BigCityLib Strikes Back

Mark Steyn: The Pieces Are Interchangable

2009-11-29T07:53:00.001-05:00

From his Macleans Oct 15 column on Michael Ignatieff:

In Britain, a land with rampant property crime, undercover constables nevertheless find time to dine at curry restaurants on Friday nights to monitor adjoining tables lest someone in private conversation should make a racist remark. An author interviewed on BBC Radio expressed, very mildly and politely, some concerns about gay adoption and was investigated by Scotland Yard’s Community Safety Unit for Homophobic, Racist and Domestic Incidents. A Daily Telegraph columnist was arrested and detained in a jail cell over a joke in a speech. A Dutch legislator was invited to speak at the Palace of Westminster by a member of the House of Lords, but was banned by the government, arrested on arrival at Heathrow and deported.

From a May 8th piece in The Progressive Conservative, on the decline of America under Obama:

In Britain, a land with rampant property crime, undercover constables nevertheless find time to dine at curry restaurants on Friday nights to monitor adjoining tables lest someone in private conversation should make a racist remark. An author interviewed on BBC Radio expressed, very mildly and politely, some concerns about gay adoption and was investigated by Scotland Yard’s Community Safety Unit for Homophobic, Racist and Domestic Incidents. A Daily Telegraph columnist is arrested and detained in a jail cell over a joke in a speech. A Dutch legislator is invited to speak at the Palace of Westminster by a member of the House of Lords, but is banned by the government, arrested on arrival at Heathrow and deported.

Sweet. Paid twice for the same anecdote.

H/T CW

Just A Poll You Might Have Missed

2009-11-28T19:53:00.000-05:00

The poll found support for the Tories at 36 per cent, down 1.7 points from where they were on election day last October. The Liberals were at 27 per cent, the NDP at 15 and the Greens at 11.

In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois held a 17-point lead in the poll at 39 per cent, with the Liberals at 22, the Tories at 18 and the Greens and NDP tied at 10 per cent.

FYI. That is all.

Bill C-31 Still Out There

2009-11-28T07:32:00.000-05:00

Also this week, MPs debated Bill C-31 which would modernize criminal law procedure and make the justice system more efficient and effective.

Among other things, the bill creates a new offence to help prevent individuals from fleeing a province or territory in order to avoid prosecution. It also proposes to give law enforcement greater access to search and seizure warrants. And it streamlines the identification process in police stations, allowing the fingerprinting and photographing of persons in lawful custody who have not yet been charged or convicted of specific offences.

If you are brought in on an indictable offense, whether or not you are ever charged, the police can take your prints and snap a mugshot. Very little coverage of this, other than a 6 month old piece from the Niagara Falls Review pointing out the obvious:

It would give police a new intimidation factor. A lot of people who are arrested aren't familiar with how the criminal justice system works.

[...]

Maybe it's too many reruns of Law and Order or The Shield, but it's easy to conceive of over-zealous cops arresting someone, never intending to charge them, but just taking their mug shot and prints to have them on file.

Looks like the bill has just gone through 1st reading.

Peak Waffle?

2009-11-28T06:41:00.000-05:00

They say there's more batter in the pipeline. This guy don't believe them.

Harper On The HST: The Buck Stops Elsewhere

2009-11-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

Paul Wells says:
He's talking about this, and he elaborates in the comments:

"If the framework legislation is rejected before Christmas, we will not revisit the issue. Not next year. Not after the next election.”

Compare and contrast with party financing -- the per-vote subsidy -- which Harper has already declared he will revisit after the next election. I actually don't have a big problem with that. But we see the difference between a Harper who wants to get something done, and a Harper who wants to shift blame.

Just to be clear, this "framework legislation" is entirely superfluous:

8.3 (1) The Minister, with the approval of the Governor in Council, may on behalf of the Government of Canada enter into an agreement or arrangement with the government of a province respecting sales taxes and, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, respecting.

...as the agreement can be made via an Order in Council, which originate in Cabinet and approved by GG (see Governor in Council def.).

PS. If it comes to it, Iggy should support. Can't flip-flop now. In any case, the degree of anger here in Ont. over the HST doesn't seem as intense as in B.C. and will probably have faded by summer.

Hey! Its The Same Fricking Tree!

2009-11-27T08:36:00.001-05:00

So I'm surfing around and I notice that this item--"The Old Stump, Lake Superior" by Group of Seven Artist Lawren Harris-- just sold for 3.5 mill. Not bad, I thought, for what was after all just another painting from the group's "Tree" period (albeit--and this is unusual for one of The 7--this time its a dead tree).
Except I surf around a bit more and find this baby, which goes by the name "North Shore, Lake Superior":

Notice anything peculiar? Its...the...same...tree! The gallery sold a previously painted tree! A used tree!! Harris didn't even employ that old Group of 7 trick where he paints the tree red or yellow or some other weird color to disguise it. No! It's just like Monet and endless goddamned water-lilies. The people want water lilies, give 'em more fucking water lilies! Give 'em the same lily, painted at dawn, and noon, and at dusk! Here's the water-lily under a full moon! Now hand over your money, sap! But in this case Harris was thinking: people want pictures of a dead tree, I'll give 'em pictures of a dead tree. The same dead tree, so I won't even have to get out of my chair!

WHAT IS THE CANADIAN ART ESTABLISHMENT COMING TO?

Drudge Hides The Science

2009-11-27T06:59:00.001-05:00

In attempt to fan the dying flames of the ClimateGate pseudo-controversy, Matt Drudge himself stepped in last night to provide a few helpful links. Note the fourth one down: Except that the "Climate Science Coalition" is not a government organization, and the site in question is Tim Lambert's Deltoid (one of the best known climate science blogs). Drudge has simply been fooled by the coalition's official sounding name. As Tim puts it:

Update: A special message to visitors from Drudge: you are being lied to. Global warming is happening and we're causing it, but to avoid dealing with the problem folks are shooting the messenger, attacking the scientists who discovered and reported on the problem. The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition isn't made up of climate scientists, but is just a group of global warming skeptics who gave themselves a fancy title. And they just got caught combining temperature data from different places to get rid of the inconvenient warming trend in New Zealand. If you want to know what the science really says, please read the Copenhagen Diagnosis.

Drudge has inadvertently linked to a discussion of real science! But that won't do! So a few hours and several 10,000s of spittle flecked T-baggers redirected to Deltoid later:

Bye Bye!

Flyers "Damaged" Cotler, Says Speaker

2009-11-26T20:16:00.003-05:00

OTTAWA — The Conservatives may have damaged the reputation of Liberal MP Irwin Cotler by sending taxpayer-funded flyers into his Montreal-area riding which suggested the Opposition party was anti-Semitic, Speaker of the House of Commons Peter Milliken ruled Thursday.

The practical consequences to this decision--it

...opens the door for federal politicians to investigate the matter in a parliamentary committee.

PS. Imp says it better.

Vellacott keeps The Game Alive

2009-11-26T12:59:00.002-05:00

From a .pdf posted to his website today entitled: Supporting documentation for Vellacott's contention ofabortion's harm to women - November 26, 2009

And finally, regarding Maurice Vellacott's comments related to "abortion as part of a male agenda," an article by Richard Stith, "Her Choice, Her Problem: How Abortion Empowers Men" provides an interesting perspective on abortion. See: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/07/her-choice-her-problem.

From the article he refers to:

Such a lie may not provide protection for every young woman in her situation, however. If she says she is pro-life so that he thinks abortion is not an option for her, he might decide to keep her from getting pregnant by leaving her for someone more open to abortion, a woman who doesn’t insist on his using a condom. That is, the presence in the sexual marketplace of women willing to have an abortion reduces an individual woman’s bargaining power. As a result, in order not to lose her guy, she may be pressured into doing precisely what she doesn’t want to do: have unprotected sex, then an unwanted pregnancy, then the abortion she had all along been trying to avoid. Even though her abortion in this case is not literally forced, it would be, in an important sense, imposed on her. And, far from alleviating her overall situation, it would merely return her to the same sexual pressures, made worse by a new assurance to her boyfriend that she is willing to take care of a pregnancy.

Thanks Mr. Vellacott.

2 Vots FR Eech TBagg

2009-11-26T10:46:00.005-05:00

h/t

Group Of 7 Painting Of Bunch Of Fucking Trees Sold For Great Wad Of Cash!

2009-11-26T07:06:00.002-05:00

Winter Morning, by Tom Thomson, confirms my theory that the Group of 7 were Canada's pre-eminent painters of rocks and trees. Note, in this particular scene, all the trees. Here they have been painted mostly white, which either indicates that they are covered in snow or that Mr. Thomson ate a whack of acid about an hour before he took up his brushes. Unfortunately, the trees are not actually doing anything here, like leaning out over a lake , or blowing in the wind while leaning out over a lake. Therefore I think $970,000 was far too much to pay.

Here is a recently uncovered Group of 7 picture from their "rocks" phase, entitled "What No Trees"?

PS. Meanwhile Barnett Newman continues to suck.

Iggy: To Know Him Is To Dislike Him Marginally Less

2009-11-26T06:37:00.002-05:00

...back to election levels.

All just twitches, really, but compared to early Nov. the Libs have twitched up, the other parties down.

Looks like my prediction that the Lib reversal re the gun registry would hurt them hasn't come to pass. Perhaps the idea is to cleanse the party of anything resembling an idea and wait until people simply get tired of Harper and Co. After all, the Conservatives and NDP have done it (NDP by betraying its green wing and over the registry). Why should the pragmatic party, the party that has always already pre-sold out, be the last one required to bear a consistent ideology? Color me confused.

Oops! This looks dangerous! Everyone going there, just get bombed and fornicate and, if you're asked about ideas, say the Libs. will introduce universal daycare...again...eventually.

Whoopsie! I was comparing to a three week old poll. There are several others that have come out between then and now. Still, numbers haven't changed much.

CRU Climate Hack: Hackers Took Two Whacks At Data?

2009-11-25T19:15:00.005-05:00

I've sent an email to Mr. Paul Hudson about this, but he hasn't responded yet. The reason I emailed him is he says:

The controversy surrounding the global warming scandal today deepened after a BBC correspondent admitted he was sent the leaked emails more than a month before they were made public.

In his BBC blog two days ago, Hudson said: 'I was forwarded the chain of emails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the world's leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article "Whatever Happened To Global Warming".

But here's Gavin Schmidt from Real Climate:

Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them involve people here (and the archive includes the first RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics related to the surface temperature record and some paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were accurate.

Since the dates are exactly one month apart, I've asked Mr. Hudson if we weren't dealing with a simple typo here. If not, it looks like our hackers were dicking around with CRU data for over a month without being detected, and circulated at least two packages of emails (or more precisely one package of emails and one honking big .zip file.). So why did they wait a month before the big reveal?

PLUS!!!! Exclusive E-Mail from Hugh Miller, the guy behind an elegant chaos, a searchable index of the CRU emails and files. I asked him: are you the guy behind [an elegant chaos]?

Yes, unfortunately for no better reason than I had the space to post it and an hour to generate a simple text search - there's no hidden agenda, and I just downloaded the ZIP from the same place as everyone else.

It was originally really just for me and a couple of others to use as a comparison for any stories that quoted from the messages, there was no way I was going to run through text files every time I seen a quote. But the internet has it's own way of doing things. Unlikely to be on my server beyond tonight, it's just an email account really and it wont cope with the bandwidth.

I've had the usual flurry of emails from people insisting I extend it and do more with it, but that's unlikely at the moment.

Checked your blog, as I'm sure you've guessed I fall into the skeptical camp, but you're obviously more than welcome to use the search to make sure that online quotes are accurate and also not cropped to hide phrasing. One of my biggest groans on any website is the continual point scoring and pickiness of the commenters below (not saying I'm not guilty of that myself).

So if someone says one of these emails says X, Y or Z, you can confirm that right away. Since these things were out in the wild from Thursday it makes sense to me that they should be available in a user-friendly format. As I've said to others, I have no intention of allowing comments below them or to make any comments on them myself.

There are a few others online now too, also containing the 'data' files that came with the zip, since they exist I have no plans to add them to that search, I don't really have the time and I'd imagine that someone, somewhere will create one or adapt one with lots of extra features.

Anyway, I hope this gives you a bit of an overview of the motivation behind it. But feel free to email me with your views (bear in mind I'm in the UK so there may be a delay between replies).

Cheers,
H

Tim Lambert thinks its a misunderstanding.

BCL: God Of Spreadsheets

2009-11-25T15:57:00.000-05:00

I have just solved a particularly nasty problem with conditional statements in Excel. I bestride the Universe like a very Gawd. Worship me.

ARC On The Case

2009-11-25T07:05:00.000-05:00

Nazis fold S.13 constitutional challenge.

Aryan Guard just folds. The Calgary newspapers will be along sometime in February to pick up on this one.

Thanks For Pointing That Out

2009-11-25T06:32:00.002-05:00

From today's Star:

There has been no...apology from Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott for his unflattering depiction of women seeking abortions, which also applauded Saskatoon doctors for restricting access to abortion services.

"Pro-life feminists have ... come to see abortion as part of a male agenda to have women more sexually available," said the controversial MP in an anti-abortion news release sent out Nov. 20.

And another story here from the Calgary Sun. The statements come from a news release posted to Vellacot's website on the 20th, and reported by me on the 21st. Today is the 25th, and it looks like its only being reported because the Oppo parties picked up on it yesterday. C'mon MSM, chop chop! You're supposed to be ahead of the game in these things. I'm not supposed to be doing your job for you! I mean, it's like those girls always used to tell me: BCL this is crazy: I should be paying you.

PS. Anyone looking a nice bit of recent (unremarked) Tory stupidity can look here, wherein Stockwell Day asks who can forget Silken Laumann's Olympic triumph? and proves that he certainly can.

Those No Good Bastards

2009-11-24T12:11:00.000-05:00

Imagining Gerald Keddy's reaction to todays rise in EI claims.

Gerald Keddy Can Still Makes Amends

2009-11-24T07:18:00.000-05:00

...after calling Nova Scotians "no good bastards" who won't work on his Xmas Tree Farm:

Bernie Smith of the Spring Garden Road Merchants Association says you can't lump every unemployed person into the category of no-good bastards. Smith has helped many of the street's panhandlers find jobs and says no Christmas tree grower has come to him to ask if anyone might be available for work. Smith says he could likely find several who'd take on the job.

You know what to do, Gerald.

Rumor: Father Of Speechy Warrior Has Property Vandalized

2009-11-24T06:24:00.003-05:00

I am informed that when vandals hit the Calgary Jewish Community Center and the Congregation House of Jacob Mikveh Israel last week with Swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti, they also got the house of one Marvin Levant, father of Ezra Levant, Canada's premier Free Speech warrior and an opponent of legislation intended to crack down on Neo Nazi's on-line activity.

Can't confirm this 100%, but Levant the Elder does live quite close by.

Here's Marvin himself complaining about Human Rights Commissions.

Your Daily Nazi: Remember, They're Just Cuddly Free Speech Heroes

2009-11-23T18:29:00.000-05:00

Aryan Guard Founder Kyle McKee Wanted For Attempted Murder

Kudos to ARC for being 24 hours in front of the MSM on this. Remember: repeal S.13, and these guys are the big winners.

CRU Hack: Who Is Hugh Miller?

2009-11-23T13:30:00.005-05:00

He seems to be the guy behind Anelegantchaos, a page that allows you to search those hacked emails from CRU that allegedly reveal the great global warming conspiracy. Here's a bit from the whois on the site:

Domain ID:D108560062-LROR
Domain Name:ANELEGANTCHAOS.ORG
Created On:15-Nov-2005 17:47:05 UTC
Last Updated On:16-Nov-2009 01:26:16 UTC
Expiration Date:15-Nov-2010 17:47:05 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:1 & 1 Internet AG (R73-LROR)
[...]
Registrant Name:Hugh Miller

Its a real guy; at least the email (hmiller@cfpress.co.uk) matches the email of this web developer with Clyde & Forth Press.

On the other hand, Jeff points out that Hugh Miller is also the name of a Glacier.

How To Drive Those Liberal Numbers Even Lower

2009-11-23T09:16:00.001-05:00

Blindly support even the dumbest Tory "tough on crime" bills:

...C-47, the other half of lawful access came up for second reading. This part of the bill is particularly problematic is it raises the prospect of mandatory disclosure of personal information without a warrant and requires ISPs to install new surveillance capabilities on their networks.

[...]

The Liberals adopted the "what took you so long" position, with MPs Dan McTeague and Andrew Kania pledging their support and asking why it took so long to bring the bill to the House.

In brief, the bill will allow police to demand that an IP hand over your personal information without a warrant. Furthermore,

...there is not even a requirement for the commission of a crime to justify access to personal information without a warrant.

Apparently the Libs were pushing a generally similar bill a few years back (a fact that will surely be brought up by proponents of the new law), but this one goes even further in that it adopts "an exceptionally broad definition of customer name and address information".

I would urge readers to take in all of the Geist article--contrast especially NDP MP Don Davies measured response to Conservative taunting over this bill (Its for the children! Why do you hate children?) with the Libs knee-jerk "metoo-ism".

Poor Libs. These days they fight when they should make a deal, and they run when they should fight. You'd think that Iggy and Co. would have figured out that appealing to Conservative voters hasn't worked, and that they are now in danger of losing a good portion of their own base. Maybe Ms. Krieber should save a place for me on the other side of the aisle.

Random Sunday Notes

2009-11-22T16:41:00.005-05:00

1) Its November 22 and I'm wearing sandals. Thank you El Nino. Pity about all those droughts in Australia.

2) Longos has the best samples of any major grocery store. When my wife and I shop there on Sunday's we call it going out for lunch. You can usually get two or three helpings before they recognize you and start asking questions. Then you just switch to a fake foreign accent. For example:

Q: Have you ever been to Yale?
A: I have. I yust got out.

Today's special was Spanish Blue Cheese, in which they employ a totally different species of fungus from the lame Gorgonzola shit! Awesome!

3) Wimmun: you can't live with 'em, you can't kill 'em. Although who can really blame her? I do disagree with all the stuff about Dion being more competent. But yes indeed Iggy has sucked the past couple of months. No hiding the fact. But why trumpet it? Given the timing of the post, I wonder if alcohol wasn't involved. Don't get drunk and go Facebooking, crazy lady!

Warman Takes Aim

2009-11-22T06:31:00.001-05:00

...at CanWest and Walker Morrow, after a story in a local paper went CanWest wide. You can read the details at Walker's place, but here's the apology Cowichan Valley Citizen eventually published:

On October 9th, 2009 the Cowichan Valley Citizen published a column titled "Questionable conduct of CHRC". In this column, it was alleged that investigations were begun, not only by the RCMP, but by the Privacy Commissioner as well, and a Parliamentary Review of the CHRC's activities was conducted.

In publishing the column it was not made clear that these statements referred to the CHRC and not Mr. Warman. Further, that the criminal investigation had concluded without charges being laid and that the Privacy Commissioner determined that no breach of the Privacy Act occurred and that the privacy complaint was "not well-founded".

The column also referred to a "conflict of interest" and"corruption". It was not the intent of the Cowichan Valley Citizen that these statements be regarded as factual or refer to Richard Warman. The Cowichan Valley Citizen has no evidence that Richard Warman was in a conflict of interest, corrupt or subject to a criminal investigation or an investigation by the Privacy Commission.

The Cowichan Valley Citizen hereby wholly and unreservedly apologizes to Mr. Warman and regrets any embarrassment this column may have caused Mr. Warman.

Given the howlers in the origonal article (which I won't link to), you have to think that the Citizen is publishing just anything that's put in front of them.

Tells you about the state of CanWest papers these days.

Speechies are offering moral support in the comments, but little in the way of cash for legal fees, and at the moment Walker seems intent on going down fighting in the name of Freedom.

MP Maurice Vellacott: Saskatoon Doctors Should Be Commended For Reducing The Availability of Abortion Services

2009-11-21T08:40:00.001-05:00

“The bottom line is that the decline in the availability of abortion services is directly linked to a growing commitment to the medical evidence of what abortion does and how abortion negatively impacts the lives of women. Saskatoon’s doctors should be commended for the leadership they are showing by reducing the availability of abortion in our city...."

From a news release posted to his website last evening. I guess this begs the question: are Saskatoon Doctors inappropriately imposing their moral values on their patients? Both the original Star Phoenix article and Vellacott's congratulatory press release suggest that this is the case.

And another nice quote:

Pro-life feminists have also come to see abortion as part of a male agenda to have women more sexually available.

Just three points off a majority, folks.