103 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  3. I dunno. If I understand Nozacks’ explanation of why intellectuals are anti-capitalist, it seems to be that they are envious of the success of non-intellectuals.
    By intellectuals, he means only the ‘wordsmiths’, the people engaged in defining reality only within the heady realms of words, words, words. Not the engineers, scientists, medical, applied technologists etc. Just the ‘wordsmiths’.
    I disagree with Nozack. I don’t think it’s just envy because their verbal capacities don’t receive high esteem in the society. After all, many of the famed political thinkers were in favour of capitalism.
    I also don’t think that intellectuals are terribly interested in the ‘unfortunate’ or ‘others’.
    I think it’s not really a psychological problem (envy or pity) but is instead a cognitive problem – ie, how do the wordsmiths think?
    They think, in words. Postmodernism. which is the rule of law of the intellectuals for the last generation, rejects any reality outside of words. The author is the authority, is the power, is ..etc. This might seem to fit in with ‘envy’ against those who ignore the presumed ultimate power of words.
    But, capitalism isn’t interested in words; it is interested in interaction. Not action but interaction. It is not interested in words detached from time and space and therefore from action, but in actions operating in ‘now-time’ and in actions setting up a preparation for ‘future-time’.
    The realms of Those Who Live Within Words and Those who Live Within Actions are contrary to each other. Postmodernism has separated words from actions. I think it is this deliberate separation of words from actions, of setting up two worlds – a world of fiction and a world of fact – and keeping them separate, that is the ‘root cause’ of the wordsmith’s hatred of The Other, the realm of action, ie, capitalism.

  5. teachers’ pets? lemme tell ya about teachers’ pets
    do they still have teachers pets in school?
    they did in my time.
    I never was one though, but this is a tale of how I usurped the position and didn’t even know it at the time.
    little bobby westgate. now there was a teachers pet. such a handsome chap and well behaved. well class, today is bobby’s birthday and we’re going to have a scavenger hunt for this delicious huge cinnamon lollipop . .
    at this point my sharp mind goes into overdrive scanning the classroom for the most logical spot for said prize. well, long story short I figured it out. on top of the PA box. just the right height to hide something flat. unbeknownst to me in my concentration, ‘ms steep’ had continued on to tell the class that bobby westgate was going to be tipped off as to the hiding place. I was so used to be bored out of my skull I never paid much attention to the proceedings until well into university.
    so the time comes we all clear out of the classroom, ms steep parks the lollipop on top of the PA box, we all reenter the room and I make a beeline to my highly suspected area.
    so does bobby westgate.
    I’m still oblivious to the charade, I’m more convinced than ever I’m right. gee, why is everyone looking at me so funny?
    up pipes a very consternated ms steep. ‘Bollocks could you move over its hard to tell who is closer you or bobby’
    whereupon I refine my position dead centre under the PA box. still oblivious to the fact I have now completely spoiled the day for the teachers pet and the teacher and the whole rest of the class.
    I win the prize !!
    was it ever delicious. I traipsed around the schoolyard all day working on it.
    and l’il ol’ me in my benevolence and blithe ignorance offer one and all a taste of MY delicious lollipop. I came from a poor family and such treats were inordinately rare.
    later it was explained to me what the ‘plan’ was. well, so much for teachers pets eh? too bad we don’t ALL have our birthday on a godam school day.

  9. Why do intellectuals oppose capitalism?
    There was no need for all that. The answer is simple. They don’t actually work for a living.

  10. Now Stephane Dion has taken to insulting Canadian Universities. He is absolutely shameless. We have some of the finest Universities in the world.
    Heck- in Montreal they even had this Dion guy, an expert on Marxism, as a professor of Sociology.But, oh yeah, Dion went to University in FRANCE. Guess Canadian Universities were not good enough for him and so now he insluts them.
    Makes you think – do you want an expert on Marxism socialist professor (Dion) or a Canadian educated expert in Economics, the British North America Act, the Commonwealth, Canadian history and the Constitution (Harper) to lead the country?
    Said Dion in Winnipeg:
    “We are in a world of giants: China, the United States and Europe. We have one of the best qualities of life in the world, but we can’t (be) first class if we have second-class universities,” said Dion.
    Now he thinks Canada is second class???? He also insults us all.
    Who else is disgusted by this little weasel interloper.

  11. Wow. Excellent video on the Global Warming Swindle. I’ve already started rubbing lefty’s noses in the mess they have on the carpet with the stench of their belief in AGW.

  12. With all political parties trying to out-green the others – the BBC – of all organizations – aired a program which is, in my opinion, Recommended Viewing: “The Great Global Warming Swindle”.
    It is available on Google Canada Videos. It runs for about one hour and 16 minutes. It is well worth every minute – no factual or scientific errors detected.

  15. The author is the authority, is the power, is ..etc.
    Now, come on, ET, you can do better than that. This statement is the very opposite of postmodern thinking about the text. The author is dead, remember?
    I agree about Chavez, by the way, Kate. He should have simply have put his favourite reporters on a list and allowed only those to ask questions.
    Welcome back!

  16. I don’t know what to really think of this article.
    If true, it seems both Harper & steady Eddy have connived to bring about a carbon tax.
    This after all we ( Westerners, conservatives, classic liberals, libertarians) have strived for, to make this country democratic once again. We, if this is too be believed, have been bamboozled by our own Government seeking power by actually endorsing this with law this fantasy.
    I for one will be voting separatist. I will not vote federally. I have had enough of the federal crooks of any political stripe.
    Meanwhile as Alberta stands on an ocean of oil we pay the highest energy prices in the world. Not so Ontario, or anyone else for that matter.
    Just kick Alberta in the rear & its fine. Hey, but if Quebec has problems we must all stop our lives for them. I am tired of the whole charade called federalism. Which is a euphemism for central Canadian control of all resources & riches if not cultural proclivities by social engineering. Not logic or based on human nature or natural law.
    Now the people we voted to stop this have become converts too this insidious con game for reasons of getting votes. I am disgusted to my very marrow.
    Its time to go, time to get rid of the Conservatives in Alberta for good. They have no platform, & less ability left.
    As for the federalies. To me there all nothing but money, grubbers mixed with criminals, marinated in power mongering. The Government IQ must hover around 80. That or the people who where not involved in the carbon credit scams, now are.
    It seems more of these bogus company’s form every day. Who benefits? If this story is true the Conservatives both federally & provincially have sold out this Province & the West in general.
    I hope you can prove this wrong! I had a lot of hopes riding on Harper, now it seems he has been assimilated by federal borgs.
    If this was a mistake fine. It sounds though like a well thought out plot to deflect people from what the realities of our polity are doing. I now think of Harper as Mulroony the second. Only with more brains & stealth.
    What ever happened to principles? I guess when it comes to the West that term means nothing by socialists, or faux conservatives.
    Oh Canada as a people, know one stands on guard for thee. Particularly westerners that, they would be but peed on each & every day.
    Just my opinion.
    http://www.edmontonsun.com/Business/Columnists/Waugh_Neil/2007/03/11/3730603.html

  17. Bob Rae and Martha Finley are guests on Question Period. No conservative there. Gee, Rideau skating rink closing today after a very successful season. What happened to all those doom and gloom reports that it would not open due to global warming.
    First question from Craig to Bob: Did the liberals choose the wrong leader. Bob denies that.

  18. Easy there, Lorraine.
    Given that Dion is from Quebec, he is probably referring to the sad state of affairs that has encompassed some of the schools in that province.
    The most glaring case in Quebec is that of McGill University. Macleans has named it the number one university in the country for 2006. The Financial Times of London has named it number 21 in the world for the same year (the next Canadian contender being U of Toronto at number 27).
    The school suffers from poor infrastructure. The libraries are hardly up to date. The government has withheld a large amount of funding. The school is literally surviving on its reputation and ability to attract international students who pay much more than Canadian students. Schools such as McGill are owed nearly 300 million by the government (of Quebec, I think) and its not surprising that Dion is saying what he is. McGill was for a while the most famous Canadian institution – in 1995 it was named as one of the top 10 centers of excellence by the Financial Times of London, alongside Sorbonne, Heidelburg et al. When schools such as this are slowly deprived of money they begin to lose faculty and resources.
    McGill is one of the few Canadian schools with international repute – U of Alberta and U of Saskatchewan may have excellent resources, but in terms of caliber and output, McGill has consistently ranked amongst the best in the world.

  21. Just say Gerard Kennedy on CTV Question Period. Is being rude something Liberals’ practice. Do they think this is “strategic”?
    Kennedy, like pretty well all Liberals on talk shows, goes on and on and on and on with insults and half truths and outright lies and then when any of the other guests try to correct the lies or challenge them they interupt and talk over them so nobody can be heard EXCEPT the Liberal.
    Has not Gerard Kennedy been taught by his mother it is rude to interupt, it is not nice to call people terrible names and it is not okay to lie. He actually said that Flaherty has had defecit budgets in the past (provincial) Blatant lie. And, if you deconstructed his ramblings you could pick out at least 10 blatant lies, 6 or 7 half truths and as many name calling slurs. That’s political discourse in this country?
    And, to think, this rude little bumpkin who probably had his lines written by some geeko in the backroom like Scott Reid wants to be party leader?
    I would suggest that Canadians would be much better off not even electing him as an MP.

  23. Garth Turner on Political Whores – in his own words
    Ah, friends. Here is the post Garth Turner wrote about the Prime Minister being a political whore. He has, today, explained that he removed the post because it unfairly maligns a political appointee who is clearly qualified for her appointment. In other words: there is no apology or misgivings with calling the Prime Minister a whore. Here is what he wrote, plus the comments the post generated: …-
    http://chuckercanuck.blogspot.com/2007/03/garth-turner-on-political-whores-in-his.html

  24. “Has not Gerard Kennedy been taught by his mother it is rude to interupt, it is not nice to call people terrible names and it is not okay to lie. He actually said that Flaherty has had defecit budgets in the past (provincial) Blatant lie. And, if you deconstructed his ramblings you could pick out at least 10 blatant lies, 6 or 7 half truths and as many name calling slurs. That’s political discourse in this country?”
    Yes, Lorraine, from the people who want to take the high road. Did I also read Dion accusing the Conservatives of cutting 70% of university funding? I love these Liberals, smear, misrepresent, or fabricate. When Harper shows he can just as nasty, then they want to be nice. Harper is not falling for that scam, like he did in the last two elections. He will match them, smear for smear. The proof that the worm has turned is Dion’s bleating, “they stole our policies.” Like tax cuts? The only thing preventing a true freefall in Dion and LPC support is that they can count on 25% of the electorate to vote for them no matter what (buying your constituency) garbage they put forward, masquerading as policy. BTW Mr Dion, if CPC stealing your ideas, I guess you support them, then. No wait, they vote against their policies. To top it off, Martha Hall Findlay was laughable on Question Period, declaring they didn’t want an election right now anyway, so they can take the high road. Power, power, power. The only article I’ve read that actually argues Dion is a fine fellow who connects with everyone was written by – Tom Axworthy.
    No wonder Libs don’t want an election right now. Question is, when will sit improve? Their dear leader goes on a national tour, says very little (at least very little reported), and attracts massive crowd of 200 cheering Liberals in Winnipeg.

  25. The Great Global Warming Swindle
    I think many of you know my feelings about climate change. If not, my view is that climate changing is called “weather”. It occurs daily, it occurs weekly, it occurs seasonally, it occurs annually, and if you take it out far enough it occurs on the scale of thousands or tens of thousands of years.
    There will never be the Tsunami because ice melts. There will never be a Tsunami because of the expansion of ocean water. There will never be a desert forming in a day or a week.
    If you took the time to watch Al Gore’s Mockumentary, An Inconvenient Truth, then you really owe it to yourself to watch The Great Global Warming Swindle.
    You will be shocked at some of the things Al Gore and his movie fail to discuss.
    One item that sticks out clearly is the fact that numerous scientists have chosen to leave the IPCC and asked to have their names removed from the report. But barring the threat of legal action, the IPCC feels people who provided input, whether supportive or contradictive, are part of the committee, and as such should be listed.
    Another point that really makes you think twice are some comments made right at the end of this documentary. They are based on the fact that we are now pushing the most expensive (wind and solar) energies on the underdeveloped third world. It actually brought a tear to my eye thinking of people with no electricity because we are not letting them burn coal or oil. When you think of American Democrats, you think of people who are supposed to fight for the rights of the underprivileged. Yet it is abundantly clear that Climate Change snake oil salesmen like Gore are out to keep the Third World in the dark.
    I urge everyone to watch this movie and share it with friends.
    H/T to A Dog Named Kyoto and a warm heart felt thank you to the BBC Channel 4. Click the play button below to watch the 75 minute show. It is well worth the time….-
    http://www.officiallyscrewed.com/blog/

  26. In the Sun today Sheila Copps is endorsing Dions’ move to a quota for woman in politics AND she seems to think that all the political parties should do the same.
    Sheila ends her column with this brilliant statement. “When women come together they can move mountains.”
    Once again Sheila, I say prove it.
    As someone whose family members have moved mountains while working on the Mica Dam, the MacDonald Tunnel, and several other ‘mountain moving’ projects, I know that it was MEN who moved those mountains. There were very few, if any women present. Sorry Sheila, but when moving mountains, upper body strength is a real consideration.
    I think it was Mark Steyn who said that Ms. Copps has to take her pantyhose off to count to twelve. Sheila proves the truth in that statement repeatedly by making ridiculous claims that stink of Liberal propaganda propped up with magical thinking.

  27. How big a footprint is gore leaving by going to Britain to endorse the new program being unveiled by the opposition-one short flight/year. High taxes if you fly more than that. Guess he wants to kill the tourist industry in Britain. Maybe this flight will be the last one gore can take for 2007. Gee, the time changed and the world is still here. I didn’t change anything but the clocks as come April, one will just have to change again when all the pre-programmed stuff kicks in. Funny, no one mentioned that little problem when the doomsayers were out and about on tv.
    Again, my thanks to all of you who voted for Warner in the Hockeyville contest. They made the top 5, so please vote again, and often. A news clip said it was the first time so many votes had been received by one town from all over the world.
    votes come in from Australia, Switzerland, Britain and many other countries, plus several states in the USA. cbc.ca/hockeyville vote Warner.

  29. Couldn’t help but wonder why this rally was even a news story on CTV..no mention of numbers who showed up nothing. just a ‘long list of performers?” not sure if they plan to update the story to give any details but why is anything with Kyoto slapped on it newsworthy. the Great Global Warming Swindle is well worth a look, finally some balance to this computer modelled insanity.
    http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070311/toronto_kyoto_rally_070311/20070311?hub=TopStories

  30. “Kennedy, like pretty well all Liberals on talk shows, goes on and on and on and on with insults and half truths and outright lies and then when any of the other guests try to correct the lies or challenge them they interupt and talk over them so nobody can be heard EXCEPT the Liberal. ”
    Touche – to me, the moderator should be directing the conversation and by letting the Liberals go on and on and on not letting anyone else get a word in shows a poor moderator. They all need to take a lesson on how to conduct debate.
    Or is it that unspoken “B” word (bias)

  31. dawg – I meant the author of EACH interpretation. Not the original author, who is indeed, in the morass that is postmodernism – dead. My point is that EACH reading is carried out by a new ‘author’.
    As such, this removes the interpretation from any links with any objective reality other than that individual reader/author.
    This means that the ‘intellectual’ rejects their re-presentation as having any links with an objective reality.

  32. Lorraine and Shamrock,
    I saw the same thing. Kennedy also did his attack dog act earlier this week on Duffy too. Marthaah just looked sad and droned on about how much integrity Dion has and what a nice man he is and what great vision he has and what big blah, blah, blah .. .she sounds like Little Red Riding Hood. I don’t think she has the stamina for the 13 years she’s going to have to spend in the wilderness.
    If I were campaigning against either of them, my opening point to voters would be:
    Why would you trust the judgment of this person who brought Dion to the helm, knowing full well he can’t even speak English .. .what kind of judgment is that?
    I must say, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at Craig Oliver this week, he is openly hostile to the incompetence of Dion and he must be taking peer pressure to tone it down…good for him. He also keeps overriding the constant ramblings of Jane Taber and others who keep predicating the Conservatives are calling an election, Oliver keeps saying:
    “ haven’t you listened to Harper? …no they don’t want one because Canadians don’t want one.”

  33. small c torontonian ,
    I fully agree with you. The UK Channel 4’s decidedly non-PC documentary, The Great Global Warming Swindle is an 1:15 long but well worth it.
    At first I found it a bit hilarious that we’ve been so misinformed about climate change. But then it sinks in that we’ve lost the propaganda war and we have to get control of it. I therefore still support doing something about CO2 provided we don’t buy credits from despots.
    There are a couple of Canadian Profs who make excellent contributions as does Patrick Moore , the original Canadian co-founder of Greenpeace .. he said that the movement had to come up with something hysterical because too many people were starting to agree with environment issues and you can’t raise money without lots of controversy , agreement is a bad thing . He had a lot of candor and made some very insightful comments about what is driving this global movement.

  34. By the way, Dion’s comments about ‘investing in Canadian universities’ are exactly the same as Chretien and Martin’s comments – and they most did nothing to fulfil those promises. Under the Liberals, student debt increased, scientific research wandered – and only the social sciences and humanities continued to expand in their plethora of meaningless sophistry.
    As for universities – Quebec, with its 7.5 million population has more universities than Ontario with its 12 million population! Remember, education is the domain of the provinces not the federal gov’t. The federal gov’t, unfortunately, controls research funds – and the social sciences and humanities and the Canada Council are a result, – domains which foster the fungus of leftist postmodernism.
    As for choices of ‘best university’ – that is always debatable, jeremiah. I’d opt, now, for the U of Alberta as the most future-oriented and dynamic university. It’s fascinating to see how many of the good academics are moving there.

  35. ET:
    It’s the old problem of the ding an sich, isn’t it? I mean, you can make all the references to some unknowable “objective reality” that you want, but it’s still like referring to God’s will.
    You will argue that we can indeed know something called “objective reality,” and that I am a solipsist for suggesting that we can’t. But given our insurmountable subjectivity, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to think that we can be so familiarly in touch with something utterly outside ourselves. The phrase is just a rhetorical device to best an opponent–an upscale version, in fact, of the argumentum ad verecundiam. It used to be that debaters would trundle out God–now it’s a privileged relationship with “objective reality.”

  36. …was watching CPAC to day (Sun).
    The best news in a while – the head of the IRB has just resigned effective by about March 15.
    Now – lets hope that the deputy(s) is next and that we are about to see the end of this bureaucratic pool of political patronage. I think there are about 50 positions still open for adjudicators and hopefully they will never be filled. Just let the beast die.
    As the senate committee on citizenship continued on – it became readily apparent that we have a nightmare going in terms of people who thought they are Canadian Citizens but who are finding out now that in fact they “are not”.
    Most ironic of all was an eastern Liberal senator pushing for committee agreement to in turn push in the House next week for an emergency debate on this issue. His government’s policies for decades are the grist by which we got here – and now is dumping on the gov’t of the day do fix it on short notice after decades of neglect.
    Regardless of where the fault lies – we have a huge problem so let’s get it fixed before it gets worse. Monty Who should have been on this a year ago and Dianne Next Who says – oh, we have about 450 people in limbo. It seems that we are more likely to have thousands so let’s get at it.
    It will probably mean a whole lot more citizens of convenience being given documentation – but what the hell – this ship also sailed years ago and is just now returning to port anyway. No doubt there are some really good people who have been getting screwed by the system so at least get these people settled.
    Rather than be overly concerned about a citizen/Immigration Law overhaul – lets get some housecleaning done in terms of the foreign offices of IRB before we are deluged with more difficulties because of the panic to import workers.
    Temporary Work Orders – does anybody really believe that these people are going to go home after one or two years of making oil patch money?

  37. Actually, no, dawg. I don’t reference an unknowable objective reality. If it’s unknowable, then, it’s unknowable. Nothing to do with god or whatever.
    I reference only the knowable. So, if I accept as a fact that humans cannot fly, – and that’s an objective reality – then, I don’t walk off a 400 ft cliff and flap my arms.
    If I define that X causes Y, as in two hydrogen and one oxygen atom combining to make water, that’s a knowable, testable objective relationship that has nothing to do with my wishes, my subjective perception. It exists quite irrelevant of what I think of it.
    The world exists, as it exists, quite outside of my interpretation of it. I’m a strong believer in the reality of the objective world.
    If I read an article and make up my own interpretation, quite irrespective of the author’s intention – that’s my problem. His original intention still exists as an objective facticity.
    Our subjectivity is most certainly not insurmountable. How do you surmount it? By testing, by repeating the triad of input and mediation and output function. By working within a ‘community of interpreters’ to acknowledge that most of you agree that the light is green and we can now cross the street.
    You are operating, as a postmodernist, within a modernist mechanical reductionism; you reduce reality to the horizons of your own singular mechanical ‘cell walls’. But this ignores that reality doesn’t operate on such a macroscale; it also operates at the quantum or microlevel, where the cell picks up information from energy waves, from pheromones, from sound waves – in a manner that shows that we operate, not as isolate closed artifacts but as networked organisms.
    Your definition that acknowledging the reality of the objective world is an ‘appeal to authority’ is a misuse of that term. The appeal to authority fallacy refers only to human authority. Not objective reality.

  38. In case you missed it, you’ve been swindled by The Great Global Warming Swindle.
    Ah you watched the TV and now you know everything there is to know, right? Well the fact is there were blaring errors and omissions in that, um well, you can’t really call it a documentary so I’ll just call it a TV show.
    Did you happen to pick up the fact the temperature graph that shows the drop in temperature from 1940 to 1980 isn’t actually a global temperature chart, but is actually the temperature chart of just the Northern Hemisphere? If you look at the Southern Hemisphere, which is a more reliable chart seeing there is not as much land influence, it shows a steady rise from 1946 to present.
    Oh and then there is Frederick Singer giving his bit about global warming. The guy who was on the payroll as a mouthpiece for Philip Morris during the tobacco lawsuits of the 1990s, when they were denying any connection between tobacco use and cancer. The same Frederick Singer who admitted doing climate research for several oil companies.
    There is professor John Christy, who apparently flip flops on natural and man made climate change depending on whether Exxon is paying his way at the. The organizations he is a member of is “Independent Institute”, the “Cato Institute”, the “Competitive Enterprise Institute” and “George C. Marshall Institute” who coincidentally receive money in the millions of dollars from good old Exxon Mobil.
    Richard Lindzen whose signature is on the Leipzig Declaration, also made an appearance. Of course he’s another Cato Institute member. One of his many claims to fame is his speech ‘Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus’ funded by none other than OPEC. He too is a member of the “George C. Marshall Institute” but also of “The Annapolis Centre for Science-Based Public Policy” which receives funding from Exxon Mobile. He is also associated with “Tech Central Science Foundation” who is funded by AT&T, Avue Technologies, The Coca-Cola Company, General Motors Corporation, Intel, McDonalds, Merck, Microsoft, Nasdaq, PhRMA, Qualcomm and of course Exxon Mobile.
    We even have Tim Ball who speaks his piece. Ball, who is another member of “Tech Central Science Foundation” and whose own firm recieves money from Calgary based oil comapies hasn’t published a single paper for peer review in over thirty years, yet he wants us to see him as Canada’s first PHd in climatology.
    http://www.desmogblog.com/timothy-f-ball-tim-ball
    What you watched was bad science, poorly written and told by people who have lost their credibility by accepting money from oil companies.
    It make one wonder if the whole thing wasn’t paid for by British Petrolium and of course Exxon in retaliation for this http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page6333.asp .

  39. A question for the masses.
    I was wondering if there are any Conservative MPs who hold a PhD in anything. I’ll start searching but if anyone knows, please pass it on.

  40. Scientists Receive Death Threats For Questioning Man’s Role in Global Warming
    Think those advancing anthropogenic global warming theories are serious about their views? Well, an article from Sunday’s Telegraph should scare every person around the world about the zealotry and danger surrounding this issue (emphasis mine throughout):
    Scientists who questioned mankind’s impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.
    They say the debate on global warming has been “hijacked” by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.
    Shocked? Astounded? That’s only the beginning:
    Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.
    One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.
    Why is this happening in Ball’s view:
    “Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened,” said the professor.
    “I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal.”
    Other well-known skeptics agreed with Ball: …-
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1799170/posts

  41. I’ve just read the following on the Samizdata blog from England. Think about its implications. Global Warming has gone bonkers.
    Harsh new taxes on air travel, including a strict personal flight “allowance”, will be unveiled by the Conservatives tomorrow as part of a plan that would penalise business travellers, holidaymakers and the tourist industry.
    The proposals, to be disclosed by George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, include levying VAT or fuel duty on domestic flights for the first time as part of a radical plan to tackle global warming.
    The Conservatives will also suggest – most controversially of all – rationing individuals to as little as a single short-haul flight each year; any further journeys would attract progressively higher taxes, a leaked document entitled Greener Skies suggests.

  42. While you’re at it Albatross
    Don’t forget to document the number of Liberal PhD’s who subscribe to the Divine Power to Rule of the Liberals (all of them).
    Then correlate the Con/Lib numbers with the decades of mess – legally/politically/socially – that the Liberals have left for posterity after their last 35 odd years of power.

  43. While you’re at it albatross39, you might point out that you haven’t properly debunked one scientific position taken by the video you describe, except, your argument about northern hemisphere temperatures. Maybe you should check the temperature proxies used by Mann (the hockey stick guy), all from the northern hemisphere!!
    You don’t bother to address:
    – the sun’s influence in climate change
    – the politicization of the environental movement, described by co-Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore (another oil shill right), powerfully influenced by anti-development marxists – check his website for further details
    – the fact that IPCC doubled anthropogenic CO2 emissions, which are dwarfed by volclanoes, animals, bacteria, dying vegetation and oceans.
    – the inconvenient fact that water vapour represents 95% of greenhouse gases
    – that CO2 increases lag temperature rises, not the other way around.
    Did you actually watch this video. When I see a similar presentation, where qualified scientists explain properly AGW theory, with rebutalls for the rebuttals, maybe then your arguments will have creditibility. Don’t hold you breath waiting for that presentation.
    Why is it OK for climate change proponents to have a vested interest in their theories, but anyone challenging them is an oil shill. Such hypocisy is getting old.
    Nice try with the omissions.

  44. Where to start. Let’s proceed backwards.
    The appeal to authority is in this case to your own, based upon your privileged relationship with something called “objective reality.”
    I don’t “reduce” “reality” at all. I find “reality” a nugatory concept. You yourself appear to concede that any such notion is a consensus, arising from intersubjectivity: your “community of interpreters.” I have no difficulty with that. I’m quite happy with the “networked organisms” idea, in fact. The concept of reality “operating” is a bit weird, but maybe that’s just a semantic problem. Pressing on:
    I have no problem with testing, either. In fact, submitting ourselves precisely to that discipline is what allows us (at least, we moderate postmodernists) to distinguish a “fictional” from a “non-fictional” text. Moving quickly past that large can of worms:
    The notion of an authorial intention is quaint. So, when an author says, “When I wrote that, I meant X,” and I ask “What did you mean by X?” the whole idea of “intention” comes apart at the seams. Authors operate as assemblers, and not at a reductive mechanical level either. What goes on when an author produces a text is a lot subtler than “intention.” Good grief, we aren’t even talking postmodernism here, either, but Wimsatt and The Verbal Icon. (He thought there was one privileged meaning, mind you, but inhering in the text.)
    Then this gem: “The world exists, as it exists, quite outside of my interpretation of it. I’m a strong believer in the reality of the objective world.” Now, I happened to grow up in a positivist household, and this sort of thing would have been toasted over a slow fire. Can existence be a predicate, to begin with? Just askin’.

  45. Yes, I also loved the UK documentary
    THE GREAT GLOBAL WARMING SWINDLE
    It must be taken with more than a grain of salt, because there are many layers to the story which were not dealt with. The best points for me were:
    – Global warming is refutable from many different perspectives, and no one single research methodology still unambiguously supports the “Man-made global warming catastrophe” theory, (MMGWC)
    – I was glad to see CO2 trashed so effectively as a cause of warming given that water vapour comprises 95% of greenhouse gases, very compelling evidence for CO2 – caused warming would have to exist, and that evidence does not exist. Research which shows that when the globe warms, CO2 increases, is important, because it supports the argument that global warming might cause humans. That is, most land mass is in the Northern hemisphere, where warming would increase and improve arable land, growing seasons, crop yields, and available water supplies. We know that global warming was beneficial to humans when the last ice age began retreating, but we do not know if these benefits have stopped. World population is increasing, but GDP per capita is also increasing rapidly.
    – I especially liked the debunking of the “c” word. If the environmentalists, media and politicians are not able to label this as a “catastrophe”, then they cannot gain political traction, and fanatics will simply spin their wheels. More climate scientists and other experts oppose the irresponsible use of the word “catastrophe” than anything else.
    – I really like the connection between failed communism/socialism and environmentalism. The left is addicted to doom. E.G., The Crisis of Capitalism, The Population Bomb, Silent Spring, The Limits to Growth, Return of the Ice Age, The China Syndrome , Nuclear Winter, Killer Bees, Acid Rain, Globalization, Frankenstein foods, The Ozone Hole. These were either wrong, or never became a crisis, but in each one’s time, the left claimed doom could only be averted with more state control and intervention, suppression of capitalism, and wealth redistribution.
    – ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ is an essential scientific principle, but everything I read about MMGWC violates this. Science does not know precisely how clouds are formed, what causes rain, or how to predict next month’s weather. With a 100-year climate model, it could take 100 years to prove it’s wrong. By then the modeler will be dead.

  46. Socialism; Zimbabwe’s Millstone.
    Socialism: everywhere, at all times; A Religion of Death.
    …-
    The police violently crush protest in Zimbabwe
    JOHANNESBURG: Hundreds of riot officers in Zimbabwe on Sunday violently crushed an attempt by protesters to hold what they called a prayer meeting in one of the capital’s largest townships to express opposition to President Robert Mugabe’s rule.
    A civil rights lawyer in the capital, Harare, said at least 35 people had been arrested, including the leaders of the two rival political factions that oppose Mugabe’s governing party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. A Harare journalist, speaking by telephone, said a supporter of the opposition had been shot and killed by riot officers. That report could not be independently confirmed.
    The arrests underscored the growing scope of unrest in Zimbabwe, where the annual rate of inflation now exceeds 1,700 percent and many basic foods and commodities are either not available or are too expensive for average citizens. The government imposed an outright ban on public gatherings in Highfield, the scene of the Sunday confrontation, after the police fought a running battle with hundreds of anti-government demonstrators there three weeks ago. …-
    http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/11/news/zim.php

  47. Whether or not any of the scientists have funding from the evil oil companies to me is irrelevant. Billions flow into research from the UN and other government agencies. I would love to see the figures lined up as my memory of university research when I was a student was that very few dollars were not provided by the government. Government funded research should not be thought of as ‘purer’ than any other funding. Science has become politicized and right now Human Caused Global Warming has been winning the marketing war. Science 101 is that a theory is only proven when it can predict a future outcome. No climate model has predicted an outcome yet, when one does then it is scientific fact. Until then its a hypothesis that is yet to be proven and certainly isn’t something that billions of dollars should be wasted on.

  48. dawg – I think we are taking up kate’s bandwidth on a debate that is irrelevant to most readers here.
    I completely and totally reject postmodernism. OK?
    No, I don’t state that reality is a ‘consensus’. I’m saying that proving that X=Y (input = output) or input data = output interpretation, is achievable via testing and/or within a community – who will inform me that IF I put a match to this chemical, THEN, the lab will blow up.
    I don’t have a privileged relation with objective reality. I reject the hubris of declaring that reality exists only within my subjective interpretation of it.
    No, questioning authorial intent doesn’t make it ‘come apart at the seams’. It clarifies what he meant. As you and I are now doing.
    Yes, of course existence is a predicate. I’m an Aristotelian, not a Platonist. Existence operates as a function, the function is the predicate.

  50. My, my – Dawg: please, you’re bewildering the less learned…well, less educated, perhaps.
    ‘I find “reality” a nugatory concept.’
    Sleeping naked in the snow must appeal to you.
    ‘The notion of an authorial intention is quaint.’
    Yup. What you said. Now, grab your copy of Hume and find a rock (take of your shoe off first).

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