Ford to break his word again.

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Mar 21

Today, Premier Doug Ford advised Ontarians against making plans for Easter.  The case numbers are rising, and he’s thinking about yet another lockdown.

Back on December 21^st, 2020, Ford announced a “one-time, temporary” shutdown of Ontario, to last twenty-eight days in Southern Ontario.  (That would be until 23 January, 2021)  I said at the time that Ford lied through his teeth, and that he was doing so just to obtain compliance.  Well, besides adding an additional stay-at-home order, that lockdown lasted into mid-February.  Now, he’s threatening another one because the spread of the virus is allegedly “out of control.”

Lockdowns never controlled the virus, they only controlled people.  As a result of the lockdowns, Ontario reported that 227,000 surgeries and one million cancer screenings did not occur.  Never mind all the excess drug overdoses, non-vaccinations, and a host of other routine health matter.  There is more to health than COVID, but you wouldn’t know that listening to the health care bureaucrats.  You know, the people the Auditor-General called out for laziness and incompetence.

What about vaccines?  There have been nearly 350,000 “cases” who have recovered, and have developed immunity naturally.  Many hundreds of thousands of other people have been vaccinated.  Why are they subject to potential lockdown and health orders?  They’re immune.  Don’t the health care professionals “follow the science?”  Do they understand what immunity and vaccination mean?  If so, why don’t they demonstrate that knowledge, in word and deed?

Ford lied in December, and he’s about to break his word again.

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Trump’s vaccines will save us from St. Theresa

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Mar 21

RE: Canada needs a blueprint for next pandemic.  Hamilton Spectator editorial of 29 Mar 21

In its editorial, the Spectator made a startling admission - inadvertently.  It admitted that even after more than a year of experience, Canada still has nothing like a blueprint for handling pandemics.  Despite supporting all those lockdown and conformity efforts to the hilt, and suppressing criticism of the people and the policies for handling the pandemic for a year, the Spectator admits that the experts have all failed us.

The editorial did everything except print the name of Dr. Theresa Tam, the sainted grand poohbah of the Public Health Agency of Canada, the agency at the heart of the calamitous failure.  The Spectator did find cause to blame Brian Mulroney (Conservative Prime Minister 1984-1992) and Stephen Harper (Conservative Prime Minister 2006-2015), but the bureaucrat most directly responsible in the failure criticized by the Auditor-General gets nary a mention.

One could speculate why, but that would be idle at this point.  But take this as a glittering example of what can happen when equity and diversity take priority over competence and merit.  Not all federal jobs are spoils to be divvied up at random in proportion to population.

What’s going to save us now are Trump’s vaccines, not clever lockdown measures and stupid masks.

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Anti-urban sprawl croaking

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Mar 21

RE: The alleged urban sprawl problem  Two op-eds and a long list of letters to the editor published today in the Spectator complaining about expanding the urban boundary within Hamilton to allow for more housing.

The Spectator launched a full-on assault against so-called urban sprawl occurring in Hamilton.  The usual tiresome arguments were trotted out and rehearsed.  Presumably, this ideological offensive was intended to warn off city council from doing a wise thing.

The first people to complain about lack of affordable housing and skyrocketing home prices are the same people who inhibit the construction of new housing in the face of a rising population.  Let that sink in for a moment.

Who are the people asking for an expansion of urban development?  It’s the homebuilders.  I am quite certain that the homebuilders are looking out for their own economic interests, which means that in their expert opinion there’s going to be a demand for the new housing they plan to build.  New families want their own homes and their own patch of paradise.  So, who is complaining about “urban sprawl?”  Comfortable people who already have their onw home and their own patch of paradise!

We need say no more than the ideal that the anti-urban sprawl party have is Moscow, 1975.  The workers all lived in soulless apartment complexes and moved around town by urban transit, or walking.  The few cars of those days were Trabants and Ladas.  This is the cramped vision of the anti-urban sprawl croakers.  Paradise for me, but not for thee!

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Cow-pies of racism

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Mar 21

RE: Local MP doesn’t need to apologize.  Canadian Press report in the Hamilton Spectator of 27 Mar 21

Leave it to Jagmeet Singh to remind everyone that only white people can be racist.  The sequence of events that led to this declaration are themselves rife with racism, but never mind that.

A University of Ottawa professor of Arabic extraction declared Quebecois to be racist and white supremacist because of Bill 21, the Quebec law which prohibits Muslim women from wearing religious garb while on the job in the public sector.  Now, Islam is a religion, not a race; but since most Muslims aren’t European, that qualifies Bill 21 racist.  Never mind that the same law prohibits Christians from displaying religious symbols, like crosses around their necks,  either, but they’re white, and oppressing white religious is okay, apparently, at least to Muslims and Islamophiles.

Into this welter jumps another well-known race-baiter, Matthew Green, MP, of Hamilton, who approved of an Arab’s condemnation of the Quebecois (Note the shift from the law to a group of people).  Since the issues of Quebec separatism and nationalism are never far from the surface in Canada, Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP, whose caucus includes the aforesaid Green, had to respond when blowback started in Quebec.

Singh, himself a POC, said that Green needn’t apologize because Green is Black, and therefore incapable of racism, And while Singh said he disagreed with Green’s characterization of Quebec as racist, nevertheless all provinces in Canada struggle with systemic racism, and white supremacism is everywhere..

Quebec’s pure laine majority regards itself as a minority in North America, and that it needs special protections to preserve its French character.  But that was so last millennium; and Quebecois, being white, are off the victimhood hierarchy, it seems.

You can’t move anywhere in this story without stepping into a cow-pie of racism and hypocrisy.

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Supreme Court of Canada Demonstrate Rank Incompetence

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Mar 21

Today, the Supreme Court of Canada declared constitutional the Liberal government’s plan to impose a carbon tax across all of Canada.  The majority opinion wrote in part that climate change is real and an existential threat to Canada and the entire world, and that a price on pollution is a critical element to addressing it.  The Court ruled on matters of science and economics.  It is one thing for a court to acknowledge the facts of gravity, but a court of law ruling on highly disputed areas of science in favor bad science and bad economics is a sign of rank incompetence.  The Court has got to know its limitations.

What exactly does it mean that climate change is “real”?  Is this advocating a particular theory of global warming that could be wrong?

What does “existential” threat mean?  The laws of the conservation of mass and energy means that this planet will continue to orbit the sun regardless of changes in atmosphere.  Plant life will do very well with more atmospheric CO2.  And ocean life won’t be destroyed by minor changes in the atmosphere.  The existence of Canada is threatened by separatism, not CO2 generated in China.

And what is this statement that a tax on pollution is a crucial element of addressing climate change?  In the first place, carbon dioxide, being a natural constituent of air simply isn’t a pollutant.  University of Guelph economist Ross McKitrick disputes the efficacy of a tax on carbon to reduce CO2 emissions.

The Court decided that, because the aim is noble, the law will stand, and the constitutional details don’t matter in view of the nobility and urgency of the aim.  This is rank incompetence.

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Variants: I told you so

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Mar 21

On May 20,.2020, I published the following inter alia of a larger piece:

 

We have two things to fear from extending the lockdown.  The first is that the virus could mutate into something more virulent, and the sooner it gets killed off the less likely such a mutation could occur.  The second is that more people are dying and will die as a result of the lockdown itself than from the virus, from suicides, undiagnosed cancers, strokes and heart attacks that go untreated, and so on.

 

Given time, the virus would evolve variants that could be more dangerous in some way that the original.  And the point of lockdowns was to give the variant time, by our not developing herd immunity.  And so it came to pass.

The smart-asses who run public health in most of the western world ought to know about basic genetics, but apparently not.  They ought to know about the effects of lockdowns, having been warned repeatedly by, among others, the World Health Organization.  But they chose COVID-19 above all else, including reason.  Such is the power of an ideology.

Anyhow, with the public now being threatened with “variants” that could be more dangerous or more transmissible, I just thought the world ought to be reminded that all this was forecasted and published last May.  And those so-called experts ought to have known, and didn’t act on it.

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Are we in a Mel Brooks movie?

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Mar 21

Ontario is plagued with a pandemic, a pandemic of incompetence, and it’s entering its third wave.  Farmers in Simcoe are protesting “burdensome” rules for migrant workers. And Hamilton hospitals are bursting at the seams, SNAFU as usual, it is reported.

Why are pandemic rules in Simcoe burdensome?  Because they’re irrational, not aimed at a particular goal, and applied in chop-logic fashion.  The guy who imposed the latest round of irrationality on famers is the same guy who said last spring people couldn’t visit their cottages on Long Point, where wind and social distancing are the norms.  It wasn’t until the H-N chief medical officer of health got substantial personal blowback that he saw the light and permitted Long Point to be reopened.  Who elected this guy dictator, is my question; and if no one did, why is anyone paying attention to his alleged “orders?”

Really, who is the dumb one: the guy imposing the orders or the disgruntled people following them?  It’s like the toll booth scene from Mel Brook’s Blazing Saddles.

Meanwhile, Young Frankenstein, otherwise known as the Hamilton Health Care System has more patients than funded bed.  This seemingly worrisome condition was SNAFU before the pandemic began, but this time it’s serious, folks!  As a show of talent, Young Frankie is doing a little soft-shoe – deploying a popup hospital to handle the overflow. And we’re still supposed to remain concerned and follow direction!  Never mind that the science says that lockdowns don’t work, the WHO strongly advises against lockdowns, and the only people dying are older than three score and ten.  But incant “third wave” and “variants” and we’re not supposed to notice.

If Mel were directing, the stupidity would be funny.

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Another Echo Chamber

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Mar 21

 

Erin O’Toole and the media both believe that the Conservative Party has to change if it is to prevail against the Trudeau Liberals in the next election.  It can’t deny the “reality” of climate change.  It has to stop this social conservative stuff, and never mind what Western Canada thinks.  In short, the Conservative Party has to become the Liberal Party in all but name, and then offer itself as the safe alternative to more of Justin Trudeau.  These are the views reflected throughout Canada’s MSM like a hall of mirrors. (Or another one of Ben Rhodes's Echo Chambers!)

Conservatives have to change.  What???

Conservatism is about resisting change.  Conservatism isn’t about more, it’s about less: less regulation, lower taxes, less in-your-face-government.  (Doug Ford, Jason Kenney, and Brian Pallister notwithstanding.)  Conservativism is about looking before you leap, about being careful, suspicious of change, and the madness of crowds.  Conservatism cares about the pocketbook.  Conservatism is about realizing that to reach that shining city on the hill you have to pass through the valley of death.

The election of Trump shows that political conservatism nowadays is less about balanced budgets and more about social conservatism and economic opportunity.  Naturally, progressives want to protect their gains by warning off the Conservative Party from social conservativism; but if the Conservative Party isn’t socially conservative, then it offers no choice at all to the electorate, just different faces for the same thing.

The Conservative Party serves Canada best by remaining true to itself.

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Expertise with rectal thermometers

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Mar 21

RE: Indoor dining mid third wave a super-spreader risk, says doctor.  A report by the Canadian Press written by Paola Loriggio, published in the Hamilton Spectator 22 Mar 21.

Once again we see an attempt to parlay expertise in wielding a rectal thermometer into a platform for pontificating on social and economic policy.

I refer to Dr. Andrew Morris, who professes to be baffled that, in the midst of an alleged  third wave, the government could allow the reopening of indoor dining, which could lead (gasp!) to “super-spreader” events, which, in turn, could overload the healthcare system!  To simplify, because the healthcare system might see more cases, the province mustn’t allow indoor dining.  No “super-spreader” event has been tied to indoor dining, but never mind. 

Since doctors are into modelling these days, Dr. Morris might amuse himself by studying point-source diffusion in three dimensions, which is a Cauchy problem in differential equations.  That will provide him with useful insight into what he’s talking about.

For those who follow these things, the Europeans decided that one metre was sufficient for maskless social distancing.  The U.S.C.D.C. decided that six feet was better.  Then came masking.  Then double masking.  Now, the C.D.C. is going to revise its advice on social distancing to three feet so that in-class schooling can begin, but it also allows regular indoor dining.  All this social distancing business was, apparently, based upon a single 19^th century study on means of preventing the spread of tuberculosis!

The medical community has been flying by the seat of their pants this entire pandemic, and most of it remains “baffled.”  Most still don’t follow the science, or even act rationally.  For example, why are vaccinated people and those who have recovered from COVID required to follow spread prevention rules?  Why do Dr. Fauci and Joe Biden wear two masks even though both have been vaccinated?

People are so tired of irrational control measures that they’re starting to disregard them wholesale.  The control rules are unconstitutional, and have never been voted on by a legislature.

Enough with the fearmongering, before someone puts the stethoscope where the rectal thermometer goes!

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Pots calling kettles black

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Mar 21

RE: Racism and Canada’s Dark History An op-ed piece in the 20 Mar 21 edition of the Hamilton Spectator by Darren Green.

When I read the title of the article, I wondered if the writer hadn’t had a Freudian slip, referring to a “dark” history of Canadian racism.  Soon I realized there was much less there than met the eye.

The writer devoted a great deal of attention to post-1948 South Africa, in an article about Canadian racism.  I guess if you need to fill space with dark color, you go with the deepest black.  But the author knows crucially little about Canadian history.  He doesn’t understand Canada’s handling of aboriginals in western Canada at all.  He didn’t know that permanent NWMP presence began in western Canada in 1873, not 1886, and that presence began to keep American whiskey traders out of Canada.

Don’t kid yourself, the Canadian west was going to get settled – either by Europeans loyal to the Crown, or by Americans.  The presence of the NWMP and the cheap land leases of the early 1880s were efforts by Macdonald to ensure that America didn’t grab Canada’s great North West.

Before 1951, an Indian wasn’t a British subject or a Canadian citizen.  The federal government did much to encourage Indians to give up “Indian” status and become British subjects, as Canadians were before 1946.  By far, most resisted, and when you combine that with the Riel rebellion of 1885, the government of Canada got in its mind that it needed to protect the people settling the west from Indian attacks like those that had occurred in the settlement of the American west.  Hence, the system of Treaties.

Nowadays, we expect the government not to allow entry into Canada of foreigners without proper controls and documentation, like a passport.  Well, Indians off the reserve were, legally, foreigners of a sort in the Dominion of Canada, and the system of Indian agents in those days was partly intended to protect Canada, British subjects, and the bands themselves.  The federal government’s duty was to protect British subjects first, and it had a duty of care to aboriginal bands.  Individual Indians were a nettlesome legal anomaly, being neither a British subject nor the citizen of another country.

The Canadian Citizenship Act of 1946 and amendments to the Indian Act of 1951 conferred on Indians Canadian citizenship – whether they wanted it or not. 

There is little particularly dark about Canada’s relations with Indian bands in the 19^th century, certainly not as compared to America’s treatment of its Indians or South Africa’s treatment of blacks.  It is doubly odd that an “Afro-Canadian Caribbean Association” should fuss about racism in the colonization of Canada, being practitioners of both.

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Electrowinning Iron?

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Mar 21

RE:  Building support for green steel in Hamilton by Eugene Ellmen.  Op-ed piece in the Hamilton Spectator 20 Mar 21.  Mr. Ellmen is a Hamilton based writer on sustainable business and finance.

The article was written by someone without technical sophistication, and the material the article was based on was intended to fool those not technically sophisticated.  It worked.  Image that, green steel by electrowinning, obviating the need to use carbon and produce carbon dioxide!  Fantastic, no?  Fantastic yes!

I studied an electrowinning process for obtaining metallic iron from ore in 1975 when I worked for the Algoma Ore Division of Algoma Steel.  I concluded that the chemistry of iron did not favor an electrowinning process.  The article shows that nothing has changed since 1975, and the process being advanced is for favorable publicity but without hope of realization before, or after, 2050.

The first sign of gullibility is that the author has no idea how much electrical power is required to make millions of tons of iron per year.  Even to contemplate the process you’re going to need a dedicated nuclear power generator to deliver all that carbon-free power reliably.  You need power to reduce millions of tons of iron ore to a colloidal powder (think talcum powder), and then you need more power to reduce the iron oxide to millions of tons of metal.  If you understood from the outset all the waste and pollution generated by the colloidizing process, in the spent liquors created by processing millions of tons, and that a multi-billion dollar nuclear power generation plant was needed to power the process, the idea that the steel produced was “green” might be questioned.  Such a process could never be economical as compared to the current process of the direct reduction of ore pellets by coke to pig iron.

Another sign of innocence is that the electrolysis process is a black box in the flow chart.  The literature shows only a generic electrolysis process, meaning they haven’t even figured out the electrochemistry for iron.  Another tell are the references to using hydrogen in the process.  Most people have no idea how dangerously explosive hydrogen is.  The current blast furnace process cannot afford to use coke that is too wet because at high temperatures, water decomposes to hydrogen and oxygen, and that free hydrogen can explosively recombine with oxygen in the cooler parts of the furnace.  Imagine a Saturn V rocket exploding on the launch pad, or the Hindenburg disaster, and you get some idea of the danger when tons and tons of hydrogen are being handled.

The reason why large users of carbon are putting out these speculations on electrowinning iron is that it keeps gullible politicians and other people off their backs with false hopes of eliminating carbon use.  Oh, and the government gladly funds research into these impractical ideas in the hope that something can be found.

Inadvertently, the author is acting as a shill for these large carbon users.

If the starting point for green steel were the construction of a multi-billion dollar nuclear generating plant, the environmentalists would cancel the whole project.

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Is Hamilton run by idiots?

Vincent J. Curtis

19 Mar 21

RE: Lockdown predicted for Hamilton

Hamilton must be run by idiots, idiots who don’t follow the science, don’t learn from experience, and are, by Einstein’s definition, insane – doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

The science is that lockdowns do nothing to change the course of the pandemic.  The experience of two waves in Ontario is that lockdowns initially force case numbers to go up because people who are confined to apartment buildings or multi-unit dwellings eventually are all breathing the same air.  There isn’t a single scientific study that shows that lockdowns work, and if one did, it could say what works well and what doesn’t.

The purpose of lockdowns was always to protect the health care system from being overwhelmed.  It was never to “stop the spread.”  In the course of two waves, the health care system was never close to being overwhelmed, and so why is prospect, the threat, of yet another lockdown being raised now?  The health care system is under no pressure.  If you think lockdowns will slow the spread, read paragraph 1 again.  Lockdowns control people, they don’t control the virus.

Except for the extremely sick, a little infection never hurt anyone.  That’s why it’s better to be out and about strengthening your immune system by constantly fighting off little sicknesses.  Problems arise when one’s immune system is allowed to get lazy from lack of challenge.  Use it, or lose it; and the so-called experts are forcing people to lose it.

When are people going to wise up and rise up against the stupidity that is running the city, the province, and the country?

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We need hate speech like food needs spice

Vincent J. Curtis

18 Mar 21

RE: Are we doing enough to stop hate from winning in Canada?  Another tedious op-ed piece in the Hamilton Spectator 18 Mar 21.

Image a world in which all that was allowed to be said and only those who were allowed to speak were decided by Paul Berton.  This living hell is what Mohamed Fakih wishes upon Canada!  And he wishes it because of a personal problem he has with a particular native-born Canadian.

This fellow took extreme exception to Mr. Fakih’s heritage, and expressed himself in ways that fell far short of Canadian standards of niceness.  Mr. Fakih sued, won judgement, and – surprise - has yet to collect.  Suddenly, this is Canada’s problem.  Fakih’s experience means that all Canada has a problem with hate speech, and Canada has to fix it.  (Here Fakih implicitly accepts his opponent’s basic premise that there are no individuals, only categories of people.  His opponent is representative of all white Canadians.)

So far as the effectiveness of the civil courts go, welcome to Canada!  But the business of controlling speech because someone might say something a sensitive person might regard as hateful, well, the cure is worse than that disease.  A predicable drone that bores nearly everyone ultimately results.  Viz, liberal talk radio.  Viz a certain newspaper!

Speech police already regard Catholic teaching as homophobic.  There are passages from the holy scripts of Islam that, coming from the lips of an Imam, might sound like hate speech, especially to Jews.  So, be careful about what you wish for.  Your side won’t always hold sway.

Tolerating hate speech is better than controlling speech because somebody has to decide what wrongspeech is.  Cancel culture exists because we’re already too far into controlling speech.  One day, it could be someone like me who has the power to decide who gets cancelled!

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Systemic change: eliminate democracy

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Mar 21

RE: Public School Board needs systemic change.  By Kevin Gonci.  Op-ed piece in the Hamilton Spectator 17 Mar 21.  Pull quote: “We have a long way to go before students can feel safe and protected in our school system.”

There’s that word again: “systemic.”  To be clear, in the context of the article, “systemic” change amounts to constraining or eliminating democracy.

In all the bad examples offered in the article, they boil down to the trustees, not the system.  Trustees don't understand Roberts Rules of Order.  Trustees say impolitic things.  Trustees clash with commissioners who are supposed to police their conduct.  Let’s face it, the systemic change that would eliminate all these problems with trustees is to eliminate the trustee position altogether and let the bureaucrats run everything unsupervised.

Democracy is messy, and electing incompetent, self-serving people is always possible. But that’s on the people, the electors.  Presently, it’s not legally up to a self-selected few to decide that the people made the wrong choice, and then veto that choice in the middle of a term in the interests of some greater good, as they see it. (1) The electorate can’t be trusted to make the right choice, so why give them the chance of making a mistake?  Eliminating school boards is systemic change that fixes that problem.

Putting in supervision that keeps school board trustees from making mistakes is also undemocratic, systemic change that addresses the problem.

These are solutions for those who either lack patience or simply don’t believe in democratic choice.  Democratic selection confers moral authority on the representative, and if you are of a certain political philosophy, that moral authority can interfere with your political agenda.

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1. This line of reasoning will be very familiar to Trump supporters.

A chemist without solutions

Vincent J. Curtis

15 Mar 21.

RE: Do we have the will to save the planet? Written by Jeffery Atkinson, professor of chemistry in the faculty of mathematics and science at Brock University.  Hamilton Spectator op-ed 15 Mar 21.

It was embarrassing to read the article by a Brock professor of chemistry that argued for global warming.  Chemistry contains the knowledge required to refute the whole theory of global warming, and here the chemistry guy is pointing in the wrong direction.

Let’s go through his evidence point by point.  First up is the freezing over of the Great Lakes.  The last time the Great Lakes nearly completely froze over was in February, 2014.  The long term average maximum ice cover is fifty-five percent.  The lack of a freeze over of the Great Lakes is not something a climate crazy can hang his hat on.

‘Why isn’t the same urgency brought to fighting global warming as was brought to defeating Germany and Japan in WWII?’  The Axis powers represented an immediate existential threat to western civilization, whereas eighty years from now global temperatures might have risen by a degree or two, to conditions the world has seen previously.

‘Why is there no global coordinated response?’  What are the Paris Accord (2015), the Kyoto Treaty (1995), and, going way back, the Montreal Protocols (1976) (remember the “ozone hole?) if not coordinated, global responses?

The chemistry prof seems unaware of the global cooling – ice age scare of the 1970s.  There simply hasn’t been a continuous rise in global temperatures since 1896.  There was a rise from 1900 to 1938, a fall from 1939 to 1979, a rise to 1998, and then a pause to 2018.  Has the chemistry prof ever heard of UAH?  Has he looked at the atmospheric absorption spectra and reflected upon the significance of water vapor and the complete absorption at 15 microns?  My guess is no.

When he speaks of “weaning us off fossil fuels” he seems unaware of China, India, and the significance of 1.5 percent.  Speaking of fossil fuels, the coal beds we mine today were laid down when atmospheric CO2 levels were in the thousands of ppm.  In fact, the coal beds are where a lot of that atmospheric carbon ended up.  Life survives, and adapts, to high and low CO2 levels.

When he speaks of ice loss in the Arctic, he seems unaware of the data available from the Danish Meteorological Institute.  There is no long term trend from 2006 to the present of ice loss in the Arctic Ocean or loss of ice in Greenland.

The prof seems to have flown into irrational panic when he speaks of loss of fresh water, and loss of sustainable food sources.  How?  How is Canada going to lose its fresh water? Warmer weather and higher CO2 content in the atmosphere promotes plant growth.  This is pretty basic chemistry.  Grass grows, and cattle eat grass.  I’ve seen it.

After this, the prof descends into appeals to authority, in a way that makes the authorities seem out-of-touch, paranoid, or absurd.

The prof is quite wrong when he says, “We must raise our courage for radical system-shaking change.  We have no choice.”  In the first place, we can choose to not listen to him, and have good grounds not to listen.  One of those grounds is to recognize that when an expert in chemistry starts offering political solutions, he does so as a non-expert.  Especially when that expert is oblivious of facts he ought to know about before putting his case.

Altogether embarrassing that a chemist would write such nonsense in support of global warming theory.  And write such nonsense!

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The mask as a symbol – of stupidity

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Mar 21

RE: The Mask as Symbol.  An editorial by Paul Berton editor in chief of the Hamilton Spectator.  (Berton is an extreme progressive.)

As usual in progressive analysis, people can be divided into two types: the smart and the stupid.  More particularly, those who obey the dictates of progressivism, and those who object.  This is the sort of argument used to convince lemmings.

The argument is that mask wearing is smart, and objecting to them is, in the ultimate analysis, stupid.  This time last year, the progressive position was that masks are unnecessary, and besides, what PPE we have should be saved for health care workers.  Then, in July, mask wearing became the rage – as the excuse for lifting the first lockdown.  Mask mandates date from the very beginning of the second wave, and a U.S. study showed that eighty percent of people who caught COVID wore masks all the time.  Wearing useless masks may have given a false sense of security.

The problem with mask wearing is that nearly all masks don’t work against viruses.  Unless the mask is NIOSH approved – and surgical masks aren’t – they have little chance of adding to the protection you get from social distancing.  It used to be that you wore a mask when social distancing was impossible, and now you’re supposed to wear two masks while outdoors and alone.  This is a sure sign that mask wearing doesn’t do much.

If mask wearing worked, people wouldn’t need encouragement, let alone shaming.  But masks don’t work, and all the orders and shaming turns the mask wearing into a symbol of cultural control – between progressivism and the smart people.

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The hating anti-hate groups

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Mar 21

RE: McMaster instructor under fire for comments.  Hamilton Spectator 11 Mar 21

This is going to be an interesting test of the strength of the homosexual lobby against the Charter Rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. 

The Catholic Church has been theologically hostile to homosexuality since the days of St. Paul.  Catholic philosophy closely follows the Scholasticism of St Thomas Aquinas.  Aquinas held that being was metaphysically good, and being acting in accordance with its nature was good.  Being not acting in accordance with its nature was lacking in goodness.  This is where the “intrinsically disordered” description of homosexuality comes into Catholic teaching.  Homosexuality is disordered because it is in the nature of human beings (their “order”) to reproduce, and human reproduction, which causes a new being – something good – is impossible in homosexual acts.  Aquinas provides metaphysical justification for St. Paul’s theology.

Notice that the teaching condemns homosexuality, not the homosexual, who, as a being, is metaphysically good. (“The sin, not the sinner.”)

It ought to be embarrassing to the Toronto Catholic school board not just to get a lesson on basic Catholic teaching, but to need it!  It would be greatly disordered of a Catholic Board to show support for sinning - homosexuality – keeping in mind the distinction between being and act.

That LGBT advocacy groups (Big Ho) would immediately attempt to destroy Mr. Jody Maillet with accusations of hate speech is not surprising.  They aren’t interested in fine philosophical distinctions, or the human rights of anybody.  They are only interested in demonstrating power, the power of their hate, and they hope to intimidate McMaster University, once a Baptist College, into dismissing Mr. Maillet as a display of that power.  Harassment of Mr. Maillet by the police, who would be investigating a charge of hate speech, would be a bonus twist.

However, Mr. Maillet doesn’t need the Mac teaching gig, and the only people who will be hurt are those students trying to learn the insurance business.

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Plutocrat Progressives Cancel Working Class Progressives

Vincent J. Curtis

10 Mar 21

RE: HuffPost shuts down Canadian operations.

The question raised by the Huffington Post shutting down its Canadian operation is how long it will take the labor unions and working-class left to figure out that the plutocratic left are plutocrats first, and progressives second.

HuffPost’s Canadian employees had filed to form a union, and the union was informed five minutes before its first meeting with the big cheese of HuffPost’s owner that everybody was being laid off and the operation they worked for closed.

Jeff Bezos’ Amazon is fighting unionization of some of its U.S. distribution centers.  Bezos’ fortune approximately doubled from $70 Billion to $140 Billion during the pandemic, and you’d think a guy flush with that kind of wealth could afford to be a little more generous to his employees.  But no.

Silicon Valley progressives became plutocrats unhindered by the progressive left partly on the strength of their technology being cool platforms for the advancement of progressivism.  But now they’re plutocrats, and you don’t touch their money.  You can oppress and despise the old middle and working classes all you like.  You can spend their tax dollars on all the nihilist things you want that destroy their values.  You can even pretend to take tax dollars from us because our accountants know how to avoid paying too much.  Thus the Plutocratic Progressive thinks.

So, just like Animal Farms when the pigs began to look just like the humans they replaced, Silicon Valley progressives became plutocrats, and now they’re plutocrats first and that progressive stuff is for the other people.  Plutocratic progressives are not subject to the ramifications of their ideology.

That means what when ardent progressive workies ask for a raise and better working conditions, their plutocratic progressive masters say that progressivism only goes so far with us; not with our money, and, oh, by the way, you're cancelled.

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International Women’s Day

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Mar 21

RE: various articles in the Hamilton Spectator of 8 Mar 21.

Male domination of the world is safe for another year.  From the coverage of International Women’s Day, feminists are completely missing the boat.  They carp about old issues that were answered decades ago and say nothing about the issue of today that are eating the advances made for women since the 1970s.

That “the average woman is paid less than the average man” is a canard that was explained fifty years ago by American economist Thomas Sowell, which I independently confirmed for the Hamilton Mountain riding 1980 Federal election.  The croakers about “pay equity” aren’t interested in answers; they just want the issue to croak about.

Then, there’s “Given the chance, women can lead African economic recovery.”  Why do they need to be “given a chance?”  Why don’t they just seize the opportunity like a man would?

The croakers get warmer in the article “Gender-based violence is a human rights issue.”  Maybe it is unfair that men are physically bigger and stronger than women, and more prone to violence.  That’s the human condition.  But what about the inhuman condition revealed in the word ‘gender’?  Women’s sports are soon to be dominated by biological males that “identify” as women.

This is the issue of the day in American college and high school sports.  Biological males are taking away sports scholarships from biological women.  Feminists completely ignore this issue, but they’d get plenty of help from dads who want their daughters to compete on a level playing field.

As a branch of progressivism, feminism has to be careful about what it carps about.  How wonderful transgenderism is is the cause de jure, and if feminists complain about the problem transgenderism causes women, they’d get cancelled out of the movement. 

The famous female tennis star Martina Navratilova and the famous female author J.K. Rowling are cases in point.

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School Board proves racist after all: Anti-Semitic.

Vincent J. Curtis

6 Mar 21 

RE: Trustee Paikin Miller asked to resign.  Hamilton Spectator 6 Mar 21.

It turns out the HWDSB is rife with racism – anti-Semitic racism.  The vote to demand Paikin Miller to resign reminds me of UN Resolution 3379, passed in 1975, that declared “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” 

The decision against Paikin Miller was fore-ordained by the relative placement of the two antagonists on the hierarchy of victimhood.  An old Jewish woman grew bored with the complaining of a young Muslim girl about the plight of her co-religionist and other matters, and in the cat-fight that ensued, the Anglos sided with the Muslim over the Jew.  All because they feared what might befall them if they chose wrongly.

And you wonder at the mismanagement at the HWDSB.  This is what the trustees spend their time on.  Your tax dollars at work!

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Broken Dreams, Broken Lives: An Analysis

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Nov 20

Ordinarily, I don’t write about RCMP matters.  However, the melodramatically titled “Broken Dreams, Broken Lives” subjects the RCMP to the same progressivist assault meted out to the CAF, and it may be useful to examine this report to gain some perspective.

Simply put, “Broken Dreams, Broken Lives” is a work of naiveté if you take it at face value.  It has a more sinister purpose if you don’t.  The undeclared ethic of the report is relentless progressivism, which makes its intellectual integrity questionable in my view.

The conclusion it reaches is that there is a toxic culture in the RCMP.  The carriers of the culture go unnamed, but they aren’t women, Indigenous, Racialized minorities, or LGBTQ2S+, which is the report’s way of spelling ‘Lesbian.’  Another hint: the carriers of this culture are misogynist and homophobic.  It seems that the toxic culture of the RCMP can only be “eradicated” if all the cis-gender hetero white males were removed from the force and replaced with pajama boys, women, and minorities.

Let’s keep in mind that one of the functions of the RCMP is busting drunks in northern Manitoba.

The Commissioner of the RCMP, Brenda Lucki, was shocked at the report.  She had no idea this culture existed.  Lucki is a career Mountie, having served for decades, and reached the top of the heap.  If she had no idea it existed, in my books this amounts to contra-indicating evidence.

The report admits, inadvertently, of more contra-indicating evidence.  “RCMP employees appear to blame the ‘the bad apples’ without recognizing the systemic and internal origin of this conduct.” [i.e. misogyny and homophobia]  From the perspective of RCMP employees, which must include some of the victims, the blame for bad conduct goes on the people doing it, not on some ephemeral rotten system of which the apples are but helpless agents.  Insiders don’t see a ‘toxic culture’ either.

The report is shockingly vague.  “Toxic culture,” “a change in the culture,” “comprehensive cultural change,” “fundamental, structural change,” “sexualized environment,” “toxic work environment,” “safe work workplace,” “inclusive and respectful workplace,” “incalculable damage to female members,” (since 2,604 were financially compensated, someone calculated!), “systemic barriers,” “transparency.” Continuous references to misogyny, homophobia, and racism.

‘Toxic culture’ and ‘damaged’ persons are metaphors; culture means whatever you want; systemic barriers and respectful workplaces are without explanation; and misogyny, homophobia, and racism are pejoratives.  A culture that is toxic because of misogyny and homophobia indicates nothing but subjective perceptions.

One example of a ‘systemic barrier’ is that some trainers don’t want to train female recruits.  A way of insuring that you’re never accused of sexual misconduct is never to be alone with a woman.  Self-protection is interpreted as a ‘systemic barrier’ and misogyny.

Equality doesn’t mean equal treatment.  One recommendation is for women not to be sent to detachments with inadequate housing and social support.

The naiveté of the report must arise from the authors’ never having worked in a large, hierarchical organization.  The RCMP has 19,000 sworn and 11,000 unsworn members, and the report covers thirty years.  Of course people in authority can abuse their power, sometimes actually and sometimes just perceived.  Being police gives you power over people, and some are attracted to policing for that reason.  Careerists are selfish and undermine rivals.  Perhaps a third of the force shouldn’t be in policing.  Welcome to the real world!

The enduring struggle of leadership is to maximize performance while coping with personnel problems.

The criticism, even of merit, never takes account of the fact that the purpose of the RCMP is to bust drunks in northern Manitoba (among other things).  The report takes policing as a given, like manna from heaven.  Policing just happens - without reference to the type of individual who will do the hard work. 

With its references to breaking up the force and fundamental transformation of culture, I see the aim of the report is to capture the RCMP for progressivism, as the media, academia, and politics have been.

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'Asinine' Spec editors deny the science on lockdowns

Vincent J. Curtis

4 Mar 21

RE: Lockdowns work.  Spectator editorial of 04 Mar 21

Whenever Arts majors spout off their alleged knowledge of science, the results are never good.  And for sheer 27 year old know-nothing arrogance, the editorial claiming that lockdowns work cum hit-piece on Conservative MP David Sweet is a glowing example.  The editors were reduced to marshalling their own inexpert observations to support their conclusions.  You’d think by now there’d be a scientific study or two proving not just that lockdowns work, but which measures are the most effective.

Alas!  Real scientific analysis concludes that lockdowns don’t work.  For example, the paper entitled, “Assessing Mandatory Stay-at-Home and Business Closure Effects on the Spread of COVID-19” whose lead authors are Dr. Eran Bendavid and Prof John Ioannidis of Stanford University - released in January - concluded “While same benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs [i.e. Non-pharmaceutical Interventions = lockdown measures.].  Similar reductions in case growth may be achievable with less restrictive interventions.”

The respectable scientific analysis is that lockdowns don’t work.  So, if it is “flat out untrue and insulting to argue that they do not work,” it must be because it is embarrassing to have one’s ignorance of science exposed.   The argument: “It took a long time, but eventually the spread began to slow” is an obvious case of the post hoc, ergo, propter hoc fallacy.

If it is asinine to maintain that lockdowns don’t work, how much more asinine is it to maintain that they do in the face of the science?

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Stoking Fear though Ignorance

Vincent J. Curtis

3 Mar 21

Today’s Spectator contains two applications of the technique of developing fear and loathing through ignorance.  One is the story on “Study finds emissions rising steadily in GTHA,” (Greater Toronto Hamilton Ara) and the other is “Another outbreak tied to new variants.”  The technique is to provide enough information to raise alarm, but not enough explanation to quieten the alarm.

The TAF study found alleged increases of carbon dioxide emissions, that the rate of increase was “alarming”, and concluded that if “emissions aren’t lowered soon they could further affect daily life.”  The article offered no cause for the increase.  The increase had to happen somehow, so what caused it so that we can address it?   No explanation, and none is offered as to why this increase is “alarming.”  No explanation is offered as to what these “further affects on daily life” amount to, exactly.

I dismiss the TAF report on the grounds that they can’t measure carbon dioxide emissions in the GTHA, and by measure I don’t mean “guesstimate” - which is what they actually did.  I dispute that anything they’re talking about is objectively “alarming,” since in the world picture, the increase in carbon dioxide emission in the GTHA is insignificant.

The COVID variant story is straight-up fearmongering.  Blacks, East Indians, Chinese, Germans and French are variants of the human species.  Insofar as human potential goes, are there any real differences?  No.  So, whether a person is infected with this variant or that, it is still of Chicom-19.  Left-handed or right-handed, it’s the same.

Stop worrying! And stop fearmongering!

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And in the middle is Saab

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Feb 21

Sweden and Finland are deeply alarmed by Russia.  At a press briefing on February 16^th, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist  outlined causes for concern: the pressure Russia is exerting on the Baltic states, in the Ukraine, in Syria, and especially by the seizure of Crimea.  Swedish and Finnish air patrols interdict Russian aircraft on a weekly basis, and note similar encounters near British, Canadian, and U.S. air spaces.  Russia has poisoned dissidents abroad, and conducts disinformation campaigns against neighboring states, which, in the view of Sweden, are actions of a hostility, and in violation of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975.  Sweden will be expanding its defense budget by forty percent between 2021 and 2025 to raise the level of deterrence, and will expand defense cooperation arrangements.

The Swedish government representatives did not regard war with Russia as some distant, theoretical possibility, but as a distinct reality that demands a high level of vigilance.

 The relationship between Sweden and Russia goes back a long way.  Sweden became a great European power in the early 17^th century under the rule of the great warrior-king Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years War.  Gustavus is considered by some to be the first modern general and the inventor of combined arms tactics.  The Thirty Years War produced the Treaty of Westphalia, which introduced the idea of the nation-state and International Law.

Sweden’s decline from great power status began, ironically, under another great warrior-king, Charles XII, at the beginning of the 18^th century.  A brilliant tactician, Charles XII routed Russian armies two and three times the size of his, but his downfall was in strategy.  He exhausted his army and his country in the wars against Russia.  By the beginning of the 19^th century, Sweden lost that portion of its territory known as Finland to Russia after its defeat in the Great Northern War of 1808-09.  Czar Alexander I took Finland as his personal duchy, separate and distinct from the Russian Empire as a whole.

Finland was then sparsely populated.  A Finnish national identity took root among the educated classes in the last quarter of the 18^th century, and burst into full flower in the middle of the 19^th century.  Hence, in 1917, a Republic of Finland declared its independence after the Bolshevists overthrew the Czar of Russia, and their Grand Duke.  Finland fought a civil war between Reds and Whites, the Whites won, and Finland remained independent of the new Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union, under Stalin, invaded Finland in 1939, forcing Finland’s surrender in 1940.  After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Finland fought the Continuation War against the Soviets until her fortunes declined with that of Germany.  Finland again surrendered in 1944 and, in addition to losing about one third of her national territory, had to pay war reparations to Russia.  Ironically, this forced Finland to modernize her economy, and made her a wealthy country by the 1970s.

Sweden has been a neutral country since 1814.  Sweden stayed out of World War I and II, and remains non-aligned to this day.  Finland adopted a non-aligned but pro-Soviet foreign policy after World War II to protect her independence.

Culturally, Finland is descended from Sweden.  Street signs in the capital Helsinki are in both Finnish and Swedish.  Beyond a few relics from the czarist era, there is almost no Russian cultural influence in Finland.  Finland has national service, and is able upon mobilization to put 350,000 troops into the field, and they aren’t expected to be used against neighbour Sweden.

Sweden and Finland form a natural alliance of the non-aligned against Russia.  Sweden is separated from Russia both by the territory of Finland and the Baltic Sea.  Finland is Sweden’s first line of defense, and forms Finland’s strategic rear.  Joint operational planning with Finland, interoperability, and the advantages of the two countries being so close and of sharing the same equipment were emphasized by deputy commander of the Swedish Air Force, Brig-Gen Anders Persson.

Which brings us to Saab, Sweden’s leading defense supplier.  Persson emphasized the need for Sweden and Finland to be technically and tactically superior to Russian forces.  Finland is looking to replace its aging fleet of Hornet fighter aircraft, and Saab wants to sell its Gripen E/F fighter, combined with something new – Globaleye - an Airborne Early Warning and Control system along with it as a force multiplier.

More of the qualities of the Gripen came to light during the press briefing.  Persson called the Gripen “the iPhone of the fighter community”, in reference to its capability and ease of use.  Gripen really is designed to be flown off two-lane highways in the north of both countries.  It has a refuel and rearm turnaround time of fifteen minutes.  Routine maintenance is intended to be done by conscript mechanics.  More major overhauls can be done in hours.  The Gripen was designed to defeat the Su-30/35 and the Su-57 in air-to-air combat, and is expected to remain tactically relevant into the 2060s.  Economy and availability – meaning lots of sorties - are prominent advantages of the Gripen over other fighter types, according to Saab.

Saab’s Globaleye was intriguing.   It is designed to work closely with the Gripen E/F.  It is an AWACS system that is mounted on an ultra-long range Global 6000 aircraft from Bombardier.  The system has a detection range of 550 km of aircraft at normal altitudes and 450 km for low flying aircraft.  It has a mission time of over eleven hours. Saab president Micael Johannson said that Globaleye can defeat stealth.

Though the Gripen is already working in tandem with NATO AWAC systems, Globaleye was designed from the ground up to complement the capabilities of the the Gripen in the Nordic theatre against a Superpower.  A tactical vision seems to have guided the design of the Gripen-Globaleye arrangement.

Like Saab’s proposal to Canada, the proposal to Finland offered to expand that company’s current research relationship with Finnish universities and its research center in Finland.  Saab’s capabilities should not be underestimated; it began as an aircraft company in 1937 and has delivered over 5,500 aircraft over the years to customers around the world.

Besides making clearer the advantages of a purchase of Gripens, the Globaleye adds an interesting wrinkle to the Saab portfolio, and the RCAF may want to look at Globaleye as a possible complement to a Gripen purchase.

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Woke Unprofessionalism

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Mar 21

RE: Trump calls for GOP unity; repeats lies about election defeat.  Hamilton Spectator 1 Mar 21.

What’s wrong with this headline, “Trump calls for GOP unity; repeats lies about election defeat?”  This is a news article written by the Associated Press, and the Spectator thoughtlessly dropped it into Canada and the World page.  What’s wrong is the blatant editorializing in the headline.

The word lie isn’t used to describe propaganda coming out of North Korea, or China.  Baghdad Bob never had the word lie associated with his assertions about the state of the Iraq War of 2003 that overthrew Saddam Hussein.  The AP (or the Spectator editors) could have substituted an objective “claims” for “lies”, but no; the thumb of the MSM has to be pressed on the political scale.  And the MSM wonders why half the population have written them off.  Add an editorial cartoon like that of today, “Vaccine against Conservative Party crackpots,” and it becomes clear how deep the rot goes in MSM employed journalists.  What could be more crackpot than Marxism, with all we know about its consequences, yet Marxism is the dominant “lens” of analysis these days in woke-progressivism?

Nearly 75 million Americans certifiably voted for Donald Trump in 2020. 12 million more than in 2016.  The oldest, whitest, most establishment, least cool, the least likely and least inspiring champion of woke-progressivism, a cognitively impaired Joe Biden, alleged got 81 million votes, 15 million more than the first woman, Hillary Clinton, in 2016 and 18 million more than the first Black, Barack Obama, in 2012.  Washington, D.C. was deserted for Biden’s inaugural, 2,000 people versus Trump hundreds of thousands in 2016.  And rational people are supposed to calmly accept that Biden won fair and square without even campaigning?

Half the American population enthusiastically voted for Trump, and a third of Canadians support the Conservative Party.  Why would a sensible business needlessly antagonize with unnecessary editorializing half of its potential audience?  Unprofessional journalism costs journalists their jobs.

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