields should be constituted under RA-10 to further consider this allegation.

Worth noting that the committee, recognizing that the Mann case was being used as a proxy for larger questions surrounding the science of AGW, were careful to exclude these latter questions from consideration.

Update: Mann speaks:

"I am very pleased that, after a thorough review, the independent Penn State committee found no evidence to support any of the allegations against me.

Three of the four allegations have been dismissed completely. Even though no evidence to substantiate the fourth allegation was found, the University administrators thought it best to convene a separate committee of distinguished scientists to resolve any remaining questions about academic procedures."

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Ezra Regrets...

According to WK, Mr. Levant is looking to dodge his court date with Giacomo Vigna. Come visit Ontario, Ez. We got 2 way streets out here. Although, admittedly, February in Ottawa is damn cold.

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10%ers As Guerilla Marketing

Leveraging an audience of a few thousand home-owners who are likely to send them straight down the garbage chute into national exposure...and they haven't even been printed yet.

But lets be clear: the only people interested in investigating our military for war-crimes are Tory partisans, and they're only raising the idea to fend off an investigation of the government's role in the detainee issue.

Their argument: punish Tory politicians and the soldier boys get it.

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Money For What?

WHAT THE DEVIL IS ACOA* DOING BLOWING $800K ON A 3-DAY CFL EVENT ?

Update: Worse than thought. Imagine blowing $1.5M so that 15-20,000 people can attend a CFL game in Moncton, of all places. Is cable on the fritz again ? According to ACOA mucky-muck Richard Gauthier who was kind enough to email this scribbler, "the Government of Canada, through ACOA, is investing $800,000 and the Province of New Brunswick is providing $700,000 towards marketing and venue infrastructure costs to host the first CFL regular season game in Atlantic Canada to be held in Moncton on September 26, 2010 between the Toronto Argonauts and Edmonton Eskimos as part of the three-day Touchdown Atlantic weekend". You've got to love the hubris. But where the heck was that irascible Pete MacKay when this thing got spitballed ?

*ACOA is the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Torys' pork dispensing unit in The Maritimes.

An obviously questionable use of stimulous money. Blowing $800,000 on an "event" vs. repairing a highway or something like that. Like setting a big bubble-making machine down in the middle of a field and having it blow bubbles for a few days, then taking it away.

From Bourque.

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