Expat Texan

What say you now?

A young girl carrying explosives that killed her, an Iraqi captain and injured four soldiers was blown up by remote control, officials said today.

The usual suspects will continue to scream about the US invasion of Iraq, the baby mudering US soldiers, the war crimes of Bush and Cheney - all the while ignoring and remaining completely silent when it comes to the real baby murderers.

An eight-year-old girl was strapped with remote-controlled explosives and used as a human bomb by Iraqi insurgents in a blast that killed an Iraqi commander earlier today.

An Iraqi captain was killed and seven other soldiers were injured in the explosion which took place in the town of Youssifiyah, south of Baghdad.

Remember, Jihad means peaceful inner struggle, and we must not allow women to appear in public unsecorted by male family members or without appropriately concealing garb.  However, the brave “freedom fighters” Michael Moore and his ilk are so proud of don’t hesitate to blow up little girls and mentally disabled women - because they know that US and coalition “sensibilities” about the modesty of Muslim women will be respected, allowing the unwitting, unwilling “suicide” bombers to get closer to their targets.

Question - are you a suicide bomber if you have no idea that you are carrying explosives, and are murdered by the blast along with your “targets”?

Notice that the brave mujahadin are referred to as insurgents.  I know that the media have style guidelines to follow - but just once could we call them murdering, cowardly bastards to more accurately reflectthe reality on the ground?

Gets slippery-er.

This is the first time that the Endangered Species Act has been used to protect a species threatened by the impacts of global warming. There has been concern within the business community that such action could have far-reaching impact and could be used to regulate carbon dioxide.

As always, there are declarative statements by environmental activists that aren’t backed up by any objective evidence:

“The science is absolutely clear that polar bear needs protection under the Endangered Species Act,” said Andrew Wetzler, director of the endangered species program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Oh, really?  Rachel Carson would, undoubtedly, be proud of what she has wrought.

Remember, this is the oft edited version, and it still reads like something a spiteful pre-teen would write.

The corridors of power are abuzz today with the news that Sandra Buckler, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s communications director is in hospital for surgery for thyroid cancer, fortunately one of the more curable versions of a very nasty disease. The press gallery is sending flowers - although a flowering cactus might be more appropriate given Ms. Buckler’s prickly relations with most members of the fourth estate on the Hill.

That said, we wish her well and urge her to take a long, long time off to get completely better.

The angry comments to the original post quickly resulted in multiple (unseen by us) edits.  Followed today by an “apology”. I do, however, have reason to doubt the veracity Ms. Thompson’s claims in things she has learned #4:

4 - Past donations to cancer research, helping friends with cancer and asking your employer to transfer some of your vacation days to a colleague so they could spend more time with a spouse dying of cancer do not make up for writing something insensitive.

I can’t believe that anyone who actually helped friends with cancer would make such a joke.  Ever.  Especially not if they had ever watched a friend or family member die of the disease.

I’m a little taken aback by her #5 as well:

5 - Despite the adversarial atmosphere that has descended on Parliament in the past couple of years, the Hill is still a classy place.

I wonder who Ms. Thompson would hold accountable for the adversarial atmosphere that has “descended” on Parliament - does she even realize the irony of that comment after what she posted?  Especially the original version of her post?  One also wonders how she defines “classy”, as she had no problem with making light of a competitors potentially fatal illness with no thoughts about the consequences.  It might help to remember that not all curable cancers are cured.  While true that most thyroid tumors in women can be successfully treated - there are many different variants and grades of thyroid malignancy.  Making fun of someone’s disease because it is “probably” curable is incredibly juvenile and insensitive.

Finally, it seems like perhaps there should have been a 6th lesson learned - not to act like a spiteful bitch when posting about a political opponents health concerns.  But not to worry, a bouquet of flowers has been sent, so all sins should be absolved.

How things will be once the environazis gain the control they so desperately want.

A council refused to collect rubbish from a 95-year-old war veteran who is nearly blind - because he put a ketchup bottle in the wrong bin.

Lenny Woodward, a former Desert Rat who has lived in the same house for 58 years, was confused by a new regime of fortnightly collections and rigid recycling rules.

Residents have a blue wheelie bin for cans and cardboard, a green box for glass and a black bin for other waste.

Mr Woodward made the mistake of putting the ketchup bottle and a coffee jar in the blue bin when they should have gone in the green box.

Served his country.  95 years old, almost blind.  And treated like trash for the heinous crime of mixing up the recycling.  Petty beaurocrats love nothing more than weilding their awesome powers over the weak and helpless.  Prats.

When binmen inspected the blue bin, they refused to empty it and attached a tag to it warning him not to break the rules again.

And when his daughter rang Norwich City Council to explain that he was baffled by the new regime, she was told that “rules have to be obeyed”.

Yes, the rules have to be obeyed.  Especially if we can use our powers of supreme bossiness to make a 95 year old man follow our rules - whether he has the capacity to understand them or not.  Read the comments - the citizens of the UK are, let’s jsut say, displeased.  The recurring question - “how come our tax dollars are being used to pay these petty despots to boss us around?”.  Nothing like giving small, petty people a taste of power to allow their incipient assholery to grow and manifest to its fullest potential.

Happy Mother’s Day

more cat pictures

At least inCalgary.  My folks are here visiting, so not too much time for posting my erudite musings.  Those of you who wonder why I’m allowed access to the interwebs, rejoice in my hiatus!

With the words “Great Tits” in the headline?

Via.

Real or fake?

Garbage in = Garbage out.

It seems to have become somewhat of a game to see who can add in the most creative feedback mechanisms to produce the scariest warming scenarios from their models, but there remains no evidence that the planet behaves in such a manner. Not only is it highly debatable as to whether water vapour acts as a positive or negative feed-back, but what has been observed in laboratories is that CO2 actually has a logarithmic relationship with temperature [i.e. it takes a big increase in of CO2 to produce a small rise in temperature].

First we had the firearms registry boondoggle.

Canada’s controversial gun registry is costing taxpayers far more than previously reported, CBC News has learned.

Nearly $2 billion has either been spent on or committed to the federal program since it was introduced in the mid-1990s, according to documents obtained by Zone Libre of CBC’s French news service.

The figure is roughly twice as much as an official government estimate that caused an uproar across the country.

The gun registry was originally supposed to cost less than $2 million. In December 2002, Auditor General Sheila Fraser revealed that the program would run up bills of at least $1 billion by 2005.

Now, get ready for a personal and business carbon tax.

The findings of The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey suggest the politically risky move of putting a price on carbon holds a potential payoff.

The federal Liberals are weighing a plank in their platform that would put a price on pollution — and Environment Minister John Baird ridiculed them yesterday for considering what he calls a tax grab.

But when asked whether they supported the idea of a carbon tax on businesses and people based on the carbon emissions they generate, 61% of poll respondents said yes and 32% said no.

I predict this will be another cost vs. benefit analysis debacle once it actually becomes law.  Ask people - “Do you support the use of Solar Panels to decrease dependence on foreign oil and benefit the environment” - and I bet a majority will respond with a hearty and enthusiastic  “Of Course!”.  Try and force them to actually pay for that conversion, especially once they figure out that it may take them 20+ years to recoup their expenses (much less see a monetary benefit) - and the enthusiastic support evidenced in a hypothetical poll question suddenly vanishes.

Here’s the most comforting part:

He (poll representative - ed) says one thing is clear: The idea of a green-friendly tax system holds considerable support, and politicians who speak only of ‘carbon taxes’ are barely tapping into it.

“This central idea of taxing particularly harmful behaviour (as defined by whom? - ed), and rewarding the opposite, is a potential political game-changer for the party that can get it right and describe it clearly,” Anderson said.

Ohhhhh, that’s gonna hurt.  Let’s start with the “carbon tax”, and then do other things to tap into a “green friendly tax system”.  In other words, tax the hell out of people who don’t subscribe to government mandated changes in lifestyle decreed by their response to global warming climate change.  Ask California how that’s working out for them.

The latest Census Bureau data indicate that, in 2005, 239,416 more native-born Americans left the state than moved in. California is also on pace to lose domestic population (not counting immigrants) this year. The outmigration is such that the cost to rent a U-Haul trailer to move from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho, is $2,090–or some eight times more than the cost of moving in the opposite direction.

What’s gone wrong? A big part of the story is a tax and regulatory culture that treats the most productive businesses and workers as if they were ATMs. The cost to businesses of complying with California’s rules, regulations and paperwork is more than twice as high as in other Western states.

Scariest words in the English language?  “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help”.