Ol' Joe is in the hotseat in the House of Commons today. The New Democrats plan to grill NatResMin Oliver over his remarks smearing leading climate scientist James Hansen. Oliver who is openly inimical to parts of the country, including the entire province of British Columbia, accused the former head of NASA's Goddard Space Laboratory as "always crying wolf" for his opposition to the Athabasca Tar Sands and the Keystone XL pipeline.
Slackjaw Joe is also on record as claiming that he heard somewhere that the whole business of global warming is less than true. That is a remarkable expression of sheer, willful ignorance from any politician, especially one claiming to represent Canada or any other Arctic nation. The Arctic, where global warming is double the overall rate, where the sea ice is vanishing, where the tundra is drying out and catching fire, whose people are beginning to retreat from the rising sea, where the polar jet stream now lashes the northern hemisphere - all this means nothing to a Natural Resources minister. What a despicable, evil creature is this Oliver.
Hint to Joe - It's an axiom of politics that one should never lead with one's chin. That holds true for the chinless too, Joe.
And, Joe, here's something else to remember. Natural resources are more than Athabasca sludge. British Columbia is one giant natural resource - our forests, our rivers, our mountains, our coast, our fishery (the one Ottawa hasn't managed to kill off yet) - they're all natural resources and if you won't defend them, we will.
And here's a tip for the Frugal Fundamentalist, Sideshow Steve Harper. Want to cut government spending? You have way too much redundancy within your own cabinet. You have four guys all doing the same job - Energy, Industry, Natural Resources, Environment - they're all pimping bitumen - all bitumen, all the time. Pull the string in the back of their heads, they all come out with the same words. For all the good they're doing, one can do the job of four.
ReplyDelete"Pull the string in the back of their heads"
I read this and suddenly had a flash of Kegel beads with Cabinet Ministers faces on them, nearly choked on my coffee.
Now I've gotta find someone who can do a photo shop job for me.
I'd love to see it when you're done.
ReplyDeleteWith those guys, none would do a better job than four.
ReplyDeleteYou are all just too damn hip for me. I had to Google "kegel beads."
ReplyDeleteAs for Joe Oliver, well he's got a lot of explaining to do to the *real* scientific community. Credible scientists need to rebut him, and fast. His comments are very dangerous because they are the sort that a lot of people might just accept at face value without checking into further. After all video of kittens riding a vacuum is so much more entertaining than the grisly facts of climate change.
His comments absolutely play to the CON base, but unfortunately will fly under the radar of many less engaged Canadians.
I had to Google it too, Elliott. Oliver really is an underhanded, lying son of a bitch. No wonder he's so popular with Harper.
ReplyDeletePoor Joe Oliver may have Acquired Intelligence Deficiency Syndrome. It's a terrible infectious disease, and it's tearing through the tory caucus. You should go very easy on him.
ReplyDeleteApparently, some South Africans claimed to have discovered a cure in two parts. Sufferers must stuff their empty bellies with sweet potatoes and garlic, while loudly declaiming against numerous supposed conspiracies hatched by their enemies.
I'm not sure what Joe Oliver has been eating. But a denunciation a day keeps AIDS at bay.
Chris, this caucus stares reality in the face and they see nothing. Canada's very real, completely tangible climate change experience in the Arctic contradicts their chosen narrative so it is simply excluded. It does, however, force them to defend their policies on arguments that are knowingly false.
ReplyDeleteIf Joe Oliver has to fall back on sheer fabrication to make his case, he doesn't have a case.