Web at a glance

Here are a number of interesting posts that are worth looking at...

Right on top:

The terrorists are getting better at killing... themselves. =)

- Palestine violence continues... but now how you think. Palestinian Torture in Schools and Hospitals (Hamas vs Fatah). Much hand-wringing over how to blame this on Israel, presumably.

Similarly, here in Canada: a picture with a little girl holding up hate signs. thank-you Small Dead Animals.

- On Journalists and their criminal behaviour... (Which prompts me to ask: why are people given so much press when charged, but so little when they are acquitted or convicted? Doesn't that hurt presumption of innocence?)

- Obligatory Obama references, since he was sworn in yesterday:
- The "prayer" (or, rather, soliloquy) offered by Gene Robinson to a "god of our many understandings"... blah, blah, blah in an official Obama function. Funny, this guy ratcheted the politics up a few notches. Almost as if his primary audience was PEOPLE, not God. Seems he and I have differing understandings about the definition and function of "prayer".
- Comment on the comparison between President (I guess I have to use that title now, don't I) Obama and the heroic pilot who made the NYC water landing.
- The Star puts out a rant about swooning Journalists as they cover the rise of Obama
- The spin as Obama's speech is reported (Little Green Footballs).

Closer to home:
Income splitting as a Canadian Stimulus package suggestion.
Polygamy: the next national debate?
Ezra Levant on Maher Arar (one) and (two), be sure to check out his positions on the hate marches in Calgary while you're there.

We did something Right!

Our border agents made me proud! (This time.)

It seems someone turned back William Ayers at the Canadian border on Sunday.

Apparently, being in the leadership of a violent group that plays with explosives, and blows up public buildings such as, oh I don't know, police stations and the Pentagon is (gasp) unwelcome in Canada.

Well done guys.

Quirky History

Today's news-feed by the BBC had something I couldn't resist commenting on.

There has been an archaeological discovery that suggests that Persia used poison gas on the Romans in the siege of a city in the 3rd century A.D.

(Full article here).

I've been taking the opportunity recently to listen to some podcasts, and ancient history is a recurring theme in my choices. (I'm especially enjoying "Hardcore History" by Dan Carlin)

It brings it home somewhat to know how similar the (political) circumstances between our modern wars, and the ancient ones were, and to know, further, that the ancient Roman legions faced the same lethal battle-tactic that my great-grandfather may have in WWI.

Rented Friendship ???

You know we have let our priorities get WAY out of control when you see headlines like this one:

Rent-A-Friend in Japan

It's a story about a 'Cat Cafe' in which busy people can pay by the hour to bond with 'professional pets'.

It strikes me as eerily similar to prostitution, in one sense. No, not THAT sense, another one.

In both instances, money is exchanged for satisfaction. In both, someone offers a short-cut to the meaningful satisfaction that is rightfully found within a reciprocal relationship.

Whether finding gratification with someone else's body (for a paid hour or so), or with someone else's pet (also for a paid hour or so), they both seem to indicate an emptiness and disconnectedness larger than the symptoms themselves.

Melamine: If only Journalists would read more blogs...

Today's BBC news-links include a report on "Toxic Milk Trials in China".

That News article says:

When the scandal broke in September, a chain of melamine producers and middlemen was found to have been supplying milk dealers with the product.

The dealers added melamine to boost the apparent protein content of milk, which had often been watered down to spread the raw product further.

Major dairy companies bought the milk from such dealers, failing to test the milk for purity and nutritional value.

Notice the two things I've highlighted in red.

First, the phrase "when the scandal broke in September"

A casual reader of this story might believe that only AFTER children's deaths and hospitalizations were being traced back to melamine were people aware of the use of melamine in dairy production.

The Blog, Small Dead Animals, made a post dated April 30, 2007 entitled "Melamine Spiking Longstanding Practice" The BLOG article tells us that melamine is mixed with animal feed to artificially enhance protein levels when it is mixed with low-grade wheat, soy, etc. The most chilling quote in there (remembering that it was April 2007) is:

“If you add it in small quantities, it won’t hurt the animals,” said one animal feed entrepreneur whose name is being withheld to protect him from prosecution. (emphasis mine)

This is one year and five months BEFORE the scandal "Broke" in September of 2008, as reported by the BBC.

To recap:
traditional journalism leaves us wondering how melamine found it's way into milk, how widespread the risk is, how long this risk has been present. The sense one gets is that there are a few people who somehow, and for unclear reasons, did something, or failed to do something that resulted in people dying.

A blogger told us in a surprisingly short article, WHAT melamine was doing in the food chain, HOW it got there, WHY it was put there, something about WHO was putting it there, "longstanding practice" implies a WHEN it was happening, China (including a particular region) was the WHERE...

It leaves me to ask, WHO still remembers the 'five W's plus H' of journalism, and Why?

Are there any investigative reporters still out there? (I mean besides the bloggers.)

[supplemental: the source Small Dead Animals linked from was here. They in turn cited sources that described this practice some 15 years earlier in China, as well as the banning of this practice in the US in 1975. The story then was related to the tainted animal food that affected a major US pet food company in 2007.]

Snow-mageddon, and other weather BS

Well, everybody, here it is. It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's snow-mageddon!



The next day, after we heard that big announcement from Environment Canada... oops, sorry.

You can relax now. It's not such a big deal. False alarm. It's just going to be a snowy couple of days.

Well ok. It sounds like the old joke about the kid asking his dad for $50, and his dad is appalled that he has to give $40. How is it that the kid asked for $30? and by the end, he grudgingly gives five bucks.

We pump, what, millions of dollars into a system that can tell us what the weather is going to be like. What's worse, we pump billions of dollars into policy changes to adapt to ecological alarmists. To name a few: Ozone hole, CFC's, acid rain, rain forest, global cooling, global warming, carbon emissions, and now, that catch-all: climate change.

We're given propaganda like this:



We are coerced to tow the party line, or suffer as ecological pariahs. Even questioning the science draws fire.

They have a Nobel ('peace') Prize winner, that *other* guy on the Clinton ticket fronting their alarmist views. Fifty-two UN scientists put forward a paper, and it's all you hear about in the news for weeks. (IPCC)

The skeptics also have a Nobel Prize winner (this one, a Physicist) , among other distinguished scientists. An International group of 650 scientists are disputing the propositions set out by Gore's faithful.

“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

They are setting out reasons they believe the study is fatally flawed.

One, they do not receive or react to criticism.

Two they are based on flawed mathematical models.

This brings me back my original point.

Two days ago, I was warned that the end was nigh, with such colourful terms as "snowmageddon" or "a big freakin' dump of snow".

Today, those reports have been conveniently dropped down the memory hole, and we look forward to a more conventional "moderate-to-heavy snowfall" e.g., a 'White Christmas'.

If Wednesday's forcast for Friday had a complete reversal by Thursday, how can anyone, with a straight face, compel me to believe their 50 year global warming models.

We might as well use this:

Stand up for Canada

On December 6, there was a Stand up for Canada rally in numerous cities across Canada.

It was my privilege to bring my family to the rally right in Ottawa.

This was, in fact, the first time in my life I had ever attended a rally.

Had two federalist parties been able to form a coalition which put them into majority territory, I would have hated it, but accepted it, as per the rules of a Parliamentary system.

But their power grab rested squarely on the Bloc's cooperation. Since they, as a party, have no scruples against holding a political gun to the head of the Canadian Taxpayer, giving them the ability to support or topple a government was intolerable. For that reason, we attended the rally.

--- ( video footage here) ---

The press did an astonishingly amateur and slanted job of covering the rallies. Given the chance to report on direct action by ordinary citizens, they instead opted to report the activities of the opposition leaders of the same day.

The mainstream media are consequently, I suspect, going the way of the blacksmith. The public's eyes are open to the tactic of using op-ed in the guise of news, and are looking elsewhere for real reporting.

The rally filled the entirety of the sidewalk on the Hill, and overflowed into the grass. It was lively, but orderly.

This was Stephen Taylor of Blogging Tories. Great speech.




This was my 7-year-old son's hero, Pierre Poilievre:



The reason I wanted to brave the -10 temp on a Saturday afternoon?
Easy. Here it is: