Microplastics: The Next Global Scare Campaign

Rubbish is rubbish

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Apr 24

RE: New report predicts clouds with 100% chance of plastic. CP story by Mia Robson. The Hamilton Spectator 25 Apr 24

Just because rubbish is contained in a “report” doesn’t make it any less rubbish.  An activist group, the “Minderoo” Foundation, concocted a report claiming that “plastic is found in our weather”; they claim to have made “scientific measurements” and found 5,400 nanoparticles of plastic in 2.5 L of Ottawa’s drinking water; and that “thousands of tons of plastics are falling on Ottawa every day…it’s falling on your food it’s falling into the air you breathe” etc.

Utter rubbish. The first tell is that they deliberately confuse micro with nano, with nano being one-thousandth the size of micro.  The second tell is nobody but them seems to be able to see this stuff, which ought to be visible, both on the ground, as a mist in the air, and as a murky cast to the drinking water. Plastic is inert, and doesn’t evaporate or boil, so how would it get into the air, and into drinking water?  It can’t; certainly not in the volumes they speak of; and where would plastic microparticle and nanoparticles even come from in Canada? They aren’t being found in air quality testing, where airborne microparticles would certainly be detected.

We are witnessing the birth of a new global scare, similar to the scares over “acid rain” and CFCs, which at least had some plausibility to them. But “plastic rain” ought to test the gullibility of even the most ardent environmentalist.

Nevertheless, a global campaign is building and you can expect to see more scaremongering over plastic microparticles in future.

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Making the crazy crazier

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Apr 24

H.L. Menken said that a newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant, and the crazy, crazier.  The Dog’s Nest Dispatch certainly lives down to that standard, particularly with regard to climate.  The Dispatch has been full of articles by people who believe that carbon dioxide causes bad weather, and in general is a climate control knob, which Canada controls.  If only Canadians stopped their wicked ways, the world could be saved, is the theme of these pieces.

Let’s set aside for the moment the climate crisis nonsense and focus on the culprit: carbon dioxide.  Canada contributes a mere 1.5 percent of annual global emissions of CO2, while Asia contributes over 60 percent.  The Asian countries, particularly India and China, are increasing their CO2 emissions and are not open to moral leadership from Justin Trudeau.  Canada could disappear, and it would have no impact on CO2 emissions or global temperatures.  And this gigantic fact, which stares in the face every author claiming that Canada simply has to do something, gets completely ignored; and not even the editor asks the authors to address it.

The Dispatch’s dedication to the cause of climate change resembles that towards a religious cult; which, indeed, climate change has become.  In so doing the Dispatch adheres to Menken’s observation of making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

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You're joking, right?

 Vincent J. Curtis

17 Apr 24

In its editorial of today, “Carbon tax critics must offer solutions,” the Dog’s Nest Dispatch once again plays the role of radio station DUMB: all talk and never listen.  The editorial proposes that Prime Minister Trudeau invite the premiers to play the mug’s game with him: he’ll meet with them provided they come with “plans” that are “sound, visionary, cost-tested” for combatting “climate change.”  Since these are pre-conditions to any meeting, who gets to decide if said plans are, indeed, “sound, visionary, and cost-tested?” If they are, why meet, just adopt them, and take the credit?

 But the Dispatch’s editorial fails a more basic absurdity test, that being: why bother? Canada contributes 1.5 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions; while China, India, and the rest of Asia contribute over 60 percent, and they have no intention on slowing down their own growth of emissions.  The Dispatch knows, or ought to know, that Canada isn’t the problem and can’t be the solution; Trudeau is caught as a moral poseur, and can’t figure out a graceful way of escaping this trap of his own making.

To think that Canada can do anything about climate change is DUMB: the call letters of the Dog’s Nest Dispatch!

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Houthis

Vincent J. Curtis

7 Feb 24

Hamas opened its war with Israel on October 7, 2023, with a surprise attack that killed over 1,200 people, many of them brutally, and taking another 246 people hostage.  The war did not go well for Hamas, and Israel’s success created a response from an unexpected quarter: Yemen.  In support of the Palestinian cause, the Yemeni Houthis opened a campaign to close the Gulf of Aden, the Straits of Bab Al-Mandeb, and the Red Sea to international shipping.

On December 26, the Houthis fired twelve one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles, and two land attack cruise missiles over a ten-hour period, according to U.S. Central Command.  The U.S. has deployed the U.S.S. Eisenhower carrier group, with two Arleigh Burke class missile cruisers (passim, ad nauseum) into the region to keep the sea lanes open.  The anti-missile weaponry the U.S. possesses include SM-2s (Block 11A-RIM66) (472 cm long, range: 125 nmi., cost: $2.5m), SM-6s (RIM-174) (660 cm long, Range: 230 nmi., cost $4m); the Evolved Sea-Sparrow Missile (ESSM: range 50 nmi, cost: $1m) which is effective against low-flying threats such as anti-ship cruise missiles and drones; as well as CIWSs.

There are four Super-Hornet squadrons on board the Ike, and are equipped with APG-79 electronically scanned array radar, plus Sidewinder air-to-air missiles ($450k) and AMRAAMs ($1m).  The Super-Hornet was first operationally deployed in 2002

On February 2^nd, the Houthis attacked with twelve UAVs, an Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV), and anti-ship ballistic missiles in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, with minimal effect.

On February 3nd, 2024, the U.S., along with UK RAF Tornado fighter-bombers out of Cyprus, attacked Houthi bases in Yemen, hitting multiple underground storage facilities, command and control centers, missile systems, UAVs, storage and operational sites, radars, and helicopters, according to U.S. CENTCOM.  This strike was connected with Operation PROSPERITY GUARDIAN, which Canada supports diplomatically but without any operational hardware.

The Houthis are a large clan that originated in Yemen’s northwestern Saada province. They are Zaydi, a form of Shiism, making them natural allies of Iran and enemies of Saudi Arabia. Zaydis are a religious minority in Yemen, comprising about a third of its population.

The Houthi movement emerged in northern Yemen in the 1990s out of anger at alleged Saudi financial and religious influence in Yemen. There is a lot of domestic Yemeni politics at play in the Houthi campaign in support of the Palestinian cause.

Abdul Malik al Houthi has been the group’s spiritual, military, and political leader since 2007. Little is known of him, and he’s rarely seen in public. His brother-in-law, Youssef al Midani, is deputy leader. Malik’s two brothers, Yahia and Abdul-Karim, are also senior leaders in the movement.

The Houthis are said promote no coherent ideology, and that their political platform is likewise vague and contradictory. The Houthi originally wanted to imitate Hezbollah, that is, to have power without actually ruling.

The Houthis made themselves a useful ally of Iran in the latter’s effort to destabilize Sunni states in the region: fighting a war with Saudi Arabia starting in 2015 and firing ballistic and cruise missiles of Iranian types into Saudi and, in 2022, at Abu Dhabi.  I say “of an Iranian type” because Iran vociferously denies supplying the Houthis with weapons and training, despite being caught red-handed on several occasions (Tehran calls such claims “false, irresponsible, destructive, and provocative”), and so it must be that these semi-literate tribesmen, without technical sophistication or an industrial base, manage to produce identical copies of their patron’s exotic weapon systems themselves.

Treacherous and bloodthirsty doesn’t being to describe the politics of the region. The Houthis killed ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, a former ally, on December 4, 2017, in a roadside ambush, after having killed a former top advisor to Saleh the previous August. Iranian officials celebrated Saleh’s death.

Even semi-literate tribesmen have access to sophisticated weaponry, and, but for distance, the CAF and Canada are naked against it and to the barbarism controlling it.

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Who’s the moron?

Vincent J. Curtis

4 Apr 24

RE: Europe is facing a new Dark Age. Op-ed by Simon Bennett, supplied by Troy Media The Hamilton Spectator 4 Apr 24

Simon Bennett, the Director of the Civil Safety and Security Unit at Leicester University, in yet another tedious hit piece on Donald Trump, concedes that the former president isn’t a moron; he’s just an ignoramus.  Bennett raises Trump’s America Frist policy, saying that Trump believes it will deliver peace and prosperity to his Make America Great Again disciples.

“It will not,” says Simon Bennett.

And there it lies, an “it will not”: a bald assertion resting on nothing but the authority of the great Simon Bennet, unsupported by other argument or evidence.

But there is plenty of evidence that Bennett is wrong; it’s found in the four years of Trump’s presidency, which was indeed marked by great and rising prosperity, not just for his “disciples,” but for all America, including, particularly, minorities and women; and by peace in the world.

Putin invaded Ukraine when Obama and Biden were president, but not Trump.  Trump assured Putin that Ukraine would not join NATO, but Trump also supplied Ukraine with lethal aid, which Obama did not; and Trump obliged NATO members to spend $100 billion more annually on defense, and to live up to their 2 percent commitment.

It’s not that Trump-hater Simon Bennett is an ignoramus; it’s that he’s a moron.

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Radio Station DUMB

They gotta have a plan!

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Apr 24

RE: Critics of carbon tax have no plan. Editorial. The Dog's Nest Dispatch 2 Apr 24.

The Dog’s Nest Dispatch resembles a radio station of call letters DUMB: all talk, no listen. The Dispatch has often, and for years, been reminded of Canada’s tiny contribution to world CO2 emissions: 1.5 percent; and of Asia’s: greater than 60 percent, and growing. The Dispatch has also been told repeatedly that the carbon tax, being a tax on an inelastic demand, simply won’t reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  The Dispatch hasn’t admitted the truth of these facts, nor countered them with argument; it simply ignores these facts, and their implications.

Hence, like the bleat from a sheep, we get an editorial complaining that the opposition “doesn’t have a plan!”  Well, Trudeau’s plan isn’t working, but he’s continuing with it anyway: how smart is that?  Canada simply cannot do anything about rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, plan or not. The political question ought to be “why bother?” and that is indeed the question going through the minds of a large number of Canadians now, and the Dispatch refuses stubbornly to acknowledge it.  Why don’t the geniuses at the Dispatch offer their own “plan” for Canada to halt, by her own efforts, the rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?

The more distant its editorial position gets from reality, the fewer people listen to radio station DUMB.

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Addictions

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Apr 24

 

RE: Our banks are addicted to oil. Op-ed by Senator Rosa Galvez. The Hamilton Spectator 1 Apr 24.

Banks are “addicted” to oil? Are newspapers, then, “addicted” to readership? To advertising? To paper?  Aren’t the Canadian public “addicted” to oil inasmuch as modern life would be impossible bur for gasoline, diesel, lubricants, and natural gas?

And what is this climate “crisis” of which Senator Galvez writes? What crisis? What is the empirical evidence of a climate “crisis”?  Southern Ontario enjoys a mild winter, and this is the unmistakeable sign that something bad is happening? We’ve heard about impending climate disasters waiting just around the corner for getting on to forty years now; and by every empirical measure, things are getting better, not calamitously worse.

Senator Galvez evidently has her addiction too, and hers to popular nonsense.  But if, because of their peculiar addictions, the Feds attack one of Alberta’s principal industries and employers, the oil and gas sector; they’re going to create an existential crisis, for Canada.

Why should Alberta stay in confederation when the Federal government is trying to destroy its economy?

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Ignore the facts

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Mar 24

RE: Ignore the optics, the carbon tax works. Op-ed by Taylor C. Noakes, an independent journalist and “public historian.” The Hamilton Spectator 26 Mar 24.

If an article of that title were written by economist Ross McKittrick of the University of Guelph, it would indeed be worth reading.  McKittrick has been writing about carbon taxes since the mid-1990s. But the huffings and puffings of a climate zealot, to the effect of “ignore the facts, listen to what I’m telling you,” is unconvincing.  The absence of hard data doesn’t help the case.

The facts are that Canada’s carbon dioxide emissions peaked in 2007, remained more or less constant from then until the beginning of COVID, when they fell, and are now recovering to former levels.  McKittrick made two pertinent observations about carbon taxes worth noting.  The first is that to properly judge its effect, you have to eliminate all other incentives to reducing carbon emission in order to isolate that one effect. Now, that isn’t going to happen, and hence the author’s claim that the carbon tax works is without analytical foundation.

The other pertinent point is that the carbon tax is on an inelastic demand: people still have to drive to work and heat their homes in winter, and rising costs of fossil fuels required for these activities will be met by reducing expenditures in other areas, such as fewer meals out, buying cheaper food, buying fewer or cheaper clothes.

The carbon tax doesn’t reduce carbon emissions, and zealotry can’t make it so.

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Surreal climate calls

Vincent J. Curtis

18 March 24

RE: Climate woes need solutions, not slogans Editorial, The Hamilton Spectator 18 Mar 24

RE: Let’s all be climate role models. Op-ed by Tricia Clarkson, a climate change columnist & co-chair of Peterborough Alliance for Climate Action

Canada is responsible for 1.5 percent of the global emissions of carbon dioxide. India and China together are responsible for 40 percent.  Include the rest of Asia, and over half of global carbon dioxide emissions are accounted for.

Canada is not the problem; it cannot therefore be part of the solution; and neither Xi of China nor Modi of India look to Canada, or to Prime Minster Trudeau, as a moral example for anything.

Also, there is no climate crisis. The climates of the world aren’t about to collapse, descend into chaos, or fall into any other calamity.  Winters in eastern Canada are becoming milder, and, so the conclusion is: this is wrong, and something bad must be happening!

Nothing bad is happening; the world isn’t about to end; and even if it were, there’s nothing Canada can do about it.  The call for Canadians to suffer economically because the climate of eastern Canada is improving smacks of an absurd  prudishness, a moralistic zealotry, and, given the statistics above, downright surreal.

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The plus side of pollen

Vincent J. Curtis

13 Mar 24

RE: Earlier and Longer allergy season in store for Hamilton. News item. The Hamilton Spectator 13 Mar 24

It’s one thing to say the season of pollen will start earlier, and another to say it will last longer. If so, won’t the season, though longer, be less intense? The same amount of pollen, being spread over a longer period of time, means the amount in the air at any one time would be less, should it not? Not if there is more plant-life spreading pollen.

The news story is intended to be fed into the climate change narrative, and that’s supposed to be a bad thing.  But, higher CO2 levels do contribute to is more flourishing plant life, CO2 being plant food.  A longer season of pollen of the same intensity means that plant life is flourishing more intensely, and that is a good sign of life.

Another set of cultists closely related to climate is the “race to extinction” crowd, who hold that that mankind is destroying the earth and that the global population needs to fall by six billion to restore what they call balance.  A season of pollen signifying more flourishing plant life is bad news for them, good news for 6 billion of humanity, and shows that more CO2 and a warmer climate have plus sides.

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Obscure Drivel

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Mar 24

RE: Assassins of memory and the crisis of civic memory. Op-ed by Henry A. Giroux. The Hamilton Spectator 11 Mar 24.

The piece by Henry Giroux is a mixture of obscurity and dog-whistles. “Memory currently occupies a large media presence” means what, exactly? “Far-right GOP legislators, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis…” is a dog-whistle; one that makes a glaring error any American ought to realize: that a governor is not a legislator, and Gov. DeSantis could not serve as an example of a legislator.

The rest of the piece rises not an inch above this level of literary and analytical obscurity. It’s nothing but obscure, dark, and threatening. Maybe being so obscure and threatening is supposed to make the author look smart; and perhaps it does to some; but to high school grads who at a gut level think the article is junk: your instincts are good.

I know Giroux is supposed to be an academic in something called critical pedagogy, but how can you teach anything when your locution is so obscure? This sort of writing would never get past an old newspaper editor, and I don’t understand how Giroux’s continues to fool the Spec’s editorial page editor.

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Bill C-63: An invitation to lawfare

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Mar 24

RE: Fighting hate is good, but prevention is better. Op-ed by Alexander Polgar. The Hamilton Spectator 8 Mar 24.

Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, is an invitation to lawfare.  A disfavored fringe group, which gets their jollies by saying things that annoy another fringe group, can be harassed and destroyed through the power of government if the group, fringe or otherwise, it annoys is politically favoured.  The annoyance is brought through speech the offended group calls hate.

And there may be some cause to call the speech in question hateful, but the right to expression and the right to beliefs are protected in the Charter.  The answer to hateful speech is more speech, not legal vengeance.

As Mark Steyn has often observed in the effort to control speech: the cure is invariably worse than the disease. The real danger in Bill C-63 is when the application of this well-intended measure metastasizes into the cancellation of mainstream political opposition. After all, who gets to decide what speech is hateful and what, not: why, those who have the political power to enforce their views.

Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act had to be removed because it was being abused to harass people and suppress their speech, and Bill C-63 is of the same nature: well-intentioned, with endless opportunities for abuse.

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The folly of Canadian gun control

Shootings continue

Vincent J. Curtis

7 Mar 24

AR-15s were made prohibited in Canada by Order-in-Council on May 1^st, 2020.  Trade in handguns has been restricted since the 1930s, and was made prohibited a year ago.  Yet gun crimes in Canada continue.  We saw the shooting reported in the March 7^th Spectator, and also the story that the Hamilton Police Services were going to make permanent their shooting response unit.  Shootings persist: why?

Bill C-21 and, before that, Bill C-71 were supposed to curb gun crime by cracking down on the law-abiding; and it’s going to cost billions of dollars and thousands of manhours to fulfill the provision of Bill C-21 for the confiscation of firearms from otherwise law-abiding gun owners.

The reason gun control legislation has failed to curb gun crime in Canada is that the lawfully owned guns of the law-abiding were never the problem: it was the illegal guns possessed by the criminal class that remains the problem.  And resources will be misdirected chasing a chimera of gun “control” instead of being devoted to preventing the entry of illegal guns into Canada and other crime prevention measures.

I will venture to say that the public was fooled all along by the Federal government concerning gun crime.  Gun control is a popular issue among those that the government can appeal to; and punishing gun owners both hits a class of people who don’t in general vote Liberal, and makes it look like they’re doing something about crime.

Gun crime will get worse, not better.

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Soft power threats in the High Arctic

Vincent J. Curtis

6 Sept 23

In the first week of August, 2023, a joint naval task force of Russian and Chinese vessels suddenly appeared off the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.  The United States Navy dispatched four Arleigh Burke class destroyers to warn them off; and the task force, at the end of August, returned to base having completed patrol of 13,000 km in length.  This demonstration by the Russians and Chinese was intended to embarrass the United States by showing that it was vulnerable, and that US naval assets were not so powerful as to be able to defend in strength everywhere.

Given Canada’s new Indo-Pacific Strategy, you have to wonder if Canada could be in for similar treatment?  There are, however, a few factors that militate against it: the first being accessibility.  Canada’s High Arctic region is choked with ice for the entire year.

During the Cold War, an attack by the Soviet Union over the pole with the aim of gaining lodgement in Canada’s far North was considered unfeasible.  The extreme weather, high latitudes (which made navigation by compass impossible), and complete absence of infrastructure and population meant that only a small force, operating at the limits of capability, could land and survive.  The Canadian response might amount to a search and rescue operation!

But suppose there was a soft-power invasion instead?  The belt-and-road initiative by China is an exercise in soft-power.  Chinese imperialism does not take the European form of territorial conquest of distant lands, and of governance of distant lands by Chinese officials.  Chinese imperialism takes the form of domination and control.  The Chinese regime operates on theory that China can be only where Chinese are: it explains both the reluctance to conquer foreign lands and the presence of Chinese police stations and Confucius Institutes in Canada.

The aim of a Chinese soft power attack in Canada’s High Arctic would be twofold: first, to humiliate the Canadian government; second, to demonstrate that Canadian sovereign writ does not run over some of the territory claimed by Canada.  This latter part means, diplomatically, that those territories are open to exploration and economic exploitation to nations capable of doing so.  Opening a mine in the high Arctic in “disputed” territory is not as hostile as a military occupation; and a military response by Canada would make Canada appear the aggressor.  We may think this absurd, but China and Russia together have enough influence in the world to make a vote in the United Nations condemning Canada a distinct possibility; and both Russia and China have veto power in the UN Security Council.

What might a soft-power invasion look like?  A Chinese icebreaker passes through the Bering Straits into the Arctic Ocean on a scientific mission.  The vessel enters the Northwest Passage, and stops at Alexander Island to take scientific measurements.  (Alexander Island lies on the north side of the passage, and is uninhabited.)  It might leave a remote weather station, or geologists night search for valuable minerals such as deposits of rare earth metals.  All very innocuous and non-hostile.

But what happened?  Chinese nationals landed on Canadian territory not at a Port of Entry.  There were no CBSA officials to check their passports.  There was no one there to arrest them.  In short, there was no Canadian authority within a thousand kilometers to check them.

Canada would have to mount a naval response: carrying CBSA and RCMP officers to put a stop to the Chinese mission.  Soldiers, or armed naval personnel, would have to accompany the landing party.  Military police would lack the jurisdiction to make arrests.  The RCN ship would need to have guns in case the Chinese vessel had weaponry secreted somewhere.

Air power alone is no longer enough to defend Canadian sovereignty in the High Arctic.  Canada needs to be able to put boots on the ground, and the RCN has to be able to deliver and sustain them.

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Greenwashing: the new term of hate

Vincent J. Curtis

5 March 24

Greenwashing, following fascist, “white supremacist, and “-phobe” is fast becoming the latest epithet of hate, worse in its category than “climate denier.” Greenwashing has never been precisely defined, but greenwashing appears to mean vaguely, deceptively claiming to be protecting the planet from greenhouse gases but in fact doing the opposite.

The accusation of “greenwasher” was tossed at a farmer who claimed that the cows he was breeding belched and flatulated less, and therefore were better for the environment. The letter writer to the Dog’s Nest Dispatch of this date condemned the farmer as a “greenwasher” and intolerantly displayed her complete ignorance of basic facts about the greenhouse effect. For example, she made the claim that “animal agriculture is the no. 1 contributor of greenhouse gases on the planet.” This is nonsense on stilts!

To start with, it’s animal husbandry, not agriculture (for agriculture pertains to plants); and the no. 1 contributor to the greenhouse effect is water vapor, with carbon dioxide a distance second, and a distant third being ozone.  A far distant fourth is methane, which is present in the atmosphere at a negligible 2 ppm concentration.

The mindset that so easily tosses around epithets like “greenwasher” and the equally absurd “climate denier” (for no one denies the existence of climate) is intolerant and seeks to win something by bringing hatred against the target of the accusation.

Keep an eye out for the term “greenwashing.”

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But not all hate speech

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Feb 24

RE: Hate crime changes “troubling” CP story by Stephanie Taylor. The Hamilton Spectator 29 Feb 24.

The Federal government introduced legislation to impose draconian penalties for hate speech, including up to life imprisonment, for those advocating genocide.  How about those who chant “from the river to the sea”?  This chant advocates the destruction of the State of Israel, and necessarily of the genocide of the Jewish people living in it.  Will these people be subject to prosecution? Will any of their leaders be exposed to potentially life imprisonment?

I doubt it.

And what about those who claim that others are guilty of “greenwashing”?  This rather nebulous term is another form of hate-speech. It’s an accusation that the “greenwasher” is guilty of deception, and is actually working for the destruction of the world, or perhaps just of the human race, by continuing the production, or use of, fossil fuels.  Isn’t that a hateful thing to say, even if you believe it?

Those who claim that the world can only be saved by reducing the global population from 8 billion to 2 billion are advocating for the extinction of three quarters of the human race.  Surely, this too is the advocacy of genocide. Will they too be punished? I doubt it.

As Mark Steyn has observed many times concerning well-intentioned restrictions on free speech: that the cure is always worse than the disease.

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Climate change changes your life, now

Houston, you have a problem

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Feb 24

RE: How global warming is reshaping life in winter. Op-ed by H. Damon Matthews and Mitchell Dickau. Matthews is a professor and climate scientist in the department of geography planning and environment at Concordia University. Dickau is a Ph.D. candidate in the same department and the same school.

The opinions of the two researches who claim that global warming is causing changes of “life in winter” suffers from two flaws: one factual and the other analytical.

The factual flaw is that the globe simply hasn’t warmed to any significant degree since 1998.  Global temperature measurement by satellite began in 1979, the coldest year of the 20^th century, and the end of the decade of the “coming ice age.”  Temperatures warmed until 1998 and then the world entered into the “global warming pause.”  This inexplicable pause is why “climate change” took over from “global warming” at the climatic boogie-man.  Finally, 2023 was warmer than 1998 after the Tonga Hunga volcanic eruption of 2022 filled the stratosphere with water vapor.  Temperature fluctuations of a few tenths of a degree Celsius are the substance of this alleged “warming.”

The second problem is analytical. If it doesn’t get as hot in summer as it used to, then winters can be warmer without any change in annual average temperature, and the researchers looked only at winters.  The number of extremely hot days has been falling in North America since the peak of the 1930s.

I’ve experienced Alberta winters since 2015; some are better than others, but all are marked by several periods of -30C temperatures.  It dropped to -37C for a week this January.

There is no climate crisis: don’t be snowed!

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Marxism won't fix a housing crisis

Marxism isn’t the answer

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Feb 24

RE: The private sector housing experiment has failed. Op-ed by Shauna MacKinnon The Hamilton Spectator 16 Feb 24. Shauna MacKinnon is a professor and chair of the department of urban and inner city studies at the University of Winnipeg.

You’d expect a Marxist to conclude that capitalism has failed, as Professor MacKinnon has done.  You’d expect a Marxist to say that only heavy intervention and control of economic resources by the government can solve whatever the problem is, as Professor MacKinnon said of Canada’s housing crisis.  Calling Canada’s history of housing construction an “experiment”, something easily discarded and undeserving of respect, to say nothing of being a false misrepresentation of the facts, is what you’d expect a Marxist with an agenda to say.

Actually, the housing crisis has been caused by government: by municipal governments for not making land available in unlimited quantities on which to build new housing; and by the Federal government for bringing in record numbers of immigrants without caring i there was housing for them or not.

American economist and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Thomas Sowell has written about housing crises, which he first observed in Palo Alto in the 1970s, for over four decades. The cause and the solution are not hard to discover, unless you’re a Marxist out to proved that capitalism doesn’t work.

Get the government out of the way, let the free market work its magic, and the housing crisis will be solved quicker than by ham-fisted government intervention, the cause of the crisis in the first place.

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ENFOR in the Advance to Contact

Vincent J. Curtis

15 Aug 23

A few points regarding the employment of an enemy force (ENFOR) on an advance to contact exercise.

If a completely dry exercise employs no ENFOR and the troops just go through the motions, then the weaker the ENFOR and the less ammunition they have, the drier the exercise becomes.  A well-supplied and well-equipped ENFOR can always be told to tone down the violence and sophistication of resistance; but lacking means, they cannot ramp it up.  The tougher the ENFOR, the more the friendly troops – and their commanders – will learn on the exercise; and learning, they gain more satisfaction from what they accomplished.

ENFOR will probably kick butt the first few engagements; but towards the end, the friendly forces, through those bad experiences, will become more cohesive and aware of what they must do, and then they will start to win.  Win legitimately.  There is more satisfaction in knowing you beat a tough opponent in the end than there is in just beating up on an enemy that was too weak to resist in the first place.

ENFOR should be appropriate to the situation.  In an advance to contact, the enemy in a real war would put out a covering force of recce troops, snipers, and sited machine gun nexts.  Recce troops, if found, will try to run away rather than fight to the death.  They won’t engage.  Snipers are an appropriate enemy, and should be dealt with by a section.  Sited machine guns are a platoon objective.  That means that the enemy force should be equipped with machine guns!  In a real war, the defense has a much higher proportion of machine guns in the front line than is normal in a standard ORBAT.  It would be great if ENFOR had a C-6, and even better if it had a couple of C-9s as well.  Now there is some real capability that can be tuned by EXCON.

Smoke grenades can be used to help the friendly forces identify quickly where the fire is coming from.

ENFOR is always outnumbered and always in the front line.  The individual enemy trooper should be expected to fire between three and five times the average amount of ammunition fired on a weekend by a friendly trooper, who, two thirds of the time, is in reserve.  The math is simple.  The less ammunition allotted, the drier the exercise.

If the friendly forces are tasked with clearing a trace of enemy, the trace shouldn’t be wider than a normal company frontage in an advance to contact.  That means no wider than 500 to 1000 m, depending on the terrain.  Given that realistic width and the other requirements of EXCON, ENFOR should be allowed to defend anywhere within that trace.  This means the following: the ENFOR commander on the ground should have the friendly trace in his possession, and within that trace be allowed defend that which is realistically defensible, not just so many bumps per kilometer.  If lots of separate contacts are desired, the terrain that encourages it should be selected, if possible.  These are the beginnings of a force on force exercise.

There is training value also in exercising the tactical sense the of the ENFOR commander, a young lieutenant (perhaps advised by a patient and mature Warrant Officer) who next year will have valuable experience to apply to the defense phase of war.

The last point is communications. Good communications between the ENFOR commander and EXCON is important. ENFOR can adapt quickly if it knows what’s going on, and its logistics needs can be attended to. Enhancing ENFOR effectiveness enhances the training value, to the friendly forces.

An effective advance to contact exercise needs an ENFOR.  That means it needs to be well armed, well equipped, and well supplied.  It needs machine guns, lots of ammunition, good communications, and organic transport.  ENFOR need not be large, but a weak, blind, deaf, and dumb enemy does not offer realistic training to friendly troops.

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Hate Piece in the Hamilton Spectator

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Feb 24

RE: The death of truth and justice. Op-ed by Wayne Poole. The Hamilton Spectator 26 Jan 24.

“Is it fear, ignorance, racism, personal gain, or misplaced beliefs that motivate people to support Donald Trump?” With that opening question, Mr. Poole engages in hate speech.

I support Donald Trump for president of the United States. I think he’s precisely the man the United States needs as president right now, and there are perhaps 75 million Americans who agree with me.  The Spectator was gracious enough to, in September, 2016, publish an op-ed by me explaining why Trump was not the evil man portrayed in mainstream American media; that he wasn’t a racist, he was a New York City liberal.

But Mr. Poole accuses me of being a racist because I support Donald Trump.  He speculates I have something personal to gain out of my support for Mr. Trump, or that I have fears of some sort.  Wayne Poole has never met me, or met millions of other people who think Donald Trump should become the next United States president; but, unmet, he contemptuously dismisses them, and me, with words expressive of hatred.

Poole next asks, “why would a decent, rational human being do so?” He speculates that decency and rationality are in short supply in certain quarters. Mr. Poole says in that paragraph that I, who support Trump, is not decent and is not rational.  These are again contemptuous dismissals expressive of his hatred.

Poole continues, “Trump is supported by white supremacists because they are likeminded in their racism….” As I explained in the 2016 article, Trump is a New York City liberal without a racist bone in his body, but supporters of Trump are white supremacists and racists, according to Mr. Poole.  That would be me Poole is accusing. Poole has no basis for making those accusation again me; and this is yet another example of a burning hatred he expresses throughout the article against people he doesn’t know and has never met, who think Trump should be the next president.

Poole continues, “…the evangelical right, who cut a deal with the devil, in exchange for overturning Roe vs. Wade….” The devil here would be Donald Trump, and Poole’s contempt for, and hatred of, evangelicals makes its first appearance at this point.

Poole continues, “Trump is not a Christian, yet much of Trump’s support comes from the religious right.  To support Trump is to deny Christian values and embrace hypocrisy.  As a semi-literate religiously illiterate bully, Trump has no understanding of love, empathy, compassions, forgiveness, or any of the traits that define Christianity.”

Well, Poole doesn’t know Trump’s private religious beliefs, but Trump certainly respects Christianity and Judaism.  Poole has no access to Trump’s private thoughts, and cannot know if Trump has understanding of love, empathy, etc., or not.  Poole’s claim that “to support Trump is to deny Christian values” is merely an expression of hatred, and also quite in error for Christians believe to “render onto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render onto God that which is God’s.” to say nothing of redemption and forgiveness of sins.

Poole’s allegations that Trump is semi-literate and religiously illiterate, that he has no understanding of love, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, or any of the traits which define Christianity are quite obviously either untrue or go without evidence, and are simply expressions of Poole’s hatred of Trump and of those who support him, like me. Poole does, however, seem to expose that he himself is not a Christian.  That makes it easier for him to despise and express hatred towards Christians, especially members of the Christian “right.”

Poole next makes allusions to indoctrination, brainwashing, people susceptible to manipulation; to dictators, cult leaders etc. influencing or controlling us. These allusions are intended to cast imprecations against those who support Mr. Trump, like me.

Mr. Poole next brings us Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a famously courageous German theologian who spoke up against the Nazi regime before and during the war, and was finally killed by the Nazis.  Why would Poole need to explain Bonhoeffer’s fate at the hands of the Nazis unless he meant to imply aspersions against those who support Mr. Trump, like me? Oh, “Today’s evil is Trump and his acolytes…” I would be a Trump ‘acolyte,’ and being so, Poole hatefully condemns me as evil. “Only morally bankrupt citizens could support such a morally bankrupt candidate.” Well, 75 million people proved to be morally bankrupt in Poole’s eyes in 2020, which is an expression of hatred against nearly half the American population.

“Donald Trump is liar in chief.” “U.S. history is steeped in fascism.”  “Sheep-like they dutifully line up behind this narcissistic sociopath.” Poole’s expressions of hatred for Trump and those who support him is getting tedious and repetitive, but the seething hatred he feels is on full display.

The article by Mr. Poole is a work of hate literature, and I demand its retraction.

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A copy of this was e-mailed to Mr. Paul Berton, Editor-in-Chief and to Mr. Howard Elliott, last seen as Editorial Page Editor and Managing Editor (hoping someone checked his mailbox), on Thursday, February 1^st and received no response. On Monday morning, February 5^th, I called Mr. Berton at his office number during business hours and left a recorded message, giving my name and number.  As of the evening of February 9^th, I received no reply.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REPOST: Why Lametti is getting out of Dodge

**REPOST**

Creative lawyering

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Nov 22

The Emergencies Act hearings revealed that under the advice of Attorney-General David Lametti, the Federal cabinet, the Governor-in-Council, could and did disregard the plain English meaning of Section 16 of the Emergency Measures Act (EA).  The wording in the EA specifically ties the meaning of a “Public Order Emergency” to Section 2 of the CSIS Act.

The relevant wording is as follows: 2 (c) activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective within Canada or a foreign state.

The serious violence provision, when adopted, was guided by the FLQ crisis of 1970.  After a years’ long campaign of placing bombs in mail boxes, cells of the FLQ kidnapped and murdered Quebec Deputy Premier Pierre LaPorte, and kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross.  This is the image to keep in mind when associating “serious violence” with invoking the War Measures Act, or its successor, the EA.

Before the commission, Lametti argued that given the different purposes of the CSIS Act and the EA, each with different goals, the meaning of 2(c) in the EA is different - from the context in which it has been incorporated into the two acts.  The decision making body is different, for one thing.

Lametti was arguing that Cabinet hands cannot be bound by what CSIS thinks, but its hands can be unbound by what a lawyer thinks.

Let’s take it as read that the government is free to interpret the meaning of 2 (c) independently of CSIS.  What CSIS thinks is irrelevant to the conclusion the government reaches on the basis of the same set of facts.  This would explain the government’s emphasis on violence and that the protests mysteriously became “illegal.”

The Freedom Convoy was non-violent civil disobedience intended to convince the Federal government to lift its recently imposed vaccine mandate on truckers who crossed the U.S. border.  And it was non-violent.  This fact necessitates a creative interpretation of what amounts to violence in order to reach the standard of 2 (c).

Hence, the blockade at the Ambassador Bridge was an act of violence.  Horn-honking was an act of violence.  Unverified claims of fear by Ottawa residents and of acts of intimidation and harassment were all alleged to be acts of violence by the protesters.  “My own staff were harassed,” claimed Lametti under oath.  The reports of guns being in the cabs of the trucks in Ottawa played into the leitmotif of violence and threats of violence.  The fear of a January 6^th style of an invasion of the parliament buildings was widely expressed by individuals hostile to the Convoy’s aims.  The Prime Minster received a death threat!

Given the intent by the government to spread the idea of violence and threats of violence, the friendly reception that Conservative politicians such as Pierre Poilievre and Candice Bergen received while walking amid the protesters undercut the portrayal of violence. These people were subjected to intense and personal criticism by government members.  They were giving aid and comfort to white supremacists, racists, fascists, misogynists, people of “unacceptable views,” disbelievers in science, and takers-up of space, allegedly.  The violent rhetoric all seemed to be coming from the government side, not the Convoy or its friends.

But allegations of violence was not enough.  The economic consequences of the blockade were thrown onto the scale, and we’ve heard ministerial testimony relating what others said to them, that Canada was being made a laughing stock, that the U.S. was getting mad at us, etc.  All unverified, and all irrelevant to the concept of serious violence against persons or property.

Another mystery yet to be resolved by the hearings is how the Convoy came to become an illegal occupation.  Exhaustion with the Convoy’s insistence on its being heard does not in itself make the Convoy illegal or violent against persons or property.  Violating city parking by-laws on Wellington Street, Ottawa, does not make the Convoy an illegal occupation.  Premier Doug Ford of Ontario may have been the first to say that the Convoy was illegal, but that does not make it so.  Nevertheless, government ministers have taken pains to refer to the Convoy as illegal.  Which, let it be said, does not in itself constitute an act or threat of serious violence against persons or property.

Let’s turn now to the business of “for the purpose of achieving a political, religious, or ideological objective.”  We can disregard religious and focus on political and ideological.  The Trudeau government is philosophically progressive, which makes everything political a battle of ideologies.  That’s why to discredit the Convoy, the government made all kinds of references to unsavory ideologies, like white supremacism, fascism, racism, etc.  But objectively speaking the Convoy wanted a political goal: a reversal of policy on the vaccine mandate on truckers who cross the border.  The Trudeau government saw the Convoy as a challenge to its power.  Who has power, and who makes the decisions, are central to progressive ideologues.  They believe in rule of experts, precisely as occurred during the COVID pandemic.  The Trudeau government was exercising its power to deliver on the rule by expert, and hence cannot possibly bow to the wishes of truckers, who aren’t experts.

This may go to explain why the Trudeau government never, ever contemplated parlaying with the Convoy.  “This is a democracy, we can’t talk to protesters!  They’re not experts!”  And the campaign to discredit the Convoy served that end, of making parlaying with the Convoy either impossible or unnecessary.

When the Convoy protesters proved tougher and more persistent than the government imagined, it determined, contrary to fact, that the Convoy protest was “directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property.”

Holding to that legal fiction is crucial to the government maintaining that the invocation of the EA was necessary and justified.  That’s what we’re getting from government ministers.

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Gaslighting on climate change

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Feb 24

RE: Is climate change linked to cold snaps? A CP article by Jordan Omstead. The Hamilton Spectator 1 Feb 24.

The public is being gaslighted on climate change, and this CP article contains many examples of the practice. First off, if something gets warmer, it doesn’t get cold. Second, climate is not a quantity; hence its change cannot be measured quantitively.  Third, climate is not observable, and because it’s not observable or quantifiable, change in it takes a long time to confirm.  Fourth, global warming is supposed to be driven by minor increases in concentration of a minor atmospheric gas, CO2; and these increases are said to be the drivers of climate change.

It is quite untrue to say, “Scientists agree on how climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels…” Scientists don’t agree, which is why there is so much contention over so-called “climate change.”

Cold snaps aren’t allegedly changing climate change trends, but yet, rapid warming in the far north could be linked to outbreaks of cold Arctic air? This is pure gaslighting. If the Arctic is warming, why is its air cold? And spreading sourth?

Jet stream undulation is not well understood, and its existence was explained in the 1970s as due to global cooling.

Extreme Arctic cold flowing into southern latitudes is a challenge to the climate change narrative, and the climate cult resorts to gaslighting to keep up appearances. “Nothing to see here,” they say. Scientists have it all explained, they claim.

Nonsense!

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Science fraud

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Jan 24

RE: Global warming was primary cause of unprecedented Amazon drought: study AP story by Fabiano Maisonnave. The Hamilton Spectator 25 Jan 24.

Both the AP and the Spadina Av. Speculator are known for tub-thumping for global warming, and the publication of this story is an example of both, despite the evident fraudulent science.  The story says that human induced global warming and climate change were responsible for the drought presently inflicting the Amazon basin.  The use of the word ‘drought’ is the give-away.

Nobody says that a desert is suffering from drought.  Drought is a weather event, not a climate event, and drought refers to a period when rainfall that should normally occur does not occur. Drought is temporary, not permanent.  That the word drought was used and not desertification, means that the authors expect normal rainfall eventually to return; hence, the climate never really changed at all.  Climate is not as variable as the weather is.

They also claim global warming.  The problem is, the globe isn’t warming.  Although last year was allegedly the “hottest year ever!” in fact, it was only tenths a degree warmer than 1998, and all the years intervening.  This is not the sort of thing that causes a sudden and permanent change in rainfall patterns (desertification).

Politics is corrupting of everything it touches, and science is no exception.  If you want another research grant, you need say something about the coming doom of human caused climate change.

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AP's Pro-Hams Bias: An example

Accepting of Hamas propaganda

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Jan 24

RE: Hours lost puts countless lives at risk. AP story by Najib Jobain, Samy Magdy, and Tia Goldenberg. The Hamilton Spectator 16 Jan 24

The pro-Hamas bias in this news item was painful to read. The claim that “24,100 civilians were killed by Israel” rests on the claim of “authorities,” who are, in fact, Hamas operatives, Hamas being the governing authority of Gaza for the last 16 years. How, given the confusion and lack of control of Gaza “authorities” over the strip, can they know this precise number of 24,100 is a journalistic question begging to be asked.

By comparison, the story says that Israel claims to have killed 8,000 militants “without providing evidence.” There’s your bias in black and white.

Israel has been saying for weeks that its inspection capacity is three times the actual delivery of relief into the strip, and that the lack of supplies to Gazan civilians is due to the failure of relief authorities to deliver the volume required, and to Hamas’ hijacking of the trucks and stealing the supplies. These points are bereft of mention in the story.

If there is a “humanitarian catastrophe,” blame Hamas for starting the war, and other Arab countries which are secretly delighted to see the hated “Palestinians” suffer at the hands of Israel.

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What is climate “change?”

Vincent J. Curtis

13 Jan 24

The alleged climate “crisis”, so called climate change, relies on ambiguity and a lack of philosophical, that is to say, scientific precision to put over the panic mongering.  The panic mongering, in turn, is all about justifying political actions that control people’s lives: Don’t fly! Drive EVs! Do this, not that! Etc.

‘Climate change’, as an expression, is non-specific, non-falsifiable, and, for that reason, unscientific. What is the definition of climate? There isn’t one.  Does climate have units of measurement by which one can quantitatively measure its change?  No, it doesn’t.  And if climate is not quantitative in character but rather qualitative, does one climate change into another; or does a climate, considered as substance, change in accidental attributes?  If the former, climate is a quality rather than a substance, and then climate must be an attribute of a substance.

If climate is the attribute of something else, then that something else must be the substance.  Is the atmosphere that substance? If so, the atmosphere would have many accidental attributes, many of them dependent upon location: as a quilt has many colors: a specific color at a specific location. It would be wrong to speak of climate as substance when it’s an attribute.

Attributes themselves don’t change; substances change in accidental attributes.  Red remains red even if the substance colored red changes to blue. If climate is an attribute of the substance atmosphere, then it is atmosphere that changes in attributes, changing from one climate to another, not climate that changes.

This highlights the problem of ambiguity of climate. There’s color, and then there are colors, like red and blue. If climate changes, does that mean color changes from red to blue, or that a substance colored red changes color into blue? Climate must be like color, with red and blue being like different climates, the accidental attributes of a substance.

If climate is like color, then a climate is like a color; a climate refers to a set of accidental attributes of a substance. Of course, accidental attributes of a substance can change; they are accidents, after all.  Climate change, then, is like color change. Like blushing.

This brief philosophical analysis shows the unscientific ambiguity in the debate over climate change.  It is not climate that changes, but the atmosphere that changes in climate. These changes are qualitative and not subject to measurement, since it is the quantitative that is measurable.  The only quantitative measurement that’s sensible concerning the atmosphere is the temperature, and that that too is fraught with scientific and philosophical problems.  One of them, for the climatistas, is the stability of global temperature, according to the currents means of measurement.

The distinction between climate change and change in climate may seem trivial, but it isn’t.  Climate is an accidental attribute of the atmosphere, and the accidental attributes of a substance are susceptible to being changed.  You’d expect climate to change.  And, expressions like climate “chaos” and climate “collapse” are absurdities; absurdities that feed into the panic mongering.  It is the substance that collapses, not the attribute; and no one is saying that the atmosphere is about to collapse.

Aristotle observed that there is no science of accidents, and this observation holds good for climate.  Climate science has no explanation for why climatic characteristics exist where they do, but not in other places.  Sure, Arizona has a dry, desert-like climate; but why doesn’t it rain there?  Meteorology might have some handwaving explanation involving wind patterns, but climate science has none at all; it simply takes as bruttal fact that Arizona has a desert climate.  Hence, climate science is mystified if Arizona were to have a year of unusual rain; all climate science might say is that the climate changed, perhaps temporarily.  California and Australia are two places prone to alternate extremes of drought and flood, and all climatology can say is that climate in those places are prone to alternate between one extreme and another without being able to forecast when or why such climate change occurs.

Weather is distinct from climate. Sticking with Aristotle’s Categories, weather, especially a weather event, may be thought of as a passion of the substrate, atmosphere, quick and temporary; and since weather and climate are related, climate might be considered as the habit of having certain of those weather passions. We call a person irascible who has the habit of getting angry easily; and climate may be thought of in this respect: that a climate is the habit of having certain kinds of weather at a place.  As an irascible person has a disposition at rest, and becomes angry as a habit; so to the atmosphere may have a natural disposition to weather at rest, with a habit towards certain weather events; and either the habit or the disposition at rest are said to characterize a place’s climate.

To summarize: Climate is qualitative in character, and therefore not measurable quantitively.  Climate, being like color, doesn’t change, it is the substrate that changes in climate, as red remains red even as the substrate colored red changes to blue. Climate also seems like habit in weather, for climate is related to characteristic weather patterns. A change in climate, like change in habits, can take a long time, many years, to confirm: that a period of anomalous weather signifies a real change in climate, or that period is merely a spontaneous and temporary departure from the expected, takes time to confirm. Since climate lacks a definition, of the tendency of California and Australia to alternate periods of drought and flood, one can say that these places are prone to alternative extremes of climate; and that drastic change in climate is to be expected in these places.

Climate “change” is a misnomer; it is misleading shorthand for “change in climate.” Climate is a qualitative attribute, not a substance.  Planet earth does not have “a climate” it has many climates, and these are accidental attributes of the atmosphere.  It can take time, often years, to confirm changes in climate are real and permanent.

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Futility and self-defeat

Vincent J. Curtis

9 Jan 24

RE: How your vacation abroad hurts the planet. Op-ed by Alberta Koehl. The Hamilton Spectator 9 Jan 24.

Environmental lawyer Albert Koehl presents another demand for sacrifice to “save the planet!” His demand is that we curtail air travel for vacation on the grounds that jet travel adds unconscionable amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, and on social justice grounds: that the poor are less able to insulate themselves “from grave climate change consequences,” like those prosperous fliers can.

This call is futile, unnecessary, and self-defeating. It is self-defeating on social-justice grounds because a significant curtailment of air travel will create a lot of unemployment in the tourist and air travel industries.  His call to think of the poor before you fly would create more poor people in those industries reliant on tourism.

It is futile because Canada contributes only 1.5 percent of world CO2 emissions, while Asia and Russia contribute well over 50 percent; and Asia and Russia aren’t buying this Western mania about atmospheric plant food. India and China in particular are building coal-fired power plants as quickly as they can, and have no plans on stopping for several decades more.

It is unnecessary because the latest hard atmospheric physics shows that a doubling of CO2 from 400 to 800 ppm will result in a rise of global temperature by a meagre 0.72ºC.  Catastrophic climate change isn’t in the cards.

There is no need to be miserable on account of fears of climate change or concerns about “social justice.”  Life is to be enjoyed; the planet will be fine.

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See the Oct 20, 2023 entry of this blog for the hard physics on temperature rise.

Wallace spews contempt

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Jan 24

RE: Blame Reagan for distrust of science. Op-ed by Craig Wallace. The Hamilton Spectator 8 Jan 24.

The column by Craig Wallace is one of those Too Stupid for Publication.  He spews nothing but contempt: “..many conservatives are trapped in a flawed ideology that does not allow them to respond rationally to serious crises.  It isn’t logical to embrace an ideology that may very well lead to death.”

Let’s ignore the numerous and fatal philosophical mistakes in that contemptuous dismissal of conservatives, and examine his claim that Reagan, the guy who believed in space defence (a.k.a. “Star Wars”), is to blame for conservatives’ alleged distrust of science.

Wallace cannot tell you what a science is.  Do you distrust physics? Chemistry? Econometrics? What does ‘to distrust physics’ even mean? Do you distrust bureaucrats-cum-scientists with something to hide, or with an obvious political agenda? Do you distrust Anthony Fauci? Theresa Tam? Neil Ferguson? Michael Mann?  Those are different questions from distrusting virology, epidemiology, and climate “science.” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is an eminent epidemiologist, and he got cancelled because he was opposed to the lockdown policies.  How can you trust vicious politics like that being passed off as “science’?  Science doesn’t lie, but scientists do, especially those on the make for their next research grant.

It’s not science that conservatives distrust; it’s the “expert,” whose rule they are wary of.

It’s a parlor game among a self-appointed smart-set to sneer contemptuously at conservatives, but it’s articles like Wallace’s that expose how shallow and empty-headed those games really are.

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High Arctic Challenges

Vincent J. Curtis

28 June 23

The Chinese Communist Party justifies its existence to the Chinese people on the basis of its ability to deliver rapid economic growth, prosperity, and wealth.  In part, because of this, and in part to justify repression, China, under the leadership of the CCP, is extending its economic influence all around the globe, unprecedented in Chinese history.  Chinese political leadership has for millennia been inward looking, and its contact with the world of barbarians (that would include us) occurred on the fringes of the empire.  The only interest that Chinese political leadership customarily took far outside the borders of the empire was to keep tabs on Chinese nationals, lest they plot to overthrow the regime.  The CCP maintains this traditional Chinese policy through, for example, the establishment of Confucius Instituted on university campuses attended by Chinese students, and by the establishment of so-called police stations in places where there are numerous people of Chinese ancestry.

With its new Indo-Pacific strategy, Canada acknowledges the military threat behind Chinese economic expansion. (Taiwan is a separate issue of high military significance that is independent of mainland Chinese economic and diplomatic expansion.)

China is also interested in the Arctic for its economic, and possibly shipping, potential.  The United States millitary and State Department are concerned that the Arctic will become a space of great power rivalry.  In particular, that “Russia and China [will] seek to use military and economic power to gain and maintain access to the region at the expense of US interests.”

The international body overseeing Arctic affairs is the Arctic Council.  The eight nations that compose it are: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the U.S.  Each member state has sovereign territory within the region.  China does not, but nevertheless considers herself a “Near Arctic” power and has held observer status at the Arctic Council since 2014.

It’s the opinion of the United States government that China aims to gain access to Arctic resources and sea routes to “secure and bolster its military, economic, and scientific rise.”  In support of this opinion, the United States observes that “China has described the Arctic as a new strategic frontier…where there is “’undetermined sovereignty.’”  Such a position supplies justification for Chinese access to, and presence in, the Arctic region.

China began “normalizing” its presence in the Arctic twenty years ago, when as a signatory to the Spitsbergen (Svalbard) Treaty of 1920, China opened a scientific research station on the island.  China maintains an enduring presence in the region, ostensibly for scientific purposes, and which lends support to a Chinese claim for control of economic resources in the Arctic.

And the Arctic region is rich in untapped oil, gas, and mineral resources.  Among the important mineral deposits are the base metals aluminum, copper, iron, nickel and tin; the precious metals gold, silver, and platinum; diamonds; also, graphite; uranium; and, of great importance, the rare earths: dysprosium, neodymium, and praseodymium – which are essential materials for extremely powerful magnets and lasers.  China already has near monopolistic control of rare earth metals, and control of the Arctic supplies would place a Chinese lock on the materials used in advanced weapons, cell phones, laptops, and cars.

The United State government believes that China “desires for the Arctic states to acknowledge [her] rights under international law and, therefore, its equality to the Arctic states regarding its continued access to the high seas of the central Arctic. “ (That would include the Northwest Passage, which Canada claims as territorial waters.) “In order to lend credence to Beijing’s questionable claim to near-Arctic status, China launched the Polar Silk Road Initiative in 2018. The initiative builds on the soft-power tactics of the Belt and Road Initiative by investing in infrastructure development in far northern communities.”

Baffin Island hosts the Mary River Mine, an open pit iron operation, which is in financial trouble, and would be an easy takeover target by Chinese interests.  China would get a commercial presence in the Arctic at a discount.

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