Obama's asymmetrical global-warming charade

Unbelievable that Obama is now peddling his laughable contention that 'snow-proves-global-warming' (see here).
Y'all hear that, Texas: that there snowy white stuff is PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If it snows - IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If it's hot - IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!!!
If it rains - IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If it's dry - IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!
If there's a hurricane - IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If there are no hurricanes - IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!!!
Al Gore and his Demotards have all their bets covered!!!!!!!!!!
Here's Obama's unbelievably un-clear new explanation for global warming:
"I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn't mean every place is getting warmer -- it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer."
Whaaaaaaa?!
So: where does that good ole anthropogenic AGW "man-made-global-warming" part come in to play, then?!
Is that only applicable in some places, but not in other places?!
Is it only applicable at certain times, er... seasons?!
Why are Obama's climate laws applicable everywhere, if some places aren't warming?

How asymmetrically convenient!!!

You gotta be cool to be hot... or something like that. Nobel-prize-worthy LIES!!!

Here in Ontario, Liberal Premier Liar Dalton McGuinty - even after the Climategate revelations - kept up his unsubstantiated climate-change/global-warming Copenhagenist fear-mongering on Sean Mallen's Focus Ontario on TVO in late Dec.2009; see McGuinty's smug, bald-faced-liar-act video here, at bottom).
Watch this slimebag serpent as he continues to peddle his lie that his Liberals have somehow shut down down Ontario's coal plants!!!
Watching McGuinty's beady reptilian eyes as he hisses his lies you almost expect a slimy forked tongue to come flicking out of his lying mouth.

Danny Williams' hypocrisy may bring changes to monopolist health care

The National Post wrote in "Our health, our choice" (Feb.24, 2010, here):

"My heart, my health, my choice. With those six words, Danny Williams neatly summed up the case for private health care. No matter how much the Newfoundland and Labrador Premier goes on to defend Canada's state health care monopoly, the damage has been done to the case for a single-payer system. He has exposed it for what is: a charade with often tragic consequences; a system which purports to be fair but which ends up treating people unfairly.

There is one system for the rich and one for the rest of us. Mr. Williams and others in his income bracket can afford to jet down to a posh Florida hospital for the latest procedure. Joe and Jane Canadian cannot.

It's worth noting that Mr. Williams is not an anomaly. Many politicians have sought treatment in the United States or in private facilities. The late Quebec premier Robert Bourassa sought skin cancer treatment in Maryland. Former MP Belinda Stronach had breast cancer surgery in California. And even NDP leader Jack Layton turned to the private sector for a hernia operation, though he managed to get it on home soil.

Why did Mr. Williams elect to play medical tourist in Miami? Because he wanted to undergo a type of minimally-invasive heart valve surgery rather than the traditional procedure, which involves cracking open a patient's sternum. While the new surgery is offered in a few hospitals in Canada, his doctors recommended that he have it in the United States.

This type of surgery, and thousands of other procedures like it, would be more widely available in our country if we allowed private medicine to deliver them. Private hospitals, competing with each other and with the "free" public system, would have to offer cutting-edge medicine (so to speak) to attract customers. They would also be competing in the American market, for a share of U.S. health-care dollars. It is entirely possible that American customers might elect treatment in Canada, if available at lower cost, thus creating jobs and opportunities for doctors and medical personnel in our country where none existed before.

Private hospitals would have to price these alternatives competitively - and most of their clients would not be paying out of pocket. They would purchase private health insurance which, in the event of need, would foot the bill. Such insurance would be available not just to the rich, but to the middle class. It would open up true choice for a wide segment of the Canadian public.

And contrary to popular belief, these private hospitals would not destroy the public system. Instead, they would provide incentive for the public system to improve, something missing in a state monopoly. This is what happened in Alberta in the 1990s when private clinics were allowed to perform cataract surgery under contract to the provincial government, with the patient paying an $1,100 fee. The percentage of procedures performed by the private clinics actually declined from 32 to 17 over a period of four years, as the public system improved and became more attractive to patients.

Private hospitals would also free up space in the public system for those who need care that they currently cannot get in a timely manner, because of scarcity. Scarcity is another pernicious result of state monopoly. Government budgets dictate a finite supply of hospitals, doctors and beds, while patient needs create an ever-expanding demand for health services. The only way to deal with scarcity is rationing. Our current single-payer system rations health care, Soviet-style, with predictable results: long queues of patients suffering, in some cases for a year or more, while they wait for procedures.

Putting more money in the public system is not the answer. According to the Fraser Institute, mean wait times in 2009 were 16.1 weeks for surgical and other procedures - the same level they were at in 2001, despite billions of dollars spent to speed lineups.

It was these wait times which led to a major health-care reform in Quebec, prompted by the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in the Chaouilli case. Since then, the Quebec government has enacted legislation allowing private insurance to cover three types of operations: knee, hip and cataract surgery. These surgeries can also be contracted out from the public system to specialized private clinics. The province has expanded the list of procedures the clinics can deliver to 56, including mastectomies, hysterectomies and bariatric surgery.

Instead of decrying private health care, Quebec is embracing it, as an important means of delivering quality and timely health care to its citizens, just as other nations do around the world. Together with North Korea, Canada is the lone holdout that denies its people choice over one of the most important aspects of their lives: their personal health and well-being.

Mr. Williams was perfectly within his rights to opt for his superior surgery. But all Canadians should enjoy this choice - and they shouldn't have to show their passport to get it."

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Once again: let's ask Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, or Deb Matthews, or Jim Bradley, to comment on this urgent healthcare/patient choice issue.

Just yesterday McGuinty was all hot and bothered that 'potential revenue' from online gambling was being siphoned out of the province, and that Ontario should think of getting into the online gambling game - see here - where CP reports:

"Virtual gambling is a reality and the Ontario government obviously cannot ignore it for long, said Premier Dalton McGuinty.

"The issue is whether or not we should be involved in that, and I think we're going to have to make a call," McGuinty said.

"It's something we can't avoid.""

Yet Dalton's been happy to 'avoid' discussing his health-care-monopoly's failures. Dalton has ignored and NOT 'made a call' on any issue related to the above editorial. Dalton is essentially 25 billion dollars in the hole and needs to grab any and all taxes that he can to stem the red resulting from his Red agenda.
Just the other day the St.Catharines Standard reported (here) in "'Gold medal day' for NHS" that McGuinty's Liberals have finally added $14 million to the NHS's $370 million operating deficit; the upshot of the story is we should be grateful that the Liberals taketh, and, that the loving, caring, vote-seeking Liberals then give back.
But, what we need is an alternative to our present monopolist health care serfdom, where we are forced to rely upon/be at the mercy of the largess/whim of the government.
Danny Williams' monopolist hypocrisy has been revealed; let's get on to phasing in a private-parallel health care system.
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Note: the Post's editorial above mentioned the 2005 "Chaouilli" case; the proper spelling of the doctor involved in that ground-breaking Quebec court decision was Jacques Chaoulli - one 'i'; for more on Chaoulli see links below.

Five feet of snow proves global warming!?

Further to this post, and this post, is this story "Obama rebukes climate skeptics" (AFP, Feb.19, 2010, here) of the continuation of the global warming hoax by the U.S. President himself:

"US President Barack Obama on Friday rebuked climate change skeptics who argue that piles of snow dumped on the United States during a frigid winter cast doubt on global warming science.

"We just got five feet of snow in Washington," said Obama, when asked about alternative energy projects during a town hall meeting in Nevada.

"Opponents of climate change, they say -- 'see look at that, there is all this snow on the ground -- this doesn't mean anything.'"

"I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn't mean every place is getting warmer -- it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer."

Obama cited the lack of snow in Vancouver during the current winter Olympics and unusual snowstorms in places like Dallas in the southern United States as examples of violent weather patterns brought on by climate change.

The president has committed the United States wholeheartedly to the fight against climate change - unlike the previous Bush administration - and played a major role in the ill-fated UN climate conference in Denmark last year.

But there is growing doubt over the fate of legislation being pushed by Democrats in Congress aimed at establishing a cap-and-trade system to regulate carbon emissions.

Republicans have branded such legislation "job killing" and even some Democratic lawmakers have questioned the wisdom of passing such a bill that could impose more costs on industry during a deep economic crisis."
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Piles of white global warming laying in the streets of the American south are indeed a sign of Obama's willful climate ignorance. The skepticism, as Obama clumsily tries to spin it, is not about "climate change" (!!!!!!) - it's about the inherent socialism of the alarmists' man-made global warming AGW LIES.

Obama's unfounded, Old-Gore's-tale citations mean absolutely nothing.
It's Obama who disingenuously confuses weather extremes with global warming. Vancouver's lack of snow is indicative of NOTHING... Sir. That's how Vancouver IS!!!! When O'Bammer made his first state visit to Canada last year, he was complaining how cold it was in Ottawa, remember?
In May, it'll be warmer: OMG - SO IT HAS TO BE CLIMATE CHANGE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



[...oddly, later, when the Vancouver area DID get major dumps of snow (see here, Mar.11, 2010, where Cypress Mountain (site of the Olympic ski event which Obama claimed above proves global warming!!) got 37 cm. of snow (...see also here, Apr.11, 2010, where the Vancouver Sun reported Cypress Mountain got another 65 cm. of snow) OBAMA DID NOT BOTHER TO UPDATE HIS CLIMATE PROPAGANDA BY MENTIONING THIS INCONVENIENT TRUTH.
In fact - Obama's Democrats, who just a year ago chortled derisively at 'drill, baby, drill', HAVE NOW APPROVED OFF-SHORE DRILLING (whaaaa...?! see here!) along vast areas of their coastlines!! Joe Wilson's 'Obama you lie' comment was nothing but prescient, on so many levels...]



It's as if these AGW-propaganda-pushing Democrats have not yet heard of, or don't understand, Climategate. To them, the IPCC's lies are still gospel, no matter what... that is mind boggling cognitive dissonance, on a dangerous and massive scale.
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Here's Terence Corcoran writing yesterday (National Post, Feb.18, 2010, here) about what Obama (instead of pushing his AGW fearmongering) should have been talking about today:

"It’s hard to tell right now which part of global warming policy is in the fastest free fall — the economics, the politics or the science. The politics seemed to be winning the race yesterday. At least five major U.S. corporations have pulled out of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an agglomeration of business and green groups lobbying Washington for climate legislation. High on USCAP’s agenda is a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.

The withdrawal of BP, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar from USCAP is widely seen as another sign that cap and trade, which would allow corporations to buy and sell emissions credits, is losing ground politically. Another political sign that a major climate bill containing a cap-and-trade regime was unlikely came recently when President Barack Obama announced he might be willing to carve out the cap-and-trade elements from climate legislation as a separate bill. Since a stand-alone tax carbon plan surrounded with a corporate trading system would be political dynamite for the administration, Mr. Obama’s comments triggered speculation that cap-and-trade would never see daylight.

Two other companies, Xerox and March Inc., are also reported to have left USCAP. Cap and trade is also fading from the political agenda at the Western Climate Initiative, a U.S.-Canada association of states and provinces set up a few years ago to bring cap-and-trade to the North American economy. As Lawrence Solomon writes below, that initiative is unravelling as key states pull away, leaving Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia as mainstays of an international initiative that’s going nowhere.

All this is being driven by breakdowns in the science behind global warming theory and in the global resolve to respond. The failure of Copenhagen to reach agreement reflected the two main problems. If the science is perceived to be shaky, and the global economic situation is shaky, if follows that the politics will head in the same direction."


Lawrence Solomon wrote in "A dying initiative" (National Post, Feb.18, 2010, here):

"The Western Climate Initiative’s cap and trade market may soon need to be renamed The Canada Climate Initiative.

Until last week, the Western Climate Initiative boasted seven U.S. states and four Canadian provinces who were working toward the launch of a regional cap and trade system on Jan. 1, 2012. Last Thursday, Arizona formally announced it was backing out of cap and trade. As the state with the fastest rate of emission growth — 61% between 1990 and 2007 — many feared a body blow to Arizona’s economy if it tried to meet the initiative’s carbon reduction goals.

The following morning neighbouring Utah indicated it might follow suit. By a 6 to 2 vote, its House Committee on Public Utilities and Technology passed a nonbinding resolution to urge Governor Gary Herbert to pull out of the Western Climate Initiative. Earlier in the week, the full Utah House voted resoundingly — 56 to 17 — to curb any carbon-curbing attempts by the federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency. Specifically, the resolution introduced into the House “urges the United States Environmental Protection Agency to halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs and with its ‘Endangerment Finding’ and related regulations until a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.”

To date, only four of the 11 jurisdictions have adopted legislation that would allow them to participate in the cap-trade-market: California, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, with Manitoba appearing close to joining. Oregon, Washington, Montana and New Mexico have not yet adopted cap-and-trade legislation and now California, which is tottering toward bankruptcy, has become iffy: A voter initiative in California, if it passes in November, would halt the cap-and-trade program until unemployment falls to 5.5%.

Even before last week’s climate revolt, many believed the Western Climate Initiative unofficially died with the ascension of Barack Obama to the presidency. When George W. Bush was U.S. president, those backing climate change legislation could argue for a regional plan on the basis that national legislation would never pass a Bush presidency. As soon as Obama came to office, pressure built in the western states to abandon the regional cap and trade plan, on the logic that the states should harmonize with federal cap and trade policy. Now that federal cap and trade legislation appears dead, the states have cooled further to regional trading.

The upshot? By the end of the year, the only jurisdictions left in the Western Climate Initiative’s cap and trade program could be the Canadian provinces."


Ahh...Copenhagen... the place were Obama and Dalton McGuinty and Michael Iggy cap'n'trader Ignatieff wanted to find their political salvation, where Kyodiot greensheviks from Ontario and Quebec were happily spewing their anti-Alberta crap.

So: let's hear Liberals Dalton McGuinty and Michael Ignatieff tell us now - prior to any election campaign - that they believe in AGW - specifically, in man-made global warming (as opposed to nebulously generic 'climate-change').

Let's hear Dalton McGuinty and Michael Ignatieff reveal the evidence which they rely upon to support their climate beliefs - which of course, directly impact their energy policies.

McGuinty, like his secretive Ontario MPP Liberal collegue Jim Bradley, HAS NO evidence supporting the claim of AGW "global warming"; neither does Iggy.

If they do - then please, they should reveal their sources.

Even Environment Canada's so-called senior Cagey Climatologist David Phillips is unable to cite any specific evidence of AGW - so if Iggy or Dalton magically know something that David Phillips doesn't, the onus is on them to show us their sources.

C'mon, Dalton... Iggy... Jimmy... cantcha get Al Gore or David Suzuki or Rajendra Pachauri to dig you out of your snowdrift of climate lies?
above video of kitten-eating Liberal Borg leader Dalton McGuinty lying on Sean Mallen's TVO Focus Ontario in Dec.2009. (Mallen, unfortunately, just accepted what McGuinty was spouting. Not any real journalism going on there - it was 'all settled' y'see,.. so... why bother askin' questions?!)
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Update - on Apr.13, 2015, when Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne announced she was imposing a new fraudulent green 'cap and trade' tax, she used the same GreenFear global-warming rhetoric which McGuinty (and Jim Bradley) were using in 2009:  "To fight climate change -- one of the greatest challenges mankind has faced -- Ontario is putting a limit on the main sources of greenhouse gas pollution through a cap and trade system to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the health of our children and grandchildren."
It is the same Liberal enviro-fraud, the same Liberal GreenFear crap, years later.
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Further update: On the nightly CBC news television broadcast (Dec.27, 2016) there was another sickening appearance by the deluded Kathleen Wynne, this time we were treated to a barrage of her GreenFear bullshit; a montage of  her many different interviews, spouting her climate change fear-mongering.
She was still using the same Green Fear crap which McGuinty was spreading to Mallen in 2009. She was still pulling the same old climate garbage out of her ass, creating conflated scenarios and blabbing about unsubstantiated 'extreme weather' and insurance costs, you name it - yet, there was never any proof of AGW given. It was plain fear-mongering to justify more phony carbon taxes, a fraud peddled by the Ontario Liberal government.
NO evidence has yet been provided that what the Liberals are doing will "solve" anything at all -  - and this Liberal climate con game has been going on (in Jim Bradley's case) for decades now.
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McGuinty's windy Green energy disaster

Dalton McGuinty's incompetent Liberal energy policy is a costly joke, with George Smitherman's stink all over it.

Andy Frame wrote in "Green power sounds good until you calculate the cost", (Toronto Star, Feb.17, 2010, here):

"The McGuinty government is spending Ontario's electricity revenue to encourage investments in wind and solar green power generation – with no benefit to the system or to the customer.


Big corporate investors in wind farms and, maybe, solar farms will reap rich rewards for 20 years while the customer pays higher and higher prices for electrical energy.


This push for more green power, while at the same time delaying a decision on extending the Darlington nuclear plant, could result in a power shortage within four to five years. This would be a major blow to the Ontario economy.


Two years ago, the Ontario electrical load was peaking at 26,500 megawatts. Because of the recession, it will have had a winter peak in January of between 19,000 and 20,000 megawatts. This 7,000 megawatt reduction has given the government time to push its "green energy" plan and delay a decision on the need for new nuclear power units at Darlington.


In a report two years ago, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) told the government that "wind and solar power will never be more than a niche supplier of power in Ontario."


The geographic reality of Ontario is that there is not enough sun or consistent wind to make them significant sources of supply to the system. However, the government wants to look green and has adopted a program of shutting down the province's coal-powered generating plants. The message to the public is that coal is bad, green is good, so let's spend lots of money on green power.


Subsidies are available to developers of large windmill operations with 20-year contracts to supply energy at guaranteed prices, thus ensuring a good return on their investment.


The green plan also encourages individual users to invest in a windmill and save money by buying less energy from a utility. However, an analysis of the investment shows there is no benefit. A 3.5-kilowatt unit supplied by a prominent builder in Saskatchewan costs $12,500, plus $500 shipping, plus 10 per cent tax. Installation will cost about $3,000. The total investment of $17,000 will, at 5 per cent financing, cost $850 per year – there also will be maintenance costs of at least $50 a year. How much energy will be produced each year by the 3.5-kilowatt unit? Who can tell? It will depend on how much wind blows and for how many hours.


The OPA uses the figure of 18 per cent when estimating the contribution of windmill units to the system. At only 18 per cent, individuals would reduce the energy cost on their bills from about 11.46 cents per kilowatt-hour in Toronto down to an average of 5 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. They still will have to pay all of the fixed charges from the utility system because it has to be there when the wind doesn't blow. So it's a feel-good thing – no coal burning – but the $900 annual cost will result in a loss of about $250 per year.


Subsidies for investments in wind power and the guaranteed contract price of 13.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for onshore wind installations – and up to 80 cents per kilowatt-hour for other generation – are paid by the Global Investment Fund designed by the OPA. It puts the cost on the user's bill, increasing the rate paid for energy. For large industrial customers, the extra charge can be a significant cost running to many thousands of dollars. Last November, the Global Investment Fund charge was 3.1 cents per kilowatt-hour.


None of this green power generation or the money being spent on it will have much impact on the Ontario power system.


Load is down 17 per cent in southern Ontario because of the recession, and more than 50 per cent in northern Ontario because the forestry and mining sectors have been hit so hard. But the economy is showing some signs of recovery. Both the federal and provincial governments are making investments to encourage new industry and more job creation. We still have automotive and steel industries, albeit on a smaller scale. The power requirement for industry, together with the needs of our growing population, will require more electricity. At the same time, our power infrastructure is aging and the government is going ahead with the closing of coal plants.


Where will the new power come from? The OPA is not counting on wind or solar. Nothing but a major new source of supply can provide for the province's expanded needs. True, new gas-fired turbine units are coming online – they are better than coal but still have carbon emissions and cannot be considered "green." The plan to enlarge the Adam Beck plant's capacity at Niagara Falls has been delayed because of tunnel problems.


The most important factor right now is the McGuinty government's delay in making a decision on Darlington extension. It still is trying to get the federal government to guarantee part of an AECL generating plant but has not made any progress.


The end result of the McGuinty government's green plan is that while investment in wind, solar and other green sources looks good politically because they displace coal plants, they cost a lot of money – which is going to corporate wind farm developers and other investors. The little windmill operator saves nothing and the customer pays more. What's more, the green plan will not provide the significant new supply that the electrical power system needs.


Large new generating plants have an eight- to 10-year build time. We may come to a time when we have to ration power, a time when investors in new industry in Ontario will have to apply for a power permit to ensure having electricity for their operations.


This would be a disaster for Ontario. Expanding the electrical power supply in Ontario is essential – now. We need power for new industry and new jobs. Green power won't do it."
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Idiotic ideologies are inherent in McGuinty's despotic, unaccountable Liberalism.

Whether it is Liberal healthcare duplicity, or Greenshevik Liberal energy duplicity, McGuinty's propagation of statist policies that "look good politically"  - while being expensive fiascos - is typical Liberal operating procedure! 

It is THE ESSENCE of McGuintyist Liberalism!
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Time for Liberal McGuinty to acknowledge role of Climategate in Ontario's flawed energy policy

Holly Martin wrote in "Virginia’s attorney general asks EPA for more time to challenge climate findings", (Manassas Environmental News Examiner, Feb.17, 2010, here):

"Today, Virginia's attorney general Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, asked the EPA to delay final consideration of its finding last year that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant that endangers public health and welfare. Virginia now joins Texas and Alabama in fighting the EPA in its efforts to regulate CO2.

Carbon dioxide is a colorless gas created by human beings with every breath as a natural part of the carbon cycle. It is required for green plants to grow. It’s also a natural by-product of burning fuels made from organic (carbon-based) sources, such as coal, oil and natural gas.

In making its finding, the EPA relied heavily on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR report of 2007. In this report, the IPCC declared that the earth is warming and that humans are responsible for most of that warming. The report also declared that CO2 emissions from human activities must be quickly cut, in order to prevent global catastrophes, including droughts, floods, hurricanes and famines.

Reducing CO2 emissions would require that the global economy, which is currently powered by fossil fuels, must be dramatically restructured within a very short time. To do this, governments would have to heavily subsidize “clean” energy sources, such as biofuels, solar, wind, and possibly nuclear power, in order to make them profitable, while taxing coal, oil and natural gas, which are still the cheapest sources of electricity and heat.

The result, says Christopher Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, would be “the biggest regulatory intervention in history: the restricting of carbon emissions from all human activity.” The CEI has filed two petitions in federal court to reconsider the endangerment finding, and has filed a lawsuit with the EPA.

In 2007, the Supreme Court declared that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are pollutants. This finding was heavily based on recommendations in the IPCC’s 2007 report.

In April, 2009, President Obama’s newly appointed administrator of the EPA, Lisa P. Jackson, announced that the agency had determined the CO2 and other greenhouse gases are pollutants that endanger human health and welfare. Then on December 7, 2009, Jackson, announced that the EPA would move forward on regulating CO2 as a pollutant.

New information may contradict scientific"consensus"

According to the Associated Press, Attorney General Cuccinelli asked for time to review "newly available information" that might directly affect the EPA’s decision.

Last November, thousands of emails and electronic documents were released from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University in the U.K. These emails showed scientists who are an integral part of the IPCC reporting process may have conspired to prevent other scientists from obtaining climate data that might be used to disprove their conclusions.

They may also have improperly tried to block the publication of research that called into question the view that “the science is settled” on climate change.

Professor Phil Jones, a central figure in the CRU emails, and who was responsible for keeping the official climate data records used by the IPCC, has stepped aside pending the results of an inquiry into the scandal. Last week, Jones said in an interview with the BBC that scientists did not yet agree that current warming is greater than at anytime in the past. He also admitted that the datasets he controlled were in disarray, and that the rate of Earth’s warming was not significantly higher in the past 15 years than it was at other times in history.

Problems with the IPCC report

In January, the IPCC was forced to admit an error in its report, which had predicted most of the ice in the 3-mile thick Himalayan glaciers would be melted by the year 2035. Such an early date would mean a primary water source for millions of people in Nepal, India and China would be dried up 25 years from now. That date was actually a typographical error, and should have read “2350.”

The head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, insisted, up until last month, that the 2035 date was accurate. Several scientists, including reviewers on the IPCC panel, have stated publicly that they recognized the impossibility of the claim and let Pachauri know about the error months, and even years, earlier, but he refused to fix it.

The glacier error was soon joined by others, which seemed to exaggerate crop losses in Africa, sea ice losses in the Arctic, and loss of rain forests in the Amazon, as some began examining the thousands of pages in the IPCC report more closely. Many of the supporting documents for the report turned out to be articles written by non-scientists, or by those working for climate advocacy organizations such as the World Wildlife Federation.

Last week in the U.S. Congress, the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Collin Peterson, introduced a bill that would prevent EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. According to a story by Reuters, Peterson said, “I have no confidence that the EPA can regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act without doing serious damage to our economy."

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It's about time the Climategate fraud was challenged and exposed, in the States as well as in Canada.
The IPCC's now-discredited Pachauri was a golden boy for the greenshevik TM lefties in Canada's Liberal Party. Many greenpagandized Canadians believed in the climate change/global warming fear spread by the likes of Al Gore, David Suzuki, Stephane Bumbledore Dion, and of course, Sir Kyodiot Liberal MPP Jim Bradley.
It's time for Canada's politicians [especially for Ontario's Liberal climate-fear-mongering premier, Dalton McGuinty] to also acknowledge that the alarmist, fraudulent "science" (or, more aptly, doctored speculations) upon which they based their energy policies was never "settled".

Liberal Jim 'Sir Kyodiot' Bradley still secretive regarding his role in Climategate!

Lorne Gunter wrote in "They're finally admitting the science isn't settled", (National Post, Feb.17, 2010, here):

"Why does Climategate matter? Who cares whether the climate data on a computer at some obscure English university has been deliberately corrupted?

In one form or another, I have had to answer these questions from dozens of readers in the three months since thousands of e-mails and computer files were leaked from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.

There are plenty of ways in which these disclosures have been crucial, but the principal change has been the uncertainty creeping into the remarks of former True Believers. Some of those who for years have insisted the science is “settled,” are now admitting we don’t know all we need to before making trillion-dollar policy decisions.

Consider the remarks Phil Jones, the former head of CRU, made last week to the BBC. Prof. Jones, who has stepped down from his directorship of the CRU pending official investigations into the leaks, told the Beeb there has been no “statistically significant” global warming since 1995 — that’s the past 15 years!

It’s true, as some climate alarmist sites have pointed out, that what Prof. Jones said in full was that the warming since 1995 is almost significant, but not quite. The “trend (+0.12 C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.”

Admittedly, that is not the same as a complete about-face by Prof. Jones, but neither is it meaningless. When was the last time you recall an alarmist such as Phil Jones admitting there was any doubt at all about warming in the last decade and a half?

Haven’t we had it drummed into us ceaselessly that the past decade has been the warmest ever recorded? Prof. Jones’s admission to the BBC then is very significant.

If, instead of bleating for the past 15 years that the sky was about to burst into flame, major climate scientists had been saying the Earth was warming, but not to a statistically significant level, would you have been as worried as you were? Would there have been a Kyoto accord? A Copenhagen summit? Carbon trading schemes? Green taxes? Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth? David Suzuki’s call to throw politicians into jail if they fail to try to stop climate change?

In his BBC interview, Prof. Jones also conceded that the Middle Ages may well have been warmer than now, another key concession given that the CRU has for years denied the existence of the Medieval Warm Period. If the MWP can be made to disappear, then the warming that has occurred since 1900 would be abnormal and therefore something to fear. But if there was an even greater warming 1,000 years ago — before SUVs, coal-fired power plants and industrial carbon emissions — then the current warming might well be part of a nature cycle and therefore unremarkable.

Prof. Jones even admitted the science of climate change is far from settled. “There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties.”

Nothing scientific had changed since the Climategate leaks. No new data or discoveries have been added that would make the former CRU director change his tone so dramatically. So his new willingness to concede doubt must be solely the result of the embarrassing leaks last November.

That’s one of the ways in which Climategate matters: It has made the alarmists far more willing to admit the science isn’t settled.

It also matters because CRU is not just some no-name English university with one of thousands of environmental studies programs in the world. The CRU is one of three main sources of UN climate data.

Think of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a three-legged stool supported by the CRU, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Kick out one leg and the stool topples, taking everyone standing on it with it.

Reliance on one of these Big Three climate records has been repeated in hundreds — thousands — of academic studies, on everything from the calving of icebergs in Antarctica to the behaviour of Alberta bark beetles, the prevalence of sub-Saharan droughts to disappearing snow on hip Euro ski slopes.

So Climategate also matters because if one of the most critical sources of climate data is suspect, then the conclusions in all the scores of studies based on that data are suspect, too.

The implications are huge and wide-ranging."

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Let's not forget one of Ontario's greatest bleaters of climate-change/global-warming fear mongering was secretive St.Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley (aka Sir Kyodiot) who TO THIS DAY STILL REFUSES to reveal what 'evidence' HE used to agitate for Ontario to sign onto Kyoto back in 2002, see here, here.

Now, Sir Kyodiot is strangely silent.

In light of the Climategate hoax, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's energy policies - from his "we will close all of Ontario's coal-fired power plants by 2007" lies to Smitherman's Samsung sell-out - should ALL be reviewed for the baseless, fraudulent, fear mongering Greenshevist TM propaganda that they were and are.

Dear Dalton: If Ontarians can go to the U.S. for private health care, why can't we do the same in Ontario?

Good article (here, Feb.11, 2010) by Brett Skinner, "The Danny Williams Principle":

"If the Newfoundland Premier can go to the U.S. for private medical care, why can't Canadians get it in their own country?

What does it say about the state of Canadian health insurance when Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams chooses to have his heart surgery in the U.S.? Some pundits say it means nothing while others have insisted the premier could have obtained his medical care somewhere in Canada.

But the details of Premier Williams’s case are irrelevant to the main question, which is, if it is OK for a Canadian politician to get private medical treatment in America, why is it illegal for regular Canadians to get private medical treatment in Canada? In other words, why do provincial governments make it illegal for Canadians to spend their own money to preserve and improve their own health? Why are ordinary Canadians forced to wait in a government-imposed queue for access to necessary medical care?

Danny Williams’s decision is not unique. According to the most recent Fraser Institute estimate in 2009, Williams would be only one of approximately 41,000 Canadians who annually seek non-emergency medical care outside of Canada. Consider how absurd it is that the only way for Canadians to pay privately for better or quicker medical care is to leave their own country.

Our annual international report comparing Canada to other countries with universal health insurance systems shows that Canada is virtually alone in prohibiting people from spending their own money to get quicker or better health care.

Who is to blame for this? Despite commonly held beliefs, the federal Canada Health Act does not prohibit private insurance for medical services - the act only prohibits user charges under public insurance. It is actually the provinces that prevent ordinary Canadians from doing at home what Premier Williams chose to do in the United States. In fact, six provinces (accounting for about 84 per cent of the national population) legally ban direct private payment for necessary medical services, and six provinces (accounting for 90 per cent of the national population) legally ban the purchase of private health insurance for necessary medical services.

Most provinces also prohibit parallel billing by health care providers. In these provinces, hospitals and physicians are not allowed to accept private payment or private insurance reimbursement while accepting public payment from the provincial health insurance system. Health care providers must choose to work either for private payment or public payment, but cannot elect both. Most doctors are not willing to surrender their billing rights in the public system, and therefore do not even make their services available for private payment.

This is how governments effectively ban private health insurance and medical care in Canada.

Few Canadians can afford to travel to America in search of faster or better care. When provincial insurance doesn’t supply timely access to necessary medical care, ordinary Canadians are forced to wait. Annual Fraser Institute research shows that wait times for many medically necessary procedures are excessive in Canada. Averaged across the 10 provinces, the median wait from seeing a GP to treatment by a specialist was 16.1 weeks up from 9.3 weeks in 1993.

Our research using government data has also shown that Canada’s health insurance system supplies far fewer physicians, as well as medical technologies like MRI machines, CT scanners, and Lithotripters per population than are available in the United States. Relative to American health care, Canada’s system is slow to invest in new medical technology, while many existing pieces of medical and diagnostic equipment in Canada are outdated and in need of replacement.

It is therefore not surprising that Danny Williams, and several other high profile politicians before him, have chosen to get medical treatment outside of Canada when they fall seriously ill. Their cases capture headlines, but they are just a few of the tens of thousands of Canadians who seek medical treatment in the U.S. every year without being noticed by the media.

It is time that we all stop tolerating ideological excuses for a system that prohibits ordinary Canadians from spending their own hard-earned money to buy timely access to medical goods and services. I wish Premier Williams a speedy recovery. I hope that when he returns to Canada, he will muster the courage to fight for the freedom of all Canadians to make their own choices about their own health care, without having to leave the country; something that is allowed in every other nation with universal health insurance."

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In Ontario, let's get Deb Matthews, or any of Dalton McGuinty's Liberals monopolists to answer the questions posed in the above article!
McGuinty's Grits are nothing but 'ideological' in their destructive zeal to force Tommy Douglas' socialism upon us. Williams from NL is just another monopolist-pushing-political windbag, same as McGuinty in ON.
One of the worst health ministers in Ontario's history was McGuinty's disgusting George Smitherman, the authour of the laughable Commitment To the Future of Medicare Act, who denied Suzanne Aucoin cancer treatments, forcing her to go to the States as well.
McGuinty (NOT Harris) closed down two Emergency Dep'ts. in Niagara; now, when the EMS is showing that the resultant longer response/travel times are becoming a problem for patients, McGuintyite monopolists such as MPP Jim Bradley shift the onus onto the EMS (rather than present the case themselves!) to show they need the funds to carry the patients further!

Cardiac procedures in Canada 'are not provided universally in a timely manner'

St.Catharines Standard (Feb.4, 2010) reported in "Premier didn't have to leave Canada for surgery: experts":

"The surgery Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams required may not be available in his home province, but chances are it's available in his home country, experts say.

Williams - an outspoken proponent of public health care - went to the U.S. Monday morning for a heart procedure his office said couldn't be done in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Williams' office has been tight-lipped about the situation, refusing to disclose what type of procedure he's undergoing, or where.

Canadian medical experts insist that when it comes to heart procedures, there's nothing you can get in the U.S. that you can't get here. You just have to wait a bit longer, and the accommodations aren't as nice.

Dr. Arvind Koshal, a prominent Alberta cardiac surgeon, told the Globe and Mail Williams is sending the message that if you have money, you can forgo the hassles of public health care and pay for quicker service south of the border.

"The optics are very poor, especially for people who are proponents of the Canadian health-care system," said Koshal.

Dr. Wilbert Keon, a heart surgery pioneer in Ottawa and a Conservative senator, told the Globe there is "no question" Williams could have chosen to remain in Canada.

Meanwhile, U.S. opponents of President Barack Obama's proposed health-care reform have made Williams their poster child.

Obama aims to extend health care to the country's uninsured - a move critics say will extend wait times, turning America's health-care system into the Canadian model.

Patients First, an American organization against Obama's health-care reform plan, cited Williams' decision as proof the Canadian system is flawed.

"For the last nine months, we've fought against a government takeover of our health care not only because of its high cost but also its debilitating effect on the quality and accessibility of care to patients. Yesterday, we were given a reminder from ... Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams that this is the case in Canada," reads the group's website

"When the equivalent of a governor can't get a specific procedure, what chance does the average Canadian have?" wrote one blogger at the right-wing site BigGovernment.com.

Williams, 60, is expected to publicly comment on the issue when he recovers, which could take anywhere from three to 12 weeks."

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The National Post had a story [similar to the Standard's Feb.4 story above] on Feb.3, 2010, here, titled "Little need to go to the U.S. for heart surgery: MDs" [I also commented on this article here]

Richard Baker of Timely Medical Alternatives Inc. wrote a response to the Post's Feb.3 article, (which would also pretty much apply to the Standard's story as well) "Heart surgery in the U.S. is routine" (National Post, Feb.8, 2010, here):

"Re: Little Need To Go To U.S. For Heart Surgeries: MDs

Contrary to the assurance of Canadian heart specialists, cardiac procedures are not provided, universally, in a timely manner. Our organization sends clients to the United States for cardiac ablation, cardiac bypass, angioplasty and cardiac valve replacements, in ever-increasing numbers.

While cardiac procedures are not available privately in Canada, Canadians can purchase insurance policies that will cover the cost for procedures in the United States.

Having surgery in the United States is not out of the financial reach of most Canadians. Our clients can get a cardiac bypass for US$16,000. If you were on a lengthy wait-list for this life-saving procedure, why wouldn't you go to the United States?

The fact that Canadians routinely travel south for surgery is not evidence of queue-jumping. If Danny Williams had displaced a fellow Canadian on a wait-list for surgery in Canada, that would be.

Until Canadians realize the shortcomings of our health-care system, there will be no meaningful reform to our system and many will continue to travel to the United States, Canada's "health-care system of last resort".

Williams was/is an "outspoken proponent..." as the Standard story says "...of public health care" - that's a cutesy euphemism for state-run, single-payer health care. How sadly ironic that this single-payer-pushing-Premier should have to - whether by choice or circumstance; that's yet to be seen - go out of the country to obtain his healthcare: Williams is practising ' ABC ' healthcare, Anywhere But Canada, eh?
When Williams gets back in the saddle, maybe he will kindly inform the Canadian sheeple why they're limited to a state-run health monopoly which isn't even good enough for the Premier.
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Old Storefronts on Colborne St., Brantford, Ont.

This post looks along the south side of Colborne St. in the city of Brantford, Ontario, at the area outlined below in red. Many buildings along Colborne St. (between Brant Ave. at the west, to almost Market St. at the east) are scheduled for demolition. (see rear-elevations of these buildings here) (Note: click on photos to enlarge!)
above: satellite view of buildings along Colborne St. This post starts from the building marked 'A' above (the "Huntington Block', built 1867, seen at the top left corner of the red outlined area) and moves along to the east. [Note above, at the upper right, the still-vacant site between Colborne St. and Dalhousie St. which has since been redeveloped into a low-rise apartment and a parkette, Harmony Square]

above: the above two satellite views give a closer look at the buildings along Colborne St. which are slated for demolition, and which are the subject of this post.

above: this is an 1875 bird's eye view of the same area of Brantford which was seen in the above satellite shots. The area outlined in red is about the same area as outlined in the top satellite photo. On this 1875 map, looking up towards the upper right within the outlined area, it's hard to tell where the row of today's existing buildings (slated for demolition) would have ended, and which buildings are the same today and which ones have been built/changed/replaced since 1875. This map was in the book Brantford, Grand River Crossing by Janet Kempster and Gary Muir.

Note that the canal is shown south of Water St., this is about where the parking garage and Icomm Dr. now are; note also what is possibly a lock on the canal connecting to the Grand River, and note the Brantford, Norfolk and Port Burwell railroad line and bridge over the Grand.
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In this post we will walk (starting from Brant Ave.) eastward down Colborne St., looking at the row of boarded-up storefronts and vacant buildings along the south side, as they were seen on Feb.8, 2010.

above: standing at Brant Ave., this view looks east along Colborne St. The line of buildings seen at the right are now largely vacant. The old canal once ran behind these buildings at the right.

above: the Huntington Block, at 35-39 Colborne St., built in 1867 by Arunah Huntington, who had also been elected as Brantford's mayor in 1852.

above: the east-half of the Huntington Block; note the yellow vitrolite and stainless steel storefront facade at Hollywood Hairstyling

above: vacant interior of Hollywood Hairstyling

above: Lamont Aluminum (building built in 1913) was at 41 Colborne St. In the 1940's and 50's, there had been a lunch counter here.

above: vacant interior of Lamont Aluminum

above: 43 Colborne St. is at the right

below - closer view of 43 Colborne St., note the stainless-steel pushplate on front door with the large letter 'S', for former occupant Stradwick's Floor Coverings store.

#41 and #43 Colborne were both built in 1913 - they were built on the site of 'The Theatorium' (former address #43 Colborne St.) which exploded in 1908, killing two people.

above: interior of vacant storefront at 43 Colborne St.

above: 45-47 Colborne St, the E.H. Holt block; this building was built soon after the 1908 Theatorium explosion, replacing an earlier structure destroyed by the blast. The previous building had once housed a Chinese food restaurant and the Red Line Bowling Alley and Shooting Gallery.

above: the buildings along the south side of Colborne St. sit on a slope which drops down at the rear. Note the building at the left has the faded remnants of a hand-painted sign on its west-side wall, closer view below:

above: the word "Superior" can be still seen, the rest of the sign isn't clear

above: the streetscape is reflected from the plateglass storefront windows, on which can be seen the Gucci Bros. sign, painted on the glass in classic hand-lettered drop-shadow gold-leaf font.

above: interior of the vacant Gucci Bros. Barber Shop
above: closer view of Gucci Bros. front door at 57 Colborne St.

above: 63 Colborne St., note the old door at left with the Victorian rosettes and the letter slot.

above and below: the old Esquire theatre. Note the stylized stone Thunderbird at the center top. The descending disks below the Thunderbird appear to have been attached to a background of red vitrolite tiles, which had been at some point painted black, and are now seen partially peeled revealing the red underneath.

below: 71 Colborne St. is to the left (east) of the old Esquire theatre.

above: closer view of 71 Colborne St. above: interior view of 71 Colborne St.

above: looking across the street from the entranceway of 71 Colborne St.

above: vacant interior of Zorba'sabove: to the left (east) of Zorba's was 77 Colborne St.
above: note the recessed storefront display lights. Note the reflection in the window at the upper right of the pedimented former Masonic Hall building across the street.

above: 77 Colborne St.

above: closer view of Harvey E. Flood Jeweller's upper facade, at 81 Colborne St.

above: looking out to Colborne St. from Harvey E. Flood Jeweller's entrance way. Note the striped terrazzo storefront entranceway.

above: My Thai restaurant was still open for business on Feb.8, 2010; it was the last place open on this doomed stretch of urban landscape. By Feb.15 it was closed.

above: sign on the International Hair Salon noted that they moved to Lakeshore Blvd. in Etobicoke. Note hair-care bottles left in the window of the vacant store.

above: vacant interior of International Hair Salon

above: interior of the vacant Ideal Pizza

above: closer view of Kris Jen's Cafe, which as of Feb.8, 2010 seemed to still be occupied; on Feb.10, the interior furnishings were being removed. Underneath the entrance floormat was a green-on-white terrazzo inscription indicating that this building had once housed Ostrander's Jewellers, below:

above: the green-painted Super Bowl building was at 99 Colborne St. It had some intricate brickwork at its upper facade.
above: interior of the vacant Super Bowl restaurant

above: in the centre, with the white-painted brick, is 101 Colborne St., built ca.1867

above: in the centre building, the right side (with the orange sign in the window, lastly the SPCA shop) is #103 Colborne St., and the left side is #105 Colborne St.

above: storefront at 105 Colborne St. had an inlaid mosaic entranceway floor, closer view below

above: peeling Cafe Linh sign (from the late 1980's) at 107-109 Colborne St.

above: vacant interior of former Cafe Linh

above: wood slats cover what had been a black vitrolite facade on this storefront at 111 Colborne St.

above: the Art Stanbridge walkway is just to the left; the end building is at 113 Colborne St.above: the 'Art Stanbridge' walkway bridge leads from Colborne St. to a long parking garage structure which sits behind the storefronts at a lower level: the buildings along the south side of Colborne St. here sit at the edge of a slight rise, which drops off right behind them. The walkway crosses Water St. to get to the garage.

(This setting is remarkably similar to the row of commercial buildings along St.Paul St., north of Ontario St., in St.Catharines, Ont. which also sit on a rise dropping off at the rear. Also interesting is that both cities once had a canal waterway (both since filled in) flowing down in the lower level right behind their old downtown commercial strip; and both cities have rivers running behind as well

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below: standing in front of the Art Stanbridge walkway (the corner of which is seen at the upper left), looking westward along the south-side of Colborne St.

above: looking westward along the south-side of Colborne St. from the same location as above; note, as of Feb.8, 2010, My Thai restaurant's sign was still calling out for customers on this deserted street; several days later, the restaurant, the last business still open on this stretch, had closed. Note the street lamp-posts have all had their globes removed. The Grand River valley is in the distance.

above: former Right House department store

above: closer view of previous building; note the exterior wooden window sills! above: vacant interior of above building.

above: looking westward along the south-side of Colborne St.

The building at the left (the 'Smith' building, built 1867, address 151 Colborne St.) is the last of this entire row of buildings which are to be demolished.

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The above photos were taken by R.Bobak, documenting Colborne St. in Brantford, Ont., as it was seen on Feb.8, 2010. Note: my photos are copyright protected. Reproduction of my photos without written permission is prohibited.

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For further views of the rear facades of this same row of buildings, see here - "Colborne St. Brantford, Ont. - historic stretch of downtown buildings, photos prior to demolition".

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