Global warming alarmists as big a threat as communism

I'm no fan of voting or democracy itself. Politicians are usually nothing more than ambitious individuals willing to promise the majority to do all kinds of bad things to unpopular minorities to be/stay in power.

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, is, until proven otherwise, probably of the same breed as all the others. However, one one topic at least, we share the same opinions. And this topic happens to be critical as well as pervasive in today's "environment" : global warming and its causes and solutions.

Mr. Klaus, described as a "right-wing president, a free-market champion" in an Reuters article today, has this to say on climate change :

Communism has been replaced by the threat of an ambitious environmentalism.

They (developing countries) will not be able to absorb new technological standards required by the anti-greenhouse religion, their products will have difficulty accessing the developed markets, and as a result the gap between them and the developed world will widen,' he wrote.

This ideology preaches earth and nature and under the slogans of their protection – similarly to the old Marxists – wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world.


No government action can stop the world and nature from changing. Therefore, I disagree with plans such as the Kyoto Protocol or similar initiatives, which set arbitrary targets requiring enormous costs without realistic prospects for the success of these measures.
"

Well, Stephen Harper could find some inspiration there, as his "right-wing, free-market, anti-Kyoto" beliefs seem to have waned somewhat in the last year, pouvoir oblige...

If Mr. Klaus' actions are consistent with his discourse, we can certainly expect Czech Republic to flourish in the next years.

Good for the Czechs, good for all of us. Yeh!

It was only democracy, but still...

Chavez granted powers to remake Venezuelan society

Lawmakers loyal to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez approved a law on Wednesday giving him the power to enact sweeping measures by decree, a move critics say is a step toward authoritarianism.

Members of the National Assembly unanimously approved all four articles of the law by a show of hands.

Viva President Hugo Chavez, long live socialism!" assembly president Cilia Flores said as she proclaimed the law approved. "Fatherland, socialism or death. We will prevail!"

The legislation gives the president special powers for 18 months to transform 11 broadly defined areas, including banking reforms, tax, insurance, financial regulations, security and defence.

Geez, they're not shy about dictating in the South. They could have at least tried to make it look like something mild and administrative. You gotta admire the openness...

Une grenouille dans l'eau bouillante

Une légende urbaine affirme que si l'on plonge une grenouille dans l'eau bouillante, elle bondira instantanément pour fuir, mais que si l'eau est agréablement tiède au début et qu'on la fait chauffer graduellement, la grenouille y demeurera jusqu'à ce qu'elle soit ébouillantée et meure. La grenouille serait en effet incapable de détecter à temps l'augmentation graduelle de la température.

Et bien, on dirait que l'intensité du feu vient d'augmenter quelque peu. La Presse Canadienne, de sa propre initiative bien entendu, nous rappelle aujourd'hui que "la tête a besoin de la protection d'un casque dans une descente sur toboggan." Lien.

En effet, "quelque 2000 enfants sont blessés chaque année dans des chutes en glissade." 

Un agent spécial..., pardon, un "spécialiste des blessures d'enfants, Louis Francescutti, a d'autant plus calculé [...] que ces blessures coûtent probablement davantage à la société que les décès qui résultent des chutes." L'article omet malheureusement de mentionner combien d'enfants meurent chaque année des suites d'un accident de tobogan...

Et que fait-on, donc, quand des parents irresponsables induisent des coûts à la "société" canadienne en ne forcant pas leurs marmots à se casquer?

"Au niveau fédéral, Santé Canada recommande le port du casque pour les enfants dans les sports de glissade. Dans certaines provinces, dont l'Ontario, des voix se sont déjà élevées pour encourager le port du casque, mais jusqu'à maintenant, aucune législation n'a été adoptée en ce sens."

Bon sens, cet article a vraiment réponse à tout! Il poursuit d'ailleurs : "D'un autre côté, plusieurs parents interrogés sur le sujet trouvent la controverse totalement ridicule et croient `être pleinement en mesure de prendre soin de leurs enfants eux-mêmes.`" 

Oups, je crois bien avoir imaginé la dernière partie. Pardonnez- moi, elle ne se trouve pas dans le texte, non.  C'est sans doute que je croyais toujours lire un véritable article provenant d'une agence de presse crédible, et non un message d'intérêt public... 

Quand tous les enfants devront recevoir une formation obligatoire sur le maniement du couteau de cuisine, et qu'un logiciel de contrôle parental du contenu diffusé sur internet sera installé sur chaque ordinateur personnel, "pour la sécurité de nos citoyens les plus vulnérables", le sifflement de la bouilloire ne devrait pas trop tarder.

Martin Masse (encore) à Télé-Québec

 
Même heure, même poste. Il va y avoir du sport, en effet, alors que M. Masse, accompagné dans son coin "néolibéral" par René Vézina, rédacteur en chef du Journal Les Affaires, sera opposé à la toujours très rationelle Françoise David, ainsi qu'à l'ostracisé Yves Michaud, qui lobbye en faveur du bien-être des actionnaires Québécois (!) .

Le sujet : Faut-il limiter la rémunération des chefs d'entreprise?

À ne pas manquer vendredi le 26 à 19:30

En passant, suis-je le seul à trouver ironique que mademoiselle David, une socialiste accomplie, soit alliée au fondateur du Mouvement d'éducation et de défense des actionnaires sur un tel sujet? Prédiction : M. Michaud risque de s'allier au camp adverse pour contrer les poussées nationalisantes de sa partenaire. Ça promet!

Politicians out of fashion

This year's Christmas issue of Time Magazine has its own tribute to the WWW, entitled Person of the Year: You, which is quite revealing. According to the author, the Web is slowly changing human relationships, moving from a a relationship of authority, from politician to common man, to a relationship of equality, from individual to individual. I could not agree more, and this change is all for the better.

"Best of" the article :

The "Great Man" theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year.

To be sure, there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious skirmish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the Bomb, and the President of Iran wants to go nuclear too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn't make enough PlayStation3s.

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

Sure, it's a mistake to romanticize all this any more than is strictly necessary. Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.

But that's what makes all this interesting. Web 2.0 is a massive social experiment, and like any experiment worth trying, it could fail. There's no road map for how an organism that's not a bacterium lives and works together on this planet in numbers in excess of 6 billion. But 2006 gave us some ideas. This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person.

US and Somalia governments at extreme opposites

Somalia: Islamic Courts Deny Al-Qaeda Operatives In Country :

Yusuf Mohommed Siad Indho-adde, the chief of the Islamic Courts security section, warned African states not to send their troops to Somalia or that Somalia would the graveyard for the African troops.

UN Security Council members unanimously approved a US backed draft resolution to lift the arms embargo that was imposed on Somalia in 1992 to let regional peacekeepers enter the country and support the tenuous government based in the town of Baidoa, 245 km southwest of the capital Mogadishu.

Asked if the American government had particular interest in Somalia, Mudey said "The American government wants to impose democracy in Somalia and that is completely unacceptable to Islamic Courts, because we know the Koran and we believe it is our constitution".

Mudey's remarks directly contradicts [US assistant secretary of state for foreign affairs] Ms Frazer's who said that America was strong-minded in finding a democratic government in Somalia and that US could not accept an Islamic republic in the Horn of Africa.


Let's just hope these comments are only meant to improve each party's public image and that the fine people of Somalia can finally enjoy peace and prosperity. 
 

Canadian Food Guide a Haven of Multiculturalism

Toronto Star's Megan Ogilvie has a piece today concerning the upcoming revision of Canada's Food Guide, which is "designed to help Canadians make wise food choices, [by translating] the science of healthy eating into a practical pattern of food choices that meets nutrient needs, promotes health and minimizes the risk of nutrition-related chronic diseases." 

From the article :

A draft version from April obtained by the Star shows Health Canada has made additions to the food guide's signature rainbow graphic in an effort to make it more relevant to ethnic and cultural groups. It now includes pictures of bok choy, couscous, naan, soy milk and squid, for example, while white bread has been dropped.

Liberal health critic Ruby Dhalla (Brampton-Springdale) said the revised guide doesn't go far enough in reflecting the evolving needs of Canadians or taking into account differences between ethnic groups.

"The Chinese community eats a lot of rice," said Dhalla, who also sits on the standing committee on health, which has met with both stakeholders and Health Canada officials about the new food guide. "Will it take into account those types of differences?"


So, how exactly does taking into account the differences in eating pattern and "reflecting the evolving needs of Canadians" reconcile with the mission of the Guide which is, to repeat, to "help Canadians make wise food choices?" Aren't wise food choices independent of what culinary tradition one follows? 


The new food guide outlines a pattern of healthy eating based on the best science available, said Mary Bush, director general of the office of nutrition policy and promotion at Health Canada, who has overseen development of the guide.


Again, since when is nutritional science dependent on the varying tastes of individuals? Has it become healthy for North Americans to eat fast food in large quantities because it is now part of our tradition? Obviously not. Why then would a governmental food guide try to convince people of what they already believe in?


But according to Dhalla, the standing committee on health has heard from various health professionals, including family physicians, and experts on aboriginal health and childhood obesity, that Health Canada did not undertake a comprehensive consultation process. The stakeholders worry that Health Canada sought advice only on the optics of the food guide, not on its nutritional content, she said.


Well, that would actually be better than reality. Reality is that the CFG is intentionally designed so to keep the population fat and stupid, by including harmful products such as refined carbs, sugar and whole grains.

But it's so damn pretty!