Canadian Conservatives: Not Rioting Enough!
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Toronto Sun, June 25th – The latest disturbing development in McGuinty’s Ontario is the same unit of the Ontario Provincial Police charged with minimizing violence by highway-blockading native protesters and anti-G8/G20 radicals, is now phoning up and showing up at the homes of law-abiding, middle-aged rural folks opposed to wind factories.
Globe&Mail, June 26th – “Police maintained tight lines around the summit site, but largely did not intervene as marchers destroyed property.”
More here (link fixed) – ” It has been confirmed that Mike Crawley called up the OPP to initiate an investigation into a “possible” protest because he was “alarmed” at mounting opposition. Mike Crawley, the CEO of International Power Canada, also happens to be the recently resigned President of the Federal Liberal Party”
h/t Paul Sepe
Avertible Catastrophe
Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?
In sharp contrast to Dutch preparedness before the fact and the Dutch instinct to dive into action once an emergency becomes apparent, witness the American reaction to the Dutch offer of help. The U.S. government responded with “Thanks but no thanks,” remarked Visser, despite BP’s desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer –the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment –unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.
Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn’t good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million — if water isn’t at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.
An excellent piece by Lawrence Solomon.
h/t Don B.
Reader Tips
When a pet is in distress and requires your assistance it can sometimes be difficult to pick up the signals. Cats tend to be rather stoic, while tortoises, I’m told, are functionally inscrutable. Dogs are widely considered the easiest animal to read, but in fact the only animal that will always let you know when it is in trouble, and in the clearest possible terms, is a goat, for a goat will not only loudly and repeatedly shout for help, but also – and this is the amazing part – call for you by your name.
I just found that out tonight. In the interests of pre-arming SDA readers with knowledge of what it sounds like when a goat needs your help – maybe it’s being arrested at a G-20 riot, for example – tonight I’m going to feature the sounds of a couple of goats letting their respective owners know that there’s an emergency, and that they must come quickly.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Please Remain Calm
According to ABC News, this morning the earth passed through the shadow of the sun.
h/t
G20 Protest Media QOTD
“There goes your producer, Scott” – CTV host Marcia MacMillan to reporter Scott Laurie, as his producer is escorted away in handcuffs at the G20 protest.
First Runner-up : “These anarchists are much more organized than people realize.”
Dear Mayor Miller,
Any city that stands aside to photograph itself burning – deserves to.
Related: Police accused of inaction in face of criminal acts;
Police maintained tight lines around the summit site, but largely did not intervene as marchers destroyed property.
Citizens of Caledonia, ON – “Faster, please”.
G20 Summits: Not Hot Enough!
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Globe&Mail, June 26th, 2010 – Sarkozy says his G8/G20 will cost one-tenth of Canada’s
RTÉ News, Jan.1, 2010 – Vandals have burnt 1,137 cars in France on New Year’s Eve.
Chaos in TO
And with this, the ‘billion dollar boondoggle” talking point goes up in smoke. Liberals are idiots.
From CP24 News, photo by Canadian Press, Chris Young:
Apparently David Miller is warning people to leave the area.
Best quote of the day, “The CBC building is in lock-down.”
Put your links in the comments.
Update: CTV: “For the first time ever, tear gas has been used in the city of Toronto”
Meanwhile… is it true that the English translation for the word “Bourque” is “egg on face”? In related developments, CTV cites Twitter as a source… developing…
825pm Eastern – CTV Marcia MacMillan to on scene reporter Scott Laurie: “There goes your producer, Scott”. … as he’s escorted away in handcuffs.
Top Dogs Of Science
h/t Harry K.
Giacomo Vigna v. Ezra Levant
“We come, finally, to the matter of the red underpants. It was suggested I put them into this article, and I initially resisted. After all, a defamation trial is serious business, and red underpants are anything but.”
Reader Tips
Last week I featured a song about polk salad; tonight, what with it being summer and all, we’re going to take a left turn into a cornfield to feature a strange 1944 song about potato salad – the solid kind, not the runny stuff – as performed by Aggie, Maggie and Elmira Ross. The Ross Sisters‘ act, a unique mix of singing, dancing, contortionism and acrobatics, was once considered good solid family entertainment, but now seems vaguely discomfiting, and desperate, in a stage-mom kind of way. One wag’s description of the performance as “Hee-Haw meets Cirque Du Soleil” is apt; the enterprise doesn’t make any sense, somehow, as the aggressively-smiling, all-American perkiness mixes uneasily with carnival-esque freakishness to create in the viewer something resembling cognitive dissonance.
A true oddity, for your Friday night amusement. Without further ado, here are the Ross Sisters performing Solid Potato Salad.
Back-flip those Reader Tips into the comments.
Not Waiting For The Asteroid
That was the theory behind Journolist: An insulated space where the lure of a smart, ongoing conversation would encourage journalists, policy experts and assorted other observers to share their insights with one another [….] At the beginning, I set two rules for the membership. The first was the easy one: No one who worked for the government in any capacity could join. The second was the hard one: The membership would range from nonpartisan to liberal, center to left.
Backstory here.
This Is My Brother Mohammed, And This Is My Other Brother Mohammed
“Dirty Jew, go back to your own country,” a group of Moroccan youths shouted..
Marketing Campaigns Of The Apocalypse
It’s all fun and games until someone runs over a baby carriage.
Y2Kyoto: “Green Energy” and “Criminal Enterprise”
Spain’s Dr. Gabriel Calzada — the author of a damning study concluding that Spain’s “green jobs” energy program has been a catastrophic economic failure — was mailed a dismantled bomb on Tuesday by solar energy company Thermotechnic.
h/t gord
Related environmarxism: Judge Faces Death Threats After BP Gulf Oil Drilling Moratorium Ruling
Y2Kyoto: Best Laid Plans
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
National Post, Feb. 2008 – David Suzuki has called for political leaders to be thrown in jail for ignoring the science behind climate change.
Nature News, June 2010 – Scientists who assessed earthquake risk at L’Aquila could be indicted on manslaughter charges.
h/t No-One
Recycler Rent-Seeking
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Brad Wall wasn’t elected to extend the term of the NDP. Contact your SaskParty MLA here and ask why the Saskatchewan government is supporting this intolerable rent-seeking scheme.
(press release, via email)
Friday, 9:00 am, June 25th, 2010, at the Travel Lodge in Saskatoon, Second Time Office Equipment plans to present a long list of complaints and charges of anti-competitive actions by SWEEP (the Saskatchewan Waste Electronics Environmental Program) at SWEEP’s Annual General Meeting.
Section 45, of the Canadian Competition Act, the cornerstone cartel provision of the Act, prescribes criminal sanctions when two or more persons agree or arrange to prevent or lessen competition unduly or to unreasonably enhance the price of a good or service, an offence known as “conspiracy”.
Second Time Office Equipment is a free enterprise ewaste recycling operation that has been denied full, fair and equal participation in the SWEEP program since its inception.
SWEEP is a non-profit organization banking millions of dollars of profits from Electronic Handling Fees charged consumers of Saskatchewan every time they purchase obligated
electronic devices.
Second Time Office Equipment filed its first complaint against SWEEP with the Department of Environment December 4th, 2006 regarding SWEEP’s anti-competitive structure and the complete lack of free marketing involvement in the province wide program. The OWMA (Ontario Waste Management Association) has presented similar complaints to the Ministry of Environment with respect to the Ontario ewaste recycling
program.
“When recycling collectives with significant power and scale are permitted to use that power to limit access to markets, either through restrictive contracting practices or quota systems which allocate defined quantities of materials to different processors, then open and competitive recycling markets are undermined, business certainty is eroded, and investment and innovation in the recycling industry is compromised.” – OWMA
Second Time Office Equipment has contended for years that the SWEEP program, as currently being administered, has been unfairly interfering in the Saskatchewan ewaste market by failing to allow full fair and equal competition to collect, consolidate, transport and process Saskatchewan ewaste.
Reader Tips
Tonight, as a public service, I’m posting an instructional video from a land across the sea where emotional continence is a way of life, bordering on an art form. In it, the character known as Galstrim calmly teaches outsiders How To Speak Norwegian. He’s a world class joke teller too, but I’m not going to link to that video because of the mild profanity, and because it’s strictly Norwegian culture…part two.
Money quote from the comments under tonight’s video: “I’ve always been afraid of pokerfaces, but it was actually quite fun to listen to…”
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
But Glenn Beck Is The Crazy One
It is said that one should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Having watched the oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico, dairy farmer Frank Konkel has a hard time seeing how spilled milk can be labeled the same kind of environmental hazard.
But the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is classifying milk as oil because it contains a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil.
This is not one of those times.