We will give you further notice that these blogs must be eradicated immediately or Anyone associated with them will die and will suffer the mighty blow Of Allah’s punishment…
Free Ethical Oil!
Sheila Leggett, the clueless bureaucrat running the review, has lost control of the process. Instead of weeding out irrelevant, repetitive and non-Canadian witnesses, she unilaterally declared she’d add on an entire extra year of hearings so that every single man, woman and elementary school child in the world can use the review as some sort of political soapbox. Canada’s economic development and thousands of jobs will take a back seat to Leggett’s personal Oprah Winfrey Show.
Fortunately, adult supervision has arrived in the form of Joe Oliver, the National Resources minister. Yesterday he announced that if Leggett won’t protect the integrity of the review from foreign-funded environmental extremists, he will.
“These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda,” Oliver wrote in a public letter. “They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”
That’s all true. But it’s worse than that. Leggett hasn’t just allowed the panel to be swamped by foreign witnesses, such as Hugo Chavez’s state-owned oil company CITGO, and environmentalist front-groups paid for by U.S. billionaires like the Rockefellers.
Being “hijacked” implies that Leggett is just a naive, passive victim of scheming foreigners. But it’s even worse than that. Leggett herself is actively demonstrating bias.
Not Waiting For The Asteroid
Quote of the Period:“But the real question I have is this one: Is the Republican field worthy of the press that covers it?“
We Don’t Need No Stinking French Fry Grease
Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?
When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.
But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.
In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.
“It belies logic,” Charles T. Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, said of the 2011 quota. And raising the quota for 2012 when there is no production makes even less sense, he said.
Wait Until They Find Out Europe Has No Money
Hungary Folds, Ready To Change Its Laws To Get European Bailout Money
Free Ethical Oil!
A regular reader, via email;
As a regulatory affairs worker in the natural resource industry, I’m heartened by the ongoing discussion on how so-called environmentalists are taking over the regulatory process.
That said, how many of your commenters have ever intervened at one of these environmental assessments or written to their respective environment ministers expressing their support for a certain project or process?
Interventions at these EA processes are taken very seriously, which is why environmental groups make a concerted effort to produce swaths of form letters in opposition to anything which might conceivably benefit resource producers.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver is betting that far more Canadians favour jobs and business opportunity over economic stagnation. I encourage your readers to show his government that there are people in this country who support our major industrial projects and are in favour of a strong, free and prosperous Canada.
The Honourable Peter Kent
Minister of the Environment
10 Wellington Street, 28th Floor
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3
Tel.: 819-997-1441
Fax: 819-953-0279
Email: Minister@ec.gc.ca
The Honourable Joe Oliver
Minister of Natural Resources
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Tel.: 613-992-6361
Fax: 613-992-9791
EMail: Joe.Oliver@parl.gc.ca
Major Projects Management Office
155 Queen Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E4
Fax: 613 995-7555
E-mail: mpmo-bggp@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca
Information on participating in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency: http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=8A52D8E4-1
It’s Sitemeter Time Again
The countdown clock ……..
That’s 5 million visits since Dec.29, 2010!
Here’s our lucky 25M visit. Congratulations, whoever you are – a Mark Steyn Christmas album is yours for the asking.
I Love The Smell Of Conservative Majority In The Morning
Members of Parliament are likely to see the generous terms of their gold-plated pensions significantly eroded as part of the Harper government’s deficit reduction budget this spring.
[…]
As the National Post has written, the government is considering moves that could phase out lucrative defined benefit pension schemes for new hires in the public service and raise the age at which Canadians qualify for OAS from 65 to 67.
However, the Prime Minister knows that he cannot ask public servants and Canadian seniors to suffer austerity measures while MPs benefit from one of the most lavish pension plans in the country. Possible reforms to the MPs’ scheme could include raising the minimum retirement age (currently 55) to lengthening the period of time it takes to qualify for a pension (currently just six years).
Senior sources said that a decision on public service pensions has not yet been made, largely because of legal and legislative barriers to unilateral changes. But the source confirmed the government could still move on MPs’ pensions, even if it holds off on reforms covering the bureaucracy. He said all three strands of pension policy are linked as part of the government’s plan to make sure there is sustainability and fairness in the system.
The Sound Of Settled Science
Mike Hulme – senior researcher in the Climatic Research Unit, founder of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in 2001.
“to reduce emissions requires more evidence than that humans are altering climate.”
Good thing that never got out.
Brad’s Bloopers
Reader Tips
In tonight’s Tippity amusement Peter Sellers plays the role of a diligent folk archivist making a field recording in a small town in Ireland. Let’s listen to the fruits of his labour, as Patrick O’Shaughnessy and his Caileigh Band play “The Rattlin’ Boy From Dublin Town”, fueled by a drop of the hard stuff.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
It’s Probably Nothing
Chicagoan Bill Daley is stepping down as White House chief of staff …
The World Is Being Run By Crazy People
White House threw secret ‘Alice in Wonderland’ bash during recession.
Unbeknownst to reporters, the State Dining Room had also been transformed into a secretive White House Wonderland.
Tim Burton decorated it “in his signature creepy-comic style. His film version was about to be released, and he had turned the room into the Mad Hatter’s tea party, with a long table set with antique-looking linens, enormous stuffed animals in chairs, and tiered serving plates with treats like bone-shaped meringue cookies,” reports the book, which The Post purchased at a Manhattan bookstore.
“Fruit punch was served in blood vials at the bar. Burton’s own Mad Hatter, the actor Johnny Depp, presided over the scene in full costume, standing up on a table to welcome everyone in character.”
Related!
More here.
Ethical Oil
“We have to have processes in Canada that come to a decision in a reasonable amount of time and processes that cannot be hijacked,” [PM Stephen Harper] said on Friday.
“In particular, growing concern has been expressed to me about the use of foreign money to really overload the public consultation phase of regulatory hearings just for the purpose of slowing down the process. This is something that is not good for the Canadian economy, and the government of Canada will be taking a close look at how we can ensure that our regulatory processes are effective and deliver decisions in a reasonable amount of time.”
Bumped for update;
Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.
These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest. They attract jet-setting celebrities with some of the largest personal carbon footprints in the world to lecture Canadians not to develop our natural resources. Finally, if all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further. They do this because they know it can work. It works because it helps them to achieve their ultimate objective: delay a project to the point it becomes economically unviable.
Defense Spending Throughout U.S. History
Christie Vs Romney
Not showing up to rumble is a failed conservative policy;
When he was interrupted during his remarks by Occupy protesters shouting, “Christie kills jobs! Christie kill jobs!” Christie deadpanned, “Really?”
“Somebody’s going down tonight, but it ain’t going to be jobs, sweetheart,” Christie rejoined from the stage as the chanting continued from a cluster in the audience. “There’s this confusion that’s out there because if she was in New Jersey . . . she would know that we created 60,000 new private-sector jobs.”
Saying that the female protester was “blinded” by her enthusiasm for Obama, Christie continued, “And if she wasn’t so disoriented by the loss of hope and change, she’d understand that . . . Mitt Romney is the hope for America’s future.”
He went on to blast Obama to the clapping and cheering attendees as a “Chicago ward politician.”
It was in marked contrast to how Romney had handled the protesters who interrupted him earlier at the event.
I hope he was taking note. (Video)
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
Europe’s focus on wind power is crippling British energy users with additional costs as it is not a cost-effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, a report has found.
The EU has directed governments to generate 15 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020, leading many to focus on wind.
But wind power is unreliable and requires back-up gas power stations to maintain a consistent electricity supply, the Civitas think-tank study found.
It means energy users pay twice – once for the ‘window-dressing’ of renewables and again for fossil fuels the energy sector continues to rely on.
h/t Maz2
Y2Kyoto: We’re Winning
As you’ll know by now, I’m not usually Mister Optimist. So what the hell am I doing crowing about victory in the climate wars when clearly there remains so much work to be done? We-e-ll….
Y2Kyoto: I’ll Miss The Polar Ice Caps
Jan. 6, 2012: The Coast Guard Cutter Healy breaks ice around the Russian-flagged tanker Renda 250 miles south of Nome. The Healy is the Coast Guard’s only currently operating polar icebreaker. The vessels are transiting through ice up to five-feet thick in this area. The 370-foot tanker Renda will have to go through more than 300 miles of sea ice to get to Nome, a city of about 3,500 people on the western Alaska coastline that did not get its last pre-winter fuel delivery because of a massive storm.
The Suzuki Foundation could not be reached for comment. (h/t manversgwtw)
Reader Tips
In tonight’s Tips video an emotional display of resistance and national pride breaks out at Rick’s Café Américain.
Bonus: The Liberation of Paris in Color.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.