TORONTO REGAINS SANITY - ELECTS ROB FORD

I think I really started despising Toronto last year when I read that they were trying to make green roofs MANDATORY on government buildings. The idiots in charge spent 21 million taxpayer dollars to "green" city hall, just to suck up to special interest groups and of course the planners and developers who are making a fortune on the sustainability scam.

Yes, these bozos actually pretend that all this stuff will affect the climate and there is no shortage of ignorant people who believe them, thus enabling them to sign on for "sustainable" energy which costs 20-25% more than regular electricity. What's even stupider is that this green energy is put on the grid, but no one knows if the energy they personally use actually comes from a "green" source, since it's not handled separately. Only a delusional greenie would pay money for a product they may or may not be getting, but then again they buy carbon credits, don't they?

Unfortunately, George Smitherman (remember the guy who mismanaged all that public money hiring those e-health consultants that didn't produce anything?) decided that EVERYBODY should contribute when he, as Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, brought in Ontario's green energy act in 2009, which made everyone pay more by forcing power-purchasing authorities to "grant priority and obligatory purchase of power from green energy projects". When the government is mandating the purchase of certain products which result in unnecessary price increases for the homeowner, it is not about the environment or even about ideology anymore - it is about corporations, government agencies and unions running the show (and all the palm-greasing that entails) with the peasants footing the bill. The useful idiot footsoldiers of the environmentalist movement haven't figured this out, as they clamor for bird-killing wind turbines (which require power backup from other sources), restrictions on businesses and a surge in the war on cars.

Sensing some easy pickings, Mr. Smitherman decided to withdraw from the provincial cabinet and run for mayor of Toronto. Of course he would be the perfect fit: an eco-nut, a proven big spender, and gay to boot - resumes don't get much better than that in lefty-land. So, unless he had to run against a one-legged lesbian vegetarian visible minority candidate who spent her spare time organizing walkathons for homeless street mimes displaced by global warming, he pretty well had it in the bag, Or so he thought.

But a funny thing happened in Toronto. Enter Rob Ford, the epitome of political incorrectitude (yeah, I think I made that word up - if it isn't a word yet, it should be). A local councilor for ten years, he has made statements that have the lefties choking on their lattes. He is not a fan of big government. He doesn't give a crap about global warming or "going green". Running on the slogan "Stop the Gravy Train", his main platform is cutting government waste and ending the catering to special interest groups.

He wants to cut council from 44 to 22, slash their expense accounts and remove their perks like golf passes and free parking outside of working hours. Of course, this pisses off the council members. He wants to stop the war on cars and get rid of the vehicle registration fee. This pisses off the car-haters. He is against bike lanes on the arterial roads, which really pisses off the cyclists who want bike lanes everywhere. He wants to contract out services like waste disposal, which really pisses off the unions. He doesn't think the government should tell people what to eat or how to live. This pisses off the Nannies. He is fat, outspoken and apparently pisses everyone off. So he couldn't possibly get elected in a left-wing ultra-progressive city like Toronto, could he?

Just to make sure, other candidates dropped out of the race in an attempt to throw voter support behind Smitherman. Eventually only Smitherman and Ford were the real contenders, with one other candidate so far behind he didn't matter. The media kept reassuring everyone that the race was too close to call, but I thought it was odd that no matter what any of the articles said, the comments were 98% pro-Ford. I don't have to tell you how much I was rooting for this guy - a NORMAL person, in Toronto of all places. Well, I didn't have to wait long to find out: less than ten minutes after the polls closed, the news outlets were declaring him a winner. He won in a landslide and the media were left scratching their heads over how their polls could have been so wrong.

One theory is that people thought voting for Ford was socially unacceptable, so they didn't want to admit who they favored. This is really sad, but today a lot of people keep their opinions to themselves for fear of being politically incorrect - it's time to change that or we are really going to go down the tubes. Maybe people voted for Ford rather than have someone with a track record like Smitherman's (understandable), but I think it was more than that. I think people are waking up to the problems with big government, with the unconscionable waste of money on programs the public doesn't want or need, and the accompanying financial hardship of keeping up with the tax burden associated with out-of-control spending.

Now that just about everyone has access to the internet, people can see what is being done with their money, and they are not happy about it. The election of Rob Ford against all odds is the first crack in the dam, we are going to see a huge change in what has been business as usual for so long. I just wish we could clone him and bring him here to run the RD. God knows we could use him.

HELPFUL HUSBAND TIPS

My goodness, it's been forever since I last blogged - I've been busy annoying the greenolas in the local paper and just haven't had the time to put together a decent blog. I still don't so I'm going to post a funny thing the old man just unearthed. I wrote it for him a few years back after recovering from a nasty bout of the flu, during which time my significant other was, shall we say, less than outstanding in his role as compassionate caregiver:

TAYLOR'S GUIDE TO SPOUSAL CAREGIVING

1) Under no circumstances admit that the sick person is actually sick. Pretend that they are faking it to get out of their miserable existence of slaving for you.

2) Do not do any of the routine chores, as this could cause the sick person to become spoiled and expect you to do so at some future date, in the event that they recover.

3) Absolutely do not look after pets or livestock because you know that no matter how sick the patient is, she will get up off her deathbed to do this. There is no reason for you to miss "Xena, Warrior Maiden" on this account.

4) If desperate, you may prepare your own meal: however, do not even consider making tea or taking in a glass of water to your ailing spouse, you are enough of a hero for making your own food so she does not have to get up and do it. The ungrateful old bag should appreciate this heroic effort on your part.

5) Let the dishes and laundry pile up, this gives the little woman something to do between coughing fits.

6) Complain loudly about her coughing - it isn't polite to keep you awake just because she can't breathe. Call her rude names like "behemoth" and "narwhal", and mock her with animal imitations.

7) Demand sex - the sick person couldn't possibly feel any worse.

Yep, that was a few years ago, but it still makes me laugh.

RAT PATROL

Looking for the perfect gift for that enviro-weenie in your life? Everybody knows one - not necessarily an environmental activist, maybe just someone with no life who enjoys ratting out their fellow man at every opportunity. Well, look no further - the eco-snoop is here: a phone app that enables you to post photos of environmental transgressions directly to a website (frequented by other losers with no lives) where you can all obsess about the evil cleaning lady leaving the lights on in the closet in some office building.

If you type in eco-snoop on YouTube, you'll get to watch an enlightening video featuring some smarmy skank with a bad makeup job telling you how to bust eco-crime in your community. Lovely. What kind of a lame-brained waste of skin would spend their time patrolling their neighborhood on a Friday night, looking for dripping taps and redundant porch lights? Hmm, I'm guessing someone with the self-esteem of a cabbage and no date.

How insane is this? How did we as a society get so pathetic that the only way some people have left to feel valid is by trying to give themselves some sort of perceived authority as enviro-enforcers? I can only imagine the interesting scenarios that would ensue if people were to actually follow the advice given on the video. Just take the photo into the offending business, Miss Skankleton suggests, they are probably not even aware of the problem and will be only too happy to fix it. Yes, I'm sure the manager would be just thrilled to be interrupted at work by some smelly permanently-unemployed self-righteous planet-saver explaining to him how he could run his business more efficiently. In fact, he would probably be so grateful for the input that he'd open a free can of whup-ass and provide a handy styrofoam container to take their teeth home in. Good God - the unmitigated GALL of it!

I shouldn't be surprised - this trend has been gaining popularity, especially with the younger set. Kids have been getting indoctrinated right and left (mostly left) to nag, whine, pester and rat on behalf of the eco-freaks. Anthony Watts, on his most excellent website wattsupwiththat.com, has an article (2008/07/27) about Climate Cops - a club for kids who have had the misfortune of being born (or exposed) to misguided environmental nitwits. He shows excerpts from an ad in a British newspaper which exhorts children to not only investigate their own families for "climate crimes", writing reports and keeping files on "cases", but also to spy on the homes of relatives and school friends. They are instructed to check back on cases periodically to make sure no one slips back into their wasteful ways. The very idea of some snot-nosed brat from down the street telling me to stop idling my car would be laughable if it weren't for the chilling similarity to the campaign mounted by a certain deranged little fellow with a funny moustache in order to transfer children's allegiance from their parents to the state.

I wish they'd leave the kids alone, a five-year-old should not have to worry about his carbon footprint or that Santa may not get to his house because humans are causing global warming and melting the North Pole. This was the theme of a kid's Christmas video propaganda series on the popular Build-A-Bear website, until backlash from outraged parents forced them to remove the video and issue an apology. Kids today are constantly bombarded with lies about dying animals and our imminent destruction in the fiery CO2-induced hell caused by their parent's addiction to nasty things like driving them to soccer practice. Talk about growing up with a guilt trip, as if kids don't despise us enough when they become teenagers - why give them any reason to start sooner? This undermining of parental authority is one of the most disturbing aspects of the green movement, along with the promotion of products like the rat-a-phone which encourages people to go around tattling on their neighbors and local businesses.

I guess there's a whole crew of modern-day Barney Fifes out there now, with their imaginary badges and no bullets, keeping an electronic eye on the rest of us and feeling like heros. Adolf would be proud.

PANTS ON FIRE

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Vindication!!! Schadenfreude!!! Good old-fashioned outright absolute GLOATING!!! Yes! It has finally happened - Climategate - and I'm doing the happy dance.

When the story broke a few days ago it just seemed too good to be true, but now it has been confirmed and it's the mother of all Christmas presents for the climate realists. Information has been released from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit in the U.K. outlining the nefarious activities of those in the climate lying/carbon persecution/green fraud business. A file containing over a thousand e-mails and documents has been obtained by persons unknown and posted on the internet. Hackers are being widely credited for this, but many people believe it is the work of an insider who was just fed up with the corruption, which makes more sense to me. However, blaming "hackers" and focusing on the criminality of leaking the information allows the perpetrators to attempt to gain the moral high ground in the press. What a laugh - if it was an environmentalist busting Exxon for the same kind of shenanigans, the media would be all over it praising the whistleblower as the savior of humanity.

But amazingly enough this development is actually getting some media attention, in some cases even acknowledging the wrongdoing of the climate fraudsters and supporting an investigation into it. I should hope so, since the incriminating e-mails include references to deleting files in order to thwart freedom of information requests, preventing peer-review and publication of papers which do not support the theory of anthropogenic global warming, and fudging data to "hide the decline" in temperatures. This is pretty nasty stuff and it will not be possible to sweep it under the rug like in the good old days when we depended on the mainstream media to tell us what our opinions should be.

When the actual observations don't fit their predictions, they blame the data. Mother Nature not co-operating? Temperatures embarrassingly dropping? Well then: "the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate". Yes, that must be it. It couldn't possibly be a flawed computer model - it's supposed to be WARMING, goddammit!!! The X-box says so!!!!

It's about to get hotter for the alarmists all right, but not in quite the way they had envisioned. Senator Inhofe in the U.S., a longtime opponent of the global warming scam, has stated that he will be calling for an investigation into the matter and I will certainly be looking forward to seeing that condescending dimwit Barbara Boxer try to squirm her way out of this one (I've never forgiven her for being so appallingly rude to Michael Crichton). There's a little something for your buddy BHO to take to Copenhagen, missy.

Just going to algorelied.com or climatedepot.com gives links to hundreds of articles documenting and discussing the perversion of science that has been allowed to take place in the name of cheating taxpayers out of billions of dollars and saddling us with insane carbon-related regulations. Of course, the alarmist community will have no problem throwing these guys under the bus; they will declare it outrageous, call for resignations, play the "one bad apple" card, and then go right back to lying through their teeth about exactly the same things.

Even the Goracle is not leaping to their defense - I went to his lame website (it's a necessary evil, like cleaning out the kitty-litter box, but you just have to hold your nose and do it) and he is keeping his piehole firmly shut on this one. I didn't even know he was capable of that, but who would have expected otherwise - there is no honor among thieves.

These indications of foul play are not surprising to climate realists - Chris Horner cites many examples of exactly this type of thing in his excellent book Red Hot Lies, and the climate blogosphere is rife with articles debunking such fabrications as Mann's famous hockey stick, the hurricane connection and ridiculous predictions of catastrophic sea level rise. Lawrence Solomon's book The Deniers also has some good information, but most people just aren't interested enough in the subject to read up on it. They should, because if this deception is allowed to continue we are going to find ourselves in a different world, with all aspects of our lives micromanaged under the guise of saving the planet from evil CO2 emissions. Addressing this latest development in the mainstream media will lead people into becoming more informed, even if only out of curiosity. Nothing like a good scandal to get people's attention, and the more they learn about this issue, the less likely they will be to fall for "green" solutions to nonexistent problems, or to fork over money for dubious "research".

Cost of financing the global warming scam: Billions

Cost to all of us if cap and trade passes: Unlimited

Catching climate liars with their pants down: PRICELESS!!!

Schadenfreude. Sometimes you just can't say it in English.

RISKY BUSINESS

CBS news has just released information from a months-long investigation of the swine flu "emergency" (at CBSnews.com - "Swine Flu Cases Overestimated?"). In July, the CDC stopped testing/counting individual swine flu cases, supposedly because there would be no point in keeping records since it's a PANDEMIC and all, so we can just go ahead and assume that it's the swine flu, right? Wow, that is really scientific. We can just ASSUME!!! Who knew??? I doubt they could get away with this crap if they were testing dog food at the Purina factory. They'd probably expect, well, actual DATA or something. So I guess you could stop tracking it in order to throw the resources into fighting it (their excuse). OR maybe you could stop tracking it so the public wouldn't realize that the cases are far less than we have been led to think, and we are once again being hoodwinked by the big pharmaceutical companies and their bumboys in the government. Personally, I'm going with answer B.

Reports are coming out based on "estimates" and "reported cases", with the media running headlines like "X number of people infected with H1N1". Not lab-confirmed. Just assumed to be infected because they had symptoms which happened to be common to many other ailments. When my grandson recently stayed home with a cold, the school asked what his symptoms were. Now school secretaries are diagnosing swine flu? Do kids with the right symptoms get written up as "probable" H1N1 so they can prop up their statistics? This kind of shoddy data-collection wouldn't be tolerated in any private business, but it appears to be good enough for the government-run health care system that people pay for and entrust their lives to.

Investigative reporters had to resort to the Freedom of Information act in order to force the CDC to release their statistics, which showed that the number of CONFIRMED cases was a very small fraction of the "guesstimates" that were making scary headlines worldwide. Look around, for God's sake - it's not happening!!!

And yet this weekend Mr. Obama declared this supposed pandemic a national emergency so they could bypass federal requirements and get this vaccine into as many people as possible. Now if this man is so divorced from reality that he considers this a reasonable measure, he is obviously not fit to run a lemonade stand, much less an entire country. If he does understand the situation and is knowingly going ahead with this deception, then he is a criminal.

Of course we are getting our share of hysteria in Canada, too. Just look at any of the mainstream media to see pictures of the sheeple lined up to get their magic bullet. Guaranteed to save you from the big bad piggy flu. Really? Flu vaccines sure haven't come with a money-back guarantee so far. The ability of the flu virus to mutate has become a major selling point for the fear-mongers, but that inherent quality is exactly what makes flu vaccines such a crap shoot in the first place. Not much point getting a vaccine for the wrong strain of flu, is there?

Interest in getting flu shots is waning, and Big Pharma is resorting to ever more desperate measures to convince us that we need them. For the first time in history we have almost unlimited access to information, and the more informed people become the less likely they are to be suckered into undergoing an invasive procedure which has been insufficiently tested and is potentially damaging. So the real emergency would seem to be more economic than medical - millions of dollars spent and resources wasted on what is starting to look more and more like a manufactured crisis. Not to mention the fallout yet to be seen from the side effects of the shot. The vaccine is being recommended for pregnant women, yet even the vaccine manufacturers admit that the effect on the fetus is unknown. That's a pretty big gamble to take with the life of your unborn child.

Do you take a chance with unknown side effects or take the chance of contracting this milder version of the standard flu? Since we appear to have been reduced to getting our medical advice from the media, maybe it's time to to get some advice from someone who is just as qualified to advise us as the news reporters are. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry: "You've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky?" Well, do you?

HAIR

I've been a little preoccupied lately, and haven't been keeping up with the mundane things in life such as coloring the old grey hair. I never gave it much thought until about ten years ago, when my husband started making "old grey mare" and "grey as a mule" remarks (he's nothing if not romantic). I originally wrote it off as jealousy, since at the time his hair was rapidly losing the battle for territory with his forehead. Hah, I thought, just sour grapes. But then my brother started nagging me too. He's a real diplomat: "My God you're grey!" - "Your hair looks like crap." -"Why don't you dye that rats-nest?". You know, subtle hints designed to spare my feelings.

Now, he's pushing fifty and still sports a luxuriant mullet that would turn Joe Dirt green with envy, but I was still skeptical until the day I got reading glasses and a decent mirror light. YIKES! Where did that grey-haired old bat come from? Okay, okay, I get it. Off to Wal-Mart for a box of instant youth.

The results were pretty good, so for years I've been dyeing my hair a basic boring brown. Unexciting, but better than grey. But lately I've been putting it off. That little strip down the center of my scalp has been widening steadily, eventually giving rise to the usual Pepe le Pew comparisons from my eagle-eyed family members. I'm not sure why, but this time I decided to do something a little different (here's where the warning bells should have gone off) and change the color ever-so-slightly. Maybe put a little red in it - after all, I had auburn highlights in the prehistoric days of my youth - it would probably suit me. So I bought the same brand, same basic color, just with a little red thrown in. Or so I thought.

Well, I thought wrong. That box did not contain "copper-red brown" like it said on the label. Oh no, it was more like "Highly Unlikely Red", "Incredible Redible", or "What The Hell Were You Thinking?". Or, as my comedically-inclined daughter suggested: "Prosti-tutti-frutti". I think not - with this look, I couldn't give it away in front of the Courtenay House at twenty-five cents a pop. I mean, it's really hideous. Calling it God-awful would be a compliment.

You can't possibly imagine my feelings when I viewed the final result (unless you have had the same unfortunate experience, in which case you have my sincere condolences). The first glance at my flaming head brought to mind visions of Nicholas Cage in Ghost Rider. It looked like someone had doused my head with red paint then set it on fire. As I stared into the mirror, I found myself gripped by the overwhelming urge to go out and slap cuffs on the Hamburgler. Oh man, this one is going to be hard to live down.

But I'm stuck with it now, for redder or for worse, for at least a month - I'll just have to wash it lots, wait for it to wear off, and maybe start wearing a hat. Or just stay home and pretend I've gone on vacation. I've already resigned myself to looking like some kind of geriatric streetwalker, but the worst is yet to come. My brother hasn't seen it yet. I'm already steeling myself for the Olympic Torch jokes.

THE C-WORD

Euphemisms have an amazing effect on people. They influence our perceptions, shape our values and can even control our behavior. Take "going green" for instance: sounds nice - kinda harmless - brings to mind those idyllic leafy forest scenes in the commercials where willowy girls in long white dresses swan around chasing butterflies and being thrilled to be having their period. Now who wouldn't like that? But if "going green" was referred to by the more accurate term "lifestyle regulation", I'm thinking not so many people would be interested in signing up.

"Sustainability" is the new word-of-the-week, since people are wising up to the green scam. The green profiteers keep having to change their buzzword as the new wears off and people become aware of the actual meanings. When global warming became downright embarrassing as the earth continued to cool in the face of rising CO2 levels, it became "climate change". Can't argue with that, can you? It's like that old detective show where the "names were changed to protect the innocent". Except they're doing it to protect the guilty.

This sustainability thing needs to be recognized for what it really is, and I'm going to have to use the c-word here. I don't like to use it because people tend to stop listening when I do, but here it is anyway: communism (what the hell were YOU thinking?).

If you look at the official "sustainability strategy" for our valley, it's not hard to see where it's going - rationing of energy and water, control of the business and housing sector, land appropriation, indoctrination of the children, and my personal favorite: "ecosystem protection on 100% of public and private land". Meaning basically that if you have any "threatened" plants or a body of water bigger than a mud puddle on your property... you, my friend, are screwed. It pretty much hands over the keys to your kingdom to the government, in the name of environmental protection. Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that a whole lot of things are going to become "eco-sensitive" in the not-so-distant future?

And community gardens. Oh Lord, please save me from community gardens. I am not a friggin ANT, I'll pick my own gardening buddies, thanks. No one should be forced to associate with idiots because the only access to land will be as part of the collective. The community garden thing is very trendy in theory, but in practice, well, not quite a bed of roses - I know perfectly rational people who thought it was a great idea until they actually tried it. I can think of few things more nauseating than the thought of sharing my favorite pastime, the thing that gives me time alone, renews my soul and keeps me sane (well, as sane as I get) with a bunch of politically correct, Prius-driving, sprout-sucking, doughnut-hating numbskulls from Al Gore's Holy Church of Climate Change. Which, from my friend's experience, are the type of people who tend to participate in these things.

Yes, I've heard the stories and I can just see it now: Mr. A. is pissed off because Mr. B. isn't using the approved brand of fertilizer, and omigod it might leak onto HIS plants. Mr. B. is pissed off because Mrs. C. isn't pulling her weeds fast enough and omigod they might invade his patch. Mrs. C. is pissed off because people should be planting according to an approved color scheme so everything looks harmonious. Mr. D. just wants to kick Mrs. C. where the sun don't shine because she is an insufferable self-righteous bitch. And Mr. X wants the whole area declared a turnip-free zone because he is allergic to rutabagas. Yes, I can just see myself there. I think I would be using the c-word a lot.

Socialism. It just doesn't work. It is totally antithetical to human nature. Yes, we are herd animals but we are not hive animals. In a hive, every member is hardwired for his job, he is content with his role and does not aspire to anything else as long as basic needs are met. In a herd, there is an ongoing struggle to better one's position, to always be looking to improve the situation. Even starfish fight over territory (very cool on speeded-up film). Are we expected to be more docile than an invertebrate?

This is not to say we aren't altruistic. We care about each other and try to help others, this is what has enabled us to survive. But socialism asks us to give the illusion of doing this at the expense of individual advancement. Are we helping people by creating a system that rewards mediocrity and conformism? That penalizes success? That allows the indolent to parasitize the industrious? There is a world of difference between helping those genuinely in need and giving a free ride to those who won't pull their weight.

With communism, the "people" who supposedly control the government find themselves clutching a handful of nothing. Everything is "public" property, but it can only be accessed under the conditions imposed by that governing body. The bigger the government gets, the more corruption and profiteering occurs, taxation escalates and personal freedom becomes curtailed in the cause of the "greater good", which in these times comes in the guise of saving the planet. There are an awful lot of people getting rich off rescuing poor old Mother Earth.

It's happening right now. The U.N., European Union, our friend Mr. Obama and the global governance crew are hard at it working toward the New World Order. (This is where you start thinking to yourself "I knew it - Mrs. Pelican is a certified conspiracy-theorist nutbar"). Well OK, I do listen to Glenn Beck. But you can't really call it a conspiracy when they're so obvious about it. It's not like they're hiding it or anything. In fact, we're expected to embrace it. To think globally. To be good global citizens.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, in communities all over our nation "sustainability" plans are being implemented. Based on "global sustainability targets". Using the bogeymen of "climate change", "our deteriorating planet" and even overpopulation. All a complete crock of crap, but it makes a mighty fine stick to beat the unsuspecting sheep with. While I appreciate people who are trying to keep our planet clean and improve living standards world-wide, I take exception to those who use lies to justify things like carbon taxes, increased energy costs, erosion of property rights and forced green retrofitting of our homes before we can sell them. They call themselves environmentalists. I think it's time we started calling them by their real name. I think the c-word would be appropriate.