“This is the reason the U.S. has the right to bear arms.”

The words of a Canadian yesterday: “This is the reason the U.S. has the right to bear arms.”

The reason? The Mounties had been breaking into the homes of a town (evacuated due to flooding) and seizing firearms. When the residents found out about this they were not pleased.

Officers laid down a spike belt to stop anyone from attempting to drive past the blockade. That action sent the crowd of residents into a rage.

“What’s next? Tear gas?” shouted one resident. “It’s just like Nazi Germany, just taking orders,” shouted another. “This is the reason the U.S. has the right to bear arms,” said Charles Timpano, pointing to the group of Mounties.

Officers were ordered to fall back about an hour into the standoff in order to diffuse the situation and listen to residents’ concerns. [emphasis mine]

Obviously, the rage of the citizens had some positive effect, as it forced the police to fall back.

“We’re just not interested in continuing to support bureaucracies and talkfests.”

Canada to the UN environmental movement: “We’re just not interested in continuing to support bureaucracies and talkfests.”

The country has pulled out of a UN program supposedly aimed at “combating desertification,” noting that

only 18% of the roughly CAD$350,000 per year that Canada contributed to the U.N. initiative is “actually spent on programming,” [Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper] told Parliament this week during question period. “The rest goes to various bureaucratic measures. … It’s not an effective way to spend taxpayers’ money.”

As is their normal approach to debate, there is a lot of wailing, gnashing of teeth, and name-calling among the environmentalists, but no substantive response to counter Harper’s point above.

“The bear population is not in crisis as people believed.”

“The [polar] bear population is not in crisis as people believed.”

The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic. [emphasis mine]

The study here illustrates again the unreliability of another prediction by scientists advocating global warming. The polar bear population might be under threat, but the evidence so far doesn’t yet support that theory.

Canada has joined the United States in raising objections to a planned $100-billion a year climate fund

The gravy train is ending: Canada has joined the United States in raising objections to a planned $100-billion a year climate fund.

I like this quote describing the U.S.’s objections:

Heading into the United Nations climate conference in Durban this week, the United States has made it clear it will not support the current proposals for the climate fund over concerns about how the money would be raised, lack of verification of how it is spent, and an unwillingness of major emerging countries to commit to legally binding emissions reduction. [emphasis mine]

Other than these minor points, everything about the fund is above board and legitimate.

Israeli rocket victims sue Gaza flotilla organizers

I like this: Israeli victims of the Gaza rocket attacks are suing the Gaza flotilla organizers.

The complaint argues that since supplies that are delivered to Gaza run the risk of being seized by the Hamas government for use by its military wing, the defendants’ acts “amount to both a conspiracy to injure and a conspiracy to use unlawful means,” and that “the defendants are acting in concert with Hamas to achieve harm on the plaintiff.”

Toronto elects conservative mayor by a surprising margin

Is this a hint of what’s to come on Tuesday? Toronto yesterday not only elected a conservative mayor by a very large margin, four incumbent councillors were also defeated soundly. Key quote:

Polls, indicating the race was razor edge close, were proven false in 11 single minutes! . . . [The conservative] Ford won with 383,501 votes—more than the votes of his two main opponents combined.

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