An Truly Inconvenient Truth

Al Gores’s house uses 20x more energy than average American household.

But he donates to Greenpeace so it's all a wash at the end. Right? Right?

Obligatory Oscar Review

I didn't actually see the show but I did look up the results this morning and all that I had to see was that "Cars" lost to "Happy Feet" and I figured why bother with the rest.

Oh yeah, and Scorsese finally won so there's at least some good news.

Can Terry Wrist please come to the gate 15

Saw this over at Hot Air.

Hilarious and a bit scary.

I really can't be sure this is even working right now as it's a YouTube link and the powers that be have resumed their blocking of most streaming video sites here at the office.

Free Kareem Amer Petition

I'm not usually big on online petitions (fully half of which seem to be dedicated to getting Greg Gutfeld kicked off Huffington Post) but this one is for a good cause which crosses all political stripes.

The Free Kareem Amer Petition has been set up to try and pressure anyone who has some power to try and undo the incarceration of Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, an Egyptian blogger who just yesterday received a 4 year sentence for the "crimes" of defaming the President of Egypt and insulting Islam on his site.

While this story has been getting a lot of attention on various blogs, FreeKareen.org is probably the best place to go for the most up to date information.

Six Ways to Sunday

Warning: Shameless plug to follow!

Check out the new book by Ottawa renowned author Christian McPherson, Six Ways to Sunday; now available for pre-order from Indigo Books.

OK, he's more renowned for his Halloween parties and Oscar night soirées but hey, he's also a pretty good award winning short story writer.

And don't let the fact he is sitting about 10 feet away from me as I write this in any way make you doubt my sincerity.

David vs. Goliath

Saw the oddest thing on the way to the game last night (Sens beat the Thrashers 5-3 btw). Just outside the arena in what is essentially the parking lot and right in front of a cop, a Nissan Titan (and yes you were right J.) rear ended a Honda CRV.

You'd think that if this truck:

hit this baby SUV:
the outcome would be obvious, but you'd be dead wrong.

In what was not a glowing endorsement for Nissan trucks the Titan was essentially obliterated right back to the front wheels while the CRV by comparison, could probably have driven all the way home without the driver even noticing he was hit.

Which all leads me to one questions: Is Nissan trying to cut costs by making their vehicles out of paper mache? I can't really think of another explanation.

More Blogger Troubles

So it looks like the Blogger Dashboard is now classified as a 'sex' site under my offices internet filters and therefore off limits.

I wonder if this post had anything to do with it.

A 'Liberal' Democracy

Is anyone surprised that the Liberals have chosen to help spread democracy by banning candidates from running for office? This is the perfect example of a typical liberal solution to a perceived problem.

Simply put, since the percentage of female politicians is lower than the percentage of women in the general population the Liberal Party of Canada have decided that the only solution is to prevent men from running, unless of course, they are members of a visible minority group. So instead of looking into reasons why fewer women run for office and either accepting their reasons or setting up programs to try and entice more women to run the Liberals have decided to simply prevent all other interested parties from even being eligible for nomination. If only this program had been in place when Jean Chretien, Paul Martin or even Stephane Dion had thought about running for federal office.

Love Thy Brother

The most interesting part of John Edwards hiring, then flirting with firing, then confirming he's keeping bloggers Amanda Marcotte (of Pandagon (warning: not safe for young children)) and Melissa McEwan (of Shakespeare's Sister) is not that it shows an amazing lack of common sense on the part of a Democratic Presidential contender but that it shows just how out of touch Ms. Marcotte's defender are.

Just check out Terry Moran's blog entry to see how hard their willing to work to defend her tirades and try to create a moral equivalence case to excuse Amanda's over the top rhetoric. Even though Terry is an acknowledged liberal the fact he independently came to the same conclusion as his brother, conservative blogger Rick Moran of Rightwing Nuthouse, that their hiring was not a good idea he is immediately attacked as an enemy of all things liberal.

But as expected the lefts quest fails miserably as it's generally hard to find a mainstream right wing site that even comes close to matching Pandagon in terms of outright hostility but add to that the need to find such a blogger that has been given legitimacy by being hired to run the blog of a national party leadership candidate and their search comes up far short.

Just check out what they consider examples of their found 'hate speech' from conservative blogs:

And will due respect, your brother says some pretty nasty things. Here he is wishing death upon Keith Olbermann:

"You almost want to avert your eyes when the inevitable crash comes but, like those of us who watch NASCAR solely for the spin-outs and pile-ups, the entertainment value of watching Olberman melt like the Wicked Witch of the West right before our eyes will be immensely satisfying."

Only under the kool-aid colored glasses of the far left can that be considered a death threat.

If nothing else comes out of this mild controversy those with a sense of humor can be thankful that it inspired not just one, but two Iowahawk posts (warning: definitely not safe for young children).

As an added bonus, Hot Air Theatre presents: Amanda Marcotte

The Truth is Out There

Just don't go looking to the UN to find it.

We've all heard about the latest UN report on global warming which announces with a high degree of certainty that the latest increase in worldwide temperatures are due to human activities but as with everything else out of the UN there is more to this report than first appears. Dr. Tim Ball, guest columnist for the Ottawa Sun, details the process under which the executive summary (the actual report not having been released to the public) is written up and distributed to the world's media.

Unlike the actual report, the summary is written mainly by bureaucrats, many of which with vested interests in the outcome, with only limited input by a handful of the scientists involved in the study. Under UN rules, they are free to ignore almost any result or fact that they don't agree with and there is little the actual researchers can do about it. In fact, the process of releasing the Summary months prior to the full report is to allow for modifications to the final version of the full report to make it match with the summaries 'findings'.

This backwards approach flies in the face of all basic guidelines of research papers but in the land of the United Nations, logic always takes a back seat to politics.

There is also little true peer review for these types of UN reports. While they are reviewed by experts in several fields, the final writers are free to simply ignore any comments or questions these experts put forward. In this way the UN can make a claim that several hundred or even thousands of scientists were involved with the writing of the paper, thereby giving it more weight, while in fact limiting the actual involvement to their chosen few.

This is not to say that there might not be some truth to the findings of the IPCC report, but just that under the UN's archaic and politics heavy structure any truth that happens to make it's way into the final report is purely coincidental.

Media Neutrality - NBC edition

And this is NBC's goto guy for politics.

So to recap, we have staunch liberals Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as their primary political analysts and William Arkin, a rabid anti-armed services far left liberal covering the military but according to the left we are all to believe that they never let their preconceived notions and biases affect their reporting of the 'truth'.

Sorry for the light posting

I've been sick for the past week with the flu so not a lot of blog time spent at home and have been fighting to get some program fixes in at work to beat an unmovable deadline so even less there.

Then there's the little issue I have with the lack of a 'blog this' type button under the new blogger. Whereas before I could just click a button and make a new entry for any page I was on and found interesting now I have to go through a few more hoops to actually make a post. Nothing big but just enough to make me not want to bother when I'm just getting in some quick browsing.

The Spin starts here

How is it that the Democrats can hear an unforgivable insult when a Republican uses a word no one has ever heard of but yet can't hear anything wrong with a self professed terrorists supporter leading prayer at their national meeting and calling for them to follow “The path of the people you bless, not the path of the people you doom.” and an end to the "occupation and oppression" resulting from the "war".

The video of the Hannity and Colmes segment is up at HotAir.

Building Excitement!

So the decision has been made, the deposit handed over and I should be getting my new car sometime by the end of March. As I type there is a GM factory somewhere receiving an order for a brand new 2007 G6 GTP with my name on it.

Not that my Grand Am hasn't been a great car but I just can't wait to pick up my new keys and test out my additional 77 horses.