You are being milked!

Most Canadians don't know that the price of milk in Canada is more than it should be. Should be? Thats right, the price of an item should be determined by its scarcity and the demand for it. The scarcer an item, the more it should cost in relative terms.
That U.S. gallon (3.7854 litres) jug of milk over there costs $2.79 at ShopRite stores in urban New Jersey, a 4-litre bag in Southern Ontario costs $3.99. Given that the currencies of the two countries are roughly at par, why the discrepancy in price? The answer is complex, so complex that the milk producers and the Canadian government are happy to keep the electorate "blissfully ignorant" as reported this week in the Financial Post.
The Post article blames the Canadian Dairy Commission or CDC, a Crown corporation that arbitrarily sets the price of milk and other dairy products based on something called supply management and without regard for market conditions. Of course an arbitrarily high price affects the poor and needy the most. Does the government care?    

Not just tilting at windmills

One of the "promising solutions" to global warming is reaping energy (carbon-free) from the wind. This of course is only part of the solution proposed by the AGW alarmists.
An article by Larry Solomon in the Financial Post: Wind: The new nuclear, compares the building of more windmills to the construction of nuclear power reactors in the 1970's and 80's. Back then groups of environmentalists banded together to prevent construction of these power plants all over the Western world. Hollywood helped stoke the public fear with movies like the China Syndrome. Nuclear power was a no-no until James Lovelock (one of the earliest AGW alarmists) pointed out that nuclear was relatively carbon-free despite all its other faults. Strangely, a lot of those same protestors back then have changed their minds on nuclear.
Today a new group of protestors has come forth to push against the proliferation of wind mills. Solomon's article is an interesting look at all the issues involved.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Creation Day! According to Bishop James Ussher Oct. 23, 4004 BC, was the first day. Who can argue with that?

THE END IS NEAR, again

The other night I was watching the disaster movie 2012.  I've seen the big earth collision movies, like Armageddon and Deep Impact and the global warming epic The Day After Tomorrow. None of these are great movies, but all of them gave CGI technicians a multitude of challenges but I loved watching. People are fascinated with disasters, disaster movies, train wrecks, car wrecks, explosions and on and on, I am anyway.

That got me thinking about the global warming debate and several similar debates that have gone on when I was younger. Some of you will recall the population explosion and ecology scares of the 1960's and 1970's. The TIME cover (Jan. 1960) on this page was emblematic of the population scare and the Malthusian idea that humans were heading for famine, disease, and pestilence. The limits to growth idea, sold magazines and books then slowly morphed into an ecological disaster scenario which morphed into a variety of minor green issues that finally gave birth to the current disaster anthropogenic global warming or now more euphemistically called climate change.
We humans, NEED these kinds of threats, it brings humanity together. That became more evident after that photo taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft in December 1968. There was tiny Earth in the blackness of space, our fragile home that must be saved from the ravages of us. People like to believe that they can save the planet, that's why we watch those disaster flicks, we enjoy the vicarious thrill of coming close yet averting catastrophe by collective action. We yearn to make that difference by being environmentally friendly in our daily lives.
With the help of a variety of alarmists in media (CBC is very guilty in Canada), among reputable scientists, and political leaders, we have a wonderful new disaster unfolding before us. This time it's a global problem, so it must be coordinated under the jurisdiction of the United Nations IPCC and it that requires the scientific and political elite of the planet save us from ourselves. The theme is the same, only the threat is different, bigger and more immediate and even worse, people and governments actually believe it.
Not everyone believes it, Vaclav Klaus the President of the Czech Republic doesn't believe it. In a speech given this week and excerpted here Klaus defiantly disagrees with many other world leaders about the veracity of anthropogenic global warming. He did that just weeks before COP16, the next conference (in Mexico) of the scientific and political elite who stand to reap enormous benefits for themselves by subjugating humanity to a global carbon tax regime like cap and trade.
Since most scientists view global warming as a boon to government/academic research grants for their work, they are loathe to bite the hand(s) that feeds them. These days it doesn't take much to get such funding, all that has to be done is to tack the phrase "....and its impact on (OR how it is affected by) climate change" to the proposal. Do that on all proposals to whomever, and get the funding! Current scientists won't fight this, the retired ones will, and so will the amateurs.
The argument against anthropogenic global warming is a bit like trying to disprove the existence of god, its tough, almost impossible to prove a negative. Even worse there is no money in it but that doesn't stop people from trying.
Here is a video from an educated amateur (Warren Meyer) that represents for me, one of the most comprehensive attacks on the idea of anthropogenic global warming I have ever seen. It's fairly lengthy, I saw it over a couple of days, and its done on a budget, but it is definitely worth your time if you are sitting on the fence about this issue.

Catastrophe Denied: The Science of the Skeptics Position (studio version) from Warren Meyer on Vimeo.