Don't Blame the Cleaners!

Looking at the stories of the RCMP's tazering the unfortunate individual at YVR, it seems that all the media types are missing the point. Review the history of the RCMP, and you'll find they were founded for the same role we see repeated here.

While we pretend to be a functioning democracy, Canada is a fascist state, controlled by an iron beaurocracy that has been in power since Trudeau managed to blunder away control of the functions of government. Prime Ministers come and go, but the mandarins are eternal.

The RCMP was founded to clean up a mess, and still see this as their primary purpose. With their allegiance to the bearucrats in Ottawa, the needs and wants of the common citizens aren't even on the radar.

Getting back to the YVR incident, the ball was dropped at least nine hours before the RCMP got involved. Ask yourself, under our supposedly secure system, how did a foreign person get off a manifested international flight and not make it through customs for ten hours? Suppose this was a terrorist targeting another flight, picking up preplanted weapons or explosives to end up on the other flight? There's a lot of expensive real estate within ten hours of YVR.

Would it not be reasonable to designate one person on each shift in the secure area, (its not like everyone and his dog has access), to sweep the area at least once an hour and check up on individual still there. A call for a translator, or even a staff member or a customer that speaks a common language, would have cleared this up in minutes, not hours.

As is often the case, the RCMP was called for a specific purpose. "We have a psychotic individual with no english, he's unruly, and we have a couple of hundred real customers coming through those doors in a few minutes".

As usual 'drop yer coffee, feet off the desk,' we got some trash to collect!

As they say, 'the rest is history'.

Ian

Thanks and Praise

Michael Yon has posted a photo that is utterly outstanding-

View full size here, and read the important details!

The Economics of Nuclear Power

An interesting paper on nuclear power costs vs. assorted other fuels-

The Economics of Nuclear Power
Briefing Paper 8

June 2007

* Nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation, except where there is direct access to low-cost fossil fuels.
* Fuel costs for nuclear plants are a minor proportion of total generating costs, though capital costs are greater than those for coal-fired plants.
* In assessing the cost competitiveness of nuclear energy, decommissioning and waste disposal costs are taken into account.

The relative costs of generating electricity from coal, gas and nuclear plants vary considerably depending on location. Coal is, and will probably remain, economically attractive in countries such as China, the USA and Australia with abundant and accessible domestic coal resources as long as carbon emissions are cost-free. Gas is also competitive for base-load power in many places, particularly using combined-cycle plants, though rising gas prices have removed much of the advantage.

Nuclear energy is, in many places, competitive with fossil fuel for electricity generation, despite relatively high capital costs and the need to internalise all waste disposal and decommissioning costs. If the social, health and environmental costs of fossil fuels are also taken into account, nuclear is outstanding.

The rest from the Australian Uranium Association

The Corner (National Review)

A great bit by Mark Steyn on NR's 'The corner'

Saturday, October 20, 2007


Re: I have returned [Mark Steyn]

Jonah, re your comments on Montreal: lots of great restaurants but what would appear to be an insufficient populace to support them, etc. Many Americans have made similar observations to me.

One reason is a simple cultural difference: If I recall correctly, Quebec has the highest number of restaurants per capita of any jurisdiction in North America. Our Corner colleague Peter Robinson, who used to jet in to New Hampshire from California on Dartmouth College business, would occasionally ask me where the nearest decent restaurant to Dartmouth was, and I'd reply Magog, Quebec. Accustomed to all those West Coast arugula joints, Peter would marvel: "You have to leave the country to get a good local meal?" I love my favorite North Country diners, but to be honest I sometimes envy a small town like Victoriaville north of the border which is a broken-down nowheresville loser burg that nevertheless manages to sustain a Main Street (or rue principale) hippity-hopping with a dozen good eateries.

Thereason for all this quickly becomes evident in the rest....

Fjordman: Islam, the Greeks and the Scientific Revolution, part 1

September 20, 2007

Original here.....

The renowned European essayist Fjordman discusses Islam's encounter with Greek philosophy:
I have written a couple of essays regarding the Greek impact on the rise of modern science, and why the Scientific Revolution didn't happen in the Islamic world. I find this to be an interesting topic, especially since there are so many myths regarding this perpetrated by Muslims and their apologists today, so I will explore the subject in some detail........

The dog ate my homework............revisited.

Seems that the Y2K bug is being blamed for a big chunk of number fudging! Not that Algore and the rest of the eco-fascist care.

Via Small Dead Animals

, I found this- Watts Up With That?

why the gun is civilization.

The Munchkin Rambler has a great piece on civilization-

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

Read the rest of it......

GW Actually took a stand on Radical Muslims!

I dropped by The Big Picture and found this-

With many Conservatives slamming Bush these days, due to his endorsement of the immigration bill (which I had great concerns about as well), he can use some support.

Yesterday GWB went to a mosque in Washington D.C. LGF reports that this is a Saudi-funded mosque - in other words, it is part of the multi-billion dollar operation run by Saudi Arabia to spread Wahhabism around the world. From Frontpage: ( picture from LGF )

The religious and philosophical justifications for promoting Jihad -which means holy war - around the world, is found in the Quran, says Dr. Hussein Shehata, a professor at al-Azhar University in Cairo. According to Dr. Shehata, the following terms in the Quran combine to justify the spreading of Jihad: in Arabic- Al-Jihad bi-al-Lisan - which means - Jihad of the Tongue, and al-Jihad bi-al-Qalam - Jihad of the Pen. Both combine for preaching and writing to promote Jihad.

This command is complemented by Al-Jihad bi-al-Mal - the Financial Jihad; namely, raising money for needy Muslims and supporting the Jihad warriors - known as the Mujahideen. These are the commands that form the justification to spread the Jihad.

On his website, on March 3, 2004, the same Dr. Shehata explained the uniqueness and the reason for the financial Jihad commandment as being, quote: "a trial of strength of Muslim faith" and "a means to purify the soul from stinginess". It is through the financial Jihad, he says, that Allah gives the wealthy Muslims the opportunity to allocate some of their money for the Da'awa (literally - the call for Islam), which is the Islamic effort to teach or convert people to Islam.

Far from the expected pandering, Bush actually had a hard line approach-

This is what freedom offers: societies where people can live and worship as they choose without intimidation, without suspicion, without a knock on the door from the secret police. The freedom of religion is the very first protection offered in America's Bill of Rights. It is a precious freedom. It is a basic compact under which people of faith agree not to impose their spiritual vision on others, and in return to practice their own beliefs as they see fit. This is the promise of our Constitution, and the calling of our conscience, and a source of our strength.

The freedom to worship is so central to America's character that we tend to take it personally when that freedom is denied to others. Our country was a leading voice on behalf of the Jewish refusniks in the Soviet Union. Americans joined in common cause with Catholics and Protestants who prayed in secret behind an Iron Curtain. America has stood with Muslims seeking to freely practice their beliefs in places such as Burma and China.

You MUST go read the whole thing!

MSM and Whimsical Links.......

I was reading an article on the Quebec budget, where the epitomy of liberals, Charet, (lib.PC/cons.lib/power! power!at any cost!) is proposing to bribe voters with OUR money, when the trailer headline list caught my eye-

B.C.'s premier finds environmental soul mate
Mob boss, Vito Rizzuto, sentenced to 10 years in prison

One has to wonder if the webguy looks at the page, just bangs the stuff in, or bored almost to tears, just has to have some fun with the news.

Once Upon A Time In Kazakhstan

Found a great article over on Russell Sietz' site, ADAMANT

To most Americans , Central Asia means the Kazakh Never Never Land of Sascha Cohen's alter ego. But Borat was shot on location in Romania, while once upon a time , the real Kazakhstan was the Wild West of the Soviet Union-- vast, horsey, dusty, and above all heavily armed. The Evil Empire ran its strategic weapons programs and its nuclear gulag side by side in Kazakh badlands , once home to literally thousands of tons of plutonium and weapons grade uranium.

But then, so were Nevada, New Mexico and Texas- so what ?.

The answer is that while the US government is still very much in charge of the former--and present-- nuclear weapons facilities in our none too wild west, The Kremlin cut loose Kazakhstan and the half dozen other 'Stans hosting its arsenals a generation ago. Much of the dangerously weaponizable content of those far flung facilities were rounded up with considerable derring-do in the first few years after the Soviet collapse.

Go read the rest, it's excellent.

Ian

Geoff W. from Virginia Tech...

My old friend Geoff happened to be at Virginia Tech the day of the shootings, here's his report-

April 24, 2007

Freedom's Underbelly

The college tour with number two son started out with very little fanfare by driving through the Nor'Easter that hit the area before touching down somewhere on Route 81 in Virginia 12 hours later. We got up, had a quick breakfast and made the college campus by 8:30 am for a 9:00 am talk, a 10:00 tour, and then another talk with the engineering department at 11:00. Around noon, we figured, we'd hop in the car and drive another 6 hours south to take a look at another school the next day before turning around and hitting two more the following day.

So there we sat in the back of the room. My son with pen and paper to take notes after a little parental head sharpening about it being his decision and his responsibility and me with pen and crossword puzzle to occupy my time.

We heard what sounded like an air chisel we assumed was coming from the building to our right somewhere around 9:30 or so. We then heard a bunch of sirens and policemen with guns and flak jackets running to the building to our left. A couple of people jumped out of some windows and were either running or crawling away from the building we would later learn was called Norris Hall.

Around this time the head of Admissions at Virginia Tech interrupted our discussion and had us move into the center of the building away from the windows where they attempted to maintain a sense of normalcy by continuing the admissions pitch to our group of about 30 or so. We also learned the 11:00 discussion with the engineering department would not take place given it was to have been held in Norris Hall.

Eventually CNN and Fox News picked up on the story. They breathlessly reported inaccurate information for at least 90 minutes. They kept referring to AJ, the building where the two had been shot at 7:15 while we were looking out at Norris Hall some 150 feet away where all the action was taking place.

The media does an incredible disservice to us when they rush to report unverified information. I distinctly remember them interviewing two different undergrads on the phone, broadcasting that live. One hadn't heard a thing as he had been listening to his iPod. The other was some ditzy coed who sounded as though she was still hungover who also had no clue as to what was taking place because she had slept late and was rushing to get to her 11:00 class.

Once the media realized it had been wrong, it immediately began questioning the administration. Given the media couldn't get its facts right, the administration had to have been inept, right? The administration was rather busy at the moment trying to treat the wounded. In the admissions office you could see the agony on the Virginia Tech faces as they explained to us that part of the difficulty happened to be the high winds which were keeping medical helicopters on the ground.

They released us from the building around noon and told us to get to our cars and leave the campus. At this point the media was reporting 7 to 8 casualties. We crossed a line of approximately a dozen ambulances lined up behind the buildings which seemed curious to us at the time of our departure. Equally as curious was finding a parking ticket on my car date stamped at 9:00 am. Once on the highway heading away from Virginia Tech the numbers began to climb first to 22 dead and then to the final tally of 33 counting the shooter.

Since that day it seems the attention has been misplaced. It has all revolved around second guessing an administration that was hip deep in a crisis. It is not at all unreasonable to come across two dead in a co-ed's room and assume the shooter has fled the seen rather than gone off on a suicide mission to become famous. Virginia Tech is a sprawling campus with multiple buildings. The idea of locking down a small city of 25,000 coming and going as they please is laughable on its face. This is not a single building high school with 20 or so entrances that can be guarded in a manner of minutes.

Bad things happen to good people. It is perfectly understandable that parents of the deceased are going to want to rage against the administration in an effort to explain the unexplainable. That does not mean, however, that we as a nation should succumb to this. The administration did not do anything wrong. It did not stray from standard procedures investigating the first crime which would expect a shooter to flee the scene.

But now we have the national posturing while the bodies are still warm. Gun control nuts on both sides of the issue sought to seize the day. Limelight starved politicians call for national studies and new laws about college campus safety. People question the privacy rights of mentally ill patients, and on and on and on.

A free society cannot protect against the damage that can be done by a person willing - indeed, eager - to give up their life in order to take the lives of others. Our attention at this point should not be at trying to score political points. It should be directed at giving the parents, faculty and students associated with Virginia Tech some privacy to deal with what has to be a devastatingly horrific situation for them. It couldn't have been foreseen, and it could not have been pre-empted. There's no one to blame other than the sick waste of life who pulled the trigger.

My son remains interested in Virginia Tech. We were unable to visit the campus during our time in the south as it was closed off and overrun by talking heads from the media seeking to pick them apart while using their campus as a visual. The intent is to apply to the college of engineering. If accepted, then we will make a second trip down to evaluate a campus that should be out of the media limelight and well on the way to returning to normalcy. By then the media will be feasting on the entrails of a different community eviscerated by the crazed actions of others.

It leaves me wondering how low the media must go before we will recoil and begin considering narrowing rather than broadening first amendment protection for these jackals.


Regards,
Geoff Woollacott
President
Renaissance Group Int'l, Inc.

Art is Life....

As one prominent Liberal blogger put it to Bourque in an email last night, "it's like Chance the gardener from the movie Being There has come to life and is now running the party". Or so it would seem.

A fun week. Dion crumbling, the Greens admitting they are terrorist supporters, the CAW realizing it's their livelyhood the eco-freaks are trying to kill off.

Utterly Contemptable!

from Dust My Broom

This piece of garbage is the same person who danced on the Calgary War memorial draped in a Hezbollah flag. During her twenty minute diatribe against Bush and Harper I learned she is from Iran and came to Canada as a refugee. She kept on repeating bits from our national anthem - we stand on guard for thee…

Look through the pictures....

Silent Spring Revisited....

Capitalism Magazine

Walter Williams

HENRY I. MILLER

South Africa

National Geographic

DDT, a notorious symbol of environmental degradation, is poised to make a comeback.

American Enterprise Institute

National public Radio

The World Health Organization today announced a major policy change. It's actively backing the controversial pesticide DDT as a way to control malaria.

Malaria Foundation International

This outcome will save many lives, and it also demonstrates the power of coherent advocacy in achieving public health goals, which is a critical function served by the Malaria Foundation International.

World Health Organisation

WHO gives indoor use of DDT a clean bill of health for controlling malaria

Cato Institute

new York Times

Petition Project on Global Warming

Found this abstract and the surrounding material today, and it is a MUST READ! Read the whole thing and digest the graphs.

Here's a couple of samples-


Figure 2: Surface temperatures in the Sargasso Sea (with time resolution of about 50 years) ending in 1975 as determined by isotope ratios of marine organism remains in sediment at the bottom of the sea (7). The horizontal line is the average temperature for this 3,000 year period. The Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Optimum were naturally occurring, extended intervals of climate departures from the mean.



Figure 8: Tropospheric temperature measurements by satellite MSU for North America between 30º to 70º N and 75º to 125º W (dark line) (17, 18) compared with the surface record for this same region (light line) (24), both plotted with 12-month smoothing and graphed as deviations from their means for 1979 to 1996. The slope of the satellite MSU trend line is minus 0.01 ºC per decade, while that for the surface trend line is plus 0.07 ºC per decade. The correlation coefficient for the unsmoothed monthly data in the two sets is 0.92.

Put high-fat ice cream on menu if baby-making

A new study suggests butterfat is beneficial to help produce hormones, as they are made from chlorestorol.

Sharon Kirkey, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Women hoping to get pregnant might consider swapping low-fat yogurt for vanilla fudge ripple ice cream, a new study suggests.

Spring! pics to prove it!

It's spring in Mudville!



Tuesday 27th. Snow on the ground, snowing again today about 3 pm.

back!

Back at it, had a bad month, got through it, now to get back into the swing of things again. So many items going to be a bit of catchup the next few days.

Parkinson’s Law

While over at Chaos Manor tonight, I found a copy of Parkinson's Law-

Injelititis, or Palsied Paralysis recounts the life and death of corporate and government institutions. Injelititis is a word that Parkinson made up from Inferiority and Jealousy; it is a character deficiency in people that can bring about the decay and death of organizations they work for. The basic mechanism is that the carrier of Injelititis would try to move himself or herself into a position of authority (because of the inferiority complex), having obtained which he or she would try to surround oneself with individuals non-threatening intellectually or professionally (because of jealousy.) Parkinson thus formulates it succinctly, "If the head of the organization is second-rate, he will see to it that his immediate staff are all third-rate; and they will, in turn, see to it that their subordinates are fourth-rate." Parkinson describes the stages of the organizational disease, the symptoms from which they can be deduced, and the possible approaches to cure. These include medicinal (injecting people into the organization which possess qualities such as Intolerance, "... obtainable from the bloodstream of regimental sergeant majors and is found to comprise two chemical elements, namely: (a) the best is scarcely good enough (GGnth) and (b) there is no excuse for anything (NEnth)."; and surgical means. The last stage of the disease is terminal: "Infected personnel should be dispatched with a warm testimonial to such rival institutions as are regarded with particular hostility. All equipment and files should be destroyed without hesitation. [...] As for the buildings, the best plan is to insure them heavily and then set them alight."

Update Feb 24th.

Looking back on the past month, it seems eerily familiar somehow.

Blogging for Shane

Found this while stumbling around in the Great White North.

Bound by Gravity has this-


1053kissfm.com is running a birthday card drive for Shane

And from August 22/04-

Over at the InmanNews Blog Archives-
Pack em' in
Thirty-six units of new senior housing in San Francisco's Outer Mission. Is there demand? Well, 1600 people signed up to get a shot at the three dozen homes.
Options:
1. Turn away 1564 families or
2. Put 45 people per unit.
UGH, what an ugly housing market.
-- Bradley Inman

The Joys of a Small Market....

Captain Capitalism has a great post about the condo market in his area.

No More Condos
The party's over!

Every guy has had the experience at least once during his earlier days at college of sticking around till the party is all but completely dead, the good looking people hooked up long ago and in a half-drunken daze you wander aimlessly thinking that some babe is going to pop up out of nowhere.

The hosts of the party give you subtle hints to leave and are somewhat wary of your presence. But there you are, ignorantly blissful and optimistic that you're still going to get some play that night hoping the party continues on and re-ignites itself.

Such is the situation with our beloved real estate developers in this beloved nation in this beloved housing bubble, ESPECIALLY CONDOS

Dion and the GST

Seems Dion is at least willing to admit to being an eletist bloodsucking liberal for once.

National Post
Published: Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Stephane Dion visited Edmonton for the first time as Liberal leader on Thursday. What speaking venue, you may be wondering, did he select as a means of convincing Alberta Liberals that he can successfully reach out to anglophones? The Petroleum Club? The Royal Alberta Museum? Actually, he plunged into the heart of the city's francophone enclave to give a speech at the Faculte St.-Jean, the University of Alberta's French-language campus. Nice messaging, rookie.

But later in the day, Mr. Dion did make time for a visit with the editorial board of the Edmonton Journal. The Liberal leader told the Journal that he stands by his opposition to the GST cut from 6% to 5%, which the Conservative government has promised to implement within the maximum life of its mandate.

An Elloquent Defence of Suburbia

I stumbled across an excellent essay tonight at The American Enterprise Institute.

The author, architectural historian Robert Bruegmann is professor and chairman of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of the new book Sprawl, from which this essay is adapted.

There is overwhelming evidence that urban sprawl has been beneficial for many people. Year after year, the vast majority of Americans respond to batteries of polls by saying that they are quite happy with where they live, whether it is a city, suburb, or elsewhere. Most objective indicators about American urban life are positive. We are more affluent than ever; home ownership is up; life spans are up; pollution is down; crime in most cities has declined. Even where sprawl has created negative consequences, it has not precipitated any crisis.

So what explains the power of today's anti-sprawl crusade? How is it possible that a prominent lawyer could open a recent book with the unqualified assertion that "sprawl is America's most lethal disease"? Worse than drug use, crime, unemployment, and poverty? Why has a campaign against sprawl expanded into a major political force across America and much of the economically advanced world?

I would argue that worries about sprawl have become so vivid not because conditions are really as bad as the critics suggest, but precisely because conditions are so good. During boom years, expectations can easily run far ahead of any possibility of fulfilling them. A fast-rising economy often produces a revolution of expectations. I believe these soaring expectations are responsible for many contemporary panics.

The essay is quite long, but is an excellent read, and clearly demonstrates that the anti-sprawl crowd are just snobs, plain and simple.

Global Warming, Malaria, Hairy Palms.....

Interesting article over at the



Dangers of disinformation
Paul Reiter
Thursday, January 11, 2007

PARIS

President George W. Bush's new international anti-malaria campaign has been greeted with enthusiasm by its victims, but with pseudoscience by commentators.

That is not unusual: Fallacies infect every debate about the environment and affect policy, taxpayers' money and victims' lives.

Scientists ask questions, formulate hypotheses, design experiments, look at the evidence, modify the hypotheses and probe further. Then activists, news media and politics take over.

the rest here....

Shaw pulls millions out of Canadian TV fund

Jim Shaw is pissed. I agree with him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deirdre McMurdy, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, January 11, 2007

Jim Shaw is ticked off.

The CEO of Shaw Communications is tired of subsidizing the CBC. He's frustrated by spending five per cent of his company's annual revenues on television programs no one watches. He refuses to pay broadcasters a fee-for-carriage of their signals as well as part of the freight on their production costs. And he's prepared to blatantly breach CRTC regulations to make his point........

..... the rest here.

Dairy farmers make suckers of consumers

I found this over at the The Gazette-
Canadians are drinking 18 per cent less milk than they did in 1980, consuming 30 per cent less butter and 24 per cent less ice cream. Cheese production is barely holding steady. The Canadian dairy herd has dwindled.

Sounds like a disastrous portrait of a collapsing industry, doesn't it? In fact, these realities are all the result of careful manipulation of the dairy industry by federal and provincial governments and dairy producers themselves. This systematic conspiracy against consumers goes by the name of "orderly marketing," and it has resulted in an average profit margin for dairy farms of 25 per cent of operating revenue, almost double the figure for all farms in Canada.

Now, at the beginning of a new year, both the federal and provincial governments dipped into consumers' pockets yet again to fatten the profits of politically well-connected dairy farmers. Year after year this scandal goes on because consumers don't know how to fight back. Revenue, almost double the figure for all farms in Canada.

Now, at the beginning of a new year, both the federal and provincial governments dipped into consumers' pockets yet again to fatten the profits of politically well-connected dairy farmers. Year after year this scandal goes on because consumerdon't know how to fight back. ...for the rest of the story.......

Who'd a thunk it?

Photo by Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times
Ponds fed by geothermal waters from under the Negev teem with fish at Kibbutz Mashabbe Sade.


New meaning to 'desert bloom'

Whimsy........

Building bridges or tearing them down?

I read with interest in our local rag, Maple Ridge News that Peoples Republic of BC, after signing over the revenue from the new Golden Ears Bridge to a bunch of EUrotrash, now is trying to get the local taxpayers to subsidize the emergency services on the bridge.

One has to wonder if the responders will be expected to pay a toll as well.

We made it!

lived through another year. I remember, as a teen, not expecting to make it to 2001, family history supported that too. Here it is 2007, and I writing this amid gunshots in good old Mudville.

I'm off to the hot tub with a wee dram of Tamhdu.

Happy New year!