If a tree falls in the forest but no one is there, does it make a sound?
If NDP devotees hold a leadership debate but don’t really disagree about anything, does anyone care? Apparently not.
Alberta Liberal Kevin Taft Makes Alison Redford Look Like a Conservative
Strange happenings on the Alberta political scene these days:
It’s no secret that Alberta’s finances were mismanaged for years under Ed Stelmach and that the situation has only become worse since Alison Redford took office. That the richest province in the federation has the second highest per capita spending and is expected to run a $3.1-billion deficit this year, while depleting the reserves it had built up in good times, is a case study in fiscal mismanagement.
The obvious solution would be to decrease government spending, in order to bring it in line with the national average, while maintaining low tax rates as an incentive for businesses to grow the economy, which would serve to grow the tax base as well. But not if you ask former Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft who, in a new book produced in partnership with the Alberta Federation of Labour, argues that Albertans are being “played for fools” by greedy corporations that are making windfall profits, while the government scavenges for pennies.
One wonders if “CINO” Alison Redford is going to play this to the hilt, arguing that she’s “reasonably conservative”?!
Ethical Oil: “Bed Bath and Beyond has no opinion on the Alberta Oil Sands”
Peter J. via email – Kate. A short time ago we did the boycott on Chiquita bananas and the above company was linked as being anti-oil sands also.As I tend to do. I sent a civil little hate mail and got this reply :
Dear Mr. J******** my name is Greg Dyer and I oversee Bed Bath and Beyond operations in Canada. I apologize for not getting back to you earlier, I just landed in Toronto.
Bed Bath and Beyond has no opinion on the Alberta Oil Sands. Any suggestion that we do by the media or Lobby Groups is incorrect.
Unfortunately the media has never asked me or our company if we have any kind of stance on the Alberta Oil Sands. Back in early 2010, the Lobby Group Forest Ethics linked us with their stance on the fuels derived from the Alberta Oil Sands. A little time after that the CEO of U.S. Grocery Chain Whole Foods announced he was banning the use of fuels derived from the Alberta Oil Sands in his fleet of trucks. After that, every time Forest Ethics and or Whole Foods spoke out against the Oil Sands it was linked to us. We attempted to clarify we were not associated with either and they did not speak for us.
We believe we should focus on retail and have no right or expertise to comment on the Alberta Oil Sands. I previously lived in Alberta, my wife is from Alberta and both my children were born in Alberta. Most of my family and closest friends live and work in Alberta with many of them working in the Oil and Gas Industry. Its positive economic impact is one of the primary reasons Alberta is a great place to do business. I/ we would like to see the Alberta economy continue to prosper.
Thank you for taking the time to express your concern! Please be assured we do not have and never have had any kind of boycott of the Alberta Oil Sands and the fuels derived from them.
Sincerely,
Greg Dyer
Senior Vice President
Bed Bath and Beyond Canada
Just helping to set the record straight.
Prosperity Saskatchewan
A new blog by one of Saskatchewan’s best commentators on potash, uranium and energy policy in general, Eric Anderson.
A CTV Poll Goes Horribly Wrong
On the home page right now: “Is the potash industry in Saskatchewan expanding too rapidly?”
Reader Tips
Canadian songwriter Stan Rogers was a 6’4″ giant of a man whose works were often inspired by Canada’s rich history. Rogers died 29 years ago, at the age of 33, in a fire on an Air Canada passenger jet, but he left behind a legacy of some great music, including tonight’s selection, an inspirational maritime tale about hard work, courage, dreams, optimism, and faith called Mary Ellen Carter. (Lyrics here.)
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Heretics in the classroom
In the last few years school boards and state legislatures in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee have introduced a requirement that science teachers acknowledge in their classroom instruction that the theory of AGW isn’t “settled” science and that climate skepticism is a valid scientific position. Los Angeles Times reporter Neela Banerjee, who like so many MSM reporters starts with the assumption that AGW is an incontrovertible fact, and that skeptics are self-evidently wrong, opens her news report by begging the question with a false equivalence:
A flash point has emerged in American science education that echoes the battle over evolution, as scientists and educators report mounting resistance to the study of man-made climate change in middle and high schools.
The National Center for Science Education uses the same “argument” to defend AGW against these climate-change-denying snake-handlers:
Long a leader in the fight to defend the teaching of evolution in public schools, the National Center for Science Education now sees creationist-like tactics being used in the attack on climate education.
The inconvenient truth for the warmists, of course, is that belief in AGW is itself an article of faith to many of its proponents, as evidenced by their countless attempts to suppress the heretical views of modern-day Gallileos through browbeating, censorship, and propaganda.
Remarkably, the LA Times’s Banerjee blames the states’s long overdue pushback against the warmists’s politicization of classroom science on — wait for it — the politicization of science:
Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms.
Goodbye America, Hello China!
Barack Obama has vetoed the XL Pipeline. Newt Gingrich shares his thoughts about Obama’s “sheer utter stupidity”:
Related: David Suzuki wants to shut down all of Canada’s social programs.
Update: Ezra Levant shares his thoughts.
Update 2: Here’s a poll that could use your help! h/t ‘Set You Free’
Welfare Insanity in the UK
Inane bureaucrats in Canada may be commonplace but they have nothing compared to those in the UK.
Let Me Fix That Headline For You
An Online Protest Against Oppression
Wikipedia and many other websites have deliberately “gone dark” today:
Here’s why.
Now is the Time at SDA When We Juxtapose
2009-01-15 : Captain “Sully” Sullenberger and his crew save 155 people on US Airways Flight 1549.
2012-01-13 : Captain Francesco Schettino and his first officer abandon 4,197 people on board their ship, the Costa Concordia. At least 11 have died, with 23 reported missing. * **
h/t Black Mamba & Revnant Dream
The World Needs More Canada
Captured in Vancouver’s West End on Sunday:
Reader Tips
A funny thing happened on the way to Novosibirsk.
Or at least, it’s funny if you’re Russian.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Oh, Frack!
A shale-driven glut of natural gas has cut electricity prices for the U.S. power industry by 50 percent and reduced investment in costlier sources of energy.
With abundant new supplies of gas making it the cheapest option for new power generation, the largest U.S. wind-energy producer, NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), has shelved plans for new U.S. wind projects next year…
h/t Maz2
Climategate 2.0: He Shoots….
At WUWT – The behind-the-scenes bumbling of the “hockey stick”.
Privatization Failure
Darn.
In a letter to the editor, Mark promised me that, “The government’s decision to close down SCN is going to cost the people of Saskatchewan far more in lost investment from outside the province than was being spent to run SCN, money that was used to employ Saskatchewan labour and pay for services from Saskatchewan companies.”
So much for that. They’re even keeping the education on.
I really wanted to pay for it out of tax dollars.
“Only Two Types of People That Are Going to Stay on This Beach…”
…those that are already dead and those that are gonna die. Now get off your butts.”
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
Related – I begin with the thesis that we cannot possibly raise taxes sufficiently in the near term to stop a federal borrowing disaster from forming. However, in deference to people’s sensibilities, the normal humn reluctance to accept unpleasant truths, and all the nonsense in the media, I think I should support that thesis rather solidly.
A Little Wisdom from our Friends
On the topic of energy in Canada, two SDA commenters offered some pretty profound common sense wisdom that you’ll rarely see in the mainstream media:
Some myopic Canadians can’t seem to grasp that oil, gas and potash provide most of the revenue that pays for all those government benefits they believe they’re entitled to. We’re fortunate to have a government run by a Conservative Party and a Prime Minister who puts Canadians first. If they don’t like that then they can move to America, a socialist paradise with a failing economy. – – North of 60
North of 60 – you make an excellent point. And, sadly, many (most?) Canadians think that money just appears out of the ground, and have little idea where Canada would be without fossil fuels and potash. Personally, I would like to pull up to those people’s houses, disconnect the gas lines, and tell them to grow their own food. We are becoming a fundamentally unserious nation. People just don’t “get it”, and it worries me, a lot. – – Erik Larsen