The link to Diane Francis needs the "br" tag removed from the middle.

correct link -
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=342e1874-cf39-4c23-b5e5-1e684033817a

Diane Francis:

"Sie ist ja zum schiessen!"

Literal translation:

"She should be shot".

Colloquial translation:

"She is hilarious!"

Maybe we should start by eliminating all journalists, as they are not all waiting for an asteroid.

Truly, a "dopey-changey" column...is she taking her talking points from Wen Jiabao?

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North"

Diane Francis...Ah...one of the giants of journalism. Lock and load.

I don't agree Kate ... DO NOT START WITH A - B ... I say we start with Z because "S" is closer to the Z.

That way we get a trifecta when we hit "S" ... care to guess who?

The "Francis"ink didn't work, but at the link is one of the most biased pieces of "journalism" I've ever seen,even for Global which seems to be the propaganda wing of the Loyal Opposition.

Take a look at Kevin Newman's slagging of the Conservatives,Peter McKay, and Stephen Harper, complete with an expert on the Geneva Convention.

I winced when I read that, now knowing that the world really is run by crazy people

"It's how these grand social experiments always end, anyway, and so much more efficient than freezing to death under windmills."

KATE!!!

This Francis is a total nitwit. Praising China's one child policy? If she was Chinese ... well let's face it, she would likely have been aborted. I'm tempted to say it would be no great loss but I won't.

We've heard this overpopulation tripe before. Enough is enough already! China has been eliminating segments of its population for years and it's the biggest polluter on the planet. Has anyone pointed that out?

Kate.

Thanks for the laugh.

You realize the the letter "G" gets skipped over though.

As for the "S"? I endorse the Second Amendment. ;)

Drudge just picked up this story. After the Greenpeace debacle on parliament hill and now this, the rest of the world must think we're insane.

I was more concerned with skipping over "M", actually.

I would have to say that is an extreme conclusion to come to. The only ones over populating are the Indians, Chinese, Africans, latinos etc. The only ones not overpopulating are Europeans.

On the whole, that makes Diane Francis rather rascist.

So are we going by first or last names? If it is last names, then I am with Kate on skipping the whole M thing.

Just want to figure out what line to get in.

Wouldn't that be cruel and unusual punishment . . . for the bullets?

> A-B-BANG

You can try, but I think I just bought two last CZ 858 in the country. Good luck!

Lefties are downers, eventually people are going to wake up to this fact.

Jay:

Actually, due to their "one child" policy, China's population growth has slowed noticeably. As Mark Steyn pointed out in America Alone, the fastest growing populations are in Islamic countries, and Islamic populations in European countries. (I'm too lazy to look it up, but I believe the average Muslim woman in France has 2-3 times as many children as her average "native" French counterpart.)

A good idea Kate...and for obvious reasons I'm in.

However, since the high priests in the Church of Environtology always seem reluctant to practice what they preach, perhaps we should instead convince them to play a 'climate change mitigation' version of Pamplemousse. The senseless shouting of inanities excites them, and they've already proven they're not too good with numbers.

It's uncanny how often eugenics pops up in any discussion of environmental solutions, particularly where enviro-nutcakes are involved.

I cannot believe any thinking person would praise the Chinese one-child policy. What is happening is state-sponsored gendercide as Chinese couples abort all of the females. This is especially true in the impoverished countryside.

By the way, what happens when you engineer an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid?

We are about to find out.

Jay...I Agree...this is euro-centric racism at its finest. What she does indeed advocate is the depopulation of Africa, Latin-America, Arab-lands and the Indian subcontinent. But that is not what she is aiming at. There is more. This woman shows she is an anti-faith bigot that wants to depopulate those that have faith. Shut up the religious leaders that advocate for larger families. Hmmm that would be Catholics, Mormans, Calvinists and a few Baptists. She jolly well knows the Muslims would never go for this. This is an attack on North Americans of faith. As for this Calvinist-Baptist along with his six children and counting, we will continue to grow and replace the inferior gene pool that intellectualized itself out of exisitence.

Kate, I nominate Kelly's above quote "What happens when you engineer an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid?" for you to use as a headline when talking about Chinese policy issues.

I always find interesting those who demand a population reduction but who exclude themselves. It is the same with the hard core types who see humanity as a plague that needs to be eliminated, again excluding themselves and their fellow travellers.

Kelly at December 10, 2009 11:59 AM
[....I cannot believe any thinking person would praise the Chinese one-child policy. What is happening is state-sponsored gendercide as Chinese couples abort all of the females. This is especially true in the impoverished countryside.

By the way, what happens when you engineer an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid?

We are about to find out.]

Actually a lot of second pregnancies are resolved with "partial birth abortions" or "crowning" (impaling the babies head as it appears).
"in the impoverished countryside" girl babies are usually exposed to die....
Tiennamin (sp) was largely a male protest and resentment over that runs deep. One child means one grandchild.....
The one child policy has been waived for many of China's minorities---causing further resentment.

Actually eugenics has been the seldom mentioned under-current of environmentalism for a long, long time-----already successfully applied by means of the DDT ban which resulted in an estimated 50 million deaths in developing tropical countries--usually children.

why is it the environmentalists are never the first to volunteer their friends/family and themselves for the sake of the environment?

Hell, if they truly believed their world view as the most noble of all views shouldn't there be environment induced mass suicides / murders? Rather then in-debt the current children with spending wouldn't a true believer feel the need to walk into a school and solve the problem at the source?

"By the way, what happens when you engineer an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid?"

War.

Whatever happened to sacrificing a virgin by throwing her into an active volcano?

I noticed "K" won't get a bang....

just sayin'

Fred (from Kelly):
"By the way, what happens when you engineer an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid?"

War.

Or, just possibly, homosexuality? Be interesting to see if this is on the rise in China (although, first, I'd have a hard time trusting official statistics, second, given official policy, I'd wager most guys keep it on the down low, and third, like British sailors of yore, it may just be from necessity).

If you're looking for people to make "carbon neutral", here's Mao's list:

Landlords
Rich farmers
Anti-revolutionaries
Bad influences
Right wingers
Traitors
Spies
Capitalist roaders (left wingers supportive of capitalism)
Intellectuals
Commercial artists

canadas very own Dr.Suzuki advocates 19th century agriculture Cuba style with the support of CBCpravda. this will cut world food output by over a third, making sure that a large part of the the third world dies. an experiment worthy of Dr. Megele.

Didn't Francis used to be sane and reasonable?
What happened?

This eugenic and pop. control stuff scares and annoys me. However, the bright side is that all of these crazies are not reproducing and will eventually die off. Hopefully my unborn baby will have a few more rational people around.

Government has no business intruding on family size decisions. Politicians are our employees not our masters.

It always surprises me to hear seemingly rational people argue that the government should be given power over life and death. Evidence of latent totalitarian fantasies perhaps.

This is the text of the email I sent Diane Francis

"Are you actually suggesting we adopt the one child policy? Have you ever heard of the law of unintended consequences? Do you know how many female fetuses have been aborted, how many people have been imprisoned and tortured in the name of this policy. You have spouted some crazy stuff before but this takes the cake. Please think before you write."

This is the exact response I recieved...

"you cannot avoid imposing necessary laws just because people will break them. If they do they must be punished too."

This woman is a lunatic.

What happens when you engineer an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid
olive drab military uniforms out
floral pattern spandex in

I volunteer Dianne to take this message to the "ethnic groups we cannot name but who are quite fond of minarets" that have a high birthrate. Let us know how that goes, will you please Dianne?

It's official: Diane Francis is clinically insane.

What a relief! I need never read another of her columns again.

"A planetary law,"

This could be one of the most ludicrous statements I've ever heard.

That being said, I'll consider it and follow the logic path to its conclusion: Based on the above premise I've concluded that China, India and much of Africa owe the First world for the harm they've cause the planet. I'd like to suggest calling it a "snot-nosed debt" but I'm open to other suggestions. Yes, it is quite clear that all races not including "white" have far outgrown their fair share of the population, and are in fact "snot-nosed fascists".

I recommend that we DO limit the number of children people can have with a “planetary law”; except, "white" people MUST be exempt until social justice is achieved, and we have "equal snot-nosed outcomes". Furthermore, we could have what I like to call a "Cap'n Babe" market where these "breeders" can pay liberal white women(sell-outs) for the babies they've decided not to have.

"The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation."

Who said that?

I see in the near future government funded 50 month late term abortions.

btw, there is no population crisis.

It is well known that the planet will have a substantial decrease in population by 2050 due to the planets aging population.

The "population crisis" is once again derived from the outstanding math and analytical skills of the MSM and the Looney Left.

Kelly really nailed the most crucial point here. Most cultures around the world would be pushing to have just male children (in Vancouver east Indians get ultrasounds for sex determination and abort female fetuses) and it's not long before one has a large population of horny young men with a shortage of women. The easiest way of dealing with this problem is to draft them all into the military and send them off to fight another country with a similar problem. Polyandry is another solution but if women are only permitted to have one child, there's likely to be a lot of violence involved in determining which of the husbands will father that child.

Of course this article totally ignores the problem of what to do with people that are getting old. In the population reduction scheme envisioned by Diane Francis, the population pyramid would be inverted with every working person needing to sustain several elderly people that are no longer able to work. Right now we have to import people from third world countries to staff nursing homes. In a one child policy world, the first thing that would need to be done is to create autonomous robots that would be responsible for the bulk of care for the elderly. The other option is to just kill anyone who is incapable of working. Considering that we are going through a global cooling period all that would be necessary is to leave the people outside to freeze to death.

I find it rather annoying that an individual can write an article of this nature without thinking through the implications which fall out very quickly when one runs a mental model of the situation. Kate's solution of shooting every third person has the advantage of being fair but I would suggest the the probability of being shot should be inversely related to IQ.

These Countries have screwed themselves silly every which way you care to name and we are to pay for this too? To francis and her silliness, I hope you like sex and travel.

I think it's about time that the majority in the free world say to all others, look after yourselves, we’ve had enough. For those of us that want to remain free in our free world, READY, ABOUT TURN, AIM, FIRE.

"or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good"

Oh yeah, fck the elephants and the polar bears! Who needs them?

What would you expect from a demented raving O-bot?

This fits right in with the avowed policies of her Messiah's "Science" Czar, John Holdren, and his dreams of population culling.

What's keeping her from leaving? If it really will be so bad, the planet will take care of it and be fine within 10,000 years, in other words, a blink of Gaia's eye.

Clearly it’s the developing countries that are the problem, and it’s the developing countries that must pay-off their “population debt”.

We MUST institute a “Cap’n Babe” system, where developing countries can purchase “Baby Credits” from white women with under-utilized uteruses.

Ok I'll ask, what happened to "C"?

Soylent green I say.

Syncro

Two memos need to be issued:

1. to the world - we're closed.
2. to the immigration dept - you're fired.

Don't even know what to say. It's mind-boggling that anyone would actually publish this.

Ok I'll ask, what happened to "C"?

They're allowed to sample the delights of Carousel.

As usual, no comments allowed. Good for you, NP/FP!

I keep saying to the socialists: if you like redistribution of wealth - send a cheque to the government; and to the proponents of population control - start with yourself.

"We owe money to our governments because of our high CO2 emission rates" -
"We owe money to the world because of our high CO2 emission rate per person" -
"China and India owe something to the world because of their high total CO2 emission rates" -
and there must be global laws and global enforcement agencies to see that this happens. And so forth.

More and more one appreciates Thomas Sowell's remark that, if all that Obama etc. achieve
is the destruction of the US economy, he will be relieved.

Diane Francis your life clock is blinking please report to Carrousel.

I seem to recall Diane Francis as a fairly level-headed free-market sort, so this is a pretty odd article to come under her byline. Perhaps her meds have stopped working, or maybe she needs some.

John: " ... the rest of the world must think we're insane."

'Not just the rest of the world, which is why Mark Steyn weighed in with one of the most apt monikers for the craziness: the Deranged Dominion.

Just a small quibble with your headline, Kate.

Lawyers first.

No BJG
Liberals first.

The reality is you could fit every man woman and child with a small house and a yard in an area the size of Texas. Overpopulation is just another ugly lie propagated by the socialist left. Here is a quick video on the matter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVOU5bfHrM

I find it humourous that the portion of the people that wants the world population held at a billion have no way to achieve that end. They also tend to be anti-gun. Shazzam, my wish is granted.

Once Iran gets the bomb, over population is not going to be a problem.

When people start saying really stupid things, I tend to get very sarcastic. So to call the bluff of all the Enviro-Lefties in Toronto I posted this outrageous advertisement.

Logically, I'm thinking it'll get banned though perhaps I'll get a bunch of people wanting to sign up?!?

Ha-ha, missed me!

I'm making a list, checking it twice,
Going to find out who get whacked and who has been nice,
Population Control is coming to town.

In the Spirit of the Season. Ho Ho BANG!

"What happens when you engineer an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid?"

I think we are going to find out.

Robert loved your outrageous advertisement - please share the likewise outrageous responses you receive.

It appears Diane Francis has been screwed by the church of climatology priests, as a result, she is no longer a viable offering for sacrifice to appease the great and almighty god "Mother Earth"

"What happens when you engineer an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid?"

In the case of the Chinese, they head north(west)...Russian male life expectancy is 62 years, but the ladies are living until 74. Gonna be a lot of May/December relationships!

"I posted this outrageous advertisement."

Seeing how you posted it in Toronto I'm sure you'll receive some serious positive responses.

"What happens when you engineer an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid?"

You get Jihadists don't you?

My take on this nonsense is to realize that the same clowns who brought us AGW and the Swine Flu pandemic are the same lot that are telling us that the population is increasing exponentially. I would really like to see their raw data and the computer models before anything as onerous as the 'one child' policy is adopted.

Posted by: Kelly>

“I cannot believe any thinking person would praise the Chinese one-child policy. What is happening is state-sponsored gendercide as Chinese couples abort all of the females.”

Quite true.

It is being reported that China has serious issues with tens of millions of young men without potential brides.

Has anyone considered that it may be a very dangerous thing for China to now have tens of millions of barely literate young men without potential wives?

Was this the oversight of an idiotic bureaucracy out of touch with their own culture, or was this careful planning? It sounds like a lot of cannon fodder to me.

OMG, I just received an e-mail from a support of Diane Francis' position! Keeping him anonymous, here's what he wrote:

Hello Elizabeth:
I agree with you however I do not agree with a law to control anybody. The answer is to educate and shame people into realizing it is not cool to sport lots of offspring.
I might suggest, as the founder of an unrelated successful advocacy group in British Columbia (www.sense.bc.ca), that there is power in numbers. What I mean is why don't you consider focusing your efforts on bringing together organizations that already have momentum in this area such as www.zerogrowth.org and others who have the infrastructure in place to catapult this effort forward with a bit of help? Just a thought. I agree with you about Diane's article and I wrote her a note yesterday. I also wrote the letter below to the Vancouver Sun in response to a letter that appeared in the paper.
All the best, Ian T.

Dear Editor:
Letter writer Dakota H. (Sun Letters December 9, 2010) said that she learned all she needs to know about climate change from a child in an elementary school class and that she assumes the people who prefer to destroy the planet have no children to look in the eye.
I believe a better preamble than hers, to a child regarding any discussion regarding pollution, climate change, and environmental degradation etc. should be one that begins with; "Little boy, the reason it is ok to destroy your planet is because all the mommies and daddies of the world have been incapable of connecting the dots in order to realize that too many little boys and girls being born means too much strain for the planet...."
Sincerely,
Ian T.

I decided to write Ian back from the anonymous account I'm using. Let's see if he responds to this:

Dear Ian,

Thank you for your thoughtful, progressive response! My apologies for writing you from the e-mail address of my friend, Ron, but I don't have access to my own Rogers account so am just borrowing his.

Anyhow, I appreciate what you're saying but your passive approach is simply not sufficient any longer. We must get militant!! While the likes of you & I can't YET legally force these selfish breeders to stop, we can get much more assertive than we have been.

I am thinking of traveling out to Vancouver in the new year. Don't worry, I will buy carbon offsets to cover the flight. But would you be interested in joining me to seek out pregnant women around your city and follow them home, explaining to them how much damage they are doing if they carry through with their pregnancy? Perhaps we could get 5 or 6 people to join us, chanting, "Breeder! Breeder!!" in ever increasing volume to shame her into having an abortion.

With like minded intellectuals like you, we can surely minimize the blight on our Earth that is human beings.

Thank you again for writing,

Elizabeth M.

"The answer is to educate and shame people into realizing it is not cool to sport lots of offspring."

SHAME people? Shame people for being parents? "Sport lots of offspring"? SPORT?

This person is clinically insane too.

"I might suggest, as the founder of an unrelated successful advocacy group in British Columbia (www.sense.bc.ca), that there is power in numbers."

Not if you're advocating reducing those numbers.

Ha ha!

Elizabeth, I like your idea. Let's have the founder of www.senseless.bc.ca - or whatever it's supposed to be - hit the streets and start publicly shaming pregnant women.

Where are those dual-trained police dogs when you really need 'em?

Ian responds! Here's what he wrote, along with my response back to him:

Elizabeth:
I am a Libertarian and you would never catch me either buying carbon offsets (willingly) or doing anything so draconian (and useless)as you suggest by harassing people.

While you and I definitely agree on the problem, we do not agree on the means to the end. As I said, if you are really committed, you might consider groups that have got momentum already. If you are hell bent on doing as you say, consider how you feel for those that harass women going into clinics for abortions. Think they have done anything but harm for their cause? Doubt it.
However, if that is what you choose to do... good luck with it and don't forget your media strategy.
Kind regards,
Ian

Dear Ian,

I'm so disappointed to hear your response. You clearly are not progressive and don't really care about our planet. Put another way, you're all talk, no action.

I just shared your latest e-mail with Ron. He laughed out loud when you stated that you're a Libertarian. To quote him, "The whole mantra of Libertarianism is to live and let live. If Ian were a Libertarian then why on earth would he care about how many children other people have?!?"

Anyhow, have a happy secular holiday but I clearly need to look elsewhere to find truly concerned people.

Elizabeth

Millions of men with no hope to marry always meant a new priesthood to me, or an army of virile angry frustrated men ready for Armageddon (Rev. 9:16).

Never once thought of Kevin's suggestion: "Or, just possibly, homosexuality? Be interesting to see if this is on the rise in China..."

Not possible, Kevin. You haven't been listening. it's not a learned behaviour. You're born that way.

We already have an underclass of angry young men who aren't getting laid, it is called Al Qaeda (not counting sheep, of course).

I live in China. That writer needs to be dragged into the street by red hot pliers attached to her nose and beaten with sacks of doorknobs. If we're making a list of people too stupid to breed, anyone that advocates the one-child-policy tops the list. My email to her was not so polite.

I wouldn't mind in the slightest a world, huge numbers of any society, communities living a simpler life style, using existing technologies to leverage their time as now, but instead of googling the latest drama queen gossip, use the internet to share tips and tricks on for instance the best designs for WOOD BURNING fireplaces and what recipes give the best results in an outdoor oven and how to hand make fly casting gear etc etc. and I don't mean the 'anything goes' stuff out there now. I want a web site that has actually rigorously TESTED the methods described.

not gonna happen any time soon with the buzz saws governing this country.

half the places I cycle to don't have a decent bike rack. lots and lots and lots of motor vehicle parking as mandated in the building code but fergedabout finding a correctly designed and adequate place to lock up the 2 wheeler.

"welcome to the green era"

Time to get busy planning all the new wilderness areas. Let's start with Michigan, to be followed closely by Long Island. More ambitious and therefore requiring a longer lead time are the Chesapeake Bay Wilderness area (20 miles from the shore all the way round) and the Appalachian Trail Wilderness area (25 miles on each side of the trail).

The sad part is that Diane Francis used to be a somewhat reliable, sane voice; too much time in a newsroom has obviously driven her batshit crazy. Either that or this is just another example of the "compassionate" worldview of the female career journalist; she wouldn't be the first roughly menopausal woman I've met with an aversion to families and an eagerness to see the rest of the world adopt her own draconian version of "family planning."

"But your plan means no families - that's no plan at all!"

"Exactly."

Chilling.

curious_george @7:41

Funny, isn't it? You bitch about the fact that building owners are obliged to provide parking places for those of us who drive motor vehicles; parking, that if it's in an inner city, we have to PAY a substantial sum to use.

Then you whinge about the lack of adequate lock-ups for bicycles. Lock-ups that you undoubted expect to use at no cost to yourself. Funny, isn't it? Bicycle riders like yourself invariably consider themselves to occupy a higher moral plane than do we mere mortals who tool around in carbon-belching behemoths, but there's certainly a significant subset of cyclists who aren't above stealing another rider's wheels. About the only time I find it necessary to lock my vehicle is when I have valuables on board.

Let's face it. The only people who steal bicycles are people who have some sort of an interest in bicycles. If somebody steals your bike, it's because they want to ride it themselves, or they recognize its value, and see an opportunity to make a buck by selling it to a fence. If a thief recognize the value of your bike, that probably means he is a knowledgeable rider in his own right. Most car operators know little and care less about the relative merits of different bikes. Sure, pro bike thieves might make use of a pickup or van to achieve their ends, but they aren't bike thieves because they own a motor vehicle; they own a motor vehicle because it's an asset to their bike-thieving career.

Diane Francises Utopia;

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

No Thanks....

Let's think this thing through.
AB bang
DE bang
gh !
jk !
mn !
pq !
st !
vw !

.... OK that works for me :-) RW

Matt Hillier

That should be "Church of Envirotology"

rick mcginnis

I agree. Diane Francis used to be a good read. I even wanted to have sex with her. But she's gone off the rails somewhere along the line.

Perhaps she's having sex with the wrong people.

Diane must be a fan of Agent Smith from the Matrix:
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.

gellen:

I know you were kidding about it not being a learned behaviour, but I have five historic words for you: "Rum, sodomy, and the lash".

gordinkneejerk:

I live in Richmond Hill, about 40 km from downtown Toronto. There's a GO train station about 2-3 km from my house, and if I have an early morning trip to the Big Smoke, I'll often take the train.

It has an enormous parking lot - at least 1,000 cars on the west side of Newkirk Drive, and in the last five years, a building on the east side was bought and demolished to build another lot that holds at least a few hundred more. There are about 50-100 (I've never actually counted) "priority" spots where people pay a monthly fee to have a designated spot reserved for them near the train; otherwise, every freakin' spot is free.

For bikes? Until they upgraded the station (at the same time they spent millions to build the east side lot), there were two outdoor bike racks that might have held six bikes each. Stern signs warned that if you attempted to chain your bike to the other fences or guardrails, your chain would be cut and your bike confiscated. Now, they've added a whole 30-40 spots for bikes (again, I've never counted exactly) where they at least have a cover so that your bike isn't rusting in the rain while you're downtown. But, there are no security cameras, no patrols, and no bike lockups that are more secure than whatever chain you provide. And I can guarantee it was a small fraction of the cost of the east side lot.

There are places in downtown Toronto that provide sheltered, secure stalls for bikes; you do have to pay a fee to use these, although given you can put 20-30 of these in a space that might accommodate 5 cars, the fee is usually less than Toronto's quite considerable street parking rates. I would gladly pay $1-2/day at the Richmond Hill station to ensure that my bike would be 1) dry, and 2) there when I returned from downtown. I'm not given that option, although I pay the same property taxes as the people who benefit from the free parking for their cars.

Anyone who's read my posts here know that I completely reject the AGW scam - I ride my bike because I'm diabetic, a bit overweight, it's often faster than a car (it can take 10-15 minutes to exit the lot with your car after the 5:00 train; I can be home by then on the bike), and I need to work every bit of exercise I can into my lifestyle. I do these things for obviously selfish reasons, but with our medical system, if I can stave off diabetic complications like amputation, blindness, and insulin pumps, I'm saving money for you too.

I'm not asking for a ton of freebies just because I choose to ride a bike; I am saying that if a fraction of the money spent on free public parking lots were spent on basic shelters for bikes, we could reduce road congestion (your ride is then faster), health costs (your taxes are then lower), and policing costs (a huge case in Toronto against a man alleged to have stolen over 2,000 bikes apparently cost over $1 million to investigate and prosecute). So, I am definitely contending that relatively minor investments in cycling infrastructure bring much higher benefits to other taxpayers in total, while helping cyclists avoid the cost of rust/theft on bikes that can cost over $1,500.

And, at least in York Region, that message is beginning to sink home. Recently, a bike only lane was opened on Dufferin Avenue north of Steeles Avenue in Toronto (for what? the cost of a few gallons of paint and one day of a painting truck?). I would have rather seen it on Bathurst (the grade is gentler and hills are anathema to all but the best cyclists), but it's a start.

Again, as I've pointed out here repeatedly, I'm an engineer - doing more with less is always an important goal for me. This year, I upgraded to an electrical assist bike with a 500 WATT motor - that's about 2/3 of a HP, or less than your average gas lawn mover. Unlike other bikes, this has big, large headlights, tail lights, turn signals, and I don't feel like I'm taking my life in my hands when I ride it on Toronto's mean streets. Tuesday, I reluctantly garaged it until the end of winter, as there's no way to ride safely when snow plows cut down lane size, and aggressive motorists both lean on their horns and then cut in and around you because you might be delaying them for all of five seconds.

You don't want to ride a bike? I'd never ask you. I think it's fun to feel the wind on your face, to lean into a turn, and, using less than $0.08 worth of electricity per day, I kind of enjoy spending less money per year than most motorists spend on a single fill-up. But we spend billions each year to facilitate cars, and far, far less to facilitate cycles. I think that policy is stupid, short-sighted, and ultimately futile. The benefits of a more balanced approach, and of always seeking to provide but not mandate more efficient options is unquestionable to me. I think enough people, given a choice between expensive and inexpensive options, if one didn't threaten their lives, make them face high financial loss, and unnecessary discomfort, would choose the latter a significant portion of the time. Now, you might want to ask for evidence of this.

OK, let's not include Europe, where cycling has always been a popular option. Take a visit to Taiwan. At every intersection, your car will be surrounded by an army of gas or electric scooters, or plain cyclists. The riders are actually given a head start at each light. They buzz off in all directions, and then the cars go through. It works fairly well.

Would I rather be in a car on a day like today, when it's -8 in Toronto, instead of waiting for a bus that's rarely on time? Yes. When there's a sudden thunderstorm in July, would I rather be in a car than on a bike? Yes. But my rough guesstimate is a car in Toronto is $200/month for a lease, $200/month for insurance, and at least $100/month for gas. That's $6,000/year after tax. My new e-bike has cost me less than $1,200 this year, which gives me a whole lotta money to rent a car when I really need one, to take a bus when the weather is awful, and to have a lot of fun when the weather is good. I think that's a pretty good bargain.

Another nutbar is Ted Turner. See his global warming prediction from last year.

Ted Turner predicts 'mass cannibalism' by 2040.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60581

@Waterhouse at December 10, 2009 2:45 PM

That's a great reference.

For those who didn't get it/follow the link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/synopsis
Logan's Run

To maintain the internal balance of the city, both reproduction and death are carefully controlled by a monolithic master computer. The only sex is loveless and nymphomaniacal; there are no relationships, no wives or husbands, only "the circuit" where you can obtain a temporary sex partner, as well as orgy rooms, filled with clouds of narcotic gas. Babies are born in glass boxes; the palm of their hand is implanted with a "life clock," a penny-sized lamp that looks like a crystal. At age 30, the life clock flashes red, and the bearer must report for a ceremony where he is told he is "renewed" but is in fact incinerated. Those who wish to avoid the 30-year-limit must become what is called a "runner." Runners are considered criminals, and hunted by policemen known as "sandmen."

Maybe, along with 1984, this is an example of some people confusing fiction/cautionary tales as a roadmap to the future.

"In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

Dwight D. Eisenhower
(Farewell address - yep, the same speech where he decries the Military Industrial Complex, which in fact he says in the speech is necessary)

Paul at December 10, 2009 11:06 AM

George Soros
Maurice Strong

but who is the third?

There is no world population problem.

The entire world's population could live comfortably inside the borders of the United States with a population density slightly more than HALF that of the state of New Jersey.

The least desirable portions of the country are no worse (and in many cases much better) than the environments people already live in.

World poverty is the result of socialism, corruption, dictatorship, and anarchy, not inequity.

Many people live to far away from work to take a bus. Housing is cheaper the further it is a way from city center. I for one, enjoy my privacy. I would like to see anyone ride a bike from where I live to work - unless they are in olympic athlete shape they would not be able to ride up the mountain - downhill is dangerous as you gain a lot of speed. One would have to bike up 2 mountains and through two valleys just to get to a hiway which would take another 45 or so minutes to bike to civilization. Transit is serviced only in the morning and again at 3 - 5 pm and takes a milk route - long trip. I like my car.

My city banned would burning fireplaces where I live - at first I thought they were joking. Since 1995 no new homes have had wood burning fireplaces. We have on and if I have to tear the place down in 50 years and rebuild, I'm going to leave the fireplace standing. BTW - we have a pulp mill spewing a huge cloud of who knows what that smells like sulfur - lots of complaints about the smell, yet we can't have wood burning fireplaces because it will hurt the air quality - they trading would burning fireplace for a pulp mill stack so the air pollution numbers in our city would go down and the pulp mill could claim they did something.

fc @ 12:01

O for BHO

Suzuki

Syncro

and everyone knows Dr. Suzuki takes the bus.

his own huge diesel bus with everything in it.

of course he flys too. he didnt paddle a canoe to Cuba to do his special.

What boggles my mind us how some think we have too many in Canada even when they're shown the less-than-replacement birthrates. I can only believe that these individuals truly don't like other people.

We need a constitutional amendment to limit all government take to maximum

We need a constitutional amendment to limit all government take to under 30% GDP.
Higher, and responsible people cannot afford to look after families they might want. Then only bureaucrats can afford to breed.
Happening already.

Could it be that Diane Francis was using heavy sarcasm/irony but was too ham-handed in the way she handled it?

I read the article from that perspective, trying to hold out hope it was just that...but, alas, I can't imagine that someone who makes a living at writing could have attempted sarcasm/irony so poorly. Therefore, she must be serious.

Alas and alack! What is this world coming to?

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

transportation:

Hey, I didn't say I wanted everyone to bike. In fact, I explicitly said I would never force anyone to use a bike, or public transit for that matter. Each of us has to make the decision that's best for us. What I did say was that infrastructure spending is hugely skewed to cars, and that minor and inexpensive improvements to other modes would benefit everyone.

I know a lot of posters here are based in rural areas. I don't see a farmer hauling a ton of fertilizer doing it on a bike. For that matter, when Kate's taking her dogs to shows, I don't quite believe that she drops them like Toto into the basket on the front of her bike. I don't hate cars at all.

But, other cities in the world seem to have figured out ways to allow cars and bikes to co-exist peaceably. Why we have this stubborn insistence in North America that cars rule and bikes are for second-class citizens is incomprehensible to me.

There is now a comments section for Dianne Francis One Child Policy article - it does not look good for her - I noticed the comments seem to be rotating as the earlier ones are no longer available to read. The comments are not nice at all.

John - thanks for noticing that the heartless, soulless machines of the Matrix espouse exactly the same philosophy as the Green movement. Useful copy-paste-share material there.