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Tidbits

13 Nov 2024 | News Roundup
  • BREAKING NEWS: we have an update on the Canadian government’s drive to plant two billion trees in a country that already has 150 times that many: “Today, the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson and MP Joanne Thompson, along with representatives from Memorial University of Newfoundland, announced funding of $295,000 under the 2 Billion Trees (2BT) program for the Memorial University Botanical Garden to establish a tree nursery on its expansive botanical garden, which will support tree planting in the region.” No word on how many, but given the price we estimate, oh, 300 or so. No price is too high to pay for that kind of action.
  • And how’s it going? Gosh. Glad you asked. “As of June 2024, the government has signed or was negotiating tree-planting agreements with 11 of 13 provinces and territories, 40 Indigenous partners, 32 municipalities, 86 non-governmental organizations and more, representing a commitment to plant 716 million trees — nearly tripling last year’s total.” Not trees, you understand. Commitments to plant trees. So, grading their own work, they get an A: “The 2BT program’s Urban Lands stream and Federal Lands stream – which plant trees in cities and suburbs and on federally owned land – have greatly exceeded expectations.” Except on the pesky point of planting trees. But who’s counting?
  • Continuing its effort to ditch its reputation as a magazine devoted to science, Scientific American runs a piece shortly before the U.S. election saying “We can anticipate many false claims as we approach the U.S. presidential election – including untrue allegations of mass voting by noncitizens or of “suspicious vans” outside polling booths – and should quickly counter them, a misinformation expert says” Oh yay, an expert. Must be science. Then when Trump won the election SA’s editor-in-chief went on social media to apologize to young people for her generation being so full of “[expletive deleted] fascists”, and… well, we can’t print the rest. She then faked being sorry, saying “These posts, which I have deleted, do not reflect my beliefs” heh heh perish the thought, and that contrary to the evidence “I am committed to civil communication and editorial objectivity.” Except when she’s at a keyboard.
  • More from the random weather file: October 30th was Ottawa’s 208th consecutive day with a high above 6C. Which basically happens a lot here. It only made 10th place but, we were told, it was the longest run in more than 20 years. Meaning it’s not a trend. What’s more, since Ottawa Weather Records helpfully always shows whatever years ranked higher than any given trend or lack of it, there were longer runs (in ascending order) in 1927, 1915, 1982, 1945, 1998, 1968, 1991, 1994 and 1938. So once again the only people who could possibly take it as proof of a warming planet are those who’d take anything including a snowstorm as proof of a warming planet.
  • From the “Why is green the new red?” file, we note press releases from Canada’s Green Party over a space of just two days that accuse the head of the Conservative Party of being a security risk, demand that it be made illegal to point out that no bodies of Indigenous children or anybody else have been found in the supposed unmarked graves at former residential schools, and deplore the fact that “conflicts continue to spread in countries like Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran” but not whatsit, the one where terrorists keep trying to kill Jews. As for the environment, well, they may get to it after the revolution.
  • It’s not grift exactly. But if some government will hurl money at you for something you wanted to do anyway if you say “climate”, you’d say it, right? Thus Pratt & Whitney, which is devoted to building engines, said “climate” and voila a sack of cash: “Today, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announced a contribution of $11.3 million through the Strategic Innovation Fund to support Pratt & Whitney Canada’s $34.9 million research and development (R&D) project targeted at maturing next-generation thermal engine technologies.” And what the dickens does the government of Canada care about “thermal engine technologies”? Why, “these thermal engine technologies will help the sector move toward its net-zero carbon emissions objective.” Or toward the bank, anyway.

6 comments on “Tidbits”

  1. "the one where terrorists keep trying to kill Jews"
    as opposed to the one where zionazis are actually killing palestinians by the thousands, as they have been doing for the past 77 or so years....
    deir yassin april 29 th 1948 .....

  2. Almost $1000 per tree,going by CDN math?Wow!I'm ashamed that decades ago,I actually considered voting for the Green Party before educating myself and finding out that they're only green on the outside,like watermelons.Another nail in Green's coffin when they propose to make it illegal for anyone to even question whether or not anomalies on a Lidar constitute mass graves.

  3. Pratt & Whitney originally set up a service centre for their aero engines in the Montreal suburb of Longueuil in 1928. During WWII they assembled their Wasp series engines in Longueuil, creating thousands of well-paying jobs there. When WWII ended P&W were going to transfer all manufacturing operations back to the US but the Canadian government, not wanting to lose all those jobs, persuaded (bribed?) P&W to continue in Longueuil by throwing sacks of cash at them. Good to see that this historic process still continues.

  4. Indigenous mention above. Excerpt from a piece I wrote. Link tells the entire story.
    The Canadian government is toying with the idea of Criminal prosecution of anyone who disagrees with the claim of Genocide. This is the story that the reader should pay absolute attention to. In essence we are witnessing attempts of governments to ‘murder’ free speech. The fastest most absolute route to destruction of a Democracy is that of, using the Woke word, Oppressing Free Speech.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1CGCvZ8n14

  5. I see that the Scientific Communism editor’s rant cost her her job. But I doubt that will change the magazine’s lack of science in it’s publication going forward.

  6. @Janvan Ruth
    Oh dear. Politics. Or as we enlightened westerers are able to label, "antisemitism ". Try and keep this rubbish off these pages, please.

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