Bud Talkinghorn: Kyoto Accord Shell Games & Question Period on Daycare & Deliberate Caterwauling to Drown Out Pro-Family MP's Question, Etc.

Question Period Caterwauling

I have just listened to a female CPC MP from Alberta try to ask a question. She seemed to be trying to make the case that families need choice in daycare, not government social engineering and direction -- government refusing to include funding stay-at-home parents so that children might be cared for at home by their own parents or by those the parent designates and trusts such as relatives or neighbours.

The caterwauling by the Liberals MP's in the House of Commons appeared to have been planned to drown out the above-mentioned MP. It was terrible!

Again, lack of decorum is allowed to continue. When will the Speaker simply close down everything, turf out those who behave in this manner, and allow the rest of us to hear questions and meaningful answers not bafflegab. NJC




The Kyoto Accord kicks in today--Let the great shell games begin

You have got to love the Liberals for their chutzpah. They self-rigtheously signed up "in principle" back in the late 90's. Canada was then committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6% when 2012 rolled around and this reduction is not from now, but from our 1990 levels. However, even Stephane Dion, the Environment Minister, cannot muster enough bafflegab to explain how, since then, we have actually increased emissions about 20 to 30% from that time. The background music to his huffing and puffing in Question Period could have been JJ Cale's Trouble in the City, as Toronto has already had two rare smog alerts this winter--an ominous warning of what is to come this summer.

It was Russia's signing on to Kyoto that really got everybody excited. It was going to sell its amazing reduction credits to countries that couldn't (wouldn't) reduce their own emissions. Russia got to this state through the accident of economic collapse. They had to close thousands of their massively polluting plants. The poor countries, like China and India, both soon to become industrial giants, are exempt from any compliance with Kyoto. Through some byzantine arrangement we can buy "emission, or "hot air" credits from them. This transfer of Western wealth to heavily polluting "poor" countries is what opponents claim is the real reason for this charade. Even Dion has stated that this will allow Canada to boost its foreign aid to the Third World. Every time I think of this shell game, I remember a weather satellite image of a toxic cloud of smog stretching from India to China, or the image of a lit-up India, produced by tens of millions of wood fires across India. All you cat lovers, say goodbye to the last lions of India, as their last Gar forest habitate is being relentlessly stripped of its woodland protection.

Thankfully, the Liberals are not so suicidal as to actually enact any of the measures necessary to meet their commitment. The Canadian Federation of Taxpayers--our true heroes--have estimated that to enact fully the Kyoto accord would cost us $3,000 each a year by 2010. That is not counting the hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed that would be a collateral cost. Besides, "The hot air" credits are already being seen on the floor of the House of Commons--thanks to the Liberals. They have painted themselves into a corner. They must continue mouthing the Kyoto pieties, while avoiding any real damage to the Canadian economy. The Liberals' sorry record so far will not be chastized by the rest of the signers, as they too have no intention of following through. Spain, one of the signatories, has increased its emission levels 40% since 1997. Its privatization of public companies has nixed any state responsibility for saddling the taxpayers with the bill for compliance. Blame the mess on Daddy Warbucks. Shareholders simply don't buy the parboiled polar bear stories. If the Gulf Stream changes direction and Europe begins to enter an ice age, then they will buy thermal underwear stocks. They will, in short, wait for more conclusive indications of global disaster. As for a dictatorship like China, the death of millions from pollution-related diseases is simply an up-date of Mao's "Great Stumble Forward".

I must sound conflicted about the eco-problem. Well, I am. There is irrefutable evidence that we are entering a global warming era, with all its attendant dangers. That the majority of the hottest years on record have occurred in the last fifteen years has to be a bad portent. If this keeps up, the palm trees will soon be sprouting in Kitsilano. Huge chunks of the Antarctic shelf have broken off. The frequency of hurricanes and tornadoes is another sign. What does that forementioned thousands-of-kilometer-long smog cloud do to warming up the countries and oceans of Asia? Yes, there is a danger, but this bogus, spread-the-wealth Kyoto proposal is not going to solve it. That China and India, two of the largest polluters can go about business as usual is not going to be off-set by Finland--nor Canada--beggaring itself. America, the world's largest gas emissions country, didn't even sign the accord. They feel they have given enough to the useless UN and the basketcase countries already. They see the entire thing as a socialist plot to transfer more money to reckless and kleptocratic states.

Surely, the only answer is for each country to devise a rational plan to reduce emissions. The Brazilians have been using a gas/ethanol mixture for years to power their cars. Apparently, they have lots of speed. Meanwhile I look out my front window and see a vast parade of gas-guzzling SUVs chug past. Most are driven by single occupant drivers. They are not going to ford a wadi in the desert; they are going to the mall. The government could renew its house insulation grants. If we are going to put up windmill power turbines, then put them in the Nfld. Wreckhouse areas, where there are numerous 100 km winds. Get AECL off its butt, and let's start building cost-efficient nuclear plants here, not in rogue states like China and Romania. Stop packaging every miniscule article in industrial-strength plastic coating. Instead of spending endless billions in buying "hot air credits", use more expensive, less polluting technologies, and help citizens through tax cuts to employ them. There are various ways we could tackle this looming problem, without letting that quasi-commie Canadian, Maurice Strong, lead us down a garden path of fiscal ruination. Put your shoulder to the wheel in sensible ways.

© Bud Talkinghorn--Just how complicated the price will be can be seen from a Spectator cartoon. It shows a father and his son looking out on a forest of wind turbines. "And to think", he says, "that this beautiful valley used to be hidden by mill smokestacks."



Media: CBC Three Won’t Slink Off; Hiring Lawyers

The CBS Three Won’t Slink Off; Hiring Lawyers Joe Hagan, Feb. 16, 05, New York Observer

CBS president Leslie Moonves issued a statement dwelling on the failures of the employees involved in producing the disputed segment. [. . . . ]