Climate Change? SuperGod will stop it!

I just have to shake my head.

First off, I'm a climate change skeptic. The evidence that has been put forth that humans are causing a catastrophic shift in the Earth's climate has more holes than it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

When you have systems that chart sections of Lake Michigan at being well above boiling and of course Michael Mann's "hide the decline" and you have a temperature monitoring system that fails its own basic quality controls, but with the alarmists not even acknowledging it? Sorry, but if somebody can't acknowledge even the most glaring mistakes, they can't be following the scientific method.

And the court of public opinion is swaying away from the alarmists' side to the more rational point of view that the science still needs to be ironed out before we destroy our entire economies chasing a measly 1 degree temperature correction. People are starting to notice how the alarmists' arguments are downright hysterical and that there seems to be a more calm, rational point of view amongst those who aren't really buying into the climate change catastrophe.

And then... we have people like this...

I'm sorry, but what the hell?!? Did I just hear that right? In one breath this guy talks about the "word of God" being infallible while quoting from the Book of Genesis and in the next he's talking about the dinosaurs?

This is why the left and political moderates don't take the skeptical point as seriously as it should. Instead of having scientific discussions to debate scientific issues, we have religious-zealot, government representatives arguing against science with anecdotal creation stories.

It's people like this who drive the whole climate change debate right into the ditch.

MTO Prerequisite: Fail an IQ Test

It kills me how completely mindless the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario is. Bad enough that gridlock in the GTA has gone almost completely unabated over the past three decades, but now we have to deal with the McGuinty Liberals' obsession with high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.

For some reason they feel that giving special privileges to carpooling vehicles is going to solve gridlock unlike, say, building new roads. And perhaps in a perfect world that would happen. Unfortunately it appears they have decided to throw common sense out the window simply because of the connection the term has with Mike Harris.

The final nail in that coffin: the HOV lanes being built on the QEW.

The QEW is probably the one highway most in need of more lanes. Anybody who has driven the QEW during rush hour dreads the next trip. What is basically a twenty minute trip between where Highway 403 connects with the QEW and then breaks off again drags out to a full one hour.

The brilliance of the MTO under Dalton McGuinty thinks that building HOV lanes is going to solve it. And perhaps Westbound the HOV lanes might work. But whoever decided that HOV lanes on the Eastbound QEW really needs their head checked.

The HOV lanes are being installed roughly where the 403 merges with the QEW. That's fine since any traffic using the HOV lanes will have the ability to get on at any time. The problem is that the HOV lane ends where the 403 breaks off of the QEW again.

The HOV lanes are on the North side of the highway.

The 403 exit is on the South side of the highway.

This basically means that any HOV traffic that is to use the 403 will have to cross over four to five lanes of traffic to get to the exit! This is going to have the effect of actually worsening the gridlock beside the Ford plant at the QEW/403 branching.

Seriously... do people have to fail IQ tests to get a job designing the roads for the MTO? I'd really like to see the look on the Minister of Transportation's face when he realizes the complete SNAFU his incompetence has allowed to develop.

U.N. Women: Un-Women indeed

So, the United Nations has decided to streamline their efforts to support the rights of women by creating a new organization called U.N. Women. Documentary filmmaker Ami Horowitz (U.N. Me) has written an excellent analysis on this "it would be humorous if it weren't so tragic" situation.

It amazes me that people still exalt the U.N. as some beacon of civilization. With its consistent impotence in the face of:

• genocide;
• terrorism;
• racism;
• homophobia;
• bigotry; and obviously,
• abuse of women

...while simultaneously being one of the singularly most corrupt organizations in history, the U.N. is long overdue for a good, swift sulfuric-acid enema if it is ever going to amount to anything other than being a cruel joke on the citizens of the Earth.

The Co-opting of Remembrance

Today is a day for reflection.

Reflection on the cost of our freedom. Reflection on the unconditional love of those fellow citizens who stand in the ranks of our military and put themselves on the line for those of us who do not, will not or cannot for ourselves.

And yet there are those amongst us who -- for one reason or another -- can't put self-interest and self-importance aside. Even for one occasion of such importance.

Put simply, they just don't get it.

These are the people who feel the need to co-opt every important message for their own interests. Whether it be animal activists who dilute the merits of our soldier citizens by distributing purple poppies to honor animals that died during war or peace activists who hold such self-importance that they cannot leave well alone by distributing white poppies to promote peace through non-conflict, something I'm sure every Holocaust survivor thanks the maker never happened while they were lined up in the death camps.

These activists clearly don't get it.

Remembrance Day is already about peace. Does the fact that ceremonies and our quiet reflections take place at the moment that the war ended mean nothing? It is already about the lives of all those who served and all that is protected or lost, whether man or beast.

Do these groups need another version of the poppy? Unless they are trying to draw attention to their activism -- which ultimately means they value self-promotion over self-reflection -- the answer is clearly no.

Our soldiers stand on a plane of citizenry that most of us will never quite fathom. Their families know all too well the cost. It is unfortunate that self-centered activists just cannot put their self-interests aside... even for one day.

Perhaps if these activists reflected on exactly what Remembrance Day is, they might just realize that the red poppy already symbolizes what their co-opt poppies are supposed to mean. This lack of understanding only turns their co-opt poppies into a exercise in self-mockery; turning a day of selfless remembrance into a day of selfish ignorance and obliviousness.

Lest we forget... Clearly some of us already have.

Philosophy VS Emotional Reactions

I recently got into a heated discussion about whether hiding one's political leanings is in fact any part of one's political beliefs themselves rather than just an emotional response to the fear of public scrutiny. And it got me thinking.

Is it even possible to both believe that the philosophy one embraces is correct and should be reality but also believe that this philosophy should be hidden?

And I don't mean it should be hidden on a personal level because of one's own discomfort. I mean, hidden on a philosophical level in that the philosophy's very existence is dependent upon it being hidden... kind of like God must be hidden for faith to exist.

It seems to me that possessing political beliefs is completely separate of how one chooses to express those beliefs, no matter what those beliefs are. If one's expression of a belief were an actual part of that political philosophy itself, then we would have to have separate categorizations for:

Closeted/Anonymous

Fair-Weather

Begrudging

Active

Extremist

But we all believe that our political views are correct. That's why it's called a belief. If I believe that a free-market economy is the best solution to global economics, then I'd want to see it enacted. I wouldn't want to see it hidden. And in fact, I can't simultaneously believe that something should be enacted and hidden.

If I believe that a free-market economy is the best solution but I'm afraid to let people know, then anonymity isn't part of that economic belief. It's not part of that political categorization. Anonymity is part of who I am. It's a part of my emotional wiring and my response and is nothing more than the connective tissue between my beliefs and the opposing belief.

Or am I wrong here and it is possible that a person can both believe that something should be enacted while simultaneously believing it should be hidden?