Even the National Post is Sounding the Alarm.

By now we all know how quickly and severely the Arctic is warming. Nobody's arguing that any more. What we don't know, as yet, is how that's going to impact the majority of us down here by the 49th parallel and below.

David Barberr, a lead author of a new report released by the Arctic Council, tells the National Post that we're in for an unbelievably costly and damaging experience.

“Most people don’t understand how bad it is.”

The report completed for the Arctic Council, the group of eight countries that ring the North Pole, was released last week. It represents the work of 90 scientists from around the world and summarizes the most recent research from 2010 to 2016.

“Cumulative global impacts related to Arctic change are expected to be large,” the document said. “Adaptation costs and economic opportunities are estimated in the tens of trillions of U.S. dollars.”

How much? Trillions? TENS of trillions? That's some serious dinero.

The report concludes the Arctic continues to warm at twice the pace of mid-latitudes and is likely to see warming of up to five degrees Celsius as early as 2040.

By then, the report says, summer sea ice is likely to be a thing of the past. Glaciers and ice caps will continue to melt and contribute to continually rising seas.

...

Climate change in the Arctic is well underway and can’t be stopped. But the report says if nations meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris agreement, changes in the Arctic will stabilize to a new normal some time around 2040.

“We should have started 20 years ago,” Barber said. “We didn’t get our act together and we’re still dicking around trying to figure out how to price carbon.

“These things are costing us. And they’re costing the stability of our planet.”

And it's not just NatPo that may be experiencing a climate change epiphany. Even the Sunday Times is catching on. Now there's even talk of a popular "tipping point" in which the public is coming to accept the powerful scientific consensus on man-made climate change and the urgency for taking effective action. Are you paying attention, you lousy petro-pimps?

But wait, there's more. This time it's Britain's Mirror moaning on about how climate change could cost the UK 75 billion quid a year by 2050. What's next, the Daily Mail? Who am I kidding? Nah, forget the Mail.

Even the National Post Understands Harper Lost Canada's Security Council Bid

Once again Stephen Harper has embarrassed Canada.   Apparently leaving us in the gutter as a global warming pariah wasn't enough for Furious Leader.   Getting the heave-ho from our supposedly secret base in Dubai didn't help but for Canada to lose its bid for a seat on the U.N. Security Council - and to Portugal at that - really burst Harper's bubble.

Naturally the Prime Monster wasn't happy at pulling the plug on the UN bid and, true to form, he wasted no time in trying to pin the blame on anyone and everyone else, starting with Michael Ignatieff.    But even the National Post, Harper's in-house rag, wasn't able to swallow that one.   Columnist Don Martin didn't hesitate to give credit where credit's due - to Stephen Harper himself:

"To give two European countries the temporary seats and deny Canada its rightful claim to one of the two-year chairs is a vote of non-confidence in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s foreign policy.



Candid and plugged-in diplomats will tell you the seat is meaningless unless you’ve got a clear agenda to advocate before the council. Other than Canada’s strong pro-Israel position, it lacks a clear vision about its role in the world beyond the Afghanistan deployment’s termination next summer.

...But to withdraw to Portugal? A bankrupt country of negligible impact on the international security stage? Whose officials thought Canada should win?

The government blame game will shift to Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff for his trash-talking of Canada’s bid, but that’s bogus finger-pointing.  For a myriad of reasons, each only known to the voting ambassador of the 190 ballot-box countries, the UN General Assembly decided Canada was not worthy of a coveted seat.

...[The]Harper government who thought it had strong foreign affairs credentials —  lost a global vote of confidence in its performance."

Supreme Court Gives National Post One Upside the Head

Remember the forged documents the National Stain tried to use against Jean Chretien? Chances are you don't recall what happened to them afterward. Well NatPo has been fighting a fierce rearguard action to keep the documents and the envelope they came in out of the hands of police seeking to investigate the forgery and possible associated crimes.

NatPo really dug in its heels on this one, winning at the provincial level, losing in the Court of Appeal and today, finally, getting slapped down by the Supreme Court of Canada. The National Post must turn over the documents and envelope so the RCMP can conduct forensic tests on them that may reveal the identity of the forger. Here are a few excerpts from the 7-judge majority ruling:

...Freedom to publish the news necessarily involves a freedom to gather the news, but each of the many important news gathering techniques, including reliance on secret sources, should not itself be regarded as entrenched in the Constitution. The protection attaching to freedom of expression is not limited to the “mainstream media”, but is enjoyed by “everyone” (in the words of s. 2(b) of the Charter) who chooses to exercise his or her freedom of expression on matters of public interest. To throw a constitutional immunity around the interactions of such a heterogeneous and ill‑defined group of writers and speakers and whichever “sources” they deem worthy of a promise of confidentiality and on whatever terms they may choose to offer it (or, as here, choose to amend it with the benefit of hindsight) would blow a giant hole in law enforcement and other constitutionally recognized values such as privacy. The law needs to provide solid protection against the compelled disclosure of secret sources in appropriate situations, but the history of journalism in this country shows that the purpose of s. 2(b) can be fulfilled without the necessity of implying a constitutional immunity. Accordingly, a judicial order to compel disclosure of a secret source in accordance with the principles of common law privilege would not in general violate s. 2(b).

... A promise of confidentiality will be respected if: the communication originates in a confidence that the identity of the informant will not be disclosed; the confidence is essential to the relationship in which the communication arises; the relationship is one which should be sedulously fostered in the public good; and the public interest in protecting the identity of the informant from disclosure outweighs the public interest in getting at the truth. This approach properly reflects Charter values and balances the competing public interests in a context‑specific manner.

...The alleged offences are of sufficient seriousness to justify the decision of the police to investigate the criminal allegations. The physical evidence is essential to the police investigation and likely essential as well to any future prosecution. While it is appropriate under this criterion to assess the likely probative value of the evidence sought, the reviewing judge ought not to have pre‑empted the forensic investigation by seemingly prejudging the outcome without first considering all the relevant factors in her assessment. DNA analysis is capable of producing results even under exceptionally unpromising circumstances. The police should not be prevented from pursuing well‑established modes of forensic analysis of relevant physical evidence on the basis that in the end such analysis may prove to be unsuccessful.

Read the entire decision here

Almost Too Much to Hope For - National Post Under New Management?

Stumbled across this at Kinsella's blog. The Toronto Star, reports the G&M, is emerging as the favourite to snap up the CanWest papers, including the utterly awful National Post.

Sources indicate a bid that includes newspaper owner Torstar Corp. is now emerging as a favourite, since it is expected to involve more cash than other offers.

The publisher of the Toronto Star and 97 other Ontario papers is backed by the deep pockets of Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., which owns 19 per cent of Torstar.

Torstar would come aboard as the operator of the CanWest papers, but would limit its exposure by contributing a relatively small amount of its own money, while relying on the financial muscle of Fairfax, the insurance company headed by Prem Watsa.

Among the CanWest assets, Torstar is believed to covet the Financial Post to bolster its flagship paper, the Star.

Lenny Asper is still in the running, seeking to get CanWest back, but apparently his offer is low on cash and high on debt, something the creditor banks may give a pass.

Afghanistan - National Toast Throws In The Towel!

Pass out the burqas. Those Asper Surrender Monkeys also known as the National Post are giving up on Afghanistan.

...given the increasingly evident reality that the country's corrupt and incompetent government isn't worth supporting -- acting as the Taliban-lite by considering enacting laws that make women the property of their husbands and male relatives -- the argument for our continued presence in Afghanistan now rests solely on our own security needs.

That means we should be open to a negotiated political solution in Afghanistan that would allow us to leave the country in the hands of any stable government committed to preventing the country from being used as a platform for international terrorism -- even if such a government included elements from the Taliban.

...It is too early to say Canada and NATO absolutely should leave in June 2011, when the current mission runs out. But if, in the intervening two years, Kabul does not do more to clean up corruption and contain radical Islamism, then we should look at any exit strategy that permits us to leave Afghanistan in a manner that does not compromise the security interests of Canada and its allies.

Whatever happened to "Support the Troops" and the firm assurances that victory was within our reach? I think the Aspers and their rag we all know and love as CanWest owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people they slimed over this.

Asper, Pack Up & Leave. Your National Post is Toast!

Shouldn't Lenny Asper be busy trying to salvage something out of the ugly disaster he made of Daddy's CanWest media cabal? Instead he's busy smearing any Canadian with enough conscience and courage to oppose Israeli excesses. Here's Lenny's fetid delerium from the lead editorial in today's National Toast:

...the Tories don't mind smacking down radical groups that spout hate even as they demand multiculti handouts from Ottawa.

Perhaps the best example of this involves the Tamil Tigers (and their Canadian supporters), whom the Liberals never had the courage to brand as terrorists -- that job was left to Stephen Harper. But other examples present themselves as well, such as Mr. Harper's clear support for Israel during the Lebanon and Gaza campaigns, at the United Nations and elsewhere -- even in the face of strident opposition from the Canadian Islamic Congress and other terror apologists.

So, if your view of the Israeli-Palestinian problem doesn't tightly conform to Lenny Asper's, you're a "terror apologist." Once again Loudmouth Lenny proves why Canada will be so much better off without media tyrants of his ilk.

The National Post-Michael Ignatieff LoveFest Continues

This time Iggy has none other than uber-rightwing nutjob Jonathan Kay singing his praises.

Here in Canada, the war has led to another welcome schism, dividing the Left between its adult and child factions — between those mature enough to understand that Israel has the same right to defend itself against suicide bombs and rockets as any other nation, and those who believe Israeli Jews should pay for the original sin of existence by passively enduring terrorism in perpetuity.

There was a day, not so long ago, when such children held sway in the Liberal Party of Canada. During Israel's 2006 war against Hezbollah, when Stephen Harper made plain his support for Israel, interim Liberal leader Bill Graham fretted that the Prime Minister was abandoning Canada's role as an "interlocutor" in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Liberal MP Denis Coderre marched in a Montreal "peace" rally that featured Hezbollah banners and vicious anti-Israel slogans. Under Stéphane Dion, a conventional leftist when it came to international affairs, this amoral approach might well have been reprised in 2009.

But not under Michael Ignatieff. Notwithstanding his own rhetorical toadying to Israel's critics in 2006, he's taken a firm pro-Israel line in the Gaza conflict. Last week, he declared that "Canada has to support the right of a democratic country to defend itself," and that "Hamas is to blame for organizing and instigating these rocket attacks and then for sheltering among civilian populations."

This is more than just a stirring demonstration of moral clarity. It is also smart politics.

These are important times for the Liberal Party of Canada. For many years, its foreign-policy has been the subject of a tug of war between adults and children — a tug of war neither Dion nor Paul Martin had the moral authority to settle.

Ignatieff finally is signaling that a well-informed adult is firmly in command.

According to senior Liberals I've spoken with, Ignatieff and his people have gotten the word out that he alone will be pronouncing on this issue.

Reading yet another National Postie heap praise on the guy, I'm so glad I've scraped the 'Ignatieff Liberal' shit off my boots.

No Platform, No Problem

Apparently the Harper Conservatives are going to unveil a platform - in the final week before the election. They're the government. They called the election, it wasn't triggered by the opposition. And they've dummied up until they were safely past the debates. It's just plain creepy.

Stephen Harper is shrewd. He's undemocratic, authoritarian, hyper secretive, cynical, manipulative, and more than a tad creepy himself - but he's shrewd.

Last time around Harpo fed Canadians a bagful of lies about how he'd govern on principles. Why he'd turn things around. There'd be accountability and transparency and a bunch of little trinkets like fixed election dates - and anyone who believed him must wonder what's that taste in their mouths today. Here's the answer - he fed you a load of shit and you swallowed it. And he's getting fixed to feed you another load of the same this time.

The fundamentals of the economy are strong. That's crap straight from the prime ministerial horses ass himself. Here, help yourself to a shovelful if you can get another one down.

In that grotesque parody of a newspaper we call the National Post, Don Martin writes that it makes sense for Harper not to release his platform because, after all, that would only give the other parties the opportunity to attack it. And, yeah, it also gives Harpo the chance to tweak it up (as in make it up) at the last minute. Yes, Don, and it also gives Canadians next to zero chance to evaluate it and look through it and figure out they're being hoodwinked by the same Con artist who got'em last time.

The height of Don Martin's cynical apologia for Harper came in this final line of his piece: "If voters really knew what a government was planning, they would never vote for them, confessed one candid politician whose identity I cannot find in Google (although I'm thinking former finance minister John Crosbie)." Right Don, thanks.

The Delusional Fantasies of the National Spot

Forget all those awkward admissions Rick Hillier made last week about Canadian forces being so short-handed they've been dodging the hotspots in Kandahar province. Hillier doesn't know what he's talking about, at least according to the National Spot's Afghanistan specialist Matthew Fisher.

In today's paper, Fisher claims: "One can only guess at the reasons that Canadians have not been told that their soldiers have the insurgents on the run in Kandahar."

Now there you have it, Hillier is keeping this little secret to himself. He doesn't want you to know that his soldiers "have the insurgents on the run in Kandahar." One can only guess why, I guess, sort of.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the Taliban stopped running just long enough yesterday to blow up a British vehicle patrolling only a couple of kilometres west of Kandahar airfield (the Canadian base) killing two soldiers and wounding two others.

After that the Taliban ran straight over to a police station in Kandahar where they killed 11-officers as they lay sleeping. This was the second police killing in as many days in Kandahar. CNN reports the killings may have been an inside job:

"The Kandahar police official said an initial investigation revealed that an officer may have "had a hand" in the attack because the militants were able to fatally shoot the officers while they were asleep.

The attack occurred in the Arghandab district, some six miles (10 km) north of Kandahar city.
On Saturday, four officers were killed when militants attacked a police unit as they were eradicating poppy fields, officials said.

In recent months, militants have stepped up attacks against local police, coalition troops and NATO-led forces."

Good thing for us that we've got the insurgents on the run in Kandahar, eh?

The Myth of Lorne Grunter

It's the most read and most e-mailed story in the National Spot, Lorne Grunter's powerful article exposing the myth of global warming. Grunter is no climatologist, he's not much of a journalist for that matter, but someone operating at his low standards can find proof in this cold winter that global warming just isn't happening.

It's a fairly lengthy item but not long enough to include any mention much less an explanation of why we're getting this cold weather. Grunter refers to conditions in the Arctic and theories about the Atlantic ocean but not one mention (naturally) of what's going on in the central Pacific.

It's called La Nina, the ugly step-sister of the other weather making phenomenon, El Nino. Now Grunter, from his encrusted perch high in the paper's birdcage, could have easily found out about this La Nina. It was identified many months ago and resulted in a cold-winter forecast. That's what happens during a La Nina. Of course Grunter could have found this out but he chose not to because that would have slowed down his greasy spin. And that, kids, is why Grunter's paper, the National Spot, lies neatly folded to cover the bottom of his cage.

Will Connie the Con Continue to Pen from the Pen?

Much as I find Con-victed Felon Con-rad Black the egomaniacal equivalent of ten pounds of solid waste in a five pound, soggy paper bag, I do find his journalism at times amusing. I found myself dwelling on that as I read Lord Crossharbour's pre-incarceration op-ed piece in the National Spot endorsing John McCain as the next president of the United States.

Having recently torn a strip off two former friends, Henry Kissinger and William F. Buckley, it appears Con Con is in the mood to lay waste to all and sundry who may have the misfortune to catch his eye.

Here are a couple of his observations from primary night in New Hampshire:

"Though quite enterprising, Wolf Blitzer, when he worked for us at the Jerusalem Post, was one of the most avaricious journalists I have known. After about 40 assertions from him in 20 minutes on New Hampshire night, that CNN has "the top news team on television," I had either to change channels or find a sick bag. Prevention prevailed over convalescence, but the other channels weren't much better."

On, "... the greatest American political myth-maker of the last 35 years, Bob Woodward":

"He it was who first gave us the story of the cloven-footed, horned, trident-tailed Richard Nixon, (undoubtedly, in fact, one of America's 10 greatest presidents, despite his ethical and stylistic frailties). Woodward completely fabricated a visit to the hospital room of dying CIA chief William Casey, after the Iran-Contra side-show in 1987, in his supposedly non-fiction book, Veil. But Last Tuesday night, he not only admitted error, but volunteered what he had expected to say when Obama had won. He was the only honest commentator that I saw in hours of almost prayerful channel-surfing in search of one."

On Michelle Obama:

"With trepidation, but not embarrassment, I offer the thought that Mrs. Obama, a formerly disadvantaged alumna of Princeton and Harvard, to judge from her well-strategized appearances on national television in exiguous dresses and trousers, is as callipygian as Jennifer Lopez. (That is my only concession to political correctness for 2008; you look it up if you must.) I saw her on YouTube saying that, "Reform must be from the bottom up." In her well-favoured case, this could be a double-entendre."

On the glory of a commander-in-chief of proven, military mettle:

"In 29 of the 43 U.S. presidential elections prior to 1960, someone best known as a senior army officer was a serious nominee for national office and winner of electoral votes; successfully in 19 of those elections. These included some of the greatest names of U.S. history: Washington, Jackson, Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Eisenhower, (successful, as a group, in 10 of 12 national elections.) Being demonstrably patriotic, brave, successfully commanding in crises and untainted by political log-rolling has never lost its appeal to Americans.

Since the Second World War, the only popular and successful war the country has had, the first Gulf War, yielded a hero who did not choose to run, General Colin Powell, (though he probably would have won if he had run). So since 1960, the parties have usually nominated men proud of their military background, but not in high command positions: Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson, Goldwater, McGovern, Ford, Carter, Bush Senior, Dole, Gore and Kerry (not to mention George Wallace's 1968 vice-presidential running mate, Air Force General Curtis "Lob one into the men's room in the Kremlin ... and turn North Vietnam into a parking lot" Lemay)."

"McCain, an authentic hero, though irascible and burdened with a bogus campaign-finance bill and unacceptable views on immigration, is in the best of the military-political tradition of integrity. He doesn't speak in clichés or adjust his views for the fluctuating polls, and he does have a sense of humour. If he is the presidential nominee, the genius move would be to invite Bloomberg to be his running mate. At this early point, if the office, in a phrase from Washington's time, is seeking anyone, (i.e. being successfully sought by anyone), it is John McCain."

It's easy to understand Con Con's attachment to McCain. As Conrad's own appointment behind bars approaches, the Arizona senator's years of captivity and torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese must be enormously inspirational. For McCain made his imprisonment an ordeal endured in great nobility. Doubtless Mr. Black aspires to nothing less for himself.

What I wonder now is whether mister/inmate/Lord Black will continue to deliver himself of his views via the National Spot whilst a guest of the US penitentiary service. He'll undoubtedly have access to newspapers and television, even the internet perhaps. What a grand opportunity to extract revenge on those who have slighted and wronged him and to show the rest of us lesser mortals the true light of his brilliance?