Being ...

... the news:

First rule of journalism: don't be the news. Unfortunate she got hit by the bike, but what was she doing there? Was she protesting? Apparently not, she was apparently reporting... with just an Iphone? So, she was standing at the "side of the protest" - so where? In the street? On a sidewalk? She was apparently in the way, or she wouldn't have got hit. Was she standing still? Or was she bobbing about, trying to get a shot, forcing the cop to figure out where this airhead was going?

So, she didn't to get run down by a bicycle (but she did expect to get tear-gassed, or rubbered, or beaten with a baton).

So Jenny, hon, are you disappointed it was only a bike? I thought you were a reporter at a protest(not a picnic)? Maybe you should have stayed home and watched the coverage on TV, but then you would have missed your 15 minutes.

Here's a hint: DON'T sign up for the nex A'stan tour, and here's something to think about: What if the protester you were snapping on your Iphone took exception to your picture taking and pounded you within an inch of your life? Probably the guy on the bike wouldn't have been there to wipe you up either, or maybe he would have. Why would create the need for him to have to?

If you intend to play in the street, you need to watch for traffic, especially when you're not paying attention. The Sun needs real reporters. While we took a run at Michael Cooke last week, he has a point - not all citizen journalists should leave their basements, and there is more to street reporting then simply showing up.

As a friend of mine like to say "life is rough; wear a helmet".

Yeah, and don't BE the news...

BP Kill

Interesting Post on Killing the Blowout:

As the well continues to descend there will likely be an increased focus on determining exactly where the two wells lie, one to another. This requires a process that pulls the drill string each time, and so progress is likely to be slow as the relief well (RW) reaches the level at which the entry into the original well will be first tried.

Kent Wells has described the process. But he does not describe how the wells will be connected. And I will make a little more detailed description of a possible way of doing this, that John Wright has used before, at the end of the post.

Note that Kent Wells points out that the ranging runs do not start until the final set of well casing has been set. (And this was completed on June 19th). Once the casing has been set, the procedure calls to drill 275 ft of MD (measured depth), and then pull the drill.

Scientific Prediction Gone Bad

Dec. 21, 2006:

Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

June 27, 2010:

It appears that the sunspot and 10.7 progression for Solar Cycle 24 have hit a bit of a roadblock in recent months, according to NOAA’s Solar Cycle Progression and Prediction Center.

Amazongate Alive and Well

The warmists are getting desperate; sloppy even. They crow like corvids chasing an owl when they score a rare (but false) victory, too stupid to realize that by doing so they invite more scrutiny ... silly little fascists:

There have been lots of articles lately discussing the retraction by the UK Sunday Times of their claims about Amazongate. Folks like George Monbiot are claiming that their point of view has been vindicated, that Amazongate is “rubbish” and that skeptics have been “skewered”. So I decided to follow the tortuous trail through the Amazon jungle, to see where the truth lies.

... follow the trail.

Bonus from North & Booker.

Obama's Environmental Disaster Hits Canada

I was watching the white pelicans on the Saskatchewan river the other day. They are a common sight these days, although not that long ago they were a threatened species. As well as pelicans, hundreds of shore birds, a few grebes, cormorants, and ducks kept busy all up and down the river.

I couldn't help but wonder how many of these birds will be wintering on the gulf coast marshes ... and if bad luck and the most incompetent US president of all time won't spell death for some ... or most, of them:

Clinton Jeske kills the motor on the United States Geological Survey's 5.5-metre Whaler boat and noses it into the moss-covered mud that surrounds this stretch of Louisiana's southern marshlands.

Ahead, the horizon disappears behind a shallow sea of green. Grasses wave in the breeze, rocking a million dragonflies, each perched on its own stalk. In the water, a blue crab scuttles about, a small swarm of baitfish swims past and a needlefish flits by.

For all the fecundity on display, however, this marsh is a shadow of what it will become in a few months, when it will suddenly become home to millions of birds. Today, most of those birds are in Canada, where their summer homes in Ontario, the northern Prairies and the Arctic have been safe from the effects of the oil despoiling the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Harper, More Please

... the occasional little flash of the Old Steve is a pleasant, although rare, treat:

Leaders of the G20 nations have agreed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's calls to halve deficits and stabilize debt-to-GDP ratios in an effort to foster recovery from the global economic crisis, according to the summit's final communique.

The 22-page communique endorses Harper's proposal for countries to halve their deficits by 2013 and stabilize or reduce debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016.

May versus Morano

Mud huts with solar panels aren't going to cut it:

Click

Good civil debate!

Saturday Horror Flic

Details

When a Got-Ya Turns Out to be Guano

... it's generally just a dirty little event ... but when it's published in a national media outlet, one hell of a guano-storm can be unleashed:

And while I am very much in favour of open debate, even I tend to draw a line at being accused on the website of a national paper of "peddling inaccuracy, misrepresentation and falsehood."

This is not debate. It is libel. Booker's advice on these things tends to be to avoid getting into a fight with a chimney sweep – for obvious reasons – but this is also a case of Moonbat going too far. And, since he is so keen on the PCC, I thought that this would be a good place to start.

Vietnamistan

Have Democrats learned anythig from Vietnam ... yes:

Finally, the most important lesson the Democrats have learned is that they should not draft long-haired, stoned hippies and America-hating radicals on college campuses and send them to war. They'll only riot and try to bomb the Pentagon (like Bill Ayers did). And it makes no sense to offend the voters who are virtually guaranteed to support the Democratic Party anyway.

It's far better to prosecute a war with patriotic, America-loving volunteers from red states who probably voted Republican in the first place, and to play them for suckers by sending them on a mission about which you've said you're "uncomfortable" using the term "victory."

How to Crush a Sloppy Critic

Nova crushes her critic:

The author of “skeptical science” has finally decided to try to point out things he thinks are flaws in The Skeptics Handbook. Instead, he misquotes me, shies away from actually displaying the damning graphs I use, gets a bit confused about the difference between a law and a measurement, unwittingly disagrees with his own heroes, and misunderstands the climate models he bases his faith on. Not so “skeptical” eh John? He’s put together a page of half-truths and sloppy errors and only took 21 months to do it. Watch how I use direct quotes from him, the same references, and the same graphs, and trump each point he tried to make. His unskeptical faith in a theory means he accepts some bizarre caveats while trying to whitewash the empirical findings.

In the end, John Cook trusts the scientists who collect grants funded by the fear-of-a-crisis and who want more of his money, but he’s skeptical of unfunded scientists who ask him to look at the evidence and tell him to keep his own cash.

... be sure to read the whole thing; it's an enjoyable take-down.

BP Spill Transparency

The other day we posted a worst case scenario for the BP spill; today we offer a counter to that scenario:

First, I will say that in one area we are in complete agreement. BP and the USCG have been less than forth coming, and in doing so have hurt both themselves and the general public as all kinds of wild rumors and technical misinformation abound. Some of this misinformation results in harm to individuals and businesses as people suffer increased stress and tourists cancel vacations.

In this information vacuum it is easy to make wrong assumptions that lead to mistaken conclusions. It can be made worse if you have some degree of technical knowledge and verbiage and use that to make a case for a scenario that doesn’t pass muster with actual engineering analysis but sounds highly authoritative to many people, some TV commentators and various politicians.

... keep reading.

Crossfit Remembers Our Fallen

A lot of CF members use Crossfit to get in shape ... extremely good shape. It's fitting then, that Crossfit has dedicated workouts to fallen soldiers and law enforcement officers. A number of the workouts are dedicated to Canadians:

Video

Hero Workouts

Homepage

Not Sorry to See the General Go

Coulter: Never shy

We Are All Progressives Now

Killing Coal:

Seeking to burnish Canada’s environmental reputation before world leaders gather in Toronto, Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced on Wednesday a $400-million contribution to an international climate change fund and plans to phase out coal-burning electricity at home.

Mr. Prentice said the $400-million investment represents “Canada’s fair share” of a $10-billion (U.S.) per year fund to help poor countries combat climate change. The “fast start fund” was negotiated at the Copenhagen climate-change conference in December as a $30-billion, three-year effort that will grow in future years.

The CPC, just caretakers of the progressive realm.

We Have a Duty

Boyes:

Brian and Angela Boyes flew from Saskatoon to this massive logistics base at the heart of the war against the Taliban this week to remember their son, Justin, who died only a few kilometres away last fall when he struck a homemade landmine while leading a joint patrol with Afghan police.

Despite the death of Lt. Justin Boyes of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, his father was unequivocal Wednesday about whether Canadian troops should come home from South Asia next summer.

"Should we leave? Absolutely not," Brian Boyes said. "We have a duty to the Afghan people . . . I think we need to finish the battle."

... silly families, don't they realize we can't finish the mission, what with Quebec votes to pander for and a political class in Ottawa made entirely of hacks locked in tribal warfare.

Explosives and the BP Blowout

Some interesting details on the relief wells can be found at The Oil Drum:

And this is where Her Majesty's Explosive (HMX) comes in. Small, specially designed, explosive charges, known as shaped charges are now put together into specifically designed charge packages, and lowered down into the well into the completion zone.

[...]

Here they are detonated, sending small jets of metal against the wall of the casing and perforating the steel and concrete into the surrounding rock.

[...]

As I have described it, this normally gives the passage for the well to flow out of the rock and into the well bore. In this case it has, instead, opened a path from the relief well into the well, rather than the reverse. It will be through these vents that the high density mud will be injected into the well to start the kill.

Giving the UN a Dose

Backing Up his Short Position

The old fascist is up to his old tricks ... after setting up a massive short position on the Euro, he fanning the fear (and at the same time backing his boy in the White House who want to keep spending):

Germany's budget savings policy risks destroying the European project and a collapse of the euro cannot be ruled out, billionaire investor George Soros said in a newspaper interview released on Wednesday.

CNBC

Missing Bush

... nostalgia for the good old days of Katrina is about to kick in:

Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state's oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor's wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.

"It's the most frustrating thing," the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. "Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges."

Oh Canada

It makes one proud to be a standout:

"When it comes to wait times, Canadians are selling themselves short," the report reads.

"Canadians deserve timely access to health care and accurate information on how long they can expect to wait for a consultation, test or procedure. Unfortunately, Canada is one of the few developed countries with universal health care systems where patients face long waits for necessary care."

Global Warming Droughts on the Prairies

... are getting worse:

The wettest spring on record is getting wetter.

A heavy rainfall warning from Environment Canada is calling for parts of the province to be doused with as much as 75 millimetres of rain by Friday. The warning first issued Wednesday afternoon is still in effect this morning.

Oil Gusher Nightmare

There's bad ... and then there's catostrophic beyond belief bad:

That dirty tar sands oil doesn't seem that dirty anymore:

A record of success in the Alberta oil sands and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are expected to whet investors’ appetite for a $1.25-billion initial public offering from MEG Energy Corp., the latest in a series of mega-deals from Canada’s oil patch.

After a decade of raising private money from blue-chip backers in Britain and China, along with his family and friends, MEG founder and chief executive officer William McCaffrey plans to take his company public this summer. MEG needs money to pay for a $1.4-billion expansion of its properties over the next two years that is expected to more than double the company’s oil production to 60,000 barrels a day.

Just think how inviting those vast shoals of tar will be if the hyperbole at The Drum turns out to be true:

First of all...set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening..it's done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway.

So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?...there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do...you will see the "sense" behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this:

The well bore structure is compromised "Down hole".

That is something which is a "Worst nightmare" conclusion to reach. While many have been saying this for some time as with any complex disaster of this proportion many have "said" a lot of things with no real sound reasons or evidence for jumping to such conclusions, well this time it appears that they may have jumped into the right place.

[...}

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.

[...]

We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.

The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens...

... keep reading.

It's Amazing What Passes as Far Right These Days

Typical European elites, passing off patriots who simply want their nations back as "Far Right".

The reckoning is going to be ugly:

Screaming hate and brandishing vile placards, Muslim extremists and far-Right groups clashed yesterday in ugly scenes that marred a parade by soldiers.

Around 40 members of a group called Muslims Against the Crusades (MAC) arrived with inflammatory banners featuring slogans such as 'Butchers return' and 'What are you dying for? £18k'.

They were soon confronted by 100 people, some wearing English Defence League T-shirts, who shouted 'scum' and 'Muslim bombers off our streets'.

There is Nothing More Pathetic

... than a lefty on an intellectual treadmill:

It would be wrong to characterise the Tea Party movement as being mostly working class. The polls suggest that its followers have an income and college education rate slightly above the national mean. But it is the only rising political movement in the US which enjoys major working-class support. It voices the resentments of those who sense that they have been shut out of American life. Yet it campaigns for policies that threaten to exclude them further. The Contract from America for which Tea Party members voted demands that the US adopt a single-rate tax system, repeal Obama's healthcare legislation and sustain George Bush's reductions in income tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax. The beneficiaries of these policies are corporations and the ultra-wealthy. Those who will be hurt by them are angrily converging on state capitals to demand that they are implemented.

... incapable of grasping reality:

All of humanity, it was now clear, was capable of getting richer. That many people were still cruelly poor no longer seemed like an inevitable fate. It was simply a mistake, and what is more, a mistake typically made by Marxist or Marxist influenced countries. After all, if you don’t believe that the process of wealth creation is possible, you won’t worry about wrecking it, will you? Although capitalism became steadily less like the melodrama first proclaimed in the Communist Manifesto, the countries presided over by Marxists became uncannily like that melodrama. (And eventually, in a despairing fury ...)

Wolf Pack

It's a known fact, that wolves may turn on wounded members of the pack:

The unambiguous message from top executives of BP rivals Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell: It’s not drilling on the outer reaches of the continental shelf that’s a problem; it’s BP.

[...]

“We would not have drilled the well the way they did,” Exxon chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson bluntly told members of the House subcommittee.

For example, Exxon would have used a different cement to build the well casing, designed the well differently and responded more aggressively to early signs of trouble, Mr. Tillerson said.

He pointed out that 14,000 deepwater wells have been drilled around the world, with few problems until now.

“It's not a well that we would have drilled,” echoed Shell Oil president Marvin Odum.

Obama's Oil-side Chat

There's losing your base ... and then there's losing your bedrock.

But wait, there's more; the Doctor gives his diagnosis.

... followed by a deliscious rant; something about a trifecta of morons.

Wanted

Terry Glavin of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee

... tells us that we are uniquely trusted.

CLICK

The O-conomy

Deadly Attitudes

... that kill soldiers:

A week later, Mr Holloway, who believes that a major rethink is needed for the Nato-led strategy in Afghanistan, returned to Lashkar Gah on a trip sponsored by the MoD. He said: “Talking to the senior military, it was like they were talking about a completely different place. They’d say, ‘Everything is going wonderfully, everything is according to plan. Of course, there are some challenges’.”

Bernard Jenkin, also a Conservative MP and former member of the Defence Select Committee, said that lessons must be learnt from Britain’s operations in southern Afghanistan and southern Iraq. “It is clear that the relationship between the MoD and the rest of Whitehall is dysfunctional,” Mr Jenkin said. “Senior officer training should discuss more openly how to deal with military-political interface.”

Roger on the Economy

An Alternative to the Afghan Poppy

Hopeful:

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

[...]

“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

The World is Doomed

... to being roasted:

Developing countries were today shocked by new UN data showing that rich nations will be able to increase their carbon emissions by up to 8% if they take advantage of a series of major loopholes in their pledges.

Instead of reducing emissions by a minimum of 30-40% by 2020 and holding temperatures to a rise of 2C – as many campaigners hoped the Copenhagen climate summit in December would achieve – many rich countries would not need to make any domestic cuts to stay within the legal limits of a new global climate deal being negotiated at resumed UN talks in Bonn this week.

The figures, which are far higher than expected, could be achieved by a series of carbon accountancy tricks and devices including:

... keep reading.

Quotes to Warm the Heart

Robert McChesney:

“Only government can implement policies and subsidies to provide an institutional framework for quality journalism.”

[...]

“The news is not a commercial product. It is a public good, necessary for a self-governing society. Once we accept this, we can talk about the kind of media policies and subsidies we want.”

[...]

“In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick-by-brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”

Saudi Milk

In a surprising development, two senior Saudi clerics today said that Saudi Arabia’s women should give their breast milk to male colleagues and acquaintances in order to safeguard the Islamic law that forbids mixing between the sexes. The clerics, however, failed to reach an agreement among each other on how the milk should be conveyed.

... just wondering, how does this apply to 9 year old wives?

Update: Satire?

Supposedly not ... Back Story

We Con the World

... having fun with aid:



More Latma.

Not so funny ... an "aid shipment" intercepted last year ... CLICK.

Charles from June 4:

But as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.

[...]

Oh, but weren't the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel's offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza -- as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.

Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade, i.e., ending Israel's inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.

Israel has already twice intercepted ships laden with Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that?

Dumbo on Islam and Being Green

This guy's taste in women is only surpassed by his green bonafides:

Prince Charles yesterday urged the world to follow Islamic 'spiritual principles' in order to protect the environment.

In an hour-long speech, the heir to the throne argued that man's destruction of the world was contrary to the scriptures of all religions - but particularly those of Islam.

He said the current 'division' between man and nature had been caused not just by industrialisation, but also by our attitude to the environment - which goes against the grain of 'sacred traditions'.

The Palin Touch

Having the power to turn frogs into princes ...

Some of Sarah Palin’s riskiest endorsements scored major victories Tuesday for the former Alaska governor, showing off her power in Republican primaries.

Palin had four primary endorsements in play – Carly Fiorina, Nikki Haley, Terry Branstad and Cecile Bledsoe – and three won or moved on to a runoff.

Palin served different roles for each candidate – sometimes spotlighting conservatives not well known to the national scene while at others validating conservative credentials to an unsure grassroots and even stepping in to deflect nasty attacks.

... means you can also turn princes into frogs:

Sarah Palin endorsed three dark-horse candidates in Republican match-ups this year, and all three won their primaries yesterday: Nikki Haley in South Carolina, Sharron Angle in Nevada and Carly Fiorina in California. No wonder Sarah's being stalked by Joe McGinniss.

Now, she's got to endorse Rob Simmons for U.S. Senate. Otherwise, Republicans can kiss the possibility of a major upset in Connecticut goodbye.

I wouldn't ask, but the country is at stake. We have a mere 100 senators; only 17 Senate seats currently held by Democrats are up this year; and only about six of those could possibly go Republican, even in Newt Gingrich's wildest fantasies.

Republicans have done a fantastic job predicting a landslide in the November elections, but not such a good job of doing anything that will actually help them achieve victory.

Falling Down

... can't be a good thing when almost 80% of Ontario's trade is with a country happily crushing itself in debt:

President Obama’s budget forecast reflects a cock-eyed optimism about our fiscal future, yet even it projects total U.S. debt will rise from 2009’s 53 percent of GDP to 90 percent by 2019. “Most economists,” Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) notes, “will tell you that an economy can handle between 30 and 40 percent debt as a percentage of GDP. But a nation’s economy starts to get into trouble when that ratio gets up around 60 percent of GDP. When it gets up to 80 percent of GDP, basically an economy can’t handle that for very long.”

The day of reckoning may already be here, according to a new study by the International Monetary Fund. It pegs our “general government gross debt” for 2010 at 92.6 percent of GDP. By 2014, the IMF estimates, government debt will pass the 100 percent–of–GDP tipping point (hitting 106.4 percent to be exact) and keep on going. To forestall a Greece-like fiscal catastrophe, the IMF says, lawmakers must act now to reduce government debt by more than $1.6 trillion. Instead, Congress is looking to pass an “extenders” bill that will run up hundreds of billions more in debt.

... the whole dangerous state of affairs is made all the more bizarre when one realizes that Ontario, among other provinces, is bound and determined to join its main trading partner in leaping off the debt cliff.

How Canada’s Politicians Abandoned the Troops

When Stephen Harper came to power one of his first big stunts was to visit Afghanistan and give a “We don’t cut and run” speech. At the time the speech warmed the hearts of all Canadians who support the forces and especially those who support the mission in Afghanistan. Stephen Harper was our hero. In the early days of his governance he even went as far as to say he’d lose an election rather than abandon the fight.

But then, a handful of events tipped over the apple cart. The House of Commons voted to terminate the mission in 2011, an election provided no majority, charges of prisoner abuse ran amuck ... and the Prime Minister and his party went missing in action. As days turned to months no overt show of support for the mission could be glimpsed from the Harper Conservatives. It was bizarre, almost surreal, but for us who had felt such a stirring of pride when our leader had spoken at KAF, we were soon forced to believe our lying eyes.

Since then, evidence has emerged which suggests that the Harper government is obsessed with “messaging”. CTV has detailed how the PMO is fanatical about even the most trite announcement. Not a word, not an utterance out of any MP, or any government department, comes without detailed vetting.

So it is, that the PMOs silence on Afghanistan is clearly prescribed and comes as no accident. The question is of course, why?

The answer to that question may seem allusive if one is looking for some complex reason, some trick or sleight of hand concocted by the “chess player”. If one steps back though and looks at Canadian politics with a dispassionate eye, the answer virtually leaps out ... because it’s hiding in plain sight.

First though, we must wrap our heads around what has happened. Canada has lost her war. She's leaving the battlefield while it's still contested, she is withdrawing from the conflict before the battle is clearly won or lost ... that's a historic first for Canada ... but it’s a willing act of Parliament.

140 some soldiers have died for a loss ... they have wasting their lives for the pleasure of a political class who has sent them to perish in a fight where party hacks have issued an artificial end date ... as if in a hockey game.

What’s at play among the political elite is not war, but Canadian politics at its worst ... a simple game called "let's win a majority" which involves the whoring out of principles for Quebec votes. Why? Because Quebecors will never move en masse to any party who so much as utters a word of support for the mission in Afghanistan ... and no party can win big in Canada without winning those pacifist Quebec votes. Only in Quebec, in fact, can the war be a make or break issue. It causes one to wonder if any principle is great enough that it won't be sacrificed for a greater share of the Quebec take.

Admittedly, there are very compelling strategic and tactical reasons for pulling out of the war. (I personally believe the reasons for staying are more compelling) ... but that's not the point here.

The point is that our politicians have not openly and honestly held a discussion with Canadians as to what the strategic or tactical reasoning is for either leaving or staying ... that's because they aren't even functioning at that level. They are involved in their own petty war, where the battle between the tribes (BLOC, NDP, LPC, CPC) is more vital in their minds than the real flesh and blood battle going on in Afghanistan.

Furthermore, not one party leader in Canada has the gravitas to engage Canadians in a discussion about the issues. You can't blame a majority of Canadians for wanting out, when not one single Canadian politician has explained to them why we are there, and why we should stay, and what the goals are ... and most important, what the consequences of a loss might be. In essence, nobody in Ottawa will dare pick up the torch and argue the merits (that Quebec thing) and that has left the stage entirely to the progressive media, leftist politicians, pacifists, and isolationists.

That a Canadian soldier should die for the guano that passes for politics in Canada today makes me cringe. What kind of morally bankrupt country sends its men to die while at the same time telling the enemy the date they are quitting? Harper and the other party leaders make President Obama seem like Patton. Even most of Canada’s NATO allies, who have far less domestic support, are for now sticking it out.

When I said goodbye to my son last winter, I was potentially bidding him farewell forever ... I was witnessing a willing young man entering a field of battle for his country, for Afghans, and for himself and his mates. I watched the weeping mothers and girl friends and children, clinging to their warriors for perhaps the last time, and I realized then how utterly undeserving the bickering hacks that abide in Ottawa are of those who do their bidding.

Imagine being the parent of a child fighting in a deadly conflict where your own government has already issued a best-before date.

I am so relieved my son came back from Afghanistan ... his loss would've been doubly unbearable knowing that the fight he was in was going to be abandoned by his government for pure domestic partisan reasons that had nothing to do with the fight itself and nothing to do with Canada’s strategic interests.

Difficult times demand courageous and honest leadership ... but all we've been given is a gaggle of squabbling peacocks focussed exclusively on pecking each other's eyes out.

Yes

... she can:

Crisis Management In a Seal Skin

... about as much class as a spitting llama:

The Obamas will attend the star-studded gala at Ford Theatre featuring singer Kelly Clarkson, comedian George Lopez, actor Dick Van Dyke and others. Ty Burrell of ABC’s “Modern Family” will host.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and South African Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs are to receive the Ford’s Theatre Lincoln Medal.

The event will be televised as America Celebrates July 4th at Ford’s Theatre on July 2 by ABC.

For sure Michelle will wear a “stunning” gala gown but this time the gown will stand out against a sickening background of muddy oil covered birds and beaches.

I hope Michelle has selected the worst possible dress for this inappropriate event. They should have canceled Sir Pall and this gala 2 weeks ago.

UPDATE – And the wait was rewarded: Michelle looks like a seal in a silver spandex wetsuit.

Rumble in NJ

Which Came First?

Weather or Climate:

There is no "climate" in the RSS temperature tables from 1979 to 2010: everything is "weather". No simple relationship that assumes that the temperature on several sufficiently distance places are hugely correlated - or even amplifications of one another - works well enough for it to be accurate enough or useful. Instead, the assumption that the individual places behave independently is much more compatible with all the basic statistical features of the data.

There's only "weather" which is pretty much random while the "climate" is just whatever you get by averaging the "weather" - and its variations are dominated by the statistically inevitable residuals from the changes of the "weather" rather than by independent simple linear relationships that would be characteristic for the "climate".

Because a basic point of the "science of climate change" is to completely neglect the weather, such a science can't be compatible with the observations of the temperatures at time scales that are comparable to 30 years. In this sense, the whole "science of climate change" - whose very goal is to pretend that the weather and meteorology don't exist or don't impact the global averages - is a pseudoscience.

More Christie Gold

UN Wants to STOP Obama

... from doing the one thing he's doing right:

A United Nations investigator called Wednesday for a halt to CIA-directed drone strikes on suspected Islamic militants, warning that killings ordered far from the battlefield could lead to a "Playstation" mentality.

Philip Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, said missile strikes could be justified only when it was impossible to capture insurgents alive instead and only if they were carried out by regular U.S. armed forces operating with proper oversight and respect for the rules of war.

A Shining Example to the World

Goldman Sachs:

Canada “is a shining example to the rest of the world,” on how to bounce back from the recession, O'Neill said.

It avoided the sharp downturn other major advanced nations endured by limiting leverage, protecting consumers, and avoiding excessive deregulation of their financial industry.

... thank you Mr. Harper, but especially Mr. Martin who left our PM a house in order and banking system as solid as a rock.

Beyond Stupid

... your average single cell amoeba has more brain power than this creature:



... that's right Blinky ... make sure "The Word", is in public policy. Christian theocracy anyone?

In her defense though, she didn't have a fracking idea what she was talking about.

Losing the Czechs

My ancestors seem to be slowly but surely waking up:

Left-wing parties

22.1% socialists
11.3% communists

total: 33.4% or 57+25=82 deputies

Right-wing parties

20.2% civic democrats
16.7% TOP 09
10.9% public affairs

What Tangled Data Webs they Weave

... with data crafted to deceive:

Figure 10 shows the differences between the changes in GISTEMP and HADCRUT Zonal Mean Temperature Anomalies. This better illustrates the divergence at latitudes where GISS deletes Sea Surface Temperature data and replaces it with land surface temperature anomaly data, that latter of which naturally has higher linear trends during this period.

... read it all.

ht

ht for title

The One Good Thing About the O-Team

... they let the robots do their work:

Al Qaeda has announced that its top leader in Afghanistan and chief financial official was killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan 10 days ago.

Mustafa Abu Yazid, who is also known as Sheikh Saeed al Masri, was killed in the May 21 Predator strike in the village of Mohammed Khel in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. Datta Khel is a known al Qaeda hub in North Waziristan.

As Sahab, al Qaeda's propaganda arm, released a statement tonight announcing Yazid's death on Al Ansar, a jihadist forum.

Rumors of Yazid's death were first reported by ABC News, which quoted US officials who said a eulogy for Yazid was to be released by As Sahab.

The statement, released on the Al Ansar forum, described Yazid as a "martyr" and claimed he was killed in a "convoy of martyrs on the road with his wife and three daughters and his granddaughter, men, women and children, neighbors and loved ones."

Al Qaeda described Yazid as the "commander of its experienced leaders, master of masters, prince of financial princes, distinguished sheikh, and triumphant hero Mustafa Abu Yazid, the commander in chief of al Qaeda in Afghanistan."

Link to strikes this year.