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!