EI is a Safety Net, not a Hammock. Get OFF!

I'm glad to hear that EI is getting reformed.  It's about time.

I've never received EI.  That doesn't mean I haven't tried.  When the bust of '08 got around to busting my gig as a self-employed contractor I applied.  I heard that part of the economic action plan was extending EI to self-employed people.  I involuntarily paid into it.  Time, I thought, to get something out.

Rejected.  Truth is, I wasn't expecting much.  That is government for you.  Overly expensive.  Predictably unimpressive.  When was the last time the government did something that failed to disappoint?  Exactly. 

I'm not sure why I didn't qualify.  I was too something.  I don't care what.  I don't care to be more eligible for pogey.  Some bureaucrat, whom I'm also forced to subsidize, even while losing my own business, knows better than me who needs my money and when.  Fine.

So lets see who these great bureaucratic minds forced me to pay instead.

There's Elizabeth May.  Pogey collector and proud.  She was in seasonal tourism which entitles her to an EI cheque.  She was laid off and re-hired by her family's restaurant every year.  That is how they planned it.  That is how her family arranged their business model.  Instead of scrambling to drum up winter business like true entrepreneurs, they all took a taxpayer funded vacation.  Every year.  Planning it into their business.  They could have offered baby seal hunts.  I don't know.  Put them in a pen and let the kids club them.  Blood red and snow white.  Canada's colours!  Alright, I'm kidding but you get the idea. 

Dog sledding.  Snow shoeing.  Cross Country Skiing.  Eating!  Fun is what you make it.  Try snowmobiling trips.  Try Ice Fishing.  Try Dammit!  It's so much easier to collect EI than to try.  Its too easy.  That is why it needs to change.

Did you know these well paid union workers in Ft. McMurry collect EI once a year too? 

One guy, a journeymen electrician, showed me his bank account. ~$100,000 in cash in the bank for one season's work.  He was homeless.  No Fixed Address.  He would live in camp all winter and then get laid off in the spring.  He would collect EI in his off months.  He would take his $100,000 and go live in South America while still collecting EI.  He gave me explicit details on how he screwed the taxpayer. 

Why is this allowed?  The Harper Government has already closed the door to leaving the country on EI.  Good for them.  Now they are looking closer at the repeat seasonal collectors.  GREAT!

If people don't get EI, they will find another job.  If people find another job, they won't come back.  Employers in the oil sands are already in a labour crunch.  To keep their workers they will need to end seasonal lay offs.  Its a problem that solves itself (though whiners will lose their tax funded vacation).  Other employers will do the same.

Seasonal down time can be useful.  It's time to retool, retrain and plan for next season.  I see it myself every single year in the oil patch.  Other industries can live without perpetually repeating EI.  People should live without planning to get on EI.

EI is a Safety Net, not a Hammock.  Get off!   

Thoughts on Atheism, Leftism & Religion

I don't really owe anyone an explanation regarding who I am and what I believe.  I feel the need to explain myself however since there seems to be an overwhelming number of stupid or rude atheists.  The obvious example is Bill Maher but the condition afflicts conservatives too. 

It also occurs to me that religions offer a simple road map to a person's values.  When someone says they are a Jew or a Catholic or a Muslim, you immediately know something about who they are and how they think.  It's the user guide to their operating system, if you will. 

An atheist can be anything.  You can't know anything about them because many define themselves as anti-religion rather than simply non-religious.  Most religions stress that a person should be good.  To be totally anti-religious is to be against good.  The militant disposition of many atheists serves as confirmation to believers that they are indeed evil. 

I believe this is all by design.  In political terms, the goal is to chip away at the big tent of conservatism leaving only the socially conservative base.  Liberty and economic freedom are the unifying factors of conservatism that are ignored or vacuously mocked by the left.  Atheists and social conservatives are driven against each other similarly to other single issue groups.   

Militant atheism is actually subset of militant leftism.  Observe how similar militant atheism is to militant feminism, militant environmentalism, militant racism (though they still call it equality), militant LGTB etc... 

I have no problem with any of those things in their true and fair forms.  If feminism is about the equal opportunity of both sexes than I'm a feminist.  If Environmentalism is about conservation and efficiency then I'm an environmentalist.  If Equal Rights are about equality of the races then I am on board.  I actually don't believe in races.  Science doesn't define race beyond the Human race so why would I buy into the social scientist (they aren't scientists) garbage? 

I simply believe there is no God.  I'm just not wired that way.  I don't have that pull toward the supernatural.  God is so obvious and so strong in some very smart people that I've concluded that they have some kind of wetware that I don't have.  Maybe its like an antenna where you can tune into the presence of God?  Whatever it is, I don't have it.

It's nothing against you believers. 

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not even absolutely sure about atheism.  I'm an agnostic who's made an informed decision.  I'm not sitting on the fence.  I'm off the fence and standing the "maybe He isn't," side of things.

It's not about my Dad or a run in with a mean preacher.  It's not to feel superior either.  I am clearly inferior to many believers whom I hold in high regard.  It's nothing more than an apolitical observation of nature.

This is where I caught on to the leftist game.  Remember Sinead Oconor tearing up the photo of Pope John Paul II?  I don't get that.  What's wrong with the Pope?  Of all the people to get pissed at, she hates the Pope?  John Paul II was a good one.  "Silencio!" He told some communists once.  Yeah.  Shut up!

I mean, fine, you don't like Catholicism.  Go someplace else.  Its a worshipers market.  Whatever your preference, there is a church for you. 

Catholicism and the Pope are evil?  Nope.  Don't buy that crap either.  Leftist manipulation of the weak minded.  So my dear departed Grandmother, who spent her life wishing, wishing, wishing on her knees for goodness and favor and protection, that was largely received, is evil?  Sorry, I can think of a whole lot of evil in the world beyond that.  Evil that lefties routinely apologize for.  -strategize for.  -lie for.  

Religion is not the enemy.  The Left is the enemy of Mankind. 

An ideology that would force atheism on good people would not hesitate to indoctrinate them with their own beliefs.  Look no farther than the green religion.  Environmentalism has become the secular religion. 

Giai is not a God.  There are no sins against the Earth.  It needs no offerings or gestures.  Holy days like Earth Day and Earth Hour are as unremarked and unnoticed by the earth as detonating a Hydrogen bomb.  The Earth does not get happy or sad if you eat organic food or Poutine from a burger joint.

The Earth is not a God.  It is not sentient.  It is not even alive.  Yet people insist on endowing it with an imaginary spirit and a will.  This is no different than worshiping the sun or a golden cow.  It is still encouraged by our "secular" society.  

I won't exchange freedom for tyranny simply to stamp on the beliefs of my forebears.  They have built the greatest free society in history.  I honour their achievement, even if I don't agree with them about everything.  I'm not about to subscribe to the leftist wholesale ruin of our civilisation for the chance to swap one religion for another.

The War on Humans

Humans are a part of Nature.  I would say the best part. 

Those who disagree set Mankind apart from nature.  They view mankind and all of its works as unnatural.  Everything unnatural is evil to the earth worshipers.  Nature is preferable and takes precedence over the unnatural.  This puts Mankind below the lowest microbe.

Beaver dams and Bee hives are sacred to these people.  Hydro dams and drilling rigs are an abomination.  Humans demand human works for human life and happiness.  The Co-founder of Greenpeace coined the term Anti-human for what these misguided misanthropes wish for. 

Oil is a naturally occurring substance.  The Oil Sands were deposited naturally.  Humans naturally want to live happily and grow.  Liberating the oil enriches the lives of tens of millions of people even leaving the sand "cleaner" than we found it. 

Let's be honest here.  When an Eco-nut talks about nature what they mean is "no humans."  When they say they love nature.  They are saying they love 'no humans' or they hate humans.     

Eco-nuts in Canada have started touting the "War on Nature" as the response to the realization they are at war with Humans.  They have been waging it for decades now.  Other than mainstream liberal news outlets repeating their telling phrases: "War on Nature" there isn't really much to this latest offensive.  There is talk of ads but so far its just talk.

#BlackOutSpeakOut is all there is.  Websites who appose accountability for political pseudo charities will black out their content in protest.  I have to say that I wholeheartedly support this.  I think every crackpot eco-nut site should shut down in protest.  Drag it out for months.  Knock yourselves out.  I mean that.

June 4th is the day that the Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Pembina, WWF, Environmental Defence.... etc are going to blackout their own pages.  You can imagine the shock waves that these organizations in eternal freak out mode will cause when they freak out once more. 

I pity the clueless marketing exec that follows them.

The Occupy Guy Scrutinized

Remember this smug Occupy spokesman?



He gave me the creeps. 


You know how Anonymous tries to come off like some ominous Bond villain type organization?  "We do not forgive. We do not forget.  We are legion.  Expect Us."  You have to snort.  They are playing G.I.Joe and Cobra and they think they are Cobra. 

This guy, Harrison Schultz, seemed like the Sinn Féin of Occupy and Anonymous.  A Guy Fawkes who took off his mask.  He doesn't want reform.  He doesn't want fix anything.  He wants to tear it all down.

Hannity reveals why.

So he's an unemployed loser living off of grad school loans?  Ha!  Yeah he wants to bring down the system.  He's up to his ears in debt and actually thinks revolution is the answer.  This guy is clueless and desperate.

This video really put a smile on my face.  If Schultz embodies everything that occupy is then there is really nothing to worry about.  They aren't storming the gates of our civilization so much.  Its more like a frantic retreat from reality in our general direction.    It's a problem of delusional expectations. 

Its comical and even a little uplifting. 

I pity that smug smirking liberal occupy guy.  He is like so many liberals out there.  Remove the mask and all you have is a freightened and confused child. 

Progressive Energy vs. “Renewable” Energy

I found a really excellent article by Alex Epstien today: Progressive Energy vs. “Renewable” Energy.

The word progressive is what caught my eye.  It seems the word is still up for grabs.  Progressive can be used to mean anything which gives it very little meaning.  I really like the way Epstien uses the word here.  It just goes to show that you can use these 'dog-whistle' type words to grab the attention of someone who isn't likely to listen to anything you say.

Read.  It's good.

“Renewable energy” has two fundamental conceptual flaws. It’s not really renewable, and it’s not really energy.

What is “Renewable”?

“Renewable” in most definitions approximates to something like “naturally replenished” and it often contrasted with allegedly inferior, “finite” sources. It brings to mind the image of a pizza where a slice, once eaten, magically reappears. There is no such phenomenon in nature, though. Everything is finite. The sun and the photons and wind currents it generates are not infinite; they are just all part of a very large nuclear fusion reaction. True, that nuclear fusion reaction will last billions of years, but so will the staggering amounts of untapped energy stored in every atom of our “finite” planet.
To obsess about whether a given potential energy source will last hundreds of years or billions of years is to neglect the key issue that matters to human life here and now: whether it can actually provide the usable energy that will maximize the quantity and quality of human life.
Usable vs. Unusable Energy
The key question about energy is not whether it is “finite”–everything is–but whether it is usable. This is borne out by the history of energy production. For most of human history, our amount of usable energy was barely above the amount needed to power our muscles (and during famines, not even that). There was copious amounts of unusable energy–the chemical bonds in deposits of coal, oil, and natural gas, the mechanical energy of the wind, the photons of the sun, and, greatest of all, the energy stored in all the matter around us, whose proportions were quantified when Einstein identified that E=MC^2.
Every advancement in energy production consisted of taking some unusable source of energy and rendering it usable–windmills for grinding grain, water-wheels for operating simple machines, and ultimately concentrated hydrocarbon fuels that multiplied human productivity hundreds of times over.
Hydrocarbons et al are often called “finite natural resources,” but this is a misnomer; they are not naturally a resource. They become resources–i.e., they deliver services–only insofar as they are rendered valuable by human intelligence. This is Julian Simon’s crucial identification that the human mind is “the ultimate resource” that creates new resources, including energy resources, by discovering how to extract new services out of previously useless raw materials. We should not think of unusable raw materials as resources until or unless they are rendered usable by human intelligence.
This last applies to the sun (and the wind), the ultimate source of “renewable” energy. The vast majority of sunlight does not provide usable energy given any known technology. True, through photovoltaic conversion, a solar panel in most places can generate an electrical current of some magnitude. But who cares? A hurricane produces many h-bombs worth of mechanical energy–does that make it an energy resource? Not if it can’t be harnessed in a manner that provides the cheap, reliable power that we can use to meet our present and future needs. In the vast majority of cases, solar conversion technology can’t, the energy collected is too dilute and intermittent to be a useful source of large-scale energy.

Real Energy vs. Hypothetical Energy

So “renewable energy” as it is commonly used to mean solar and wind, is not “energy” in the economic sense of the word. It is a hypothetical source of energy that we know of, but that hypothetical deserves no more privileged status than any other kind of hypothetical (the ability to unleash atomic energy from a wide range of elements) let alone methods with far more promising potential (e.g., the potential of uranium and thorium to generate tens of thousands of years worth of energy).
The idol of “renewable” energy is part of the broader idol of “sustainability.” Both of these are false idols that obscure the true beauty of capitalism, which is that in producing energy–and everything else–it is better than “sustainable”–it is progressive. “Renewable” or “sustainable” implies that the ideal life trajectory is one of repetition, using the same methods and materials over and over.
But that is an ideal fit for an animal, not a human being. The human mode of existence is to always get better, always improve, always discover how to use new raw materials to create energy.

A False Ideal Born of Green Mysticism

The root of the fetish with “renewable” energy is the Green ideal of minimizing man’s impact on nature. This is borne out by the fact that the only practical “renewable” source of energy, hydroelectric, is widely opposed by the Green movement for interfering with “free-flowing rivers.” That movement prizes solar and wind despite their horrendous track record for ideological, ultimately religious reasons: the idea of a society only relying on the sun and the wind is congenial to their ideal of a world in which man tiptoes on the planet instead of transforming it.
If we cast aside the Green religion, “renewable energy” is false ideal that has no place in a rational discussion of energy. The only question that matters about energy is: what sources of energy will best advance human life now and in the relevant future (not 5 billion years)?
And the only way to answer that question is to leave producers and consumers free to seek out ever-better answers in a free market. Then we will always have the best kind of energy–progressive energy.

Alison's Solyndra begins to collapse

Over in Ontario so called "progressive" policies have led to credit downgrades exactly as predicted. 

Here in Alberta, the eco-boondoggle known as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) lost a major player.  TransAlta corp has pulled out of the $1.4 billion  Pioneer Project because it wasn't economically feasible.

The Minister of eco-nuttery (or Environment) Dianna McQueen says:

“Under new technology, sometimes this happens ... "

 That so happens to be the same excuse Obama used to explain the Solyndra failure.  Excuses appear daily as "green" endeavors fail.

The Minister predictably maintains that the other 3 projects are economically viable.  This must refer to a progressive definition of economically viable.  Projects subsidized in the tens of millions are normally thought of as economically infeasible. 

Even with the heavy subsidies, companies use the CO2 from CCS to stimulate old wells to produce more oil.  Money is made producing oil alone.  CO2 has no value.  Its smoke. 

TransAlta blames the inherent worthlessness of CO2 for the project's cancellation.  Government price controls on a worthless and ubiquitous substance like CO2 have failed everywhere they have been tried.  Al Gore's Carbon Exchange in Chicago was dreamed up by Enron and is now history like Enron.  European Carbon Exchange is rife with fraud and even the eco-nuts don't like it.

Don't ever say oil companies oppose cap and trade.  They don't.  Essentially, the government pays them gigantic sums of money to extract more oil.  What a deal.  You pay for it all.

The best part is that all of this is happening under the premise that its supposed to make you feel good.  Its the 'Do-Something' rationalization.  CCS has negligible impact on Climate Change according to the most alarmist Climate theories.  The PC government has committed $2 billion to do nothing at all.  $2 billion will make a lot of CO2 however its spent.  CCS does less than nothing at all for the Climate in theory and don't forget that It's only profitable if they can sell more oil doing it.  Stupid.  This is probably the most expensive way to produce oil possible.

"But we have to do something."

Why?  Why do we have to do something?  I am all for efficiency.  I despise waste.  The 'Do-Somthing' rationale is a total waste.  It doesn't affect global warming and it makes nobody happy.  I'm not happy and the eco-nuts are never happy.  Welcome to Alison's Wonderland Alberta.

Update: Minister McQueen says that no taxpayer money has been spent on CCS yet.  Hopefully the rest will pull out before the government can waste it.

Alberta Election Lessons: Transforming Skepticism

Climate change is absolutely real beyond any doubt whatsoever.  I am not in a hospital with a broken back.  My spine is fine.  I am a long time skeptic.  I have not suddenly found climate religion.  I revere the truth like nothing else and would like to share a hard truth with you today.

We saw what happened in Alberta's recent election.  Outright lies, old remarks purposely taken out of context, and bigoted stereotypes were used to scare Albertans back into the clutches of mother PC.  Unfortunatly, skepticism of Climate Science played directly into that narrative.

"Global Warming is a Hoax," or "The Science isn't Settled" or "Climate Change is a Lie," are phrases that must be stricken from the conservative lexicon.  They are dead.  They've acquired the dog whistle quality that instinctively closes minds. 

"Denier" carries the same emotional baggage for some as "truther."  When someone talks about 9/11 and they say "explosives," what do you think?  Oh no, its a truther.  How do I get out of this conversation?  There might even be some interesting facts a truther can uncover that are absolutely true.  I will completely ignore it though because its being used to support the idea that G.W. Bush snuck into the Twin Towers and planted explosives for the Zionists... yada... yada.

We love to point out that the communists have changed their tune.  They are still there and want the exact same things but now they are green.  They want to 'save the earth' rather than 'unite the workers of the world'.  Ask an eco-nut: they want both and will get it through environmental regulations.  They adapted.

Its time to face the facts.  We must concede the classic skeptical rhetoric and embrace the environmental.  Its over.  Its fun to bug warmists with those phrases above.  David Suzuki, Al Gore, and James Hansen are particularly fun to annoy as they fly into a rage and tell us what they really think.  Classic skepticism can still be useful to tease out extremists.  Its not useful for anything else.  It doesn't win any converts.  At best, it earns a good laugh when aimed at an eco-nut.

So what the heck am I proposing exactly?  I want to move this debate into a real policy discussion.  To do that, we can't be teasing the warmists.  Here is how:

"I believe Climate Change is Real.  I believe in Global Warming.  I believe in the Greenhouse Effect.  I believe that science is settled." (-the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting. Amen.)  Its an acquired taste.                          

Climate Change is real.  This is the famous "Big Rock" in Okatoks Alberta.  Okatoks is the native Blackfoot word for Big Rock.  It is the biggest Glacial Erratic in the world.  It originated from a rock slide off of Mount Edith Cavell in the Tonquin Valley between 12,000 to 18,000 years ago.  The rock landed on a massive glacier and was carried many hundreds of kilometers.  The climate changed and the Big Rock was dropped in its current location. 

The Badlands of Alberta were also carved out in part by climate change.  A glacial dam burst releasing a torrent of glacial melt water that cut into the earth.  Those same badlands have erroded and revealed evidence tropical climates where dinosaurs roamed and sea levels changed.   

Climate change is real.  The evidence is all around Alberta.  More recent climate changes have occurred in human experience as well.  The Medieval Climate Optimum and the Little Ice Age to name a few. 

Man Made Global Warming too is real.  The earth is a closed system for the most part.  Heating your house in the winter is going to heat atmosphere a little tiny bit.  To a far lesser extent the CO2 from your furnace and BBQ does contribute to the greenhouse effect.  By how much is still up for debate. 

Anyone who says they agree with AGW has to agree with the current state of climate science.  This means they disagree with the climate science of the 1970's that said human activity was going to cause global cooling.  This means they must disagree with the climate science of 20 years ago.  They must disagree with Al Gore's movie which has been shown in court to be full of errors and exaggerations. 

This is only important because the policy goals of the 1990's are still on the environmentalist agenda. Climate Science continues to mature.  Eco-nuts have no desire to own up to their alarmist deceptions.  They don't want to talk about being so wrong and wasting so much money.
 

I want to talk about it.  If you are going to propose policy X because of Global Warming I want to see some real accounting.  How much global temperature change is policy X going to buy?  What will it cost and what will be the result?  Is that money better spent saving lives directly with a hospital or a new air ambulance?

If policy X is really about showing critics that we are doing something rather than doing nothing then lets call it what it is.  Environmental Policy X is nothing but pure PR.  Again how much good PR does policy X buy?  Does it change the opinion of the environmental critics in the slightest?  Would it better spent on some other thing like an Environmental Information Office to officially counter alarmism?  Or maybe its best to outsource it at least to an equal degree of funding now given to alarmists?  Even better, what if we just cut off the alarmists from oil derrived tax money? 

These are the kinds of discussions we need to have.  We are wasting enormous sums of money for no good reason.  People have been befuddled and confused into accepting the waste because of petty name calling and false arguments.  That has to end.  We must abandon the old denier rhetoric and get used to the new language of honest environmentalism.  It will open the door to a real discussion and that is where we'll win this debate: on policy.  Policy is where conservatives win all the debates.