Forum Research Fucks Up, Admits Error

From ThreeHundredEight.com:

UPDATE: As appeared to be the case, Forum Research has confirmed there was an error in its two reports that listed the numbers that should have been Trudeau's as Mulcair's and the numbers that should have been Mulcair's as Trudeau's. So, the error crept in when Forum took the data from their polling and transcribed it into their reports, both of which contained analysis as to why Mulcair was polling ahead of Trudeau on this question. 

Worth noting when you consider that their Ontario polling  tells a very different story from that told by pollsters who fuck up considerably less often.

Are Genetically Modified Crops Killing The Monarch Butterfly?

Indirectly, it seems:

The vast majority of monarchs that arrive in Mexico grew up eating milkweed in the United States and Canada, according to Karen Oberhauser, professor at the University of Minnesota who has studied the monarch for more than 30 years, and is a leading scientist on this butterfly. "Numerous lines of evidence demonstrate that the Corn Belt in the US Midwest is the primary source for monarchs hibernating in Mexico," said Oberhauser. Large part of the monarchs' reproductive habitat in this region has been lost to changing agricultural practices, namely an explosion in the use of crops that allow post-emergence treatment with herbicides. "These genetically modified crops have resulted in the extermination of milkweed from many agricultural habitats," added Oberhauser.

Every August, the local monarch population puts on a show as it prepares to head south to Mexico.  Here's what T.O. residents will miss should we lose them.

LPC Senate Change: The View Of A Tory Insider

Keith Beardsley is a Tory insider.  Smart guy.  Not obviously insane.  His angle on Justin's shock announcement this morning is surely worth noting:

It will...be interesting to see how the Conservative Senate caucus responds. How many of them will decide they would now like to become independent like their former Liberal colleagues? If enough Conservative senators decide to sit as independents it will change the dynamics of getting legislation through the upper house. The government side would be faced with convincing individual senators of the merits of legislation, rather than being able to demand loyalty to pass legislation.

As for other reactions, WK and LK  make an obvious point: this move will look less clever should the LPC form a government in 2015 and have to run legislation through a group of independents rather than hacks and lapdogs.  But what if this eventually becomes just the way things are?  Senators become a bit more like their U.S. counterparts.  If you were a lobby group, and swung one Indy-Senator to your side, how successfully could you delay an adverse bill?  Or if you were an environmental group?  Would negotiation become the order of the day?

I dunno, and in the end it could all be political theatrics.  Made Wednesday more interesting, however.

More Random Target Bashing

@scroll @CNWNews More new stores with nothing on the shelves!  Target's motto:  "Sorry sir, we're all out."
— Bigcitylib (@Bigcitylib2) January 29, 2014

And I'm not the only one complaining.

Because its a slow news day.

Sad Tim Hudak, Part Bazillion

PCPO candidates are falling like flies out in Hamilton.    "Personal reasons".  Conflicts on election night. They promised to stay home and bathe their pet turtles.

Oh and here's a new Forum Poll; Tories lead in Ont. is down to three points,  allegedly because of their right-to-work proposals.  But remember, its only Forum.

T.O. Teens Talk Old Times

Overheard on the TTC this morning:

Teen #1:  This is the kind of thing he'll look back on and laugh at.

Teen #2:  Yeah.  I look back on Grade 6 and laugh my ass off.

Gruending: Our Prime Minister Is A Christian Zionist

Dennis Gruending discusses the PM's trip to Israel, with an account of some of the folks in his entourage that contains information I was not aware of.  A brief flavor:

Finally, there was the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem — Canada, which is not really an embassy at all but a conservative Christian group whose main reason for being is to provide support for Israel.

Take it away, Dennis.

Target Is A French Word Meaning...

..."we're out of that item on special in our weekly flier."

Although on this occasion  at least their employees weren't hiding, engaged in orgies or smoking crack in the staff cafeteria.  They were quite helpful, as a matter of fact:  "I don't have this; we've sold out all of that.  Sorry.  Sorry.  Sorry.  Sorry."

Walmart rules OK.  At least out here in Scarborough or,  as we natives call it:  The Bro.

That is all.

Justin Trudeau On Pipelines

From his interview with Calgary Metro News:

“Because of that I have been a strong promoter of the Keystone XL pipeline and also a harsh critic on the way the prime minister has approached pushing the Keystone XL pipeline. To my mind, the only thing that has prevented Keystone XL from getting approved already in the United States – and what has allowed it become such a polarizing issue, with celebrities weighing in and all sorts of people having very strong opinions even though there is not necessarily all that many facts going around in many of the conversations – is that the prime minister hasn’t done a good enough job of demonstrating a level of commitment to doing it right and upholding environmental protections and regulations. That’s what President Obama has said many times – that he needs to see concrete action from Canada – and what we get is all words. So I’m very much a proponent of Keystone XL.

“For similar reasons, I’m not a proponent of the Northern Gateway Pipeline … which runs through the Great Bear Rainforest, which has spectacularly failed at getting community buy-in from First Nations communities and from local communities that could be potentially affected by it. And it’s not just an environmental argument, it’s also an economic argument. There are 20,000 British Columbians who make their living on the sea around Haida Gwaii and on the Pacific Coast. They would all be in peril – those jobs, those livelihoods – with a catastrophic accident, which, unfortunately, is all too capable.

"So, my intent is to make sure we send Enbridge back to the drawing board for that. I am, however, very interested in the Kinder Morgan pipeline, the Trans Mountain pipeline that is making its way through. I certainly hope that we’re going to be able to get that pipeline approved. And I hope that Kinder Morgan learns from Enbridge’s experience of short-cutting or going too light on community buy-in. Ultimately governments grant permits, but only communities grant permission.”

This is substantive,  and pretty good positioning.  Of course I would prefer than none of these pipelines go through, but I don't have to campaign for Prime Minister in Alberta.

Lets talk about them one by one

1) Northern Gateway.  Should this actually come to the point where somone tries laying pipe, we will have national unity issues on our hands--ie BCers going apeshit.  That would be bad for everyone involved.  Remember, in B.C. the hippies kick you.  So good on Justin for opposing it.

2) Keystone XL.  Naturally, I am against this project and think everyone else should be as well. That said: what I think, and what Justin Trudeau thinks, and really even what Prime Minister Harper thinks, doesn't mean a thing.  The Obama administration will do what it will on the basic of domestic political considerations.  I suspect they will reject the line, or punt  until after the 2014 mid-terms, but who knows?  Which is why Canadian politicians favororing or disfavouring the line are engaging in empty theatrics: Mulcair opposes a line he can do nothing about, Trudeau favours one he can do nothing about.  They might as well be for or against the sunrise.  It will happen, or not, in spite of them.  So, bottom line: I don't really care what their position is.

Although of course Justin is right about Harper's government fumbling the issue.

3) Kinder Morgan (Trans Mountain).  This is the most interesting of the three cases.  Opinion doesn't appear to have hardened on the West Cost for or against the line in the way it has in the case of Northern Gateway.   And while I personally would like to see it halted, should the First Nations in its path, and property owners around Vancouver, become amenable, I would defer to them.  And this appears to be the Trudeau position.  Now, should local opinion turn against the line, I would hope he will reconsider.

Random Observation Re Legal System

@RobSilver @kylekirkup I like lawyers.  They're the only way to protect yourself from other lawyers.  Or rather, I fear them.
— Bigcitylib (@Bigcitylib2) January 24, 2014

The Price Of Free Speechiness?

The Richard Warman Vs. Free Dominion defamation case has been winding down for awhile now.  The Fourniers lost.  Had their asses handed to them, in fact.  In addition to $43,000 in damages, we find today that  they've been hit with $85,000 in costs:

Richard Warman costs awarded against @freedominion folks: $85,000. (Damages another $43,000).Not sure I can even count as high as that.Whew.
— Dr.Dawg (@DrDawg) January 23, 2014

Meanwhile their latest funder stalled out after raising  $23.67.  Connie's been talking about selling her pancreas. Mark was trying to sell his liver, but it was deemed hazardous materials.

A Broken Ankle Is A Pain In The Ass

Probably be worse if it was mine.  But boy is the wife ever complaining!

Had her in to see the ortho guy this morning and, as such things go, its not  serious. The fibula, I think. Off work for a week; in a cast for eight weeks.

Emerge at Scarborough General last night was surprisingly efficient; they weren't crowded and we were done in two hours.   Wife says it's because nobody wants to go there. Anyway, not much blogging today as I shop for T3s and other medical supplies.  Luckily we have a Goodl-Life Gym nearby.

Julius Suraski In The MSM

I missed this yesterday, about one of the guys in PM Harper's Israel trip entourage, from Stephen Maher:

Sorry about the small print.  For some reason I can't get the original to copy and paste. Maher also ignores the JDL/EDL connection, which I think is even more important than the Geller one, given the EDL's known propensity to violence and criminality.

Bombed At Steak Queen: Mayor Falls Off Ford Wagon!

Last night, apparently:

When is Ford not at steak queen?
— m&m (@mmerwar) January 21, 2014

And the inevitable video:

And an interior shot of Steak Queen

Looks pretty similar.  If this was indeed from last night, it means the mayor is back to drinking.

Your Daily Nazi: Did Harper Israel Trip Participant Help Arrange Meetup With English Neo-Nazis?

David Akin has published a list of the folks accompanying PM Stephen Harper to Israel.  As Hardy notes in the comments here, one the people on the list is Julius Suraski.  If you click on the image below, you can see that he is given as the  "events coordinator" for JDL-Canada, and indeed there are mentions and pics of him on-line in regards to various JDL-Canada activities.

Presumably, given his title, Julius helped arrange the  bringing of American hate-monger Pam Geller (recently banned in the UK) to Toronto.  Even more disturbingly, he seems to have been part of JDL Canada's outreach to Tommy Robinson, leader of the  English Defense League, an anti-Muslim Group with deep ties to UK Neo-Nazis, these ties noted here, for example.  The EDL (although not Robinson himself) also apparently had connections with Norwegian mass murderer Anders Brievik, a story I broke here, and which was then widely pursued by the UK press.  Also in The New Yorker.

So, nice company you keep, Mr. Harper.

PS. FWIW, it looks like Ezra's dad is also on the trip.

PPS. Just to provide a bit of context on the JDL/EDL connection.  Why, some might ask, would a Jewish group sidle up to this crowd?

Basically, Suraski and JDL hooked up with English Defence League because of the latters alleged opposition to "radical Islam"  But in fact the EDL was largely a spin-off from BNP (British National Party), which was openly Neo Nazi. To put it bluntly, EDL founders figured that post 9/11 it was easier to hate Muslims than Jews. So alot of them opportunistically dropped beliefs they had espoused only a few years earlier and adopted anti-Muslim/pro-Israel rhetoric instead. But the change never really went that deep.  And the JDL knew all this at the time.

What To Do About John, Eh?

Bernie Farber had a piece in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday re our nation's first Prime Minister:

...Sir John A. Macdonald was also a racist who disdained Chinese rail workers, the very same men who helped build his national dream, by imposing a discriminatory head tax on each of them. And it was Macdonald whose policies of forced starvation helped clear First Nations from the prairies in order to build that railway. Indeed, James Daschuk from the University of Regina argues quite cogently in his book, “Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation and the Loss of Aboriginal Life,” that Macdonald’s starvation policies led to the deaths of thousands. As Daschuk explains: “For years, government officials withheld food from aboriginal people until they moved to their appointed reserves, forcing them to trade freedom for rations. Once on reserves, food placed in ration houses was withheld for so long that much of it rotted while the people it was intended to feed fell into a decades-long cycle of malnutrition, suppressed immunity and sickness from tuberculosis and other diseases. Thousands died.”

What are we to do once we know this?  Make sure its taught in our history classes is one thing, I suppose.  When I was in high-school it certainly was not.  Sir John A. was simply known as a charming drunk who launched the nation from the bottom of an alcoholic stupor.  Class conversations would have been much more useful  if this stuff had been part of the  lesson.

Having Trouble Sleeping?

Watch the 2nd episode of 24/7, the PMO's weekly propaganda video:

But don't play it while you're doing anything that requires an alert mind, like juggling chainsaws or picking fleas off a baby rhino.  Seriously, folks,  there ought to be a warning label on this thing saying you shouldn't drive or operate heavy machinery while it's on.  I haven't passed out so fast since I watched Andrew Coyne talk monetary policy.   But even then, Andrew would occasionally say cashola and I'd snap back to attention.

This video has no redeeming qualities.

Copernicus Publishing Terminates Pattern Recognition In Physics

Here's what you see when you go to the home page of the journal Pattern Recognition In Physics:

It looks like I may have been wrong about this being a first issue in my previous post.  It was still, however, a relatively new journal.

In any case, Kudos to Copernicus Publications.

On Pattern Recognition In Physics

Pattern Recognition In Physics (PRP, I'll call it) is a new, open access journal devoted to "experimental and applied aspects of pattern analysis, extraction, classification and clustering in all branches and disciplines of physics".  This sounds quite sciency but may mean not very much when you parse it carefully.  Anyway, it's published by Copernicus Publications, an "innovative" open access publisher of open access scientific journals that, from what I hear, is making an  honest stab at intellectual respectability.

To do a bit of foreshadowing, publishing PRP won't help them in achieving that goal.

One of Copernicus publishing's "innovations" is that they allow you to "Launch Your Own Journal":

PRP appears to one of these launch-your-own numbers.  And if you look at the Copernicus home-page its shown as a "new title", and the only papers listed are very recent.  We are looking at a first  issue.

Here's a cover shot of that issue:

Hmm.  So its a "Special Issue".  What exactly does that mean?  Lets see:

Pattern Recognition in Physics (PRP) offers an efficient new way of publishing special issues which are commonly the result of a session or multiple sessions at conferences, but can also be from a small group of people deciding that a given special issue on a given subject of theme would be appropriate. 

Now that's what it says for PRP.  The language seems to be adapted from Copernicus Publishing boiler-plate.  Here's another example.  But note that the last clause of the above (starting with "but can also...") is missing from the ESurf statement, and from similar statements made re other Copernicus journals.

So this is the first issue of a journal that's basically the result of a "small group of people deciding etc.".  Lets see who these are, shall we? Below is the authors list for the General Conclusions paper; the authors of the other papers in the issue are a subset of this list.

People that read this blog may be familiar with some of these names.  They are climate change denialists of one stripe or another.  Tattersall is a blogger who writes under the name of Tallbloke.   W. Soon = Willie Wei-Hock Soon. N. Scaffeta = Nick Scaffeta.  Nils-Axel Mörner is a crazed wingnut who is also a goddamn water witch!  JE Solheim thinks that a simple harmonic model (movements of the sun, moon and planets together with linear trends) provides a better fit to the global temperature data since 1850 and likely a better predictor than the assembly of 44 climate models used by the IPCC.  So you knows he's messed up in the head.

And etc. with the rest of them.

So what appears to have happened is that a small group of denialists paid money to Copernicus Publishing, launched their own journal under its  imprint, and published crap  Now they can say its all passed "peer review".  It will be interesting to see exactly what this means under the circumstances.  That they read one another's stuff?

On the other hand the reputation of Copernicus Publishing just took a boot to the nads.  I'm already hearing rumors of editors of/authors for other Copernicus journals launching complaints over this. If you are trying to maintain your cred as a scientist you don't want to be seen in proximity to this kind of nonsense.

PS.  I was wrong about this being a first issue.  Its the second issue but the first special issue, and the last of any kind, apparently. This is the first issue; its mostly the special issue with a few non-climate-related papers added.

Dean Del Maestro Trashes Neil Young For Being A Californian

Well, its a novel angle at least:

Perhaps the most surprising part of his recent criticisms goes back to where he has called home for the past 50 years, namely California a state that continually ranks amongst the worst in America for ground water, soil and air pollution. 

Incidentally, I am pretty sure Neil still owns land on Vancouver Island.  He did back in the 80s, when he would occasionally show up to look at it and visit him mom.

If Tim Hudak And Andrea Horwath Want Someone To Meet Rob Ford

Then they should go ahead and meet him. Oppo leaders often meet people the premier won't, as they typically have more time on their hands than the premier.  It would be a lovely opportunity for a photo-op with the mayor.  I'm sure Tim Hudak would like more pictures of him and Rob Ford together; I'm sure Andrea Horwath would like a few more too.

PS.  I'm a T.O. resident and I'm fine if Premier Wynne would rather deal with someone else rather than the mayor.  What good would a meeting do other than further the man's re-election plans?

Northern Gateway Pipeline: Something I Didn't Know

There is also an interesting wrinkle in the JRP’s [Joint Review Panel's] decision, specifically its inclusion of a “sunset clause.”

And that states “the certificate [to proceed] will expire on 31 December 2016, unless construction of the pipeline or the Kitimat Terminal has commenced by that date.” For reasons mentioned above, that is very unlikely.

So would this mean back to square one for Enbridge if shovels aren't in the ground by 2017?  Stalled for another...two...three...five years?

At Issue: Does Fort Mc Smell?

We're in about day three of the backlash over singer/songwriter Neil Young's comments re the tar sands.  Particularly contentious was this bit:

"(I) drove around the tarsands in my electric car viewing and experiencing this unbelievable smell and toxicity in my throat — my eyes were burning," he recalled. "That started 25 miles away from the tarsands. When I was in Fort Mac, it got more intense. My son, who has cerebral palsy, has lung damage, (so) he was wearing a mask to keep the toxic things in the air out of his lungs and make it easy for him to have lungs after he left."

A number of folks, both within the media and outside of it, took umbrage at these words.  Some suggested Neil had spoken falsely.  Colby Cosh (@colbycosh) for example:

So I googled about to see if I could find references to the smell of Fort McMurray, Alberta, on the Internet.  Whoo boy could I ever!  From a visitor to the place:

A few locals still refer to the industrial stink that occasionally blows down into Fort McMurray as the smell of money. But for visitors and those not directly employed in the mines, the smell is more akin to hot garbage on a tire fire. 

Now, the author of these words works for a men's mag, and Colby felt he was too effete-y elite-y to be trusted when it comes to industrial smells.

@Bigcitylib2 @dstaples Tell me more about what it's like in Ft. McMurray! You seem to know a lot about it from reading "men's magazines".
— Colby Cosh (@colbycosh) January 15, 2014

OK.  So here's from some local inhabitants:

Okay, is it me, or does anybody else smell that kind of "dump smell" in the air here in Thickwood and Timberlea. My husband says it is from the oil mines. To me, it smells like the garbage dump. It is disgusting! If it is coming from the oil mines, then we are really in Fort McMoney, Oilberta and that is the smell of money (kaching!)

From another visitor:

I did not like the smell when we got close to the mining operations and processing sites - it would take a while to get used to. It is probably not too good for the health, but I have not done the research, or lived there long enough to find out. 

From the Alberta Lung Society:

The main concern related to oil sands development with regards to air quality is from hydrogen sulphide gas: H2S(g).  H2S(g) has a very distinctive odour, of rotten eggs, however the gas can quickly paralyze one’s sense of smell.  If you do encounter the smell, this should serve as a warning to evacuate the area immediately and seek respiratory protection if possible.

H2S(g) is often found at high levels in the Fort McMurray area and other oil sands sites.  Exposure to H2S(g) leads to similar health effects suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning such as: dizziness, headaches, difficulty breathing and eventually death.

Although, here is a bit of good news, I suppose:

 What sparked my attention was that I started noticing every guy in Fort McMurray smelled amazing.  How could all the guys in this town smell soooooo good?  I mean really, with all the dirty jobs out there at least one of them had to be a stinky dude.  But no I couldn’t find one stinky guy. 

The residents are resiliant, and have found a way to cope.

In any case, the point isn't to pick on Fort McMurray.  At least not entirely. The point is that Neil's observation seems backed up by a fair bit of evidence.  It smells pretty much like he says it does (at least when the wind is blowing right).  And while we may be entitled to our own opinions re Fort Mc and the tar-sands, we are not entitled to our own facts.

David Soknacki's Modest Proposal

Mayoral candidate David Soknacki announces if elected he'd kill Scarborough subway and instead revert to LRT pic.twitter.com/8KEnuxLzQ7
— Natalie Johnson (@NatalieCTV) January 14, 2014

I'm one of the many, many Scarberians whose property taxes will go up to pay for that damned project, but who will almost certainly never use it...it's miles away...so I am all for this.  End the 1.6 per cent tax-hike!  Soknacki can't win, but he sure has found an interesting way to distinguish himself from the rest of the candidates.

Neil Young And The Tar Sands

Just to stave off the usual complaints about Neil's being a washed-up rocker.  It's true I don't wait for his new music  like I used to, but every once in awhile he can still pull off a real corker.  It usually involves screaming guitars and feedback.

 And all the money he raises will be real enough.

You Know Winter Is Over When

...the mayor starts hitting the clubs, the patrons, the bottle, cyclists, street-signs.  A whole new Spring o' scandal is almost upon us.

From here.  From last night, apparently.

The PM Has A New TV Station

@pmharper @pierrebourque Sorry.  It's the night I bathe my pet hamster.
— Bigcitylib (@Bigcitylib2) January 11, 2014

On That Accomodation Thing Up At York U

I find myself in the minority on this one, thinking that the University should have accomodated student X, even if the accomodation was to placate his religuously induced discomfort with women.

An interesting bit of news came out this morning:

[Rhonda Lenton, Provost for York U] told host Matt Galloway the student's request for accommodation was supported because the class was billed as an online course and no interactions with other students would be required.

"The course had been advertised as an online course and the student had signed up for the course on the understanding that he would not be required to attend on campus," said Lenton. "If it had been an in-class on-campus course, the likely response here would have been that an accommodation would not have been provided."

I think much of my sympathy for student X stems from my own fairly recent experiences with on-line courses.  They're kind of a rip-off, and really the only advantage to them is the fact that you don't have to be at a particular place at a particular time to complete the work and get your credits. And it is that feature, generally speaking, that you are paying for when you enroll in one.

Now, the reason you don't want to be at a particular place at a particular time...should that be relevant?...as long as the course you sign up for states up front that you won't have to be?

I don't think so.  Since we know that the course syllabus said your physical presence was not required, and we know another student was granted an exemption from the same project, this project was obviously considered non-core material.  In a sense, student x was punished by his professor for his religuous beliefs...made to do work he wouldn't otherwise have had to if he hadn't invoked his religion as a means of getting out of it.  If he had begged off because he was going to be elsewhere at the time...snowboarding in the Alps, perhaps...there wouldn't have been a problem.

Dying Media Continues To Die

Postmedia earnings out. Lost $11-million, blames most of it on $15-million in restructuring charges.
— Steve Ladurantaye (@sladurantaye) January 9, 2014

 Though a little more slowly:

Postmedia's 1Q revenue was down 8.4% to $194M, bit of a slower decline than past few quarters
— Christine Dobby (@christinedobby) January 9, 2014

And what is to blame?
 

Postmedia 1QFY2014: “The largest contributor to revenue declines in the first quarter was classified print advertising which was down 24%.”
— matthew braga (@mattbraga) January 9, 2014

Driftpile First Nation To Enbridge: Who? Us?

Phony signatures on Enbridge's list of First Nations who've expressed support for the Northern Gateway pipeline?  The Driftpile First Nation is on the list, though they've gone to extensive lengths to express their opposition to the project.  Naturally, they are curious as to how this might have occurred.  And here, in another piece from APTN, we find out that about 20 BC FNs have signed "protocol agreements", and 20 more are "pending", of 138 FNs across B.C.  From the sounds of it, some of these were signed ages ago...in 2005 or 2008 while the pipeline project was in its infancy. And some of them may be entirely bogus.  So hardly a ringing endorsement from B.C.s aboriginal community.

Ezra Levant And The Cost Of Delay

$7,500 to ditch your lawyer and buy a few more weeks before trial?  Well, shit, that's not chump-change. Remind me not to talk trash about people on the Internet. 

Speaking Of Losing Your Lawyer: Mark Steyn Has Lost His in Mann v. National Review

A print-screen from a recently filed motion (its only two pages long):

One can only speculate.  But Steyn has, as Ezra Levant sometimes does, kept up with the abuse after proceedings have been launched against him.  For example last week on his N.R. blog. Lawyers don't like it when you make their job defending you more difficult by playing an asshole on the Internet.

So it might have something to do with that.

Some background here.

Ezra Manouvers

From Joe Brean's twitter feed, the rumours are confirmed:

O yea, O yea, O yea, court is in session. First up, motion to adjourn. At this rate, we'll hear opening statements next year.
— Joseph Brean (@JosephBrean) January 6, 2014

Ezra Levant has been trying to get a new lawyer since October. Christopher Ashby, his lawyer of record, is beside him. No explanation.
— Joseph Brean (@JosephBrean) January 6, 2014

Khurrum Awan opposes the adjournment. Judge says he has "significant justification" to throw away his costs.
— Joseph Brean (@JosephBrean) January 6, 2014

Brian Shiller says his client Mr. Awan "vigorously opposes" adjournment. "We were ready to go [last fall]," he said. Ready again now.
— Joseph Brean (@JosephBrean) January 6, 2014

Same nonsense Ezra tried in Vigna v. Levant.  Lets hope the judge doesn't allow it.

Update: Crap, he did!  But he seems to dinged The Ez for some dough:

Levant trial adjourned to March 3. Cost him a few bucks. Iain MacKinnon, known for media work in the Rob Ford follies, is his new counsel.
— Joseph Brean (@JosephBrean) January 6, 2014

Craig Chandler Asked To Run For Alberta PCs?

He says he's been:
From here.  A weird smell to this.  Alison Redford won last time by rejecting  teh crazies.  Can't see her embracing them any time soon.

PS.   Here's my entire Craig Chandler file.

Ezra Levant, His Future

Its all cloudy, but something emerges from the mist.  I see...I see....delay.  I see important relationships....with... Ashley?  Ashby? His law talkin' guy...I see them severed.  It's got something to do with this.  It may be a  repeat of a stunt Ezra tried to pull here.  Wait...wait! There's more...!!!   No.  It's gone now.

Searching The Internet For Time Travellers

From the abstract:

Abstract. Time travel has captured the public imagination for much of the past century, but little has been done to actually search for time travelers. Here, three implementations of Internet searches for time travelers are described, all seeking a prescient mention of  information not previously available. The first search covered prescient content placed on the Internet, highlighted by a comprehensive search for specific terms in tweets on Twitter. The second search examined prescient inquiries submitted to a search engine, highlighted by a comprehensive search for specific search terms submitted to a popular astronomy web site. The third search involved a request for a direct Internet 
communication, either by email or tweet, pre-dating to the time of the inquiry. Given 
practical verifiability concerns, only time travelers from the future were investigated. No 
time travelers were discovered. 

Here's one example of a search term they thought might be sufficiently unique to reveal prescient knowledge (and therefore indicate a time traveler from the future):

On 2013 March 16, the newly elected pope of the Catholic Church, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, chose the
official name of Francis. Bergoglio is the first pope ever to choose the name Francis. Therefore, the term "Pope Francis" is relatively unique and came into the public lexicon during our search period. Since Christianity is currently the most popular religion on Earth, Roman Catholics comprise the largest sect of  Christianity [20], and papal histories are well recorded, it seems reasonable to assume that "Pope Francis"  would remain memorable well into the future. Before 2013 March, however, there is little reason for  anyone without prescient information to mention a "Pope Francis". Discussions or even mentions on the Internet of Pope Francis before 2013 March were therefore searched for as potentially prescient evidence of time travelers from the future.

But, again, nothing.

On the other hand, as they say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  If you're sitting around bored at work today and want to do some research that could overturn all of physics, you might consider throwing an hour or two at the problem.

Ezra Deletes

Before he deleted them like a coward, here's everything @ezralevant tweeted about Christopher Peloso: http://t.co/N6K6Mb6y4t #topoli
— Ian MacIntyre (@MrIanMacIntyre) December 31, 2013

Pretty loathsome stuff, as per usual with The Ez.  Thing to remember is Ezra don't delete unless someone tells him to.  Like boss Kory Teneyke, or a Sun News lawyer.

PS.  It appears as though not all of Ezra's tweets on this topic were deleted.  You can still view most of them in all their shameless, no-class awfulness on his original twitter feed.