Its Come To This...

The PMO says Prime Minister Stephen Harper will issue an edict to his ministers, reminding them that they're not above the law.

Divas everywhere, in this government.

A Meeting Of Minds

Both Paul Wells of Macleans and Paul Tuns of The Interim think Stephen Harper's reversal/capitulation on contraception also amounts to a reversal/capitulation on abortion. Their reasoning is even similar. Here's Tuns:

Six of the other seven G8 countries are all strongly committed to “reproductive health” (a euphemism for both abortion and contraception) as part of maternal health, so Harper has effectively capitulated on that and he will be under tremendous pressure from foreign leaders, NGOs and the opposition parties to include abortion.

If so, watch the inevitable clarification re abortion to take place on the down-low: it's not something, that is, that the Tory base will want to hear about.

More On the Adventures Of The IOP

Ever since the once respected Institute of Physics issued its wild-eyed statement on the CRU Hack, its been trying to "clarify" its way out of the consequences (ie. shock and revulsion among its membership). What has become increasingly clear is that Denialists were able to hijack its Energy Group, and then its Energy sub-Group, and slip their statement out the door without proper oversight from the governing body. Some general background on that here and here. And it looks like Terri Jackson, one of the folks in question, is using her IOP connections to stake a place on the global warming denial rubber chicken circuit.


DC's piece is most interesting, as it presents strong evidence that knowledge of the IOP's statement was conveyed in advance (almost a month in advance, in fact) to climate change denier and swivel-eyed lunatic Christopher Monckton:

Monckton was touring Australia – perhaps still is – and during that tour he made some allusions to Climate Scientists being about to face criminal charges, and also to peak academic bodies having some very interesting submissions to make to the UK inquiry.
[...]

From what I’ve seen, Monckton, Plimer, Carter, etc are in frequent enough contact with each other and the organisations that circulate fud as their strategy, that I’m fairly confident Monckton knew ahead of time and was basically boasting

As DC notes:

Monckton’s tour began in early February, well before the parliamentary submission deadline of February 12. And the IOP submission wasn’t released to the general public until the end of that month, along with the other received submissions.

So, a thoroughly planned out and well-executed exercise in fud creation. Very much like the infiltration of the APS, which Monckton also had a hand in.

Section 13 Repeal On Back Burner

The NDP's justice critic Joe Comartin says:

"Given the backlog of bills, and other work, studies that we're doing on organized crime, I have a hard time quite frankly seeing us doing anything more on that at least in this year, and I expect an election sometime this year, so I think it probably is not going to go anyplace."

Liberal justice critic Dominic LeBlanc concurs:

"We're going to wait to see what the government wants to do," LeBlanc says. "My view was that there was a very legitimate basis for some human rights commission review with respect to Section 13. We've heard evidence about how we can perhaps increase some of the procedural protections, but you're certainly not going to see the Liberals leading a charge to re-open that at this point, and if the government decides to let it go, that certainly would be fine with us."

Worse news for the speechies, an OHRC/OHRT repeal seems to have dropped off the bottom of PCPO opposition leader Tim Hudak's list of priorities. One thing politicians are good at is counting votes: I imagine Hudak has realized that any movement led by a combination of Ezra Levant, Neo-Nazis, and journalists is a net vote loser.

Although Andrew Steele seems to think that the rise of the OLA as torchbearers of rural conservatism in Ontario will make it impossible for Hudak to ignore the issue for any length of time. Steele may be right, and I sure hope so.

Bate Strikes Back!

Roger Bate responds to my article in The Mark:

Since your vitriolic attack not only hurts me but ludicrously tries to hurt others for reasons I am unaware of, it is my duty to respond. Amir Attaran is one of the most gifted and principled researchers I've ever met, which is why I wanted to help him stay at Harvard. As the then Director of Africa Fighting Malaria I allocated funds to Harvard for his work there, with no strings attached. AFM has never taken any funding from the tobacco or pharma industries and as such the funding for Attaran, which came from a private European foundation, was not either. I have responded to the allegations about me here. Any decent researcher would have found this article, making me wonder why no mention of my response was used in your article. The few proper journalists who’ve written about this topic have at least had the courtesy of contacting me directly for a response, but not you. I was probably foolish to briefly consult for Philip Morris in 1998, and definitely foolish for writing the letter you quote in the fall of that year – because of how it’s being used today. PM never responded to my letter and I never corresponded with the company again. I did not know at the time but the tobacco industry has largely been on the wrong side (your side) of the DDT issue (and would never have funded my proposal anyway). See [here] for AFM’s response to BAT’s opposition to DDT. DDT continues to save lives in the myriad countries it’s used, I have done nothing to be ashamed of, and I rest easy at night knowing I’ve fought on the right side of this issue!

Roger Bate,
fellow American Enterprise Institute,
rbate@aei.org

And here again is that letter he mentions; and here's an even nicer one.

NDP Perfidy On 10%ers?

While it appears as though the PC may be ready to throw in the towel on this one, Jack's Dipper's are looking a bit snaky:

In fact, the NDP, which voted for the Liberal motion, may be the party that gets the Conservatives off the hook on the bulk-mailing issue.

NDP Leader Jack Layton launched a blistering tirade against "King Stephen Harper" only to waffle when it came down to whether his party would actually support the ten-percenter ban behind the closed doors of the Board of Internal Economy meetings.

Is a behind-the-scenes deal in the works? A coalition, as it were?

Anyway, here's the Membership List for the BIC.

Libby Davies seems to be the one to watch. Does the Chair get to vote, I wonder?

PS. I note that the PMO has issued Tory MP Bruce Stanton an official "mind change" since he voted no in the HOC. Some interesting maneuvers going on.

Newspaper Readership Stabilizes

Conservative newspaper readership remains in flaming death spiral:

Weekday readership for The Globe and Mail rose 6.2 per cent to 406,500 in the GTA, the NADbank survey found. In comparison, the Toronto Sun's weekday readership plunged 21.5 per cent to 372,300 while the National Post fell 13.5 per cent to 167,800.

More statistics here. And a lament to the TO Sun of yore here. Gawd I love it when old newspapermen cry!

Tories Tough On Teens Agenda Hits Snag

Overhauling the Youth Criminal Justice Act had been a cornerstone of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's re-election platform, and yesterday his government tabled a bill that follows through on that promise, putting a greater emphasis on protecting the public rather than rehabilitating young offenders.

In effect, teenagers as young as 14 convicted of violent offences could be sentenced as adults and their identities no longer shielded.

Conservative Senator Jacque Demers, January 28, 2010

"I will not send a boy of 14 or 16 years to be assaulted in prison."

Attaran Update

The Mark has picked up my story, which I am most proud of, on the connections among Iggy, Amir Attaran, a fierce critic of the government's Afghan policy, tobacco scientist Roger Bate, and the tobacco industry front group Africa Fighting Malaria.

A few things have happened since that piece written. For one thing, Attaran has denied receiving tobacco industry funding at the Carr Center (although not, clearly, from AFM). For another thing, I have been in touch with Adam Sarvana, whose work I quoted from extensively in the previous post, and he has expressed the opinion that Attaran is "principled" but was unfortunately taken in by Roger Bate's and the AFM's "Rachel Carson/Environmentalists have murdered millions of third-worlders" line.

So the working assumption must be that Attaran is unaware of the AFM, and Bate's, dubious pedigree. Nevertheless, the AFM is what it is: an tobacco industry front group. And it is certainly interesting that this letter from Attaran on the dangers of phasing out DDT use too quickly should wind up in the files of British American Tobacco.

Finally, this is the full-text of Roger Bate's letter to Philip Morris in which he outlines the aims and purpose of his anti-malaria "operation", which eventually became the AFM.

An Effective Bit Of Oppositionizing

OTTAWA–MPs have voted to put a stop to the practice of mailing taxpayer-funded political flyers to voters outside their own ridings.

A minor issue, but a major irritant in the body politic. We'll see if the Tories ignore this motion. They've been employing 10%ers as a form of guerrilla marketing, as the more outrageous ones tend to get loudly denounced and their message winds up as part of the daily news cycle. But now they will not only be asking like assholes, they'll be ignoring the will of Parliament in order to send out the kind of literature that really annoys people. Let's see if this vote tilts the cost/benefit analysis against the miserable instruments.

Kudos to the Libs: a real, though small, victory.

How Helena Got Her MBA

So yesterday morning BCer reveals that Helena Guergis has recently completed her MBA from the University of Alberta. Harris MacLeod over at the Hill-Times reads Jeff, reads Helena's wiki page, and thinks "WTF! How'd she get an MBA with only a real estate certificate from Georgia College. Does she really have an MBA? Does she have something better in the way of an undergrad degree?" Suddenly, Ottawa is abuzz!

About a 1/2 hour later the buzz starts to fade as Elizabeth Thompson phones up UofA and discovers that, yeah, the MBA has indeed been awarded. That leaves Helena's undergraduate degree in question. But then Ted Betts points out over in Jeff's comments that the University will make room for students without an undergraduate degree under certain circumstances, namely where the candidates

...have considerable professional experience.... Individuals who feel that this situation applies to them are encouraged to contact the admissions office to discuss their status."

Presumably the university would have considered her time as the proprietor of a bed and bath shop. Any idiot can be a cabinet minister in the Harper government, so that doesn't count.

And there you have it: LEAVE...HELENA...ALONE!!! at least on
this issue.

Meanwhile here's the only picture of her that I could find on-line that shows even a bit of cleavage.

The Education Of Helena Guergis

Will Jeff Jedras bring down a Cabinet Minister?

If so, I'm going to be very jealous. I've been trying to do that for ages.

Helena Guergis: Part-Time Minister

Between the shoe-throwing, screaming at Plebes, and UN lecturing, Helena Guergis has had time to complete her MBA. All this governing stuff must be easy.

Hudak's Got Separatist Problems

Bill Murdoch takes the old Randy Hillier line, advocating partition:

OWEN SOUND, ONT.–A Progressive Conservative member of the Legislature says he thinks Toronto should become its own province.

He said rural Ontario is fighting a losing battle against "a Toronto mentality," adding that Toronto decision-makers ignore rural voices.

His big complaint--well, the coyote problem looms large, as does "red tape" for food producers.

Of course, unless the producers start selling to one another, it isn't immediately clear how separating from T.O. would solve the problem (or more specifically, separating Toronto off from the rest of Ontario--Rurontario would get the 905 ring). It isn't likely anyone here would want to lower their food safety standards to make it easier for a bunch of beef farmers to sell us downer cows, just because said farmers elect a different government. But if you look at this article on the same meeting of the Bruce County Federation of Agriculture, Murdoch's strategy seems to be clear: partition would allow Rurontario to blackmail Torontario:

Murdoch says Toronto would still rely on the rest of the province for many of its essentials, such as food, energy and raw materials.

"Where are they going to get their power? We've got a nuclear plant. We don't need Toronto," said Murdoch, who is annoyed that new wind energy proposals are in rural Ontario.

But I'm not sure that anyone in London, for example--which would apparently be the capital of the breakaway province--would want to eat rancid steak either, just because their fellow Rurontarions are looking to cut costs.

In any event, I am sooo hoping that Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak looks kindly on Mr. Murdoch's ideas. In fact, I hope he's willing to campaign on them.

Levant Vs. Vigna

The defamation case against Ezra, delayed back in Feb., starts up again today. The Ez seems to have been busy preparing.

John Quiggan Lays The Blame

An Aussie economist lambastes Steve Mc:

In writing my previous post on the “Climategate” break-in to the University of East Anglia computer system , I remained unclear about who was actually responsible for the break-in theft of the emails, which were then selectively quoted to promote a bogus allegation of scientific fraud.

Looking over the evidence that is now available, I think there is enough to point to Steven McIntyre as the person, along with the actual hacker or leaker, who bears primary moral responsibility for the crime.

[...]

25 July 2009: The next day McIntyre announced that he had got a mass of CRU data, essentially all that sought in the harassment campaign, from “a mole”. Note that this may be true or may be misdirection to protect external hackers. In any case, it is clear that his harassment campaign was going hand in hand with attempts to gain unauthorised access to CRU computers, and did not stop when its supposed goal was realised.

Over the next few months, CRU started preparing a response to McIntyre which resulted in the creation of a file called FOIA.zip. Over the weekend beginning Friday 13 November, someone located and copied this file from a back-up server at the university’s Climatic Research Unit, and distributed it widely among anti-science blog sites, including McIntyre’s. It’s unclear whether the extraction of the file required sophisticated hacking, simple illegal entry to a poorly protected site, or McIntyre’s “mole”. What is clear, as this report notes is that going after FOIA.zip indicates that someone in McIntyre’s circle of supporters was responsible.

[...]

Having received the stolen emails, McIntyre played a prominent role in disseminating dishonest and misleading claims about their contents, focusing on the phrases “trick” and “hide the decline” which were used to suggest a conspiracy to commit scientific fraud. In fact, as the U Penn investigation found, these claims were baseless. “Trick” referred to a clever way of combining data, and the “decline” was not a decline in global temperatures but a well-known problematic feature of tree ring data.

Just to repeat: sure as shootin', if and when the police find the CRU hackers, it will be one or more of the bloggers hanging around Climate Audit.

Science In Texas

Stories here and here. Mind you, our gang knows a little bit about knowledge suppression as well, and they know how to do it without raising much of a fuss.

h/t

Lisa Raitt Flees Twitter!!!

Protects tweets from public!

Just speculating, but does this have anything to do with her getting caught tweeting about enjoying the gay coffee at Satanbucks just days after John Baird reaffirmed Tim's as der coffee of der volk? Maybe. The Tories have been on high-Diva alert ever since the Jaffir/Guergis thing imploded.

Ezra Gets All Oiled Up

Ethical Oil: The Case for Not Buying Oil From OPEC Nations, by Ezra Levant (McClelland & Stewart). In his new outing, the Shakedown rabble-rouser is back with more impertinent questions. Sample: We have the Alberta Oil Sands, so is it ethical for us to be importing oil from Sudan, Russia and Mexico.

In his new book, the Ez will do for the tar-sands what he did for racists in Shakedown--ie. make 'em feel wanted in Alberta.

The Niqāb Lady

Go read Dawg. It's what I would have written if I didn't have a cold, minus the dirty jokes.

Also, been out looking at Netbooks. I'll be buying one in the next couple of days. Anyone have a recommendation (keep it under $400 though)?

Also also, any advice on getting Office on one of the things without paying? My current plan is to copy my old 2003 version onto a chip and then onto the Netbook.

I Give You "Sabertooth"

An update to Shaidle's adventures in the holy land: the gal next to Shaidle on the El Al flight to Israel, (a picture now gone even from the google cache), and referred to as "Sabertooth", was Sara Saber-Freedman, the CIC's Montreal EVP. And, as I say, I have been told that the CIC was NOT an official sponsor of Five Foot's tour. And yet Shaidle's hubby made a special effort to have that picture (of a CIC staffer!) disappeared. Go figure.

Note: this guy says the trip was planned "semi-secretly".

An Interesting Tidbit Re Uppal Motion

The CIC [Canada-Israel Committee] Commends the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the Bloc Quebecois for Denouncing Israeli Apartheid Week and Condemns the NDP for Refusing To Do So.

While it is clear that the Uppal motion condemning Israeli Apartheid Week failed, as Marky Mark pointed out, the vote was unrecorded. Would it have been a voice vote? Nevertheless, the above suggests that support/dissent fell entirely along party-lines. I'm not sure how the CIC could know that.