Supreme Court of Canada Demonstrate Rank Incompetence

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Mar 21

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

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

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

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

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

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Variants: I told you so

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Mar 21

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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Are we in a Mel Brooks movie?

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Mar 21

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

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

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

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

If Mel were directing, the stupidity would be funny.

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Another Echo Chamber

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Mar 21

 

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

Conservatives have to change.  What???

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

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

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

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Expertise with rectal thermometers

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Mar 21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Pots calling kettles black

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Mar 21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Electrowinning Iron?

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Mar 21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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