Merry Christmas To All!

UFC in Canada?

Although this story does involve a politician, I'm going to count it as a non-political story for this week, because I'm sure a number of humourous analogies can be made with the connection of political figures and actual physical combat, but I won't get into that here.

Who knows? Maybe Dalton's other legacy besides full day kindergarten is somehow including UFC as an event in the Pan-Am Games. :-P

Also, $4 million looks pretty good during a recession.

The Opening to my Favourite Chinese TV Show

Contiuning with this week's theme of the lighter side of things, here's the opening to one of my favourite Chinese TV shows. The name translated is "Super Trio Supreme". It's format is pretty much game show style featuring celebrity actors/actresses and singers engaged in some of the most ridiculous games ever. But my favourite part of the show is the opening, as one example is shown below:

The 10 Dumbest Person Names Ever!

As we are approaching the holiday season, I thought maybe I try to take a break from politics and complaining about the state of the world, to laughing at some of the lighter things of the world.

First today, these are honestly the 10 if not dumbest, certainly the strangest names I've ever heard anyone ever having. My person favourites are Mr. Winner Lane and Mr. Loser Lane.

Ironically that between the two men, Winner ended up at the bottom rung of the social ladder, while Loser ended up being pretty well off.

Did Linda Diebel Mislead Readers?

In today's Toronto Star, under the Insight section, Linda Diebel wrote a piece detailing the backroom influence of Christian conservatives in the Prime Minister's office. She particularly mentioned one individual, Darrel Reid, who was formerly a member of Focus on the Family who is now the Prime Minister's deputy Chief of Staff.

I say it was misleading because the photo of Mr. Reid that accompanied the paper in the printed pages was one of Mr. Reid quietly in the background of former Tory MP Elsie Wayne, in a press conference on anti-child pornography measures. The photo gives the impression that Mr. Reid was solely there behind the initiative of a Conservative Party member.

We all know these days that unless someone bother to take the time to go online and read it, they would never have known that the photo was modified to remove certain elements that would have said otherwise:

The gentlemen on the far right, ironically, is Liberal MP Dan McTeague, and in the printed version of this article he was cropped out of the photo, thereby highlighting only Mr. Reid. I know that since Mr. Reid was the topic of this piece, then yes Ms. Diebel would have a photo focusing on him. But Dan McTeague also happens to be a socially conservative Liberal who opposed same sex marriage, so in my view if Ms. Diebel had used the full picture, she might have had to explain who Mr. McTeague was, thereby diluting some of the point she was trying to make.

Was Anything Really Achieved in Copenhagen?

I'm not trying to be cynical, but what we heard today that emerged as an agreement in Copenhagen does not sound really exciting or like a game changer that we anticipated it to be. All we have at the moment is a tentitive agreement between the major polluters to do something about emissions down the road, but it is not legally binding.

This sounds very much like what Kyoto was a decade or so ago, and we know how well that commitment turned out for Canada: 30% more emissions since 1997.

Finally, I know those on the environmental movement will scoff at this concern, but how much is this going to cost humanity in the long run? I know the main talking point on that is it would cost the world even more if we DON'T do something now, but as I said in one of my posts about a month ago, people are thinking in the here and now, not down the road. Canada of course has its own problem with the tar sands, and I won't mind as an Ontarian to see that industry contribute a good chunk of the money for this new climate deal. But I think in the long run, people are going to have to accept the reality, just as they live their current reality by the wallet, that they would have to sacrifice something in order to do their part as a global citizen. Whether you believe in climate change or not, I think we can all agree that having a substantially cleaner environment will be something we can all live with now, and something monumental to leave our future generations.

I just hope now with Copenhagen over, we won't see Jim Prentice or any of his potential successors naming his dog Copenhagen (or "Copey" for short) :-P

David Suzuki, You're Not Helping!

As if the whole Climategate issue had not been distracting enough, David Suzuki yesterday had to let his passion overwhelm his reasoning as he compared the global warming issue to, of all things, slavery in the United States, while forgetting Canada's role during the effort to end slavery.

If you read the transcript provided, Evan Soloman of the CBC gave Suzuki ample opportunity to retract his ridiculous statement, but Suzuki almost ignored it. I always thought Suzuki is a credible voice for the environmental movement, since he's pretty much devoted his life to the issue, but comments like these simply do not help advance his cause to the general public. It is pretty much comparable to the outrageous antics of the typical Greenpeace activist in recent years.

And how can one compare this issue to slavery? Slavery was about the persecution of an entire people, and there were tangible results that people could see from the oppression. Yes, slavery was crucial to the economy of the Southern United States, but that economy was built on the backs of human beings who were suffering and dying as a result. The economy built today was based on the evolution of technology and business development as well as human labour, but at least the vast majority of people did not outright die or suffer as a result of economic development in most of the industrialized world. I also object to the way Suzuki portrayed the slavery issue in connection with Canada, since in our history we tried to help slaves escape oppression with the Underground Railroad and passed laws granting slaves more freedom before the United States did.

My final point is to the Conservative government; that if they think some left wing environmental radicals speak for the majority of those who would like to see some credible action plan for climate change, then you're out to lunch. This does not mean you can sit on your duffs at Copenhagen (oh wait, you already are doing that!), but it means you have to be vigilant in proving YOUR naysayers wrong that you're backwards on climate change. At this point, whether it is Kyoto or not, Canadians expect their government to do something about climate change, but they're not seeing it right now.

All they're seeing, unfortunately, is David Suzuki comparing global warming to slavery, and that's just not helpful at all.