Who Is Behind Next Week's Pro-Ford Demo

...the "Stop the bullying:  it will get better for Rob Ford" thingy?  It's Dharminder Kumar, who is either the other member of Ron Banerjee's group  Canadian Hindu Advocacy, or, as some believe, a sock puppet for Ron Banerjee himself.  So you know the event, like so many CHA protests, will be a big...big success.

To get an idea of the kind of folks who might show up, its useful to note the CHA's endorsement of CIR (the Canadian Immigration Report).  CIR were the folks  invited to speak, and then booted from, a recent meeting of  the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, basically because they called the Nazis a great bunch of fellows.

Might be worth showing up at this thing with a camera, to see if one of the Ford's appears and gives everybody a hug.

PS.  In regards to CIR.  The Lussiers, who run the website, keep a very low profile.  One thing that seems clear, though,is that Julien Lussier is not, as he has claimed to be, a lawyer.  Or at least he's not the Que. lawyer with a similar sounding name.

Scott Tribe On Ontario Liberal Leadership Convention

Scott's been doing God's work asking the Ontario Liberals how they will be treating bloggers during the upcoming leadership convention.  And here's my suggestion: gong-show that it degenerated into aside, the recent  federal NDP convention  set a  high bar when it came to bloggers.  We got in free, got a press pass,  got a couple of tables with decent views of the floor with plugins for our computers.  We didn't, like the MSM, get a "filing room" to sit and think and suck our thumbs in before hacking out our crap.  We had to compete with the sound of Paul Dewar rapping.  And we didn't get free food, although I was snuck some and I'm not sure it was a great loss.

The Ontario Liberals should emulate this formula, generally speaking.

Life On Mars?

UPDATE:  Slashdot says its a hoax.  But a good one.

Last week Curiosity was able to use its SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) device to confirm the discovery. A robotic arm with a complex system of Spectral Analysis devices was able to vaporize and identify gasses from the sample, concluding that it is in fact plastic. How plastic formed or ended up on the Martian surface is quite an exciting mystery that sparks many questions. The type of plastic sampled as we know so far can only be formed using petrochemicals, meaning not only that there could possibly be a source of oil on the Red Planet, but that somehow it got turned into plastic. Even more interesting is that oil or petrochemicals used to create this type of plastic are only known to come from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil pointing to the earthshaking evidence that there was once life on mars.

This looks like a fairly credible claim.  It also seems to be a followup on stories like this.  So maybe not quite sealing the deal, but strongly suggesting, that our solar neighbor once harbored enough life for it to turn into an oil deposit.

Sometimes A Witch Hunt Helps The Witch

If the Torys want to haul Justin Trudeau before House Natural Resources Committee to explain his Alberta statements, then let 'em.  Give the guy hours of looking handsome and acting human to lay out his leadership platform before a national audience.  Because, believe me, this will get covered wall-to-wall.  The One, getting nagged by the one with two chins.  Although I suspect Stephen Harper will find a means to  make this stupid idea go away.  As for us Liberals, of course we should all bust out a can of fake outrage.  But, really-- pray for this to come to pass.

The Curious Case Of The Disappearing Quote

So, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, T.O. Sun reporter Kevin Connor wrote up a short piece re last week's protest outside of the Israeli consulate on Bloor Street.  Probably the most notable thing about it was the apology that soon appeared above its first paragraph:

A version of this story that briefly appeared on torontosun.com contained quotes wrongly attributed to Bernie Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress. The Sun regrets the error and apologizes to Mr. Farber.

I've emailed both the reporter and his boss (James Wallace) for clarification, but have received no response.  However,  here's the thing.  There are not many ways the fake quote (which can be seen here) could have made its way into the story.

1) Connor might have invented it, which is a firing offence.  Its also difficult to believe.

2) It could have originated with someone at the protest who decided to impersonate Farber as a means of embarrassing him/damaging his reputation.  This appears to be the opinion of blogger Arnie Lemaire, who also attended--ie The Sun got punk'd.  But in this instance, such a prank would have amounted to an illegal act.

And I would point out that someone has recently been impersonating the various players in the small circle of activists/culture warriors that involve themselves in the issues that Bernie also cares about.  For example, here . Furthermore, among this small circle at least one person has already developed a reputation for getting up to this kind of silliness.

Here's hoping The Sun lives up to its responsibility and at least gives some kind of explanation.  One of their reporters has either done something quite unethical or inadvertently aided a lawbreaker.

Canuck Climate Change Denier Tom Harris Up To More No Good

Tom Harris is one of Canada's better known climate change deniers.  I've written about him plenty  Now one of his emails to fellow deniers has got loose.  I've reproduced it below.  Basically, he's scouring the anti-AGW Internet forums looking for signatures to stick on another open letter addressed to the U.N., this time contesting the AGW=Freak Weather connection.   The most interesting bit:

Because we have an agreement with a major media outlet to publish the open letter on Thursday, I will need to know of your support in the next day if possible, please.  Endorsers may be added later for Web versions of the letter but only those who have notified me of their support by then are guaranteed to be included in the list of endorsers published by the major newspaper in question.

Harris has been on Sun News TV a number of times this year, so I'd bet the T.O Sun is his "major newspaper".  It might also be the National Post, perhaps via Terence Corcoran.  Anyone has other ideas, please share them in the comments.
---

Dear friends,

I apologize for addressing you so impersonally but time is short if we are to mount a significant counterpoint to the scientifically invalid assertions already being broadcast by the 1,500 journalists and 7,000 environmentalists attending the UN climate conference now underway in Qatar. 

Please find below our "Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations" to which we are inviting your endorsement. 

Because we have an agreement with a major media outlet to publish the open letter on Thursday, I will need to know of your support in the next day if possible, please.  Endorsers may be added later for Web versions of the letter but only those who have notified me of their support by then are guaranteed to be included in the list of endorsers published by the major newspaper in question.

The open letter and the list of endorsers will also be submitted to the Secretary General with a brief cover letter from myself by e-mail and by courier. Your endorsement of the open letter would be clearly indicated as only applying to the “Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations” below, not to the cover letter or any supporting material we may provide.

Here is the text of the open letter (underlined phrases are active Web links) that we request that you allow us to list you as endorsing (for those of you who signed any past open letters organized by ICSC, I already have your complete credentials and affiliations. For others, I request that you let me know how you would like to be identified in the endorser list):
____________________________________________________

Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations

H.E. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations

First Avenue and East 44^th Street, New York, New York, U.S.A.

 

November 29, 2012

Mr Secretary-General:

On November 9 this year you told the General Assembly: “Extreme weather due to climate change is the new normal ... Our challenge remains, clear and urgent: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthen adaptation to … even larger climate shocks … and to reach a legally binding climate agreement by 2015 … This should be one of the main lessons of Hurricane Sandy.”

 

On November 13 you said at Yale: “The science is clear; we should waste no more time on that debate.”

 The following day, in Al Gore’s “Dirty Weather" Webcast, you spoke of “more severe storms, harsher droughts, greater floods”, concluding: “Two weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy struck the eastern seaboard of the United States. A nation saw the reality of climate change. The recovery will cost tens of billions of dollars. The cost of inaction will be even higher. We must reduce our dependence on carbon emissions.”

We the undersigned, qualified in climate-related matters, wish to state that current scientific knowledge does not substantiate your assertions.

The U.K. Met Office recently released data showing that there has been no statistically significant global warming for almost 16 years. During this period, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations rose by nearly 9% to now constitute 0.039% of the atmosphere. Global warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather of the past few years. Whether, when and how warming will resume is unknown. The science is unclear. Some scientists point out that near-term natural cooling, linked to variations in solar output, is also a distinct possibility.

The “even larger climate shocks” you have mentioned would be worse if the world cooled than if it warmed. Climate changes naturally all the time, sometimes dramatically. The hypothesis that our emissions of CO₂ have caused, or will cause, dangerous warming is not supported by the evidence.

The incidence and severity of extreme weather has not increased. There is little evidence that dangerous weather-related events will occur more often in the future. The U.N.’s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says in its Special Report on Extreme Weather (2012) that there is “an absence of an attributable climate change signal” in trends in extreme weather losses to date. The funds currently dedicated to trying to stop extreme weather should therefore be diverted to strengthening our infrastructure so as to be able to withstand these inevitable, natural events, and to helping communities rebuild after natural catastrophes such as tropical storm Sandy.

There is no sound reason for the costly, restrictive public policy decisions proposed at the U.N. climate conference in Qatar. Rigorous analysis of unbiased observational data does not support the projections of future global warming predicted by computer models now proven to exaggerate warming and its effects.

The NOAA “State of the Climate in 2008” report asserted that 15 years or more without any statistically-significant warming would indicate a discrepancy between observation and prediction. Sixteen years without warming have therefore now proven that the models are wrong by their creators’ own criterion.

Based upon these considerations, we ask that you desist from exploiting the misery of the families of those who lost their lives or properties in tropical storm Sandy by making unsupportable claims that human influences caused that storm. They did not. We also ask that you acknowledge that policy actions by the U.N., or by the signatory nations to the UNFCCC, that aim to reduce CO₂ emissions are unlikely to exercise any significant influence on future climate. Climate policies therefore need to focus on preparation for, and adaptation to, all dangerous climatic events however caused.

Signed by:

____________________________________________________________________

Please feel free to forward this e-mail to others who you think may also sign the open letter with the request that they keep it as confidential as possible until published by media (I’ll let you all know as soon as that happens).

I hope to hear from you very soon!

Sincerely,

Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)

P.O. Box 23013

Ottawa, Ontario

K2A 4E2

Canada

http://www.climatescienceinternational.org

613-728-9200

Pro Ford Protest Flops

In the eye of the storm, a clearly shaken Ford pin-balled Tuesday from twitchy forelock-tugging in front of the cameras to civic boosting at the Grey Cup championship parade — some cheers, some jeers, several smooches on the cheek from Toronto Argonauts defensive tackle Adriano Belli — to semaphoring in front of a different kind of bench as his beloved Eagles were dumped by Newmarket’s Huron Heights Warriors; cheerleaders pompom-ing and upwards of 600 fans in the stands, a decent crowd for a high school event, perhaps some of them responding to urgings from Doug Ford to show his brother the love. Anyway, there were no boos, not even from the Warriors side of the seating.

Hardly the stuff of populist revolt, and hardly as billed:

“Not hundreds, but thousands and thousands of e-mails, thousands of texts and phone calls of support asking for rallies,” [Doug] Ford said. “

And so Doug Ford called for one at yesterday's game, and hardly anybody showed.   Ford Nation appears more than a little bit dead.

PS: Another interesting factoid, although Forum is the pollster FWIW:

The poll also found that 60 per cent of Torontonians agreed with the decision to turf Ford from the mayor’s chair for breaking provincial conflict of interest law, even as support among his core base remained unshakeable.

So maybe Ford Nation isn't dead.  Maybe it was too busy bathing its pet hamster to show up at the game yesterday.

I've Been Trying My Whole Life To Destroy the MSM...

...and now they're committing suicide right in front of me.  From Sun media's paywall Q&A:

 In Canada, media companies are also looking to digital monetization to grow their revenue. Sun Media was a leader in the market,launching a freemium model on Journal de Montreal and Quebec in September,followed by PostMedia`s Vancouver Sun and Ottawa Citizen launch of metered access in October, and the Globe & Mail`s on November 1st. Our five SUN sites will launch metered access on Tuesday, December 4th. The Toronto Star has announced they will follow suit with the introduction of a paid content model sometime in 2013.

Sun Media will be tracking IP addresses, so I don't know whether dodging their wall will be as trivial an exercise as it apparently is with the G&M and NY Times.  In the case of the Globe, there has literally been nothing behind the wall that I've been willing to clear my browser cache over.  The folks at Huffpo Canada must be thrilled at these developments.  Their competition is  abandoning the field.

Mammoliti Speaks More

endorses Doug Holyday, presumably for caretaker mayor.  Something I would be OK with, personally.

Nobody Loves The Mayor

Calling the situation a “crisis” for city hall, Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti, a Ford ally, said he would not support a byelection because he thinks it would be a waste of money with two years left in the current four-year term.

Instead, he would prefer council to appoint a “caretaker” mayor if Ford’s appeal fails.

I am beginning to think the mayor is done, politically, given this, Mammoliti's quitting the executive, and similar sentiments expressed by Ford ally Doug Holyday a day ago.  If Ford can't run again for two years, the city will get used to boring council politics again and decide they like it.  Center right money-men will find another candidate with a similar political agenda but without the penchant for stepping on rakes.  And if Ford runs, he just splits the vote that candidate.  Presto!  Mayor Chow!

The Globe And Mail Exits The Propertied Class

If only they'd launched that pay-wall a month earlier!  They would surely have been saved!  Now they have to scope-out an alternative site for their new HQ.

Catholic Bishops Cave To Tories!

A couple of posts by Gruending give the best run-down of a story I've been following out of the corner of my eye for awhile now: the suspension of Development's And Peace's fall post card campaign after it was judged "too political" by the  Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB).  The upshot seems to be that the Bishops value their relationship with the current federal government over the good works their church has historically been associated with.  Its like what happened with Canadian Mennonite Magazine, except the Bishops skipped that part where they are threatened by an agent of the Harper Torys and went straight to self-abasement.  Thank God--as it were--that a few members of the D&P youth wing are kicking up a fuss.

Gruending sums up as follows:


The same newspaper article suggests that the bishops are concerned that D and P’s fall campaign might interfere with the CCCB’s relationship with the government. Ronald Breau, president of D and P’s national council, which acceded to the bishops’ request to pull the postcard campaign, says this: “The bishops are concerned that ongoing dialogue between the Catholic church and the government of Canada on some important, timely and sensitive issues might be compromised by our [D and P] approach at this time.”

One is left to wonder what those sensitive issues might be. It is clear that the Harper government wants to embed conservative Catholics, along with certain evangelicals and Jewish people into its permanent electoral coalition. Hence the overtures to the CCCB. It is less clear how the bishops and the church will benefit from this dalliance with the Conservatives. That is an issue worth our continuing scrutiny.

What's the bishops' payoff look like, in other words.

PS.  Apparently,  Flanders of all people has something to do with this.  That unholy rascal!  I thought he'd retired.

Another Sun Bung-Up

In a story about the weekend's pro-Palestinian rally on Bloor St.:

A version of this story that briefly appeared on torontosun.com contained quotes wrongly attributed to Bernie Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress. The Sun regrets the error and apologizes to Mr. Farber.

Most interesting thing here is: since Mr. Farber didn't supply the quotes in question (which can be found here), did someone identifying themselves as Bernie Farber offer them?  An impersonator, in other words.

I've emailed the reporter for clarification.

Jose Canseco Getting Head Punched In

Most people don't know that a few years ago Jose Canseco had a very brief MMA career, during which  he fought and lost to this guy:

Normally, I would find this kind of thing barbaric, but given its Canseco....

Wente Still Goin'

...and still mis-attributin' stuff:

“An earlier online version of this column contained unclear attribution. This version has been clarified”.

And still employed by the G&M.  Luckily, Carol's still on the case, and still got them hopping over there.  I hope she's not actually paying for on-line access.  After all, she's performing a public service.

And Another Leak For Enbridge!

Nov 23 (Reuters) - About 900 barrels of crude oil leaked from an Enbridge Inc pipeline near Chicago late on Wednesday before the line was isolated, federal and state officials said.

Sometimes Cutbacks Are A Good Thing

With this column I bid adieu to Sun Media readers, and my thanks to the publisher and editors for extending to me the privilege of writing in this space over the past decade.

Bye bye Salim Mansur!

There's Always Marc Garneau

In the end, that's what I keep telling myself: there's always Marc Garneau.

Who Said This About The Government Changes To The Interim Federal Health Program

...that have resulted in a refugee from the Mid-East being denied his chemo?

 ...unbelievable that some of the decisions that have been taken federally are having this impact on people who are clearly the most vulnerable, refugees who are obviously fleeing something quite terrible — that’s why they’re refugees...” 

[...]

“On the face of it, you just consider the case of this particular gentleman or others who, for example, as it was pointed out … might need prenatal care, this is just common sense. You just do this.

“This is the kind of country we are. You cover it.”

[...]

“This country is rich. We are rich beyond measure compared to the countries where these folks are fleeing from and so it’s our view that we should just be there to help.

“That’s kind of a basic Canadian value, I think...” 

Was it a bunch of crazy Liberal Jews?  A bunch of less Liberal Jews?  No, it was right-wing Premier of Saskatchewan Brad Wall, who apparently has at least one compassionate bone in his body. Unlike  Immigration Minister Jason Kenney or his PM Stephen Harper.

And the refugee in question fled his home country because "he was persecuted for being Christian". Does Stephen Harper suddenly hate Christians?  Probably not.  But then what can we learn from this?  Simple: its actually very difficult to craft your laws re refugees so that they fuck over the Roma exclusively.  Discriminate against one group, and there will always be collateral damage to other groups not on your shit list.

Bloop No More

This is terribly disappointing:

The broad spectrum sounds recorded in the summer of 1997 are consistent with icequakes generated by large icebergs as they crack and fracture. NOAA hydrophones deployed in the Scotia Sea detected numerous icequakes with spectrograms very similar to “Bloop”. The icequakes were used to acoustically track iceberg A53a as it disintegrated near South Georgia Island in early 2008. Icequakes are of sufficient amplitude to be detected on multiple sensors at a range of over 5000 km. Based on the arrival azimuth, the iceberg(s) generating “Bloop” most likely were between Bransfield Straits and the Ross Sea, or possibly at Cape Adare, a well know source of cryogenic signals.

The original, far more Romantic theory ran as follows:

...the sound nicknamed Bloop is the most likely to come from some sort of animal, because its signature is a rapid variation in frequency similar to that of sounds known to be made by marine beasts. There's one crucial difference, however: in 1997 Bloop was detected by sensors up to 4800 kilometres apart. That means it must be far louder than any whale noise, or any other animal noise for that matter. Is it even remotely possible that some creature bigger than any whale is lurking in the ocean depths? 

Apparently, the answer to this last question is a soul-deadening "no".