Alberta wants conservatism

 Vincent J. Curtis

31 May 23

RE: Alberta set for hard right swing.  Op-ed by Gillian Stewart, Torstar columnist.  The Hamilton Spectator 31 May 23.

I’m still waiting for an editorial that says, “British Columbia set for hard left swing” but I’m not holding my breath.

The opinion piece, by a Torstar columnist no less, was surprising free of condemnatory rhetoric, and I would agree with much of what Gillian Stewart said.  Alberta elected a social conservative warrior because the tie-wearing respectables, who don the white Stetsons during the Stampede, proved to be liberal squishes when the pandemic hit.

Jason Kenny appeared besotted with his Public Health Officer, Deena Henshaw, and he never told her to consult with Dr. Scott Atlas, MD, Professor Jay Battacharya, or to just think of something else. He never consulted with Gov. Ron DeSantis; and so the same medically unavailing rights-crushing measures were instituted.  Pastors were arrested and jailed for holding church services on Sunday, but liquor stores were kept open.  Country, family run lunch counters were busted, but big box stores were kept open.  Kenny was invisible and utterly unhelpful in the Coutts blockade.

The UCP was 30 points down in the polls when Smith became Premier, and 7 months on, she won a majority government with 52 percent of the vote.  The cosmopolitan political-class losers look down their sophisticated noses at Danielle Smith, as they once detested Ralph Klein.  Jason Kenny would have led the UCP to oblivion, and the election might have seen the rise of the Alberta Party.

The true voice of Alberta spoke on Monday’s election.  And in a representative democracy, an electorate dominated by country folk get to irritate their sophisticated urban know-betters, who think they were born in the wrong body.

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Any tong to beat Smith with.

Vincent J. Curtis

30 May 23

RE: Forced drug treatment is no answer.  Editorial The Hamilton Spectator 30 May 23.

As UCP leader Danielle Smith basked in the glow of victory, having gained a majority government with nearly 53 percent of the popular vote, the Spectator dredges up a contentious piece of nonsense to throw at Smith concerning her plan to handle drug addiction in Alberta.

One of the Spectator’s arguments is that forced treatment is against the will of the addict.  Free will is a subject deeply analyzed by Scholasticism, and that school argues that addiction deprives the addict of free will.  The addict can’t control his impulse and compulsion, and hence his will is not free.  There is a sound case, in other words, to be made that compulsory treatment isn’t against the free will of the addict, since they don’t have one.

The editorial may be right that successful treatment is not enough in itself for permanent resolution of the addict’s problem, and that the addict may fall back into old habits; but the nanny state has to end somewhere.  The addict’s will having been freed by treatment, he needs eventually to stand on his own feet.

The alternative, legalized drug dens, proved to be disasters wherever they’ve been tried.  Smith’s compulsory treatment plan at least gets the addicts off the streets and deprives the pusher of a market.

It’s not so much the merits of the plan, it’s who’s advocating it!

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Linney’s Latest Apocalypse

Vincent J. Curtis

29 May 23

RE: Flirting with collective suicide.  Op-ed by Grant Linney.  The Hamilton Spectator 29 May 23.  Linney used to boast that he was specially trained by Al Gore, but no longer.

Grant Linney’s latest lamentation about climate was sad, pathetic really.  And I’m not sure that his mood would be brightened to learn that the theory of CO2 causing global warming has been busted by over forty years of data collection.

The global average temperature this morning was 14.19℃, based upon the readings of over 70,000 ground thermometers.  It got up to 14.7℃ in early 2017, and has since fallen.  It’s the same temperature now as it was in mid-1991.  There is no upward trend in temperature as CO2 concentration increases.  The most generous allowance for global temperature rise will be less than a degree Celsius by 2100.  And nobody’s said what so special about 16℃ that’s going to turn the globe into a fiery hell.

Linney notably ignores China, India, and Russia in his alleged suicide pact.  These three nations together contribute half of the world’s CO2 emissions, but he ignores them.  Canada contributes 1.6 percent of global CO2 emissions, so it isn’t part of the problem and can’t be part of the solution.  Yet, Linney wants Canada to suffer and get poor to fix his non-problem.

It’s time to put an end to this climate lunacy, which persists because so many people are making money and exercising power off the scam.

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Liberal Profligacy

Vincent J. Curtis

28 May 23

RE: Ottawa sees $41.3B deficit for fiscal year.  CP story.  The Hamilton Spectator 27 May 23.

Lost in all the numbers is the profligacy of the Trudeau Liberal government.  The Federal deficit in FY21-22 was $95.6B.  In FY22-23, revenues increased by $34.2B and expenditures dropped (as COVID support ended) by $29.9B, totalling $64.1B in expected reduction in the Federal deficit, i.e. from $95.6B to $31.5B.  Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in her budget speech forecasted a deficit of $52B, and it actually came in at $41.3B, still $9.8B more than it ought.

Chump change you might say, $9.8B out of a budget of $455B.  How is that profligate?

That chump change would pay for half the fight jet replacement project.

Canada is paying $43.9B in interest this year on a debt of $1.2T, half of which was acquired from previous Trudeau profligacy.  The financing of that recent profligacy is what’s driving inflation, and driving up interest rates, which, in turn, drives up interest payment on debt.

It’s not that Canada lacks the money to replace fighter jets, or the fleet of navy frigates, or meet the NATO obligation of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense.  The Trudeau Liberals would rather buy friendships for itself at home with taxpayer money.

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Paying tribute

Vincent J. Curtis

26 May 23

RE: City, indigenous group reach pact on clean up job  The Hamilton Spectator 26 May 23

It would be impolitic to refer to the pact between the city of Hamilton and the self-appointed Haudenosaunee Development Institute as ‘successful extortion’, which it was; the term used in the declining days of the Roman Empire was “tribute.”  The problem with the agreement is that is make the elected band council of Six Nations look foolish for agreeing to the Chedoke Creek cleanup project on its merits, and not looking upon it as an opportunity for financial gain..

Both the wealth and the weakness of Rome, er, I mean Hamilton, are now exposed - an invitation to future rapine.

The taxpayers of Hamilton pay hundreds of millions of dollars per year for a police force, and the thugs of the HDI were trespassing.  They were engaged in criminal mischief.  It’s a mystery why taxpayers have to an additional $400,000 because Hamilton’s gold-plated law enforcement was withheld.

This isn’t the end of problems; it’s only the beginning.

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White indigenous

Vincent J. Curtis

25 May 23

RE: ‘Social cohesion’ library’s goal for waterfront The Hamilton Spectator 25 May 23.

Councillor’s Cameron Kroetch’s core concern about this bayfront boondoggle is that “we have these projects led by Indigenous folks, period.”  But which “indigenous folks?”

Supposing the “indigenous folks’ declined to get involved?  Then what?  And who is going to represent the “indigenous folks?”  We can see the differences in Indigenous representation in the Chedoke Creek cleanup: the elected band council of Six Nations agree with the project, but some self-appointed “hereditary chiefs” do not, and are interfering with the project in the hopes of getting paid off.  Suppose there are differences between Six Nations and the Mississaugas of the Credit – who adjudicates?

And what history would be appropriate to be commemorated?  Hamilton was a hunting ground for Indians, but never the place of settlement.  The Mississaugas possessed the Land Between the Lakes for only 142 years before selling it to the British Crown in 1792.  And 1649 is memorable as the year in which the Iroquois completed the annihilated the Huron Nation near Midland, along with Fr. Jean de Brebeuf.  Actual history may be too embarrassing to commemorate; and so we’ll get anodyne, romanticized stuff that represents, what?  Indigenous fantasy?

The problem with guilty white men involving Indigenous folks in a white mans’ project is that it almost never produces happy results.

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The purpose of the Hamilton Public Library is to provide library services to the citizens of Hamilton.  Striving to achieve ‘social cohesion’ is not in its mandate.  What ‘social cohesion’ even is, and how it is measured for progress are mysteries.  The expression ‘social cohesion’ is likely a term of art of some sociological ideology.  Nevertheless, having served on the Board of the HPL, I think I understand what the Chief Librarian is doing.  What would be the social cohesion of Rome in the 10^th the 12^th centuries as it was described in Edward Gibbon’s Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire?

 

Commissioner’s Mistake

Vincent J. Curtis

19 May 23

RE: Marguerite Trussler’s findings on Smith

As I anticipated in April, the Ethics Commissioner’s report would come down in the middle of the election campaign.  Also, as expected, the Commissioner would make a finding harmful to the Charter Rights of the politically unclean.  I expected, on the basis of the known facts, that Commissioner Trussler would find Premier Smith naughty, but that’s it.

As it turned out, Premier Danielle Smith’s talking to Artur Pawlowski was indeed found naughty, and Trussler says that Smith should have terminated the call once he raised the matter of his criminal case.  Caesar’s wife and all that.  But the actual breach of ethics came, according to the Commissioner, when Smith “improperly” discussed the matter with the Minster of Justice/Attorney-General, who was unmoved and explained the law to Smith.

Commissioner Trussler erred in respect of Smith having breached conflict of interest.  “To further a primate interest of the Member” in the Act means that Smith attempted to “improperly” further the private interest of Artur Pawlowski.  Tried unsuccessfully, but tried.

The problem is that Pawlowski had a grievance with the government for which he was seeking redress.  He was arrested for speaking in support of the Coutts blockade, which superficially resembles a breach of his Charter Rights of free speech and opinion.  As a matter of equity, Smith campaigned for UPC leader in part on forgiving numerous charges involving protests against COVID restrictions, of which Coutts was a major one.  Pawlowski also has a Charter right to petition the government for redress of grievance, and Smith was the head of the government.  In sum, the Pawlowski case was a matter of a more general interest involving a class of individuals, namely those penalized for protesting COVID restrictions.  The Commissioner does not recognize this.  Smith’s alleged interference with Justice can also be constructed as a search for equity.

The dangerous precedent set by the Commissioner, as I feared, is that the politically unclean can forget about getting their grievances redressed, or even of speaking to a government Minister, because the Optics of the Unethical has been established.

In a representative democracy, a politician has to be able to speak to anyone about anything, including the unclean about their uncleanliness; and Justice officials have to have the integrity to do their jobs in spite of the occasional political breeze.

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Race Hustling in the Hammer

Vincent J. Crutis

22 May 23

RE: Hamilton hate demands robust community response.  Op-ed by Kojo Damptey. The Hamilton Spectator 20 May 23

The only way to describe Kojo Damptey’s column concisely is to say that it’s incoherent.  For starters, if Hamilton is this city of hate as he describes, where are the people going to come from to end the hate?  And how do you end hate by doing hateful things to the haters?  His argument doesn’t stand scrutiny.

Damptey engages in racism even as he condemns it “white supremacy is the root cause of the hatred…” So, yellow jackets confronting a Pride event in Gage Park in 2019 is motivated by white supremacism?  When everyone involved is white?  The animosity between Shia and Sunni is due to white supremacy?  If a Muslim pants a swastika on a synagogue, that’s caused by white supremacy?

Anti-indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, anti-Asian racism occurs even though “race is made up?”  Howzzat possible?  And these races don’t have hatreds of their own?  By implication only whites are guilty of racism, says the anti-racist Black man.  Nevertheless, “the reality is that race is socially constructed and has been the bedrock of how our society is built.”  It used to be that a man can be a woman by thinking it, but a white man couldn’t be a Chinese woman.  But now that “race is a social construction” like gender allegedly is, that white man now can be a Chinese woman by thinking it. (If only you could be aboriginal by wishing it, and a few academics in North America could have spared themselves some embarrassment!)

Damptey then raises “scientific race scholars,” one of whom, Carl Linnaeus, in 1758 divided humanity into four races: white, black, yellow, and red.  But instead of denying the validty of this 18^th century classification and analysis, Damptey objects to the characteristics assigned to the non-white groups!  Race is either socially constructed or there’s something based on a perceptible difference, and Damptey falls again into incoherence.

Damptey then indulges his own penchant for race hatred – of whites – in this remarkable passage: “The manifestations of white supremacy take many forms, and we must be vigilant.  It could be KKK members marching down James Street, carding residents, white supremacists running for mayor, flying confederate flags, teachers using racial slurs, anti-LGBTQ protesters using homophobic epithets, or microaggressions in the workplace, hospitals, schools, etc.  It’s essential to track all of the above, to refute their ideas, and know the impact on our community.”  If you’re white and straight, he’s talking to you.  And never mind any Charter rights you think you might have to hold your own opinions, and to express them in words.  They're cancelled.

Race is socially constructed?  Yet this social construction “has been the bedrock of how our society is built.”  Kamptey has no conception of the first hundred years of Canada’s existence.  If race is socially constructed, his condemnation of the Indian Act is incoherent, since it relies on a real distinction between aboriginal and British – which isn’t “a race.”

Quo Vadis?  Who benefits from the belief that Hamilton is a steaming caldron of hate?  Why, the Hamilton Center for Civic Inclusion, the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre, and, well, race hustlers like Kojo Damptey himself, who nearly won Ward 14 in the last election on the basis of his race creds.  He’s pumping a new organization called “We Support Hamilton” and I suspect he’s looking for a job, like the one he had at HCCI.

Hamilton isn’t perfect – yet; but adopting Damptey’s world view and nostrums would make it worse – far worse for hatred and resentment.

Incoherent is as chartable as I can be.

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Kojo Damptey works at McMaster University.  No word on his opinions on MacDivest or the installation of gas turbines on campus.

City of Hate

Vincent J. Curtis

18 May 23

RE: Police host hate-crime symposium.  The Hamilton Spectator 18 May 23

Despite the best of efforts to portray it otherwise, Hamilton is not a city of hate.  It’s a city filled with human beings who bear human emotions; but Hamilton is not a city of hate.

Have you noticed that hate seems to have risen in direct proportion to the rise of Woke?  There’s a reason for that, and it’s because Woke needs hate to justify itself.  Disguising itself beneath a cloak of justice-seeking, Woke thrusts its contemptuousness in the face of ordinary society.  Woke creates alleged villainy and alleged villains who become objects of hate - Woke hate.  The non-acceptance of homosexuality is deserving of hate, even though non-acceptance itself is not a form of hatred.  The rejection of critical race theory makes one a “white supremacist,” which makes one a deserving object of hatred.  The rejection of reality-defying transgenderism makes one responsible for someone’s suicide, which makes the rejecter deserving of hatred.

The campaign to get the last ten percent of people vaccinated was all founded upon hatred.

So, it’s not surprising that hate crimes appear to be on the rise – from a very low base.  Nor it is surprising for “hate experts” to materialize, because sustaining the belief in hatred makes them important.

For balance, we need to keep in mind that Western Civilization is the most tolerant yet created, though still imperfect; but those imperfection don’t justify destroying it in the chase for a chimerical Utopia – world free of hate.

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When climate protesters get treated like abortion protesters.

Be careful what you wish for

Vincent J. Curtis

16 May 23

RE: Join a climate protest. By Richard MacKinnon  The Hamilton Spectator 16 May 23.

Decades ago, and to much applause, laws were passed and court injunction were obtained to prevent people from protesting in front of abortion clinics.  Even today, a person can get arrested for appearing to pray within a certain distance of an abortion clinic.  Now that same technique is being used on climate protesters.

At least those protesting abortion had a point; climate protesters do not.

As I write this the global average temperature is 14.19℃, which is 0.19℃ above the 1979-2000 average.  It’s the same temperature today as it was 8 years and 9 months ago.  There is no correlation between CO2 and global temperatures.  There is no long term trend that will take global average temperature above 1 degree by 2100.  And nobody has said what’s so special about 15.5℃ that will cause the world climate to begin to collapse above this temperature.

The thing about global warming is that it has to be global.  Local heatwaves prove nothing; local extreme weather events prove nothing; we’ve had them all before.

Climate alarmists have no basis for the fear they’re spreading, and hence righteousness is no argument that protesting climate be given a special status.  They deserve to be treated like the abortion protesters were, and more.

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Leadership, Part 2

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Oct 2022

Leadership is the art of influencing human behavior so as to accomplish the mission in the manner desired by the leader.  In part 1, we saw how deep the army went into the psychology of leadership in 1964-65.  It examined the philosophy of John Locke because his philosophical outlook was most influential to the North American mind and likely to reflect the outlook and assumptions on life of the members and future members of the army.  The philosophy of Immanuel Kant was found to deliver the basis for military values: sacrifice, duty, a moral imperative.  The army determined that these two philosophies could be combined harmoniously into a single, coherent leadership doctrine.

Locke and Kant provided the philosophical and psychological basis for a leadership theory, and we left off with the introduction of Dr. Ralph Stodgill, professor of psychology at Ohio State University, and the world’s expert on leadership theory from 1930 through the 1950s.  Since leadership requires followers, both psychology and sociology are involved in the explanation of leader-follower phenomenon, and it was a short step for the army to put together a Leader-Follower-Situation concept.

Previous to Stodgill was the trait theory of leadership, believing that “great men” had certain leadership traits that others don’t have, and that all great leaders are born leaders.  That theory sought to determine the traits that great leaders had that distinguished them from lesser mortals.  The weakness of this approach was these traits couldn’t be transferred to or adopted by others looking to become leaders - great leaders are born that way.  So, what was the point of knowing?

Stodgill began undermining trait theory by observing that certain traits, while they may be useful in some situations, may not be useful in others.  This opens the door to “the situation” as an element of leadership theory.  Nevertheless, the army thought that some leadership traits were significant enough to list ten that distinguished a natural leader from followers: sociability, initiative, persistence, knowing how to get things done, self-confidence, alertness and insight into the situation, cooperativeness, popularity, adaptability, and verbal facility.

This list opens the door to a behavioural understanding of leadership rather than by traits.  Some specific traits, which can be interpreted as being manifested in certain behaviour, gave further evidence that the purpose of the group played a role in the group’s selection of its leadership.  These findings further strengthened the conclusion that a leadership theory ought to be developed along the lines of a leader-follower-situation concept.  Such a concept was highly useful to a military because the army had a fair idea of who the followers would be and the likely situations the group - consisting of leader and followers - would face, namely military ones.  It was also highly useful to develop leadership on the basis of behaviour, which could be taught, rather than personal traits, which could not.

Continuing the justification for adopting its leader-follower-situation concept as the foundation for leadership development in the army, the study went beyond Stodgill to others in the field who observed that leadership is associated with the attainment of group objectives; that leadership implies activity, movement, and getting work done.  The leader seemed to have a position of responsibility in the co-ordination of activities toward the achievement of the group’s goal.

Another significant observation was that there can at times be a figurehead.  In World War 2, it sometimes happened that when the group came under fire, the group looked not to the titular commander but to the guy who knew what to do. Everybody followed him.  When the battle was over, the group reverted to the army imposed configuration.

Hence, the study concluded that a new leadership theory should be based on the leader having personal characteristics manifested in behaviour that bear some relation to the character, activities and goals of the group.  These ideas produce numerous variables that interact in complex ways, meaning that change is a constant factor of the situation.

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Get rid of love?

Vincent J. Curtis

9 May 23

RE: We support Hamilton: Tool for reporting hate incidents launched. By Grant LaFleche.  The Hamilton Spectator 9 May 23.

Would you get rid of love?  If you could change human nature, would get rid of love and replace it with indifference?  Hate is as much a part of human nature as love is; hate being the opposite of love.  You can think of replacing hatred with its opposite, love; but to eliminate hatred would involve the destruction of love.

So, why would someone publicly preen themselves on their desire to eliminate hatred?  Moral narcissism springs to mind.  Perhaps self-interest lies invisible beneath the righteous rhetoric.  But a basic understanding of human nature will tell you that eliminating hatred is impossible.  The best we can do is keep the temperature cool so that passion doesn’t propel violence.

You can’t keep temperatures cool when you’re harping at the moral turpitude of your subject.  Patronizing, you get on their nerves when you get in their faces, and that provokes a response.

Dr. Kassia Johnson can send her medical degree and her diagnosis that Hamilton is sick from hatred to the college of quackery.  She must lack for patients, so she’s the senior medical director of diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE) for Hamilton Health Sciences.  Anti-racism is her cause: she hates racists.  Does she really think a snitch line and moralistic castigation is going to heal the serious differences between Sunni and Shia?  Would the Arian heresy, a serious and violent disagreement over the nature of the Holy Trinity which raged for centuries, have been settled in this way?  Of course not.

Journalist Michael Schellenberger observes that elites manufacture a fake “hate crisis” as a pretext for mass spying, blacklists, and censorship.  And here is a snitch line.

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Carbonizing the bureaucracy

Vincent J. Curtis

9 May 23

RE: ‘Decarbonization hub’ gets some support.  By Teviah Moro.  The Hamilton Spectator 9 May 23.

The Federal and provincial governments give Hamilton’s Dofasco nearly $2 billion to decarbonize its steelmaking operations, and Lynda Lukasik, Hamilton’s new Director of Climate Change Initiatives, acts like nothing happened.  Hamilton needs a ‘decarbonisation hub’ to “help Hamilton industry reduce its greenhouse gas emissions,” and city council is being asked to spend $3.1 million to create one.

But look closely at what the money is being spent on: new bureaucrats, professional climate harpies, people with the purest of intentions and a tomahawk in hand.  For example, the money would fund an “Action Team” that would focus on “electrifying” natural gas fired boilers in hospitals.  The technology of electrically heated boilers is already known, and all that’s needed is money from the province to replace perfectly good equipment and install a natural gas fired electrical generator to provide the electricity! (If you notice a problem here with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, you’re right.)

In the end, that $3.1 million will go to the emolument of professional harpies to advocate in greater comfort for their favorite cause.  A carbonization of city funded bureaucracy is what you’re getting for $3.1 million, not a decarbonisation of city industry.

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What British “colonialism”?

Vincent J. Curtis

8 May 23

RE: King deeply aligned with Canadian priorities. CP story by Morgan Lowrie.  The Hamilton Spectator 8 May 23.

There is something faintly ridiculous about Prime Minister Trudeau claiming that King Charles is deeply aligned with Canadian, that is to say, his priorities; in particular, with “the problems created by British colonial history in Canada.”

Canada would not exist but for colonialism, French colonialism; which began with the founding of New France in 1603.  New France became a possession of the British Crown in 1763, and was renamed Quebec in the 1774 Quebec Act.  The first settlers in what we now call Ontario were not British, but Americans, who, as United Empire Loyalists, were seeking under the British Crown protection from retribution by their former neighbours.

British authorities began purchasing land from and reaching agreements with the Indian bands found “in possession” of the lands of Upper Canada after the Constitution Act, 1791.  British regular settlement of Upper Canada was on land acquired by purchase and mutual consent.

After 1867, Canada purchased Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company, and began the process of creating provinces, and reaching treaty agreements with the Indian bands found “in possession.”  And this was how the Canadian Northwest was settled: by treaty.

Perhaps the Indians of today curse their ancestors for not striking a harder bargain, and they redirect their anger at Canada.  Reconciliation is a con, to get more money and power that their ancestors did not get, and likely wouldn’t have gotten.  A veto over Canadian policy by illiterate, utterly uneducated, and self-appointed savages?  Sorry, no.

The problems created by British colonial history in Canada are quite small, and is a deflection from the problems being of Canadian and especially Liberal origin.

His Majesty would be greatly embarrassed to do anything like apologizing for the alleged evils allegedly done in the name of his ancestors.

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Canada is 156 years old in 2023.  That's 52 years longer than Canada was a British colonial possession (1763-1867).  It's about time the effeminate Hamlet's in Ottawa manfully accept responsibility for Canada's existence and condition.

What's evil is good

Vincent J. Curtis

5 May 23

RE: Pride flag symbolizes inclusion.  Spectator editorial of 4 May 23

The enforcement of a political orthodoxy is what flying the so-called “Pride” flag is all about.  Flying the flag over Catholic schools isn’t a symbol of acceptance, but of conquest.  The angry responses of parents at the York Catholic District School Board is the true sentiment concerning “acceptance.”

There is something deep and visceral in human nature against LGBTQ behavior, and it arises because such behavior cannot lead to reproduction and is therefore unnatural.  Evolutionary biology and Catholic teaching are as one on this point.

Sixty years of enforcing the “acceptance” of LGTBQ failed to dent basic human nature, and parents of today who were soaked in political correctness all their young lives rebel at this sign of LGBTQ political conquest.  I can only forgive Trustees who caved to the pressure out of fear, or exhaustion, of the righteous vandalism that would ensue if resistance was successful.

As LGBTQ political orthodoxy advanced, largely though court decisions, it was always hoped that the children would be left out of it.  But now, even that line has been crossed.  No, Spectator, you are wrong to say “no one is too young to learn that gay, transgender, and non-binary people exist” What about three months old?  What about three years old? Transgender and non-binary didn’t even exist as categories until about ten years ago, and then sprang up from nowhere like a California fad.  And no, the latest fad of having transgendered men reading to young children is unnatural – where are the fathers?

No, Spectator, grooming young children to be deluded into thinking they are LGBTQ is morally wrong.  And you are wrong to condemn parents for trying to protect their children from grooming.

There is no acceptance of LGBTQ, and flying a flag won’t make it so; it will only harden the rejection.  We are all here because our parents acted as normal human beings do, and not because of LGBTQ behavior.  The latter behavior is unnatural, and we all feel it, no matter how hard the pounding of political orthodoxy is.

To sum up the editorial: resistance of evil is evil because what’s evil is good.

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Cooling is what caused atmospheric rivers???

Vincent J. Curtis

4 May 23

RE: Worries over sudden spike in ocean temperatures.  AP story by Seth Borenstein. The Hamilton Spectator 1 May 23.

If there’s a sudden spike in ocean temperatures, who else could be responsible except Western civilization and it’s proclivity to emit CO2 into the atmosphere?  That’s the implication, though AP science writer Seth Borenstein knows enough not to cross that line and actually say it.  Because it isn’t true, and he knows he’d be crucified for saying it. ("Science has yet to determine cause!")

The story does contain an interesting nugget when he writes about “a cooling called La Nina, that has been unusually strong and long, lasting three years and causing extreme weather.”  Those “atmospheric rivers” that plagued British Columbia and California these last three years were caused not by warming but by cooling.  Previously, we were assured that “atmospheric rivers” and other “extreme weather” phenomenon were signs of man-caused global warming, and now we are informed that it was due to naturally occurring cooling all along.

It’s hard to take AP science writing seriously when they’re talking about climate.

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Ignorance is bliss, until

Vincent J. Curtis

4 May 23

RE: McMaster should show leadership.  Op-ed by Jane Jenner, a resident of Burlington and a Mac grad of ’73.

They say that ignorance is bliss, and the most blissful column of April 27 was written by Jane Jenner, who demanded that McMaster should not solve its power needs by building natural gas fired electrical generators on campus.  Presumably if Ontario Hydro did it off-site, that would be okay!

But those who casually think they know the climate change business, don’t.  In the first place, Mac, Hamilton, Canada can do nothing to stop the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere.  China, India, and Russia together emit about half of the world’s CO2 emissions, and they don’t care about the West’s concern about climate change.  They’re increasing fossil fuel usage dramatically and continually.  There is absolutely no point in Canada putting on sackcloth and ashes over climate.

Secondly, the climate crisis is a political make-up job.  The current global average temperature is 14.18℃, based upon an average of over 70,000 weather stations around the globe.  That’s 0.18℃ above the 1979-2000 average.  Global warming simply isn’t happening fast enough to reach a 1 degree rise by 2100.  And nobody has explained what’s so special about 16℃ that will cause global climate collapse.

The casual repetition of disprovable claims may suffice to convince the editor of a paper to run prosaic nonsense, but the publication of such nonsense only serves to embarrass the author so exposed.

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