[Israeli Navy Raids Gaza Aid Flotilla, 10 Confirmed Dead]

Only after they were attacked however. Up until that point they were peacefully steaming into Gaza.

They have been in armed conflict since Hammas started shooting rockets into Isreal. That is why the blockade is in place and Isreal is entitled to enforce it.

Wars are usually fought between countries and given there's only one sovereign state in this one.

Call it a civil war. Same rules apply.

This incident took place between two antagonists with no intervening authority that either have to answer to.

So what? The example of loggers illustrates how peaceful protest works and what happens if peaceful protestors resort to violance. 5 ships were boarded with incident. Only one ship had the thugs that decided to start a fight. They are once who are responsible.

[Anyone for NP PR?]

In other words, voters cannot be trusted with making fully intependent unrestricted choices, i.e it is a political system for people who haven't attained the age of political maturity, let's see it for what it is.

Running a country is complex and requires compromise. The only immature people are the people who think they should be entitled to be represented by a fringe party that refuses to compromise and seeks to impose their narrow viewpoint on the majority.

Which leaves us here unique among the developed democracies of the world as having not a single notion of proportional represenation federally

And changes were voted down twice in BC and once in Ontario. You can fume as much as you want but it does look like the majority of people who actually vote are fine with the system.

[Anyone for NP PR?]

No, a consciously chosen, most efficient path to achieving the goal.

Electoral reform was defeated in Ont and BC - largely because the people who show up at the polls are the people who are fine with the existing system.

And where is it, now? It disappeared from political spectrum as a separate entity being replaced by vague and all encompassing "Conservative".

Because ideology driven parties cant get enough votes. That is why we dont want any form of PR - it would give too much power to the minority nutbars at both ends of the spectrum.

[Anyone for NP PR?]

PEI would give up it's four seats if there was an elected Senate, which is about the only use I see for one.

And you know this how? Canadians of all stripes protect their entitlements and that will not change.

[Israeli Navy Raids Gaza Aid Flotilla, 10 Confirmed Dead]

None of these ships belonged to Hamas/Gaza.

Isreal is entitled to blockade ALL ships because of the war. The only thing that it can't do is block the ports of groups not involved in the conflict (read the link i provided).

If the IDF have the right to board, the activists have a right to fight back.

Sure. But then they are armed combatants and are simply casualties of war which deserve no more consideration than a group of Taliban killed by Canadian troops in Afghanistan. But the apologists for Hamas want to pretend that they were 'peaceful protesters' which is clearly nonsense.

Here is another analogy consider: logging protesters. These people will stage protests by blocking roads. They get media attention but eventually the police are entitled to arrest them. Peaceful protesters may force to police to physically carry them from the road but they will not resist the police. Violent protesters resist arrest and attempt to injure police. An anti-logging protestor that hit a police officer with a metal bar would likely be shot and no one would shed a tear. Why is this incident an different?

[Israeli Navy Raids Gaza Aid Flotilla, 10 Confirmed Dead]

Note that the incident happened in the international waters.

Isreal and Hammas are engaged in a armed conflict. The blockade and Isreal's boarding of the ships is perfectly legimate under the law of the sea. The only parties that did anything wrong are the faux activist thugs on the boat who initiated the violance against the solidiers.

Here is more discussion the law in question.

[FGM debate "renewed"]

Condoms work better and don't require cutting of skin containing tens of thousands of nerves.

Not having sex works even better. People cut skin off containing 'tens of thousands of nerves' all of the time (warts, skin tags).

Anyway cutting off a womens breasts would reduce the chance of breast cancer but we don't consider that.

Rediculous analogies do not help your case. The fact that majority of adult men who have been circumsized do not feel they have been 'damaged' is pretty strong evidence that the procedure is not something law makers should worry about.

[Anyone for NP PR?]

They, I suppose, would end up being de facto FPTP districts, since rightfully, their only entitled to 1 MP each (possibly 2 for PEI, but probably not).

Of course there is 0% chance that PEI will give up its 4 seats. Also all provices have a urban vs. rural divide which means geography will matter within provinces too. The only possible system would be a MMC similar to what BC proposed but that was shot down because the people who actually care enough to vote can live with the existing system.

[FGM debate "renewed"]

And if you're attempting to equate male circumcision with FGM, I think you're horribly mistaken.

Male circumcision reduces the chances of contracting AIDS.

link

[Israeli Navy Raids Gaza Aid Flotilla, 10 Confirmed Dead]

The Israelis are really getting unfairly blamed for this one:

They had a right to board those ships. They did everything they could humanly do to avoid violence. The blame for the deaths resets entirely with the protesters who sought a violent confrontation.

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

That paper that I cited seems to have found a convincing correlation.

The paper you linked explicitly states that it cannot do a statistical correlation between CO2 and temperature because the proxies are regional and do not represent global temperatures (I suspect that would not have stopped them if the correlation told the story that the authors wanted).

All it has done is look at periods of time where there is strong geographic evidence of wide spread ice as evidence of 'cold' times but when I look at the results I see no consistent relationship between 'cool' periods and CO2. i.e. at times CO2 goes down yet ice disappears. That should not happen if the data is reliable and CO2 is the major driver of temperatures.

[Racism on the reserve]

They are sovereign and independent allies of the Crown.

May have been true then. Not now. All Mohawk territory falls under the sovereignty of Canada or the US. The only thing the Mohawks have are some special privileges that other citizens of Canada or the US do not have (e.g. the Jay Treaty).

[Racism on the reserve]

Could we not simply expect the same of the First Nations? For example, all persons living on Mohawk territory are expected to send their children to the Mohawk elementary and secondary school where they will be expected to learn the Mohawk language and culture, either as a first or second language, along with all the others, and be expected to pay their taxes to the Mohawk Nation and of course have the same rights to services as the Mohawks?

The Quebec language laws are an aberration in Canada and hardly an example to emulate. Teaching Mohawk language and culture to all kids attending reserve schools makes perfect sense. Telling parents they can't send their kids to an off reserve school is gross violation of rights.

As for taxes: no taxation without representation. If the Mohawks want to tax non-Mohawk residents then they must offer full democratic rights (to vote and to old office) to all Canadian citizens living on the reserves. That is the price they have to pay for being part of Canada. If they think that having their own citizenship rules is important they will need to set up a truly separate country with no financial support from Canada and customs agents at the border.

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

The evidence is scant. If there really was a conspiracy to shut other scientists out, then I think you would find emails that are a lot more damning than the ones that were leaked.

Lovely rationalizations. The emails show climate scientists actively conspiring to block sceptical papers and you say they are not damning enough. Like I said, your words are hollow and you seem to be perfectly happy with a corrupt system and have little interest in seeing wrong doers punished.

It's not the tip of the iceberg. Somebody hacked all the emails, then leaked the ones that sounded the worst.

Complaints about this going on have been circulating in the climate science community for years. It is a well known "secret" within the climate science field.

Here is the opinion of another climate scientist:

So, what did I witness before? Here are a few exemplars.

I witnessed how an editor rejected a paper I wrote without forwarding the reviewers my detailed response to their comments (he was perhaps afraid that the reviewers would actually be convinced with my detailed response which included detailed referrals to published results proving my points).

I saw another rejection (perhaps by the same editor...), this time of a paper written by a colleague that included the punch line: "any paper which doesn’t support the anthropogenic GHG theory is politically motivated, and therefore has to be rejected"

I saw how proposal reviewers bluntly reject funding requests, based on similar beliefs in the global warming apocalypse. I even know of someone who didn't get tenure because he advocated non party line ideas.

You can add that to similar statements by Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Knappenbeger (all published climate scientists).

Of course, none of this is enough evidence for you. You need *more* (whatever that means). I find it ironic that you are perfectly happy to imply that sceptical scientists are liers by refusing to accept their complaints as legimate but you blindly accept the excuses of alarmists when they are caught red handed manipulating the system.

If you really want to demonstrate a desire to fix the problems with the system then you should acknowledge that secret inquiries controlled by the institutions that are potentially implicated will never uncover the truth. You need to call for a public inquiry with witnesses testifying under oath and facing cross examination. Anything less means you are just making excuses for doing nothing.

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

I think it can. From my understanding, the science has advanced enough to know what the major contributors are. They have researched this for two centuries or so.

I do not agree. The science for the last 30 years has only really looked at factors which they can quantify like CO2 and ignored factors that cannot be easily quantified like cloud cover or land use changes.

If other factors are considered and there's a higher CO2 then it makes sense that CO2 is the cause.

Again, they are NOT considering all possible factors. They are simply ignoring the ones which cannot be easily quantified and hoping they are right. On top of that the models cannot really explain the change in temperature from 1900-1940. The IPCC models assume the sun did it but the latest solar science says the sun cannot possibly be the explanation for that rise.

As for the economic hardship, what is the percentage of GDP we're talking here ? Isn't it single digits ?

And you believe them? The problem with CO2 is we do not have the technology to eliminate or even significantly reduce CO2 emissions at a global scale. The most that can be done is move emissions around (e.g. let China and India do all of the emitting while the rest of us buys their products). The fact that the technology does not exist tells me that all anti-CO2 policies will either fail to reduce emissions or reduce emissions by destroying the economy.

Why is ok for E&E to have a bias if it's not okay for the rest of climate science to have a bias?

E&E may be the only unbiased jounrnal out there because it accepts sceptical papers.

If it turns out that climate scientists have not been acting in the best interest of the science they should be barred, period. We should not be opening up science as a new branch of the arts.

Wake up. It has been going on for years and there is plently evidence in the CRU emails. Oopps, I forgot. That evidence is not good enough for you. In fact, it is not clear what you would require in terms of evidence but for some reason I suspect you require a level of evidence that would be impossible to obtain.

If they're using influence to stop the publication of legitimate papers then they should be disciplined, period.

Look in the CRU emails. It is just the tip of the iceberg. Of course I noticed the word 'legitimate' which allows you ignore any evidence of wrong doing by claiming the paper was not 'legitimate' by whatever standards you make up.

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

They can't include all possible factors that could affect temperatures. They can include the major factors and from what I have read - they have.

Of course they say that but that does not mean it is true. After all - how can they show they did not leave out things that the don't know about or can't quantify? My issue is there are a number of plausible mechanisms (e.g. sun induced cloud cover changes or black carbon aerosols) that could have an effect as large as CO2 which cannot be ruled out.

The models do seem to show a Medieval Warming Period - pretty much all of them that I have seen. But just because there was an MWP doesn't mean that CO2 levels aren't instrumental in the current warming period.

Sure. Just because there was an MWP that does not mean the modern warming was not caused by purple pixies from antares. i.e. the claim is a meaningless truism. The problem is the entire 'nothing else explain it' argument in incredibly weak as far as scientific arguments go and I need a lot stronger evidence before I agree to policies that will cause economic hardship to billions.

Is it accepted by climate science though ?

I don't really care. The arguments are valid no matter what the alarmists think of it. Aside: I don't bother with wikipedia for information on climate change - the articles hopelessly slanted towards the alarmist viewpoint. E&E is a science jounrnal that happens to be sympathetic to sceptic arguments which is why the alarmsists dismiss it.

I am surprised you have not figured out the peer review scam yet given the evidence in the CRU emails. Basically alarmists rely on symapthetic editors at jounrnals to keep sceptical papers out or delay their publication until the alarmists can prepare a rebuttal. If an editor or a journal is unwilling to play their game they blackball the journal (e.g. label it a 'trade' journal).

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

Excellent commentary for laymen on what is wrong with the hockey sticks.

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

I would think "peer reviewed" would be a massive red flag for you, rather than an implied plus.

It means something to Michael. In any case, I have never said peer reviewed papers are necessarily wrong. I have only said that it is wrong to refuse to look at analysis simply because it has not been peer reviewed.

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

But he doesn't reject them outright as you do.

Models are useful tools. It is what people do with their outputs is the problem.

And he speaks of the difficulties with proxies in his conclusion but doesn't advocate throwing them out entirely.

That not exactly what I said. The argument I made is all proxies have flaws therefore it is not possible to make any claim about whether the MWP is warmer than today or not. My main issue is with people who claim certainty when there is no basis for it.

I can't read source papers that haven't been evaluated and comment on the study itself

SteveMc analysis is the best summary you will find on the topic. You should note that he has criticized the Loehle paper as well.

But - sometimes the other factors are known and can be factored into whether temperatures are affected or not right?

If you read the IPCC report on attribution of climate change (which I have done) you will find that their argument is basically, our models cannot replicate past temperatures without including CO2 but our models can replicate temps prior to CO2 being a factor. I consider this to be a nonsense argument because it assumes that the models include all possible factors that could affect temperatures. That is why the MWP is relevant - if the MWP was warmer than today then the models cannot replicate it which means the claim that only CO2 can explain the modern warming must be false.

Let's see whether this paper is published or not.

Peer reviewed and published in Energy&Environment. Of course, that journal is blacklisted by alarmists because it accepts sceptical papers.

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

strange how there is more farming today in Greenland than there was in the time of Viking farmers

The vikings did not have access to fossil fuels and industrial farming techniques.

In any case, the Greenland ice cores show that Greenland was warmer that today. The one question is whether that was a global or local phenomena.

Frankly, I find it ironic that climate scientists are more than happy to use a single proxy (ice cores from antarctica) and claim it represents *global* temperatures but when another single proxy says something they don't like they dismiss it by claiming it only measures local temperatures.

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

And you know better than the entire field of climate science, including their skeptical scientists ?

Gee. Why don't you provide some evidence that "sceptical scientists" disagree with me instead of simply assuming they do. You will find that many actual scientists have a nuanced view which is similar to mine when they actually write things down in scientific paper. When they use proxies with a strong MWP they are using them to refute the claim that "we know modern temperatures are unusual". They are not making the counter claim that we know the MWP is warmer than today.

Here is a good summary of the issues.

Here is the most popular sceptical paper.

If you read it you will find that they do not actually compare the MWP to current period because they feel that splicing a temperature record onto the end of the proxy reconstruction is misleading because there is no way to calculate the correct scale and offset. They also state that the individual 'wiggles' are not meaningful. The only claim they make is the proxies show that the average temperature can change by 1 degC without any anthropogenic forcing and it is therefore false to claim that the recent 0.7 degC rise must be due to human influence.

[H1N1 and Climate Change]

You have worked ? You're doing your own research here ? Are you using proxies in your models ?

Statistics is used to solve many problems in other disciplines. I have uses similar statistics before I even looked into the climate issue. What it means is I don't need to decide which authority I trust - I read the arguments and counter arguments and make my own decision on who is got the better scientific case. In this case, it is clear to me that the alarmist scientists are picking proxies and/or algorithms that will give them the result they want to see and that the data they are using appears to be mostly noise with no coherent 'climate signal'. If I want to be charitable I ascribe their actions to confirmation bias - i.e. they are so convinced that they "know" what the answer is supposed to be that they unconsciously discard any algorithm that does not give them the expected answer.

[Canadian Political Polls]

And that means that we don't have a democracy.

Semantics. Democracy is one of the building blocks used to make a system of governance - it is not a system of governance on its own. Your argument is basically: a car does not have an engine since a car is made up of things in addition to the engine.

[Racism on the reserve]

You're calling Native people the dominant majority in our society. They are not.

It depends entirely on where you draw the lines. Natives are the majority in many parts of the Canada.

That is genocide and we ought to take responsibility for what we have taken from them.

In other words, you have no business complaining when the Mohawks are accused of ethnic clensing because that is *exactly* they are doing.

[Racism on the reserve]

The very well may be true, and I can't say that I would be too pleased either, however, ethnic cleansing it is not.

Technically it is:

Main Entry: ethnic cleansing

Function: noun

Date: 1991:

the expulsion, imprisonment, or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity

However, I agree the phrase does imply the use of violance which is not going on here and so I could agree if you also agree that whatever bad things happened at residential schools it was not genocide.