How Cold is It?

I don't have an on-line link to the cartoon so this is a bit out of context. Basically a Harper like figure was putting ice in his drink to combat global warming. My reply was published in the Era, with the only change being to introduce an error by converting degrees to C - which turned 54 F into 54 Celsius?!?

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Looking at your editorial cartoon I was thinking this is misleading. With the climate change conference in Cancun being held in the coldest temperatures recorded there in over 100 years the scene in the pool must be from historical stock cartoons not a contemporary observation. More likely they were sipping lattes to warm up. I guess as with the record cold in Copenhagen last conference the weather just has not read what the climate models are predicting and laws need to be passed to make them obey doom and gloom predictions, even if 54 degrees on a tropical beach seems gloomy enough to my way of thinking.

Harper as a Junkie?

Stephen Harper has of course taken on a back up job as a piano man. His choice of songs is a bit puzzling. I sent this to the National Post in reply to his latest gig yesterday, no tongue in check no not me.

It was published this morning, including corrections as I had not noticed there was indeed a picture of him playing (with no article)

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I was surprised to see no coverage today of Mr. Harper’s latest singing gig with “Jumping Jack Flash” as the grand finale at the Conservative Christmas Party. This song is of course well known as a tribute to the joys of heroin use by unrepentant junkie Keith Richards. Other songs included “Share the Land”, a collectivist anthem of social redistribution, and of course this gig is a follow-on to his earlier debut at the NCC where he sang the line “I get high with a little help from my friends”.

While Mr. Harper’s policies are clearly increasingly collectivist, so that seems consistent, the other choices do seem at odds with his importing of extreme policies from the U.S. war on drugs. Is there some major policy change in the works perhaps?

So Wikileaks is down this morning, and conservatives across the world are calling for murder of the messenger. I took a tiny stand today to the National Post. The NP were strong defenders of press freedoms when the Liberals came calling on them, maybe they can pushed to help others too.

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I was extremely disappointed to see Tom Flanagan’s comments advocating Julian Assange “should be assassinated” relegated to only a short blurb, without editorial comment. Tom Flanagan is a driving force of the Conservative Party of Canada with senior access to their policy process. Such a person issuing the moral equivalent of a Fatwa on a reporter for leaking material needs to be held to the highest scrutiny. Other conservatives in the U.S. are also calling for his murder, and this will be seen as international support at an official level from Canada.

Regardless of how any organization feels about the legality of publishing leaked material clearly what Mr. Assange has done is no different morally than what the National Post and every major media organization in the world has done when they have published portions of the same material made available to them. Will you protest after they come for your writers who are doing the same as Wikileaks, or will you stand for freedom of the press now?