The Liberals are coming

Uncategorized 40 Comments

Hopefully they understand that they’ll have to entertain themselves once they get here.
The Alberta wing of the Federal Liberal party recently announced that their Annual General Meeting and Policy Convention will be held in Lethbridge, Alberta from April 30th to May 2nd. The online invitation, fulsomely replete with a photo of a windfarm with a rainbow behind it, boasts a star-studded lineup that includes one-woman klan extinguisher Hedy Fry, House of Commons Fake-Outrage Choir first tenor Ralph Goodale, and future five-term Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Alas, a charter bus which was to depart from Edmonton – the only place in Alberta that even remotely resembles a Liberal enclave – was canceled. Apparently, the Liberals “could not find 35 people in the 1 million person metro Edmonton region who wanted to make the trip.”
In related news, the Chippendale Dancers’s scheduled June 8th performance in Bali has been canceled….

Blog Notes

April 28, 2010

Blogging 32 Comments

I’m off this morning for Beijing, which is certain to set conspiracy journalists a-twitter about who else may be on the trip, and how it all ties in to the joooos….
In the meanwhile, the guest bloggers have been invited to stop by to keep things going. You can return the favour by popping back to their sites for a visit from time to time.
I’ll be back in a week, God and my Mossad agent willing.

Reader Tips

April 28, 2010

Reader Tips 20 Comments

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio.
Tonight, for your delectation, here are Chet Atkins and Stanley Jordan
& the band performing Hoagy Carmichael‘s 1927 classic: Stardust ¤ §,
in 1990 (4:35).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Y2Kyoto: Science By Press Release

climategate2 8 Comments

Donna Laframboise is doing the work “science” journalists won’t do;

Although we all know that weather is not climate, the IPCC seems confused on this point when it discusses the 2003 European heat wave. In a report that’s supposed to focus on the impacts of long term climate change, the IPCC thinks it’s worth mentioning that “Wine production in Europe was the lowest in 10 years” in 2003. The evidence for such a claim? A press release issued by a lobby group for European farmers:
COPA COGECA, 2003a: Committee of Agricultural Organisations in the European Union General Committee for Agricultural Cooperation in the European Union, CDP 03 61 1, Press release, Brussels. [IPCC reference listed here]
It’s a similar story for the IPCC’s claim that, also in 2003, “Forage production was reduced on average by 30% in France and hay and silage stocks for winter were partly used during the summer.” According to an IPCC supplementary document (PDF – see p. 4), the above press release is actually the source of the hay claim, while the wine production data comes from a second press release that is cited thus: (see p. 6 of the above PDF)
COPA COGECA, 2003b: Committee of Agricultural Organisations in the European Union General Committee for Agricultural Cooperation in the European Union, CDP 03 61 1, Press release, Brussels.
Since the European farmers’ organization website only has press releases from the last three years online, if we want to sort out which of these 2003 documents actually says what, we’ll need to submit a special request.

That’s just a snippet.
A bit of searching suggests that while the IPCC may have perfected the art of “science by press release”, they didn’t invent it.
h/t Jay Currie

Barack Obama: Not Post-Racial Enough!

The One 45 Comments

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Barack Obama, “A More Perfect Union” – “As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all. “
Barack Obama, A More Perfect Mid-Term Campaign – “This year, the stakes are higher than ever. It will be up to each of you to make sure that young people, African Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again…”

Y2Kyoto: Tie Me Carbon Tax Down, Sport

Roadkill 28 Comments

When Mr. Rudd was elected in 2007, he declared addressing climate change as the great moral challenge of the current generations.

That is, second only to the great moral challenge of re-election.
h/t Manotick

Not Waiting For The Asteroid

Media 8 Comments

Seriously? You guys are running AP copy on your own sale?

Guergis-Jaffer: State Of The Nation

Political Animal 26 Comments

With each new bombshell revelation, Canadians grapple with an existential question – “Can the nation survive another Karlheinz Schreiber?”

Reader Tips

Reader Tips 24 Comments

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio.
Tonight, for your delectation, here are Stan Getz, Chick Corea, Stanley
Clarke, & Tony Williams performing I Remember Clifford ¤ §, Benny
Golson‘s threnody in memory of Clifford Brown (Montreux, 1972, 4:56).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

They Bought A Home In Reno

Roadkill 19 Comments

Just to watch it die.

“I Have Seen The Asteroid And It Is Us”

Media 34 Comments

(Links updated after our moral and intellectual superiors tasked with defending CBC journalism chose to redirect the original links to a bondage clad booby shot. As a metaphor for the strength of their arguments, it really doesn’t get much better than that.)
(Update 2: OK, OK, stop emailing me. The booby shot is here. It seems CBC employees have finally ~~created~~ repackaged something stolen from the private sector into something you want to see.)
After reading this; “Read ‘em and weep…the CBC News story”

It has been too easy to blame criticism on unhappy former employees who are disgruntled because they were pushed out. It has been too easy to point fingers at older viewers who don’t like change. It has been too easy to fall back on “it’s a work in progress” excuses. The truth is, and the numbers are all too clear, the new National is an abject failure that has not resonated with the viewing audience and worse, has turned many loyal news junkies away.
With the help of a mathematically inclined friend who has access to the ratings I put together a table that clearly shows how poorly The National is doing. But first an executive summary of our findings:
We used 70 programs (Monday-Friday) in 2009 from the beginning of January to the second week of April. The National average was about 804 thousand, while CTV News got 993 thousand.
This year, 2010, we looked at 59 programs during the same period. (The Olympics made 11 weekdays not applicable.) This time the National averaged 644 thousand, CTV News — 1257 thousand. That’s almost exactly double. […]
Two other small observations. Last year, there were 9 days when The National actually got higher numbers than CTV. This season, it never got close. The other thing is that we picked a period when The National‘s ratings were actually UP! If you were to look at the September-December stretch, CTV’s numbers were regularly more than double, sometimes, even triple those of CBC’s flagship news program… The numbers are even more startling than we expected.

Source: http://www.theteamakers.com/2010/04/21/why-we-leak/#comment-12069

… all I can say is “Over to you, Shotgun Boy”.

I have painting to do.

The Sound Of Settled Science

“Dinosaurs died from sudden temperature drop”

Climate Cult 50 Comments

British researchers claim that a sudden plummeting in the sea temperature of 16F (9C) more than 137 million years ago was the first step towards their eventual road to extinction. […]
The drop in temperature is thought to have occurred because high levels of CO2 were in the atmosphere which caused global temperatures to rise and polar ice to melt – a phenomenon currently predicted for Earth.

Scientists uncover first-ever evidence of the use of currency by mollusks during the Cretaceous period. Photo: SWNS

Related – “Berkeley scientists’ 1980 claim felled by growing demand to explain rapid global non-warning.”

TEST

Freespeechers 49 Comments

White People Taste Best Cooked In Wok Over High Heat

More Money Than Brains 83 Comments

They’ve been lying at our feet for thousands of years, yet the average dog has a better understanding of English than the average Englishman has of Dog.
They hear “sit, stay, down, stand, come, fetch, outside, car ride, walk, cookie, toy, cat, sic em. Good dog!”
We hear “bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark. Bark? “
Our track record in communicating with other species isn’t exactly stellar.
Nonetheless, world leaders who can’t pronounce “Ahmadinejad” (much less solve him), insist on blasting “come git me!” cards into space.
I suppose there’s comfort in the notion that an alien intelligence with the technology to zoom across the vast distances between star systems would be equally progressive in their approach to foreign ecosystems and their cultures. We can hope so, anyway. It’s not like we can do much about it now – the invitations have been sent.
Still, when I look at this and then rotate it counter-clockwise by 90 degrees….

In Conversation With Tom Friedman’s House, A Continuing Series ….

Insufferable Twits 22 Comments

Update: just think of the Earth Hour parties!

Great Moments In Presidential Identity

The One 24 Comments

The Great Communicator.
The Decider.
The Dialectizer. *

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