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Take Iran seriously

With the latest attack on a western embassy in Tehran, Charles Adler reiterates the need to take Iran seriously.

Watch HERE

The Milroy 'Mooching' Montage

Mooching Montage

Barstool Economics 101

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Tasha Kheiriddin: How Kyoto Protocol got lost in the smog

Tasha Kheiriddin  Nov 28, 2011 – 1:08 PM ET | Last Updated: Nov 28, 2011 2:43 PM ET

NATIONAL POST

 

Sayonara, Kyoto. According to Environment Minister Peter Kent, “Canada goes to Durban with a number of countries sharing the same objective, and that is to put [the Kyoto Protocol] behind us.”

Kent stated that pulling out of the accord is “an option” Canada is considering, and that “We believe that we’re entering a transition period – post-Durban where we will hopefully… agree on a mandate to begin negotiating a new agreement that will encourage and engage all the major emitting economies.”

Good luck with that; if Kyoto’s history is any indication, it’s not a goal worth pursuing. Kyoto expires in 2012. It currently governs roughly 17% of global carbon emissions, and does not include major producers such as the United States, China, India and Brazil.

Its defenders are seeking to implement a second commitment period running until 2017-2020, involving 36 developed countries. They tout the achievements of Kyoto: it is the only legally binding agreement of its kind, its emissions reductions targets have been achieved in many countries, including those of the European Union, and it has boosted the alternative energy industry.

But Kyoto’s main problem – and the likely problem of any such overarching climate treaty — is a failed cost-benefit analysis. In 2007, the Fraser Institute estimated that fully implementing Kyoto by 2012 would have cost every Canadian family $3,500 a year. Similarly, an econometrics study produced that same year by Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates (now part of HIS Global Insight) calculated that implementing Kyoto would reduce average American household incomes by US$2,700 annually. The same studyfound that all this spending would reduce global temperatures by a scant .06 degrees C – not exactly a stellar return on investment.

And those numbers were produced before the economic meltdown of 2008. Had Canada and the U.S. committed to the protocol, topping up the cost of implementing Kyoto with the bills for stimulus and bailout plans would have tipped both economies even further into the red.

As self-proclaimed “skeptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg pointed out in 2009, “If the Kyoto agreement had been fully implemented throughout this century, it would have cut temperatures by only an insignificant 0.2C, at a cost of $180 billion every year. In economic terms, Kyoto does only about 30¢ worth of good for each dollar spent.”

At the same time, the science linking greenhouse gas emissions to higher temperatures has increasingly come under fire – as have the scientists who produced it. The infamous “hockey stick” graph, showing a spike in global temperatures consistent with industrialization, was debunked in 1998 by researchers Steven McIntrye and Ross McKitrick; a 2006 report to the U.S. Congress confirmed their research to be “valid and compelling”.

Environmental policy analyst James Taylor noted recently in Forbes magazine that while global carbon emissions have soared 33% over the past decade (according to the U.S. Department of Energy) , global temperatures flatlined over the same period — and rose merely 0.2 to 0.3 degrees Celsius during the past third of a century. Then in October of this year, it was announced that Jeffrey Gleason, a British climate scientist who had advised Al Gore, would submit to a lie detector test over charges he failed to adequately verify data on polar bears allegedly felled by climate change.

Amid this growing skepticism about the validity of global warming theories, what should the countries represented at Durban focus on? There are many real environmental challenges, but most of them are more local in nature. They include poor air quality in China, industrial pollution in India, and deforestation in Brazil.

Those are the sorts of issues which demand attention and money to fix, less of which will be available if the economies of developing countries are fettered by restrictive climate change treaties. Rather than tilt at windmills, world leaders should concentrate on cleaning up their own backyards – and environmentalists should focus their fights accordingly.

Climate 2.0

By JAMES DELINGPOLE – WALL STREET JOURNAL

November 28, 2011

Last week, 5,000 files of private email correspondence among several of the world's top climate scientists were anonymously leaked onto the Internet. Like the first "climategate" leak of 2009, the latest release shows top scientists in the field fudging data, conspiring to bully and silence opponents, and displaying far less certainty about the reliability of anthropogenic global warming theory in private than they ever admit in public.

The scientists include men like Michael Mann of Penn State University and Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia, both of whose reports inform what President Obama has called "the gold standard" of international climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The new release of emails was timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the original climategate leak and with the upcoming United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa. And it has already stirred strong emotions. To Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), for example, the leaker or leakers responsible are attempting to "sabotage the international climate talks" and should be identified and brought "to justice."

One might sympathize with Mr. Markey's outrage if, say, the emails were maliciously rewritten or invented. But at least one scientist involved—Mr. Mann—has confirmed that the emails are genuine, as were the first batch released two years ago. So any malfeasance revealed therein ought to be blamed on the scientists who wrote them, rather than on the whistleblower who exposed them.

Consider an email written by Mr. Mann in August 2007. "I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his thus far unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests. Perhaps the same needs to be done w/ this Keenan guy." Doug Keenan is a skeptic and gadfly of the climate-change establishment. Steve McIntyre is the tenacious Canadian ex-mining engineer whose dogged research helped expose flaws in Mr. Mann's "hockey stick" graph of global temperatures.

One can understand Mr. Mann's irritation. His hockey stick, which purported to demonstrate the link between man-made carbon emissions and catastrophic global warming, was the central pillar of the IPCC's 2001 Third Assessment Report, and it brought him near-legendary status in his community. Naturally he wanted to put Mr. McIntyre in his place.

The sensible way to do so is to prove Mr. McIntyre wrong using facts and evidence and improved data. Instead the email reveals Mr. Mann casting about for a way to smear him. If the case for man-made global warming is really as strong as the so-called consensus claims it is, why do the climategate emails show scientists attempting to stamp out dissenting points of view? Why must they manipulate data, such as Mr. Jones's infamous effort (revealed in the first batch of climategate emails) to "hide the decline," deliberately concealing an inconvenient divergence, post-1960, between real-world, observed temperature data and scientists' preferred proxies derived from analyzing tree rings?

This is the real significance of the climategate emails. They show that major scientists who inform the IPCC can't be trusted to stick to the science and avoid political activism. This, in turn, has very worrying implications for the major international policy decisions adopted on the basis of their research.

That brings us to the motives of the person calling himself "FOIA" who leaked the emails onto the Internet last week.

In his introductory notes, he writes: "Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Every day nearly 16,000 children die from hunger and related causes. One dollar can save a life. . . . Poverty is a death sentence. Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels. Today's decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline."

For the service he has performed in pursuit of this larger end, FOIA deserves not opprobrium but gratitude.

Nickelback Rocks Critics

By Charles Adler, QMI Agency

First posted: Thursday, November 24, 2011 08:16 PM EST

 

Nickelback, that maple leaf success story, is under attack by the music snobs.

Earlier this month, a University of Michigan student launched an online petition hoping to pressure the Detroit Lions into punting Nickelback from the Thanksgiving Day halftime show.

More than 55,668 people signed on at change.org.

But the overly lambasted band took the latest criticism in stride. Being true professionals, Nickelback took to the stage yesterday and gave it their all at halftime. No boos either.

Nickelback is also slated to play the halftime show at the 99th Grey Cup on Sunday. A similar online petition at change.org has had far less support, with only 102 petitioners.

The Globe and Mail — Canada’s self-proclaimed “national newspaper” — jumped on the bandwagon, running a front-page attack on the band.

Look, I’m not a big Nickelback fan. At the most, I’m probably indifferent to them. You don’t have to be a Nickelback fan to care about this story either.

It’s indisputable that Nickelback is a major Canadian success story. The little rock band from Hanna, Alta., has managed to sell 50 million albums worldwide.

They’ve topped the charts on a number of occasions. They’ve made it big in a tough industry.

So I’m proud of the guys — regardless of whether I like their music. I’m proud that they were asked to sing at halftime of a big Thanksgiving Day game. We should’ve been rallying around them in support as our fellow Canadians were under siege in the U.S.

But no such luck with the elites at the Globe and Mail. No, for them it was easier to pile on.

Now I can’t help but think that things might be different if some Yanks were attacking Margie Gillis.

Margie Gillis. You remember her, right? I know she’s a household name ... (Hint: Gillis is Canada’s leading “interpretive dancer” — whatever that means ... )

You might recall my colleague Krista Erickson’s interview with Gillis some months ago. Krista challenged Gillis about getting more than $1 million in government subsidies over the past years.

Gillis tried to deny receiving such a large sum of government pork, and the interview heated up.

The cultural elites, of course, came to Gillis’ defence and denounced Krista and Sun News for daring to challenge the so-called icon. Sun News did the unthinkable — we challenged the elites’ stranglehold on culture in this country.

Thankfully, Gillis isn’t set to perform at the Grey Cup — nor at a NFL game. If she was, I have no doubt that many, many people would be voicing their dissatisfaction.

I have no doubt that the snobs at the Globe would be coming to Gillis’ rescue. The cultural elites would be denouncing the mouth breathers in the crowd who were too ignorant to appreciate Gillis’ “talent.”

That’s the thing about the elites at places like the Globe and Mail.

They really don’t speak for the masses.

Oh, they try to ram their opinions down your throats — but those days are increasingly coming to an end. No, they’ve lost their monopoly on opinion in this country.

And not a moment too soon.

You, the Sun News reader and viewer, has played a big part in that. Keep up the good work.

***WATCH CHARLES ADLER HERE***

Canadian Black Friday

By The Menzoid

 

Holy misappropriation, Batman. What’s the deal with all those Black Friday deals – Canadian Black Friday deals, that is.

Perhaps generations of Canadian shoppers have grown up with envy in their eyes regarding those stupendous bar-goons that materialize south of the border the day after American Thanksgiving. Maybe Canadians – like so many spoiled children – have determined that they don’t have enough playthings in their toy boxes and are thus demanding the stuff our Yankee Doodle Dandy cousins have.

Or is Black Friday Canuck-Style simply a result of opportunistic marketers exploiting something on this side of the border that makes absolutely no sense in a Canadian context?

After all, last time The Menzoid checked, our Thanksgiving took place on the second Monday in October, not the third Thursday in November.

Most reasonable person would conclude that independent sovereign nations celebrate different holidays and traditions. Thus, while Americans prefer ketchup on their “freedom” fries, we prefer salt and vinegar or gravy. While those south of the border celebrate Independence Day in July, we kick-off summer by celebrating Dominion Day.

But suddenly there’s a feeling of what’s theirs should be ours. In recent weeks, The Menzoid had seen and heard an avalanched of advertisements from Canadian car dealerships, big box stores, and just about every other shop in-between promoting “Black Friday.”

Here’s why Canadian Black Friday just doesn’t work in these parts:

1. CANADIAN BLACK FRIDAY IS LAME

Admittedly, while Canadian Black Friday is in its infancy, it’s nevertheless such a diluted event. Unlike Yankee retailers that open at the crack of midnight, The Menzoid didn’t come across any Canadian stores opening their doors at the bitching hour. Now, granted, why anyone would want to shop in the wee hours of the morning is baffling to The Menzoid. But that’s how it’s done in the U.S. of A. Black Friday is marketed as an extra-special event, not something conducted during normal business hours. So if we’re going to steal something, let’s go all-in, shall we?

2. WHERE’S THE BEEF?

It says here that a Black Friday sale isn’t a true event unless there’s a wee bit of, well, mayhem, thrown in for good measure.

For instance, it’s a time-honoured tradition that the poor soul who has to open the big glass doors at Target or K-Mart is going to get trampled by the heaving horde of bargain hunters, who, like so many starving swine, make a beeline to the feeding troughs – in this case, the Home Electronics Department. Margo got crushed by the cargo, you say? Black Friday shoppers could care less – especially when there’s a 42-inch plasma TV to be had for $89 on a first-come/first-serve basis.

Indeed, consider what happened earlier today in Los Angeles when one bargain-hunting gal took Extreme Competitive Shopping to a whole new level when she actually zapped her fellow Wal-Mart shoppers with pepper spray.

Say what you will about all those poor shoppers on their hands and knees gagging, tearing-up, and vomiting, but The Menzoid only wishes he was at that L.A. Wal-Mart to take in the sale. Not to score 80% off on a duvet, mind you. But rather, just to pull up a ringside seat to witness firsthand a new benchmark in the devolution of homo sapiens. Just imagine – someone actually used a restricted weapon to score a deal! As Mr. Spock would say with one eyebrow raised: “Fascinating...”

3. PLEASE RELEASE ME

There’s a fundamental reason why Black Friday mayhem is actually required as a post-Thanksgiving Day tonic: it is a much-needed physical release. After all, in the hours before Black Friday, Americans are stuffing their guts with turkey and yams and cranberry sauce as they listen to old Uncle Ed, his mouth full of pumpkin pie, saying, “Now let me tell you something about...” and then Ed goes on to give forceful opinions that are either ludicrous, racist or factually wrong. And if you dare correct Uncle Ed –assuming you can get a word in edgewise – he gets really personal and starts questioning your sexual orientation. Before long, everyone at the table is shouting, Auntie Em is weeping, and one of the kids is screaming, “I knew you always hated me, mommy! I knew it!”

The point is, after being cooped up with relatives that you really can’t stand to be around, you really need some form of physical release. The NFL understands this – that’s why they televise THREE games back-to-back-to-back on Thanksgiving Day.

But the mayhem on the gridiron doesn’t always suffice. That’s why come midnight, with all that pent-up rage simmering away like the remnants of the gravy someone forgot to take off the burner six hours ago, you just want to go to the local mall on the premise that you want to score a Christmastime bargain when what you REALLLY want to do is kick ass.

So, now you know the true meaning of American Thanksgiving and why Black Friday is so very necessary and why this holiday simply won’t translate north of the border.

Let’s put Canadian Black Friday out of its misery and resume to acting like pigs on the appropriately named Boxing Day.

You’re welcome.

Kilometres to go before The Menzoid sleeps...

By The Menzoid 

This Sunday, Canadians are supposed to get together, huddle in front of a TV, and watch our home grown version of Super Bowl Lite, a.k.a., the Grey Cup.

Alas, The Menzoid will not be among them.

In fact, The Menzoid is actually calling for a boycott of the CFL Championship Game and, for that matter, the CFL in general.

No, this has nothing to do with the Argonauts missing the playoffs (due to poor officiating, of course.) Nor has this anything to do with The Menzoid’s desire for an NFL team relocating to Toronto. (Besides, The Menzoid knows the Buffalo Bills will soon be playing all of their games out of SkyDome.)

No. The issue is simply this: the CFL is an illegal sports league.

Oh, it’s true. It’s true.

Need proof?

Riddle me this: why is that we must report temperature in Celsius; sell bananas by the kilo; measure speed and distance by the kilometre; and purchase petro by the litre?

And yet, when it comes to the CFL, the field isn’t marked out in Systeme Internationale-approved metres. Nope, even in 2011, the CFL clings to defunct old Imperial yards. And without repercussions to boot!

It’s a heinous double-standard.

After all, if this radio station reverted back to reporting temperatures in Fahrenheit or if your friendly neighbourhood Imperial Oil station sold gas imperially by the gallon, there’d be hell to pay thanks to the measurement mandarins in Ottawa.

So how is it that millionaire sports team owners and their rich pro athletes don’t have to play by the same set of rules as everyone else when it comes to metrification?

This has bothered The Menzoid for a long time. When he first contacted the CFL, a spokesman said sticking with yards all came down to “tradition” and the fact that all the league’s records over the decades have always been measured in yards and inches, not metres and centimetres.

What’s more, the CFL spokesman said if the league was ever forced to go metric, they would simply mark off the field in 110 increments measuring exactly 91.44 centimetres (in other words, 36 inches.) And each 91.44-centometre increment would officially be known as something called a “yard.”

Oh, isn’t that special?

In fact, if anything, the CFL has a perfectly legit reason to go metric. After all, a CFL field between the end zones is 110 yards. Think about that – 110. What a stupid number. Well, by happy coincidence, 100 metres fits almost perfectly into a 110-yard footprint. And 100 is such a nice round number.

But nooo – the CFL gets to flaunt metrification, long after it became law .

This isn’t right. After all, the Canadian populace – that is to say, those who aren’t professional football players -- has suffered enough. Used to be that if someone got 28 miles to the gallon, that was a pretty fuel-efficient vehicle. But in the Bizarro metric world, we must contend with litres-per-100 kilometres. Really, does anyone say their car consumes 8.9 litres per 100 kilometres? (There was a solution to this, by the way: we could’ve measured fuel consumption by adopting the far more understandable system of kilometres-per-litre. But that was too logical for Ottawa’s measurement czars.)

And let’s be honest: does anyone measure their tire pressure in kilopascals as opposed to pounds per square inch? Didn’t think so.

Oh, and not to be rude, but what was the sense of going metric in the first place given that our largest trading partner, the United States, is still rooted in Imperial?

Indeed, The Menzoid remembers back in 1975, when metric madness first began, how he had to sit through government propaganda films as a Grade 7 student. He remembers the Q&A about the trading partner thingy, and it was answered thusly: Metrification in the United States is “just around the corner” according to the Metric Canada commissioner.

Wow...  36 years later, that’s some corner!

The point is, either we have one measurement standard for everyone or we have complete freedom of choice. The fact remains, the CFL enjoys privileged status in this land for no good reason. Put another way: if you operate a grocery store and sell fruit exclusively by the pound, expect to be fined or even shut down.

But if you run a professional football league in this land, you can measure the progress of the game in yards and inches with no repercussions whatsoever. In fact, your lawlessness will be celebrated because it supposedly contributes to a century-old sporting tradition and the great Canadian mosaic.

Bottom line, come Sunday afternoon, The Menzoid’s TV set will be a CFL-free zone. And it will remain CFL-free until measurement liberty finally returns to our grand Dominion.

Won’t you please join The Menzoid in this endeavour?

You’re welcome.

Nickelback Responds to NFL Petition

Nickelback sits down to figure out why everyone in Detroit hates Nickelback.

Click HERE

Is the Liberal Party dead?

Watch Charles Adler's interview with Peter C. Newman, author of 'When The Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada. It looks at the unprecedented decline of Canada's centrist party. Watch HERE

And, of course Liberal spin doctor Warren Kinsella disputes the book which claims the Grits are nearly extinct in Canada. Watch Charles Adler's interview HERE