Apolitical Staples

I saw Andrew on “At Issue”. If the Tories approach the environment by using his advice, they are doomed. He still thinks this is a marketing problem, rather than an existential crisis. If the Tories go into this with a “how little can we get away with” attitude, people will see through it and they are done. They have to be seen to “get it”, to really understand what the stakes are. That’s my advice, take it for what its worth.

This will become old news within a week. The strange thing about the Cabinet is that Mr. Nicholson is now the Chair of the Foreign Affairs & Security Committee of Cabinet, replacing Prancing Pete from Pictou County (tm).

Jim Prentice is the Chair of the new special Environment Committee of Cabinet (not Baird) where the substance of the revamped Clean Air Act will be hashed out.

This Cabinet is all about Ontario which appears set to determine the political fate of the Conservatives and Harper. Why else would a demonstrable airhead like Guergis get a promotion, while Ablonczy still sits on the sidelines looking in?

I still think the environment amongst the typical voter is nothing but a lot of theoretical talk right now. As soon as a working-class individual hears that a solution could take away a couple million jobs (one of them potentially being theirs), or raise energy prices 50%, you will then see where the priorities shift.

The environment may be a factor in voting decisions, but for most, it always comes down to the economy and the wallet.

Whether it is or isn’t a marketing problem, once you say it is, people are going to think that every approach you take is patronizing them…

A little off topic but I am constantly amused by this first-response alter-ego of yours. It seems like every time you post, up pops this sinister character on your left-shoulder whispering evil things in your left ear.

Sinister Greg does manage to be the first in - and I have to say the comments section is better for it.

Did you see Rob Russo’s dumbass comment about James Moore being left out over same-sex marraige? I was working on my post on the cabinet at the time and absolutely had to blast him on it.

The star of the day = Baird = Voted for status quo.

The second-most-powerful chair/minister = Prentice = Voted for status quo and Voted for SSM in 2005.

The new minister from Quebec (name slips right now) = Voted for status quo.

And Russo is now trying to say that Moore is being slighted because of SSM?

Based on what Rob? Based on what?

(pissed just thinking about it now)

Ambrose got a promotion and her “normal life” back, as well as Western Diversification. I am happy for her, she worked hard and she’s earned it. She says she lacked the political skills that Baird possesses in abundance, which is very preceptive as “climate change” is 100% politics and 0% environment. A real team player, such a contrast to Garth Turner. Ambrose has a great future.

Nicholson to Justice in place of Toews suggests to me that the long-gun registry is going to axed soon. Better to have a smooth unflappable southern Ontario lawyer do it that a hard-on-crime rural Westerner.

Baird is now going to be the centre of attention (so long as the current climate change fad persists - not much longer methinks).

In their ministries and on the cabinet committees, the 5 most important ministers are Cannon, Prentice, Flaherty, Clement and Baird. The last 3 were Mike Harris cabinet ministers. Who’d a’ thunk it a year ago?

Ah yes, those two issues which define what’s great about Canada.

National health care - because Canadians are too poor to pay for a health checkup once a year, and too stupid to save some money or buy health insurance for catastrophic illness.

The Environment - because Canadians are such greedy and stupid nitwits that they would foul their own homes, cities and countryside if wasn’t for the huge and overlapping bureaucracies at the municipal, provincial, federal and international levels, standing by to wipe their bums and prevent them from choking each other with PCB-laden smoke.

These two issues are like Motherhood to Canadians. Or at least they would be, if Canadians actually believed in Motherhood, but right now they’re all about free abortions and gay polygamy. But, you know, the main thing is that they really care about people.

And thank heavens they haven’t got any corrupt and selfish politicians who are willing to pander to Canadians’ self-professed weaknesses for their own benefit!

“an existential crisis”

Yes. Quite. The human race will cease to exist if we don’t adhere to Kyoto.

But just imagine all the right wing ideologues who would die in the process. That has to be a comfort.

Sweet Lord.

But just imagine all the right wing ideologues who would die in the process. That has to be a comfort.

A hurricane does not recognize left or right. I goes where it wants. But thanks for your response Allan, it just confirms my belief that if Harper does finally get serious about climate change, he will be in trouble with his base.

The fact that you think I form part of Harper’s “base”, whatever the hell that means, confirms my opinion of your analytical skills in the political arena.

Speaking of hurricanes, didn’t Alf Gore promise us a hundred Katrinas a year or something?

You can’t be a dummy and just read MacLeans magazine, and listen to some government gomer like I heard the other day posing as “New Jersey State Climatologist” who claimed that this warm January “clearly” is because of CO2, and think that you know it all. You have to use your head a bit and think things through. First of all, climate is changing all the time. From minute to minute, year to year and century to century, it’s never the same. Second of all, every change in the climate hurts some people and helps others. If there were to be a lot more hurricanes per year, which obviously there aren’t, the “victims” would mostly be idiots who insist on building houses right on the beach, or under sea level in Chocolate City, or on the flood plain of inland rivers and creeks. Or uber-idiots who stay in their double-wide trailer during the hurricane, or go driving around at the height of the storm. Then the idiots go and vote for socialist politicians who put a gun to the head of insurance companies and force them to insure the idiots. And they vote themselves billions of dollars of other peoples’ money, so they can rebuild their houses on top of the sand. Meanwhile, the hurricanes are bringing many inches of needed rainfall to inland regions, and transferring a ton of heat from the southern to the northern hemisphere, thus helping to cool the tropical regions and warm temperate (and arctic) regions, making them more livable and making their agriculture a lot more productive. But it’s hard for the smart people to take advantage of these gifts, and build and run farms and factories and houses which improve their lives and which benefit everybody by giving them jobs, produce, gadgets, cars, houses, etc. - because the socialist idiots are dragging them down by hyping non-existent “anthropogenic environmental catastrophes” and then taxing and regulating them down to the general level of stupidity and sloth.

A hurricane does not recognize left or right. I goes where it wants.

If one wishes to whip up global warming hysteria, one should confine one’s scare scenarios to weather phenomena which are actually thought to be influenced significantly by global warming.

Another example of the buffoonery of environmentalists … a deadly kind of buffoonery … Where I live they’re screaming and panting over “dangerous” pesticides, which for the most part means the 2-4D sprayed on weeds. So the city stops spraying weeds, and since the salaries at city hall are so wildly out of whack with what the real world considers to be a fair price to pay for landscape maintenance, ragweed grows all over the place, especially along the sidewalks and medians of all the boulevards. Now ragweed is a major cause of asthma, and asthma is a major cause of hospitalization and causes many deaths. The number of deaths due to accidental ingestion of lawn herbicides, and the number of cancers which can be attributed to the use of lawn herbicides (i.e. with actual scientific proof, not in eco-loons’ feverish dreams) is zero. So our “green” agitators are literally killing people with their stupid, selfish policies. Why would any politician, least of all someone who claims he’s a conservative politician, or one who respects human life, waste a single breath trying to pander to fruitcake environmentalists who have nothing to back themselves up with except hysteria and hype?