…. or a Van Beirendonck:
ht

… it must have killed her to write this piece:

Palin-mania easily surpassed Danica-mania at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday.
While Patrick got all the headlines for the better part of two weeks, she had no stake in the Daytona 500. Palin did, and as a VIP guest for the race, she ate up all the attention.
When she arrived for the drivers meeting, Palin was immediately mobbed. She briefly chatted with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, shook hands with supporters and smiled big.
She took a seat up front next to Harry Connick Jr., who sang the national anthem for the race. When NASCAR president Mike Helton acknowledged her as a special guest, she got the largest ovation from the room, packed from the front to the back with drivers, team members, support personnel and onlookers.
After sitting through the meeting, Palin could not get out the door. Fans mobbed her, asking for pictures and autographs. Her 12-person entourage, comprised of track security, a policeman, friends and spokespeople, tried to get her to the door and to her next appearance. But Palin could not help herself, and kept signing and posing for pictures.

… Far East:

Canada, faced with growing political pressure over the extraction of oil from its highly polluting tar sands, has begun courting China and other Asian countries to exploit the resource.
The move comes as American firms are turning away from tar sands because of its heavy carbon footprint and damage to the landscape.
Whole Foods, the high-end organic grocery chain, and retailer Bed Bath & Beyond last week both signed up to a campaign by ForestEthics to stop US firms using oil from Canadian tar sands. The Pentagon is also scaling down its use of tar sands oil to meet a 2007 law requiring the US government to source fuels with lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Major oil companies such as Shell are also coming under shareholder pressure to pull out of the Canadian projects. Earlier this year, Shell announced it was scaling back its expansion plans for the tar sands after a revolt by shareholders. Producing oil from the Alberta tar sands causes up to five times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude oil, according to the campaign group Greenpeace.

(content warning: Source is the ultra-warmist Guardian)
… interestingly, “world pressure” has some of our politicos quaking in their pants.

Canada risks becoming the international poster child of unsound resource development if it doesn’t do a better job of developing the oilsands, says federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice.
He told a Calgary business audience Monday that the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper supports continued expansion of the oilsands, but that large energy companies need to do more as Canada seeks to reach its targets under the Copenhagen climate change accord.

For Valentine’s Day … just because:

We gather here today to mourn the passing of my size 34-34 Levi’s Dockers Wrinkle Free Classic Fit pants.
Levi Docker the 34th, or less formally ‘Slacks’, as I fondly referred to her, was as stout and conforming as any pair of pants I have owned. Born in a Bangladesh sweat shop in 1998, I first met Slacks at a two for one sale at The Gap. It was the turbulent year of ‘99. Bill Clinton had finally gotten around to putting on his own slacks, and, pants firmly in place, he commenced with the bombing of the Balkans. Y2K threatened to destroy every microwave this side of Timbuktu. Pokemon swept the globe in an attempt at world domination. Ricky Martin pushed the boundaries of high-tensile leg wear. And “The Blair Witch Project” scared the pants off of about 5 people(the rest showed emotions ranging from mild irritation to blinding fury at the stupidity of it all).
It always weighed heavily upon my heart that Slacks was the free half of the two-for-one deal on that fateful day in June. I walked out of the store carrying a pair of Cabin Creek® Double Knit 5 Pocket Stretch Cords, and Slacks was relegated to a ‘bonus’ status. I lament also the fact that I didn’t recognize Slacks wonderful simplistic beauty immediately. Instead I was mesmerized by the cheap, flashy, whorish good looks of the Stretch Cords. Sure, we had some good times together, but she never fit oh so perfectly the way Slacks did, she never loved me the way Slacks loved me.

… the rest.
… admit it, you’ve all had a pair.

Dr. Phil Jones:

An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I’ve assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.
Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).
[This indicates that the recent warming is not exceptional. Moreover, even if it had been “exceptional,” that would not prove it is due to greenhouse gas emissions?]
[…]
It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well. …

… be sure to read the whole thing … and as you do, recall the hubris and tisk tisking as they lectured us about “consensus”.

This post is a friendly counter-point to Cjunk’s earlier post here. I’ll start with an excerpt from a column by a Conservative Senator Michael MacDonald:

With only one previous prorogation in almost four years in office (when Prime Minister Stephen Harper rightly stopped the Liberal-NDP-Bloc “coalition” from subverting the will of the electorate), it’s not unreasonable that the PM ask for Parliament to be prorogued — as all previous prime ministers have done — to write a throne speech, shuffle the cabinet and prepare a budget.

Pierre Trudeau prorogued 11 times in 16 years; Jean Chretien four times in 10 years, including a four-month delay after Paul Martin became PM, to give Martin time to get his government ready. Newly elected governments take over within a few weeks, yet we’re asked to believe a sitting cabinet minister needed four months to set up shop!

Of course, Mr. Chretien’s true agenda was distancing himself from the auditor general’s report on the sponsorship scandal and dropping the mess into Paul Martin’s lap. I don’t recall manufactured outrage at the time by either the press or the opposition — certainly nothing resembling the contrived performance Canadians have been subjected to of late. Senator Moore was in that Liberal caucus and ignores their conduct, yet now expresses concern about an “affront to our democratic process.”

I suggest that the Canadian broadcast media’s decision to elide, during their coverage of the prorogation “outrage”, such factual context as MacDonald provides is professional malfeasance of the highest order, and that such a double standard, writ large, has an effect on poll numbers, and therefore on public policy.
The fact that one single group of highly influential players on the political scene are uniquely exempt from ever having to account for their actions isn’t a “media issue”, it’s a spanner in the works of our democracy. Producers and anchors and reporters at broadcast networks know full well that they will never be cornered on camera and forced to answer, on the public record, questions about the nature of their campaigning, which is viewed as a private, priestly prerogative. You can see the effects of this special dispensation in the Father Christmas mannerisms of people like Peter Mansbridge, who float above the political scene they affect as they compile and dole out, for private reasons, such partisan spin as they wish to provide to Canadians, all the while pretending to be trusted, impartial observers who are merely providing facts and impartial analysis.
The bottom line is that Mansbridge and the producers at the CBC wouldn’t survive a one-hour, on-the-record grilling at the hands of Conservatives like MacDonald: “In light of the fact that you didn’t make any kind of an issue at all of the Liberals’ far more frequent prorogations – and it’s on the public record – what was the basis, how can you possibly justify as a journalist, your decision to treat what was only the second prorogation in four years by the Conservatives as an outrage and an assault on democracy?”
Fortunately for them they’ll never be in such a position, and if they did find themselves in such a position, they would, unlike all other political figures, be entitled to sneer and walk away without any consequence.

Dr. John C. Drew interview:
… it’s a long clip, but well worth the listen.
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I know I’m going against the flow, but given the latest poll results, you may want to consider my polemics:

A common whisper among Canadian conservatives these days is, “we can’t do what we want to, because of the media!”
On conservative blogs the theme is rampant; if Harper fails, blame the media … if Harper doesn’t stand against the global warming fraud, blame the media … if Harper stops showing overt support for the Afghan mission, blame the media … if public support for the CPC wanes, blame the media.
Well then, how about this; if the media is so pervasive and all-powerful, I suggest that Stephen Harper relinquish the title of Prime Minister and hand over the crown to none other than Robert Fife, Ottawa bureau chief of the CTV. Being chief and all of an organization that supposedly is powerful enough to determine CPC policy, strategy, and direction, it only makes sense … chief … Prime Minister … king … take your pick.

Bonus: Scene of a Crime

*

How about, instead, we pick community organizers, union lawyers … and perhaps Acorn defence attorneys:

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., criticized the American Bar Association on Thursday, saying it should “get a new life” in how it rates prospective federal judges, after one of his choices got a mixed review.
In remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Reid said the bar association’s ratings board puts too much weight on whether judicial nominees have prior bench experience and overlooks “real world” qualifications.
Reid expanded his criticism to include the Supreme Court, whose makeup, he said, consists of “people who have never seen the outside world.”
“I have asked President (Barack) Obama, ‘Let’s get somebody on the court that has not been a judge.’ They need to do more than thinking of themselves as these people who walk around in these robes in these fancy chambers.”

… the details.

Changing definitions and reality so socialism isn’t seen for what it is.

EUR:

Prof Peter Liss, acting director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), claims sceptics are endangering the lives of generations to come by making unsupported claims. Critics of the science behind man-made global warming theories are playing “Russian roulette with the planet”.
“The evidence is hugely for there being substantial climate change due to man’s activities and if you want to argue against that case you have to produce some evidence,” he said.
Er … excuse me. The IPCC is making unsupported claims. We are pointing that out, all in the context of a demonstrably political process where science, quite clearly, has gone off the rails.
But this is the modern “post science” norm, it would appear. With the benefit of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash, these people make their assertions, and sceptics, from their own resources, are supposed to prove them wrong.
This is a staggering perversion. It is up to the proponents of change to put up their arguments, then to expose them to scrutiny, entering into a debate where the issues are explored and discussed, against a backdrop of the free exchange of information.
[…]
Then, when a much-delayed and fragmented debate begins to emerge, up pops the likes of Liss, indulging in what is known in the trade as “shroud waving”. Do as I say, or people will die … the classic cry of the demagogue and the rent seeker.

Earlier:

Somehow programmed to kill? Murder, rape and our media

Now, excerpts from a piece by Maj.-Gen. (ret’d) Lewis MacKenzie in the Globe and Mail:

Canadian coverage of the military has failed to pass muster
Reporters have made erroneous conclusions from the case of Colonel Russell Williams
Rarely has Canadian news coverage of a high-profile criminal case offered so much misleading speculation and so many erroneous conclusions as in the charges against Colonel Russell Williams. The following assertions are offered as evidence….

COLONEL WAS ‘ON TRACK’ TO LEAD THE AIR FORCE

Oh? Col. Williams’s promotion to the rank of colonel in 2009 at 46 did not put him in the same league as officers who will reach the rank of lieutenant-general and command Canada’s air force. If he was 39 or 40, the odds would be more in his favour. To use a military metaphor, he was on a fast train – but not the express…

PART OF THE ‘ELITE’

What drivel. What constitutes this “elite”? Is there some secret society I was not invited to while serving? Was there some secret handshake I was not aware of? The leaders of the Canadian Forces meet every morning at National Defence Headquarters. Col. Williams was not invited.

A GENERAL’S ‘RESPONSIBILITY’

During an interview with Canada’s top soldier, General Walter Natynczyk, a national television reporter [CBC] asked whether, given that he had placed Col. Williams in charge in Trenton, he had any words for the families of the victims. Midway through his compassionate response, the reporter asked, “Do you feel responsible?”

The question’s innuendo was barely camouflaged – do you feel responsible for the murders and the assaults? That question was the second “body blow” taken by Gen. Natynczyk in the past few days and was contemptible. To his credit, the Chief of the Defence Staff pointed out that he is responsible for more than 90,000 military personnel, regular and reserve. He avoided directly answering the question, which he should never have been asked.

Considering their current high profile and well-earned respect both at home and abroad, our young men and women in uniform deserve better treatment than some in the news media have been dishing out.

A case in point, from Michael Den Tandt in the Ottawa Sun:

…
This man was not simply a senior officer. He commanded 8 Wing and CFB Trenton. There is no more important job in the CF, other than perhaps running Task Force Afghanistan, or being chief of defence staff…

Update: Norman Spector brings us…

…
-A great moment in Canadian journalism
Col. Williams tied to Bernardo
They were pals…

Upperdate: Video here of the CBC’s Susan Ormiston–the reporter referred to by Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie–interviewing harassing the CDS.

Another quietly-passing story from the land of tulips, tolerance, and rosy-pink cheeks:

Regional newspaper De Gelderlander has decided not to publish an interview with a Moroccan woman after the newspaper was threatened by her son. Nonetheless, the editors deny they gave in to intimidation.

Two Moroccan criminals ran over a 50 year old man with their scooter last month while fleeing from the police after robbing a hotel. The perpetrators then went to the hospital where doctors were trying to save the man’s life. He died because they made their work impossible.

The brother of one of the suspects visited the editorial staff of De Gelderlander last Friday and demanded that the newspaper drop publication. The youth also threatened an editor, according to the newspaper….

Meanwhile, Geert Wilders is on trial in Holland for warning about the dangers of radical Islamism.

“We have politicians who hate politics other than that bureaucrats deal with…We have bad politicians because they do not want unpredictable events, and that is what we have right now. This was not predicted by the politicians ten, twenty years ago.” — Torben S. Hansen, in an interview with Asger Trier Engberg

In Britain, two recently released documents paint contrasting pictures, of a particular government’s “social objectives” on the one hand, and an elder stateswoman’s realism and foresight on the other. The first document is a draft report written in 2000 during Tony Blair’s reign. The unedited version, released after a FOI request, shows that “Labour’s migration policy (was) aimed not just at meeting the country’s economic needs, but also the Government’s ‘social objectives.'” Although these so-called ‘social objectives’ were never spelled out, Tony Blair’s former adviser Andrew Neather recently said that Labour’s immigration strategy was intended to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.”
The other document, recently released under the thirty-year rule, shows a quite different mindset: Margaret Thatcher believed that too many Asian immigrants were being let in, and that “with some exceptions there had been no humanitarian case for 1.5 million immigrants from south Asia and elsewhere.” “It was essential to draw a line somewhere,” she said.
Thatcher also expressed her views publicly: during an appearance on a British TV show she said “People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture. If we do not want people to go to extremes we ourselves must talk about this problem and we must show that we are prepared to deal with it. We are not in politics to ignore people’s worries. We are in politics to deal with them.”

All over Europe you see the electorates moving slowly in a certain direction, and the politicians are far behind, but in the long run they will be forced to confront these problems.