Expat Texan

“The DDT story is one example of environmental activism taken to an extreme and horrific outcome. The model of environmental activism consisted of fabrications, selective use or outright misuse of science, legal actions, intimidation of scientists and corporations, civil disobedience, and an absolute conviction that all political, covert and unethical methods were justified in order to achieve a greater good. The same model is used today, even as the horrible consequences of environmental actions become increasingly apparent. Driessen is correct. It is high time that environmental organizations be held to standards already demanded of for-profit-corporations: namely, ethical conduct, respect for scientific accuracy, accountability and transparency.”

– Donald R. Roberts, PhD, professor of tropical public health

Never, ever call it pimping. Call it “social networking with an important voter base demographic”, or some such.

“I grabbed her ass,” one young woman exclaimed to her friends after snapping a picture with her arm around the former first daughter.

Well, as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

I wonder if David Shuster feels just a wee bit wronged after being suspended for this:

“Doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”

The Clintons threw a fit, and Shuster was suspended.  What is it about Clintons and posteriors?  Sometimes the grabber, sometimes the grabbee.

Just without the bananas.

Do you want this woman deciding what you can and can’t say?  Well, too bad if you answered “no” - because she has appointed herself arbiter of all things related to human rights - both the real ones and the made up ones.

In a wide-ranging interview this week about the upcoming changes to her commission’s mandate, she stood firmly by her position that media have a responsibility to put their writings through a “human rights filter” before publication, and said the commission is keen to call out those who do not, jurisdiction be damned.

So, regardless of jurisdiction, the OHRC will continue to lable people “phobes” and racists if they fail to apply the proper “human rights filter”.  A filter, no doubt, solely attuned to Barbara Hall and friends worldview.  These are self appointed saviors of humanity, and woe unto anyone who interferes with their sacred work.

Little did I know when I moved to Canada that I would be in a country with government controlled and sanctioned speech.  If I wanted that, I could have gone someplace warm, like Venezuela.

Even more than the Maclean’s complaint itself, Ms. Hall’s handling of its rejection has brought unprecedented attention to her commission’s mandate, and raised fears that it is in fundamental conflict with the Charter of Rights’ guarantee of freedom of expression.

In a press release announcing the complaint’s dismissal last week, she criticized the century-old newsweekly for journalism that was “inconsistent with the spirit” of the Ontario Human Rights Code and which did “serious harm” to Canadian society by “promoting societal intolerance” and disseminating “destructive, xenophobic opinions.”

Where to even start?  The most chill provoking part of the article is contained in McLean’s response:

Ms. Hall’s press release was “a drive-by smear,” and “perhaps the greatest disappointment in this whole saga,” the editors wrote. She “cited no evidence, considered no counter-arguments, and appointed herself prosecutor, judge and jury in one fell swoop…. If we weren’t tolerant and charitable people, we’d be calling for her resignation.”

Yep - prosecutor, judge, and jury who pronounced MacLean’s guilty while dismissing the case due to a lack of juridiction.  Remember, big sister is watching you, and will smite you if you sin in her eyes.

If I accept Al Gore as my personal savior, and repent my denialist ways, accepting that global warming climate change is the most significant threat to humankind EVAH! - do you think the Goreacle would consent to letting spring come to Calgary?

Perhaps that’s asking too much, based on Calgary’s performance during Earth Hour.  Look at that record high in 1906!  Now I’m confused - is that global warming or weather variability?

Ahhh, the Goreacle is a vengeful god - we may need to round up some virgins to break this cycle of climate change……