Sun Media Shuts Down Three More

The Lac du Bonnet Leader, The Beausejour Review, and The Meadow Lake Progress.  The market cannot support and yada yada yada.  Its always that.  Its never: "We up here in management couldn't find our ass with both hands".

Your Daily Nazi: Will McCorkell's Coins Become Nazi Loot?

I see the story about Canadian chemist Robert McCorkell 's wlling his estate, including a collection of ancient coins, to the National Alliance has gained some traction in the MSM, although its been floating around white nationalist websites for five or six years now (warning: link goes to Stormfront). Here's a good piece on why McCorkell's estate may never wind up in the hands of the Alliance.

Out of curiosity, I searched around  for a few shots from his collection.  Below's one from when they were housed at the University of Saskatchewan museum of Antiquities:

This one is labelled as: Ancient Libyan coin (Kyrene, 322–308 BC, gold drachm)

Here's another:

It was subject of a U-of-Sask. experiment to determine its provenance, and is probably Greek or Roman.

Pity if the fate of these coins was to wind up helping  finance a hate group.

Your Daily Nazi: U.S. Nazis Inherit Canuck Gold?

An odd story, this.  A Canadian nutter has bequeathed  $1,000,000 in ancient gold coins and other valuables to the National Alliance, an American hate/terror group.  The Canadian government may be lobbied to stop the transfer.  And a few familiar figures are involved.  So: one to keep an eye on.

Harper Owes Us A Plan

From Simon Donner, of UBC:

For about a decade, the explanation for a lack of coherent Canadian climate policy was the lack of a coherent American climate policy. How could our federal government move forward with actions like regulations, carbon pricing, renewable portfolio standards, international agreements or adaptation plans without our largest trading partner and BFF?  

[...]

Now the U.S has a plan. No, it is not perfect, but it is far more advanced that any plan proposed by any sitting President or Prime Minister.

The ball is in our court. Time for Canada, time for Canadians, to define "as appropriate".

Indeed.  We are waiting, Mr. Prime Minister.

Pam Geller Banned From U.K.

Pam Geller has been banned from the U.K. for espousing views not "conducive to the public good".  She is, let us just say, chuffed, and her Canuck supporters overfoam with hatred and rage.   Here's part of the letter  Ms. Geller received:

A bit of a local angle to this story.  Pam hit town last month.  Tried to anyway.  Her engagement at the Chabad Flamingo synagogue in Thornhill got cancelled due to pressure from various quarters and she wound up performing at the T.O. Zionist Center before a crowd of the usuals.  A number of people within the GTA Jewish community, including Bernie Farber and the Toronto Board of Rabbis, condemned her appearance, and took heck for it on the blogs and on Sun TV and elsewhere.  That the UK home office has adopted a similar opinion of Ms. Geller's writing and behavior has got to be seen as sweet vindication for these folks.

PS.  I'm getting mixed signals on the fate of C-304, but  indications are that it has passed and the hate speech provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act is, for the time-being, dead.  But of course, it has recently been declared (yet again) constitutional, and resurrecting it under a Trudeau government would therefore be a snap.  Remember, Harper's gang was too frightened of this issue to put forward an official government bill and instead snuck it in as a PMB so as to avoid scrutiny.  The only people in support of C-304 are nazis, nuts, teenage libertarians, and journalists, and as a political coalition, this is one most MPS will want to run away from screaming.  The CPC won't put up a fight if S-13 or something similar resurrected in the light of day.  Meanwhile, haters will have to be pursued via the criminal code.  Ask Arthur Topham what that's like.

A Note On Ontario Defamation Law

...re defamation on-line:

Single Publication Rule Rejected in Ontario

The Court rejected the defendants' argument that the American "single publication rule" for mass publications should apply. This rule holds that a plaintiff alleging defamation has a single cause of action which arises at the first publication of an alleged libel, regardless of the number of copies of the publication distributed or sold. As the Court explained, "the entire edition of a newspaper, book or magazine is treated as a single publication when it is first made available to the public. Later distributions of the same edition are relevant to the assessment of damages but do not create a new cause of action or a new limitation period." If the single publication rule were to apply in Shtaif, the limitation period applicable to the plaintiffs' claim – including both the print and online articles – would have expired six weeks after the print article was first published.

Following courts in England, Australia, and British Columbia, the Court rejected the single publication rule in Ontario as being inconsistent with the limitations provisions of the LSA, and because the Court had previously affirmed the traditional English rule that "every republication of a libel is a new libel." Even if the single publication rule were to be considered in Ontario, the Court stated that it should not be applied across different mediums of communication. This aspect of the ruling was motivated by a concern of a potential injustice that might arise where the original publication was in print form, perhaps in a magazine with a limited circulation and lifespan, as opposed to a republication of that same publication on the Internet, where its circulation may be vast and its lifespan potentially unlimited. In this portion of the ruling, the Court echoed prior statements to the effect that defamation on the Internet is potentially more harmful than defamation through traditional print media.

Shtaif makes clear that where an alleged libel is republished across different mediums, including the Internet, those republications will be treated as distinct libels. As a result, plaintiffs retain significant flexibility in choosing which allegedly libelous publications they might wish to sue upon.

So there you have it.

CPC MP John Carmichael Sounds Off

Don't know if this was issued from Party Central or from straight from The Heart, but John Carmichael's latest email to supporters says a brisk bye bye to Brent Rathgeber and disowns a couple of (former) Tory Senators:

Again, it's easier to read when you click on the .jpg.  Also, I've excised the last couple of paragraphs re recent government acomplishments.

The President's Climate Action Plan

From the fact sheet:

We have a moral obligation to leave our children a planet that’s not polluted or damaged, and by taking an all of-the-above approach to develop homegrown energy and steady, responsible steps to cut carbon pollution, we can protect our kids’ health and begin to slow the effects of climate change so we leave a cleaner, more stable environment for future generations. Building on efforts underway in states and communities across the country, the President’s plan cuts carbon pollution that causes climate change and threatens public health. Today, we have limits in place for arsenic, mercury and lead, but we let power plants release as much carbon pollution as they want – pollution that is contributing to higher rates of asthma attacks and more frequent and severe floods and heat waves.

The whole plan can be found here.

The most important initiative is that the President will call for the EPA to set new carbon emissions limits for NEW and EXISTING power plants.  The new limits will go into effect in 2015.  There will also be a call for stricter building codes at home and seven billion for emerging economies so they might prepare for whatever effects AGW brings down upon them. The "all-of the above" approach mentioned also puts a lot of attention of developing U.S. natural gas reserves as a "bridge fuel' to renewables.  So there's continued fracking in that country's future.  Nothing in the plan requires congressional approval.  And, incidentally, there's nothing about Keystone XL at all in the document.

Dear Tim Hortons,

You don't know how to make iced coffee.  You say you do.  It's on your menu.  But you don't. Because it isn't iced coffee that comes out of your taps.  Rather, it is room temperature coffee--probably stuff you forgot to dump down the sink--into which you plop a glob of caramel and two (count 'em two)  inadequate, in fact rather sad looking, ice-cubes.  Which cubes are so over-matched by the not cold and yet far from hot liquid around them that they can accomplish nothing by way of rendering that liquid "icy" but do manage to thin it out a bit when they have finally melted.  So the poor sap who purchased this caffeinated abortion is  left clutching an ever-stickier cup of diluted, body-temperature coffee as their bus crawls its way through the barrens of East Scarborough.

And, Mr. Tim, I will simply note that this was the worst coffee drinking experience I've ever had that didn't involve finding a dead junky in the mensroom at Coffee Time.  I will be taking the gay stuff at Satanbuck's from now on, thank you very much.  For though the place is staffed entirely by Freedom hating Taliban loving art school dropouts with green hair and rings through their nose, they understand how to serve coffee chilled.

Your organization clearly does not.

Does It Come With A Free Bowl Of Soup?

TERRACE, B.C. - The equity offer from Northern Gateway to aboriginal groups along the route of a controversial oil pipeline would amount to as little as $70,000 a year for some bands, according to one base offer obtained by The Canadian Press.

HOW MUCH?  That's less than I make in a year.  Oh yeah, and if you thought Enbridge was lying about the level of support their pipeline has among the first nations along the B.C. leg of its route...

Northern Gateway has said 60 per cent of aboriginal groups along the pipeline route have signed on....In B.C., 27 offers were made and 11 First Nations signed up.

It’s more than the two bands that have acknowledged the agreements, but less than the 60 per cent claimed by Enbridge.

They were.  Or their people can't add.  So, presumably...lies.

Someone Tell David Akin!

How will Leonard Cohen feel when he picks up NY Times and finds out he's dead, according to the Style section? pic.twitter.com/3nNhPjLnFS
— Jessica Allen (@jessieraeallen) June 23, 2013

Fourniers Lose In Court

I've got to be a bit mysterious here, though I doubt my readers can keep straight all of the legal actions FreeD owners Mark and Connie Fournier are caught up in these days anyway.  Suffice to say that they've lost another round in one of them:

You can see it better if you click on the image, but to paraphrase the judge: "You facts are feeble, your argument is crap.  I am taking 4,000 of your $s and giving them to lawyers....Sssuckahs!"  Looks like Mark and Connie will be doing another fundraiser soon.

Polls And Positivity

Another poll showing the LPoC up, in majority territory even, and by a respected pollster.  Two years out and its meaningless and yada yada yada.  Interesting, however, to speculate on what it says about Justin's "relentlessly positive" approach to politics.  Probably not much.  I don't think the Trudeau camp is dumb enough to mean any of that stuff.  What they mean is that the leader will deliver the sunny side, while some pasty-faced dude in front of a computer will be digging for Tory dirt.  Because, as Stephen Harper has yet to learn after seven years in power, you don't do your own knife work.  My buddy Niccolò D once said: you hire other people to bring the pain; you just keep smiling.  But believe me, Justin has those other people.  If not an actual Prince of Darkness than at least a Bishop of Badass.  Out there.  Lurking.

On The Demise Of Local News

The Midland Free Press closed its doors yesterday.  Nothing much has been made of it.  Another paper going under is not news these days.  However, Kate Harris of AWARE Simcoe  has a nice obit for the paper, and a few words of warning:

I was happy to be in the fine tradition of two centuries of local newspapers when there was a reporter sitting at every council meeting to write up the proceedings. The public was informed. Democracy was served. Now, many councils meet without any media in attendance. The P.R. machine substitutes for a free press. And it’s not free. On your tax dollar, Springwater Township - for instance - and Simcoe County each have a communications department whose job it is to write ‘news’ that makes the elected politicians look good. And the newspapers that survive print these ‘news’ releases without identifying them as P.R. hackery. After all, who can afford a reporter?

These items look just like news articles – and people respond to them as if they are the genuine article. 

But they’re partisan and paid for – by the politicians, who they serve but ultimately, by you, the people, who have the most to lose when another newspaper bites the dust.

The Bad Comic Vs. The Rowdy Lesbian, Part Bazillion

I've written about the Earle/Pardy case many a times.  Essentially, an amateur comedian named Guy Earle went off on a lesbian couple during an open mike comedy show that he was MCing.  One of the couple, Lorna Pardy, took Earle and the restaurant owner to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, claiming that she had been discriminated against  under Section 8 of the B.C. Human Rights Code, which disallows "discrimination in accommodation, service and facility".  Basically, she claimed that a restaurant employee--Earle--had verbally/physically assaulted her because she was lesbian.  Pardy  won, handily.  But Earle appealed, and attempted to convince BC Supreme Court that his assault on Pardy was part of his performance, and therefore protected speech.  Yesterday the court told him "no way":

 “In the restaurant that night, Mr Earle was an emcee who reacted to the disruption caused by the movement of some patrons, including Ms Pardy, to a new table (by the restaurant management). Ms Pardy and her companions that night were not hecklers. And Mr Earle was not giving a comedy performance when he launched into his tirade of ugly words directed at Ms Pardy.”

The judge also referenced Whatcott to establish the notion some limits to free speech are "reasonable", but the gist of the ruling is, as noted above, that Earle was not engaged in an artistic performance at the time.  He was acting more along the lines of a waiter who flew off the handle at the sight of lesbians.  So his  appeal to free speech was inappropriate on this occasion.

Another QMI Paper Bites Dust

Midland Press closed this morning with a loss of five jobs, though it doesn't look as though they have bothered to put up notice of the fact on their website:

Did Midland even get a farewell in their print edition? I looked online and I don't see anything. I'm also not seeing anything on their website. If not, that's just horrible.

PS. Ugly signs from Postmedia today too:

Some Postmedia employees freaked out by news COO visiting newsrooms and they are "encouraged" to attend. Company says just routine updates.
— Steve Ladurantaye (@sladurantaye) June 19, 2013

Tory Appointees Move To Muscle Bill C-304 Through Senate

The link is to Marc Lemire's site (one-time leader of the white supremacist Heritage Front), so you may not want to click though, but what he's saying sounds right: the Senate Tories are no longer allowing their Liberal counter-parts to adjourn debate on Bill C-304.  By the end of the month, it may be a little bit easier to spread Hate in Canada.  A gift to the Tory base in time for their summer convention.

PS.  Although in the next day's Hansard (18th) Senator Lovelace Nicholas successfully adjourns debate again!  Maybe this will get dragged out longer than Marc seems to think.

Trouble In Ford Nation

This guy is not some kind of downtown elitist.  Or the guy mentioned here.  Nor are the folks that typically attend the Taste of Little Italy.  His base is starting to crumble on him.

Bill C-304: The Final Battle?

LeBreton confirms #SenCA will sit into July if necessary to pass bills on order paper, including C-377. #cdnpoIi
— Jordan Press (@jordan_press) June 18, 2013

The other bill they want to pass is C-304, which would strip section 13 (the hate speech clause) from the Canadian Human Rights Act.  When Senate Leader Marjory LeBreton first suggested the possibility of an extension, James Cowan suggested that the Liberal minority would fight if the Tories brought  in closure or time allocation.  If he's serious, I'm pretty sure the Libs up there can stall this one past the end of session.  Then, assuming parliament gets prorogued (as everyone seems to think), the bill goes back to the back of the Queue. Hey presto!  Stalled for another year or three!   Lets see what kind of resistance our lads and lasses are willing to put up.

PM Harper Officially Off Diet

That is all.

Justin Ascends To Enormous Heights

This, then, is the measure of  the man!  O Glorious, GLORIOUS Justin!!!  Myself I wouldn't have offered a penny back to these silver-haired con-artists!  No!  I would have told them to go stuff it, and if that didn't appease 'em I'd  have  melted 'em down into bricks of Soylent Green and feed 'em to the wretched youth, whose  job prospects these days are looking increasingly grim as the riches of  the nation go towards maintaining our aged in the opulent manner to which they have become accustomed.  Guys my age and Justin's age won't  be able to retire until we're 80, and the folks younger than us will do worse.  All so that everyone in dad's generation gets a gold plated walker with a jet-back on the side...diamond inlays for their sports dentures!  The whole bloody works!  I'd've given 'em what for!  But Justin is a bigger person than me, and chose the way of peace.  This truly is what leaders are made of.

We're #1 (In Oil Spills((Especially Alberta)))

A toxic waste spill in northern Alberta has killed off roughly 42 hectares of boreal forest, in what could be the biggest environmental disaster in North America in recent history.

The Tar sands...salting everything they touch.

Anti-OLP Sentiment On The Rise?

Apparently not:

A rally was held today at Queen’s Park to oppose the Liberal Party government of Ontario. It was supposed to call attention to their crimes and scandals.

[...]

The event was a total disappointment. Less than 100 people showed up, most of them middle-aged or elderly.

There's more.  Some of its sexist, but all in a tone of sour disappointment that I found very amusing.  There's a video clip of some guy talking.  A camera man films part of it, gets bored, wanders away...  Somebody bangs their walker on the ground in a threatening manner....  The revolution obviously needs some viagra.

Chinese Academy Of Sciences Issues A Statement; Heartland Institute Issues A Grovelling Apology

First, from the CAS site:

The Chinese translation of the “Climate Change Reconsidered—NIPCC Report” was organized by the Information Center for Global Change Studies, Scientific Information Center for Resources and Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was published in May 2013 through Science Press. However, the Heartland Institute published the news titled “Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes Heartland Institute research skeptical of Global Warming” in a strongly misleading way on its website, implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) supports their views, in contrary to what is clearly stated in the Translators’ Note in the Chinese translation.

To clarify the fact, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is now making an official statement as follows:

Firstly, the translation is organized by the Information Center for Global Change Studies, Scientific Information Center for Resources and Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and published by Science Press as a product of science communication aiming at introducing diverse academic arguments.

Secondly, neither the translation nor the publication represents any views of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or its affiliations on related issues.

Thirdly, it is earnestly called upon by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to the general public not to accept and disseminate any misleading information related to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Now from HI's Jim Lakeley:

"Some people interpreted our news release and a blog post describing this event as implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences endorses the views contained in the original books. This is not the case, and we apologize to those who may have been confused by these news reports.

"To be clear, the release of this new publication does not imply CAS and any of its affiliates involved with its production 'endorse' the skeptical views contained in the report. Rather, as stated in the translator's preface of the book, 'The work of these translators, organizations and funders has been in the translation and the promotion of scientific dialogue, does not reflect that they agree with the views of NIPCC.' "

I have not reproduced HI's full statement out of decency's sake; click through the link to experience the full measure of Jim Lakely's self-abasement.  The date on Google Search (6 hours ago) suggests that Jim was up at midnight last night rhetorically flogging himself, which is unusual.  Its more typically HI to try and bluster their way through.

Oh, and in case you haven't been following, background is here and here.

What's Bugging The Great Lakes?

GLEAM, the Great Lakes Environmental Assessment and Mapping Project, has a series of interactive maps of Great Lake Stressors.  I've included a couple related to Global Warming:

Water Level Change

Water Temperature Warming

Decreased Ice Cover

As you can see, T.O. and surrounding gets off pretty easy in regards to climate-change-related stressors, although it is located in one of the parts of the lakes under greatest stress when all issues are taken into consideration.  Our particular problems seem to mostly involve toxins.

Heartland Institute/CAS Story Makes UK Guardian

And the story links back to me, so you know its got cred.

Kinder Morgan Oil Pipe Spills

CALGARY - The National Energy Board (NEB or Board) is responding to a crude oil release on the TransMountain Pipeline southwest of Merritt, BC owned and operated by Kinder Morgan Canada. The size of the spill has yet to be determined by the NEB. There is no immediate safety concern for local residents and precautions are being taken to ensure continued public safety.

This is, of course, the other pipeline slated to be built through Beautiful British Columbia.

Update:

Bad timing award: there's been an oil spill on the Kinder Morgan pipeline, one day before Clark and Redford meet to talk pipelines. #bcpoli
— Keith Baldrey (@keithbaldrey) June 13, 2013

Cooperation Between The Heartland Institute And The Chinese Academy Of Sciences: Much Less than Meets The Eye

Breitbart News has reported that the Heartland Institute--an infamous U.S. think-tank that shilled for both the oil and tobacco companies in times past--has teamed up the with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to publish Chinese translations of HI's Climate Change Reconsidered papers, which are attempted "rebuttals" of the IPCC consensus report on global warming:

The volumes, Climate Change Reconsidered and Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report, are chock full of 1,200 pages of peer-reviewed data concerning the veracity of anthropogenic climate change. Together, they represent the most comprehensive rebuttal of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings, which have been the basis of the climate change legislation movement across the planet.

And here is shot of the publication's cover:

However, Breitbart makes it sound as though CAS has endorsed HI's rebuttal and has reconsidered its stand on the IPCC consensus, which the academy previously supported.  This is not the case.  CAS was kind enough to respond to an email query I sent them with the following:

(Note: as usual, you can read it easier if you click on the image)

So, CAS has NOT changed its mind re the facts of AGW, and indeed whatever cooperation took place was between one branch of CAS and HI, not the former organization as a whole (its governing body, as it were).

Once again, the folks at Heartland have wildly exaggerated events, if not lied about them.

Note: The "mistaken" news release announcing the translation has been pulled from the UCAS website.  Perhaps the CAS is distancing itself from the "Lanzhou branch"?

Hamlet On The Don

That's what John Tory is.  Nothing is never ruled in, nothing is ever ruled out...until at the last minute a phone call comes saying that the big guy has decided to skip yet another round of politicking.  Who would waste time and money organizing for a candidate who can never decide if he wants to run?  An alternative to Olivia and the Fat Man would be nice, but please...no endless dithering.

Oil Spill In Sarnia

An oil leak was discovered around 8:30 this morning at a site just south of Enbridge’s property on Indian Road. 

Its Enbridge property [or not, see the note below, but not necessarily their oil.  Imperial Oil and Plains Midstream also have pipelines sharing the same right-of-way, according to the brief audio that accompanies the story through link.

Note:  Someone tells me in the comments that its actually on Imperial Oil Property.  I've changed the headline.

Is The Toronto Sun Monitoring/Sacking Staffers Who Post To Sun-Watching Website?

Some speculation on TorontoSunFamily Blog:

Anyone wondering why there's not more "news" on this site should know that most of the people who used to post here are already gone. It's also commonly known that anyone caught posting here will be marked for termination.

And:

I worked in that environment, and know that managers have a pretty good idea who might be commenting. There's certainly been a lot of speculating, and once management begins speculating about you you're done anyway.

And:

No one has been terminated for posting on here where I work. I know they suspect certain people, but they have no proof.

Worth noting whenever the paper pleads freedom o' speech for whatever reason.

Wind Farms And Waterfowl...Not Much Effect

Ducks don't particularly like nesting around them:

One nesting site had a 56-percent lower breeding pair density than a similar site with no wind turbines. Overall, the number of breeding ducks using wetlands near the wind farms was 20 percent lower than in wetlands with no wind development nearby.

But on the other hand, they will if they have to.

In even better news, turbines don't kill too many of them during breeding season:

“Females get involved in some pretty territorial courtship flights and we hypothesized that they tend to be less aware of their surroundings during this period. Basically, we wanted to know if they were vulnerable to flying into the path of a turbine blade,” says [Tanner] Gue. “Because female survival during the breeding season is a strong population driver, we focused on females.”

Of the 165 birds marked, just one mallard died after being struck by a blade. Gue and fellow researchers also monitored 145 teal and mallards on a nearby site that did not have windmills.

“We wanted to compare overall mortality rates to see if wind development might lead to higher rates of predation. It turned out mortality rates were pretty similar,” he says.

So there you have it.

Cavoukian Fed A Line Of BS

JIMMO is still talking  OLP "cover-up", but his account of how files get stored and backed-up sounds right enough, as does his assertion that Anne Cavoukian has been misinformed re how difficult it is to recover the lost emails at the center of the l'affair de gas plant:



And in fact I would second his point at the end: that an independent data recovery team might still be able to pull lost data from the servers in question, and therefore one should be called in.  That's because I suspect that were the contents of these emails to be made known they would tell us little more than what we have already discovered, which is that the OLP panicked towards the end of the last election campaign and blew a ton of money to save a couple of ridings they would have won anyway.  In other words, there are no secrets hidden in them; what the Libs did was all done pretty much up front and in public.

Incidentally, the video also seems to clarify a point WK made a few days ago:

[Cavoukian] pays no heed to the fact that records of emails concerning government business were kept by officials, and/or the government server, for many months and ultimately deleted only by them...

What happened on the hard-drive of some Premier's aide is far less important to the ultimate fate of the emails than what happened on the governments' servers.  Whether or not emails were deleted from personal PCs to keep in-boxes tidy (or to cover something up--who knows?) would have no bearing on whether they were kept or not on the servers they passed through.  And archiving material on the servers is someone else's responsibility (not our hypothetical aide's); if there was any failure of diligence, that's where it would have occurred.

Justin Trudeau, Posing With Babes...

 Meanwhile here's the best Stephen Harper could do last time he visited Europe.

Smart Guy Talks PRISM, Is Sceptical

Connelley used to do climate scientist.  He knows computers up the wazoo, and is in general a badass and not easily taken in.  He thinks there is less to PRISM than the hype surrounding it would suggest.  He's worth a read.  Probably his most immediately compelling argument is that the funding behind the project is not nearly what you would require to spy on the entire planet:

Another thing that suggests strongly to me that this is only an analysis-of-received-data type operation is the price tag: $20M/y. That doesn’t sound like the kind of money to fund searching through all of even just Google’s vast hoards of data, let alone all the rest.

Meanwhile this guy is angling for both hero-dom and martyrdom.   We'll see over the course of the next couple of days whether he's earned either.

Olivia Chow--Gonna Run For T.O. Mayor?

I just got a robo-call from Olivia in her role as MP asking me to tune-in to a live call later this week re public transit.  Since much of the country doesn't have and doesn't give  a crap about public transit, I am assuming it will have something to do with her alleged interest in the 2014 T.O. mayoralty race.  We shall see.

Rock & Roll & Tinnitus

A couple of years ago I began to experience a persistent dizziness, as though I were walking down a floating pier that rocked up and down with the waves.  I visited my doctor, and he sent me to a specialist, and he  told me to lay off the salt.  I did, and the feeling has gone away since, though it comes back occasionally if I go on a multi-day sodium binge.

But during the same visit the specialist told me that the thing he was most  worried about was my Tinnitus.  I said, "But Doctor, I don't have tinnitus."  He replied: "O yes you do son.  We all have tinnitus."

And when I walked out of his office I could hear a whistling in my ears.  It was the first time I had ever noticed it.

Long story short, the condition was probably caused by the invention of the Sony Walkman. I'd been walking around with one for a good 25 years, listening to screamingly loud music on it.  I can't do that anymore, or the condition will worsen, so I don't follow the new music scene as closely as I'd like.  Here are a couple of tunes, though, that I've been playing a lot the past couple of days.

The first one is from Titus Andronicus's latest, Local Business:

Note that frontman Patrick Stickles has shaven his beard off.  And he's not such an ugly young fellow after all.  I would encourage the youth of today to lose those ugly beards, esp. if they're women.

The next is from Dustin Bentall (that's Barney's kid):

And this last is an older tune from Rock Plaza Central, who made one fabulous album and then seemed to disappear from the face of the Earth.

So there you have it.

Your Daily Nazi: Marc Lemire Throws In The Towel

From Richard Warman's site:

It was only a matter of time after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld civil law controls on hate speech as constitutional in the Whatcott case, but Marc Lemire has finally admitted that his parallel attack on the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibition on Internet hate-speech (s. 13) has been gutted (‘please ignore my legal arguments found at paragraphs 84-115 of my previous Federal Court of Appeal factum’).

[...]

Mr. Lemire caves on the now legally (even more) entrenched facts that civil controls on hate speech are reasonable limits on freedom of expression, are justifiable in a free and democratic society, and are a pressing and substantial objective to avoid the serious damage caused as history has shown. Reading bumps on people’s heads to know what their intent was is still out. Hatred and contempt as narrowly defined by the Supreme Court in Taylor have been properly interpreted by human rights tribunals.

Relevant court docs have been supplied through the link.

I keep writing about this issue because the courts have essentially rejected the various Speechy arguments against S.13 and against hate speech laws in general.  So, even if bill C-304 passes the Senate, a new clause can be inserted into the Canadian Human Rights Act under more favorable circumstances without worrying about constitutional issues.

At the moment, incidentally, C-304 seems pretty thoroughly stalled in the upper house.

National Housing Survey: News From The Senate

In yesterday's QP, Leader of the Government Marjory  LeBreton admits that the voluntary NHS with replaced Stats Canad's mandatory long form census survey requires improvement, and suggests a possible way forward:

This was the first time, honourable senators, that there has been a voluntary long-form census. Clearly, there are some areas that require improvement and, obviously, by the time it is necessary to conduct the next census, the areas of concern will have been addressed.

And:

We have the mandatory short form as well. There have been suggestions by experts that a few more questions could be added to the short form.

This idea, that in future iterations some questions on the voluntary NHS might be transferred to the mandatory short-form, is developed a little more fully later on:

I did indicate that this was the first time there has been a voluntary long-form census. Some groups have indicated that they would like to see the data be more conclusive. These considerations will be taken into account when Statistics Canada and the government prepare the questions for the next long-form census. People will then be more used to the long form. Whatever questions they put on the mandatory form will address the concerns of the groups that feel this does not produce the data they require.

I don't know how much insider knowledge LeBreton has with respect to the thinking within the government's HOC caucus, but shuffling questions to the short form is an interesting option.  However, it is counterproductive according to the reasoning that has been employed on this issue to date.  Move a question to the short form and you are now invading the privacy of 100% of the population rather than the 25% required for the old long form. Which is to say that, in so far as the government wants accurate data it can't protect privacy, and vice versa.

There Is No "Rathgeber" In "Team"

Frankly, quitting over a crappy little Private Member's bill that was little more than a gratuitous shot at the public doesn't impress me.  But, as usual when we have these Tory on Tory struggles, I don't care who wins as long as someone gets hurt.

Property Assessments On Wind Turbines To Rise

Reading between the lines, its been clear that the various players in the green energy energy business haven't been too happy with the Wynne government's wind-down of the feed-in tariff (FIT) for large-scale projects. This article makes their discomfort a little more obvious.  One bit from it mentions something I had not been previously aware of:

There is one change that existing contract holders will have to deal with as the province tries to make sure municipalities see financial benefit from wind projects within their borders. 

"Work with the Ministry of Finance is currently under way to increase the property tax assessment for existing and future wind turbines, and we expect to make an announcement this year," said the 

This has been an issue for the municipalities asked to host wind-farms for awhile now.  They don't think they're getting much out of the deal per turbine:

 St. Clair Township Mayor Steve Arnold says the artificially low assessment means lower tax revenue for the municipality estimating a turbine would generate $500 to $1,000 in taxes. “That’s not a lot of dollars for the local municipalities; that’s what has driven a lot of municipalities to put extra costs onto the projects.”

Arnold says municipalities were led to believe it would up to $10,000 per turbine. “There is a lot of miscommunication.”

Some problems can be solved with money.  We'll see if this is one of them, I guess.  Presumably the cost will fall on the developer, not the land owner.

Compare And Contrast...

...the various parties on the painfully stupid and obviously racist decision by the Quebec Soccer Federation to disallow the wearing of Sikh Turbans for "safety" reasons.

From the CPC:

I see no valid reason why kids should be banned from playing soccer because of their religion. If you agree retweet. bit.ly/135yiS4
— Bal Gosal, MP (@BalGosal) June 4, 2013

 Not bad, but a back-bencher?  Where's the big guy, the leader?

Justin responded  as I knew he would...

Wearing a turban shouldn't stop you from playing soccer or participating fully in any other activity. The #QSF must drop its ban now.
— Justin Trudeau, MP (@JustinTrudeau) June 4, 2013

Subtle and yet vigorous.  Plain spoken and yet diplomatic.

Oh yeah, and this from the NDP:

The Opposition New Democrats say they've already urged FIFA to clarify its policy on turbans and have not heard back.

"If they (FIFA) would get their act in gear and respond, everyone would be able to move forward with this," said sports critic Matthew Dube.

Blaming FIFA?  Word to my commie brothers: are you trying to court Que. voters or grovel before them?  It makes a difference if you want to rule in the name of the whole country.

Real Mayors Have Someone Buy Their Crack For Them

Hitler says it best: Chow will win and "Ford Nation" will go back to drinking beer.

Sarah Palin Guest On Ezra Levant's Freedom Cruise?

No.  Almost certainly not.  Its still just these losers:

The "crazy 8", as I like to call them.  But its another slow news day and I wanted to spike this rumor before it got too far.

Cats Behaving Nicely

Best I can do today is post cat videos.  Apparently no cats were harmed in the making of this.  Not that I care.  They are evil little fuckers.

B.C. Conservative Party Prepares To Implode

...if it hasn't already yet.  Ian (Is Hitler To Blame?  Men Love Sluts!) Tootil is back in; relatively sane leader John Cummins is apparently on his way out.  Who knows, maybe kooky boy Dean Skoreyko, who played a significant role in the coup that hobbled Cummins and crippled the BCCP, will run to replace the man?  After all, the new party strategy is apparently to embrace teh crazy, not run from it.  And Dean is teh crazy in dork glasses and a bad suit.

Twitter Feed On BCLSB

So I've added my twitter feed to keep the place more interesting on days I'm busy or don't feel like posting much. Any idea why it stopped updating after a couple of hours?

PS.  And now it DID update, suddenly, missing the tweets of the last 12 hours.  Color me confused.