How the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter beat its competition

Liberal talking points concerning the necessary purchase of 65 state of the art Fighter Jets are purposely misinformed.  They are misleading the public and the parrots in the media because it was them who initially saw the benefits of the Joint Strike Fighter program. 

After a fierce competition between bidding companies to secure the Joint Strike Fighter contract, Lockheed Martins F-35 was selected as the fighter of the future.  Lockheed Martin met or exceeded all the requirements set out by the Joint Strike fighter program beating Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.

The criticism that the project was "sole-sourced" deliberately misrepresents reality.

This PBS special on NOVA "Battle of the X-Planes" details how the Joint Strike Fighter was selected and why.
Why can't our public broadcaster, the CBC, show decent and relevant content like this?

The Joint Strike Fighter program was designed specifically to produce the best fighter possible at the lowest price.  Since all branches of the US military, Canada and several NATO allies are participating in the program economies of scale are possible that reduce the over all cost of a vastly superior fighter.  There will be more spare parts, more experienced mechanics, more pilots, more capabilities and fewer costs than any matching fighter could hope to equal. 


Russian probing of Canadian airspace is nothing new.  The medias assertion that Conservatives are using our current strategic reality to promote the acquisition is completely ridiculous.  Did the PMO call up Putin and request some bombers?  The F-18 that fell out of the sky, was that purely to illustrate our need for new fighters?

I realize that this is above the comprehension of most in the media.  Many of them are little more than parrots in left leaning cages.  I fully support their freedom to spout nonsense as long as they know they are also free to be mocked and ignored.

The F-35 Lightning II is a good purchase and I applaud the Canadian government for making the right choice.  The safety and security of our country is not a political beach ball.  Shame on the media and the Liberal party.

Soccer.

This post is dedicated to Iceman.  A fantastic, prolific and funny blogger who is a regular visitor to Spin Assassin. 

I can't remember when the World Cup ended.  I can't be bothered to look it up.  For me the World Cup ended with a single goal from the champion team Spain against Portugal.  This is something that Iceman takes peculiar joy in.  I'm not sure why.


I'll indulge you though.  Lets run with it for today.  Lets talk some soccer.

The first thing to say about soccer is that I'm not really a fan.  I am during the World Cup so long as either Portugal or Canada  gives me a chance to cheer.  When both are out so am I.  Its a bit like luge or skeleton in an off Olympic year.  I don't hate these sports.  I'm just kind of disinterested until our National honour is on the line.   

When it comes to Team Canada I'll yell myself hoarse even if its just ping pong. 

So when my surrogate country, the land of my forebears, Portugal, routes North Korea 7-0 I think I'm justified in being very happy about it.  Iceman doesn't think so.  Iceman thinks Brazil's 2-1 match with North Korea is more enjoyable. 

It was the only game where the offense actually showed up.  They had stellar defense for sure.  The Portuguese goal keeper was a brick wall all through their short run.  It also made for some very boring games with no offense.   

Me I like a good route.  The next federal election will be a route and I will be just as happy if not more so.

Jonathan Kay Goes Warmist

I don't blame him.  Many people have been taken with this idea.  Prime Minister Harper included.  Even the title of his article doesn't make sense.  "Bad science: Global-warming deniers are a liability to the conservative cause."

Our top Conservative Stephen Harper, who is also a personal hero of mine, has already stated that he has deferred to the authority of the consensus on Global Warming.  Does that mean that I have to be in lockstep with everything the CPC says and does?  Skeptical bloggers are strength not a liability.  We are no Zombies.  If you want a homogenized collective view you might want to go someplace else.  Though I may love and support the CPC in any way I can, they have no power over me and I have no power over them. 

Let's look at the article.  He starts by making light of skeptics with a sarcastic opening paragraph that actually has some links to good articles.  (thank you)  One is from the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works titled "Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics."  The other is the text of a speech given by the chairman of an Australian news network.  The first one is totally credible with direct quotes and links to back it all up.  The second article is opinion, much like my opinion and having the same value as Jonathan Kay's opinion.

Kay dismisses it all with the words: "Fine-sounding rhetoric — but all of it nonsense."  Really.  Lord Moncton said it best but let me paraphrase: You are not qualified to disqualify a skeptic.  Like so many warmists, including the Prime Minister himself, Jonathan Kay's argument boils down to the argument from authority.  Learned people said so and therefore it is.  No thinking required and if you do think about it you must think as you are told or you are wrong. 

Kay kindly included his authority with this link.  Its not very new, its been sitting around ignored for many months.  You will never guess who the author is?  Stephen Schneider.

The same guy who was behind the Global Cooling scare.  He's even moved on from Global Warming now.  The article refers to ACC or Anthropogenic Climate Change.  Mr. Schneider may jump from one apocalypse to another but the policy solution is always the same.  Taxes, large government, and socialism in general.    

Kay then slips into the old smear calling skeptics deniers.  "Militantly right-wing blogs and other Internet echo chambers populated entirely by other deniers," are the only places where skeptics are found.  Never mind that he has a good blog in these same awful echo chambers.

The slur "denier" is a nasty attempt from the old days of Global Warming arrogance that tried to paint skeptics as tantamount to holocaust deniers.  Many careers were ruined by that kind of smear (ask Climate Ph.D.Tim Ball).  For an otherwise good writer I have to say I'm disappointed with Jonathan Kay.  Please stop using that word.  Warmist is a reminder that you all went crazy about warming for while and now you are just crazy about any kind of weather.  Denier is linked to racist ignorance and we ask you to stop.

This Paragraph has to be fully reproduced:

"This is a phenomenon that should worry not only environmentalists, but also conservatives themselves: The conviction that global warming is some sort of giant intellectual fraud now has become a leading bullet point within mainstream North American conservatism; and so has come to bathe the whole movement in its increasingly crankish, conspiratorial glow."

There are indeed well funded institutions that exist only to push this idea and policy based on it.  This is not a conspiracy.  Its not a secret.  Its all out in the open.  What do you call a conspiracy that is right out in the open?  A movement?

The IPCC is a prime example.  Is it possible that the IPCC could ever find itself in error?  Woops, um we wasted all that money and got everyone worked up over a mistake.  Not likely.  I don't think anyone ever called it a conspiracy in the first place.  No, its a megameme.  Once you buy in you don't see alternative explanations any longer.

Of course they will portray us as cranks.  They portray us as racists and bible thumpers, and buck toothed baptist inbred hill billies too.  They will always do this and Jonathan only helps.  He says here, "Impressionable conservatives who lack the numeracy skills to perform long division or balance their checkbooks feel entitled to spew elaborate proofs purporting to demonstrate how global warming is in fact caused by sunspots."

That is so weird.   These last couple of years have been so hard my own check book.  My 2nd business failed.  I'm sure I'm not the only one but they say that entrepreneurs usually fail a couple of times before they get it right.  I suppose this means I must be wrong about everything.  I suppose this means Global Warming is true because my checkbook went red for a while.  Numeracy huh?  Here's some numbers for you 3.8 GPA overall, magna cum laude.  I could be a Climate Scientist If I chose to be one. I didn't.   Do not assume that I don't understand the science because I don't agree with 97% of the AGW stakeholders.

Reality is not a democracy anyway.  There is one independent truth that does not change on the votes of a climate club.  Consensus is not science.  We know it and they know it.

Anyway he goes on and on without really saying anything.  He doesn't mention that there were serious problems voiced about the hockey stick graphs long before climategate broke.  He says nothing about natural climate change which absolutely certain and uncontested by anyone.  How could climate change be such a big problem if the earth does it itself all the time?  No answer to that question from any of them anywhere.  There are large fundamental holes in AGW that the climate alarm industry cannot and will not explain. 

The last part of this article that is of interest is Jonathan Kay's admission that taxing carbon is good.  Here it is: "— yes — possibly increasing the economic cost of carbon-fuel usage through some form of direct or indirect taxation."  I rest my case.  Canadians are over taxed as it is.  Taxing carbon will not change the climate even if AGW is true.  Reducing emissions to 1990 levels will not stop Global Warming by their own unproven theories.  Why then?  Why do conservatives need to jump on the tax bandwagon?  Why do we need to send our industries over seas to produce more carbon than they would even here?  This is not conservative but progressive.  Its blue socialism.  Oh yes they are the conservatives that are for more taxes and more government intervention.

I can pretend Global Warming is true and look at solutions and they all amount to a symbolic economic suicide followed by enslavement to a nanny state.  Nice idea.

Ignorant Eco-Nuts take aim at Alberta Tourism

The latest assault by the legions of ignorant zombies on Alberta is a pledge to stay out of it.  Its good news to me.  The best place on earth is no place for an environmentalist idiot.

This Rethink Alberta website is pretty slick.  Monies donated to these eco groups do not help the environment at all but go to fund massive PR campaigns that are often ill informed and exaggerated.  These groups seek to destroy unrelated industries such as tourism because they fail at boycotting Alberta oil itself.  Its like economic terrorism.  They will be putting up signs in the US and the UK in the next while says their director, an M. Marx.  I have a sneaky feeling that revenues and interest is declining in light of the BP oil spill.  This is likely a desperate attempt to recapture the focus of their eco-flock.  

I actually met one of these idiots on the Columbia Icefields once.  This environmentalist was our tour guide and a liar.  While she was driving the bus she went through extraordinary lengths to link the water running off the glacier to the water being used by the oil sands.

A Twisted Guide to Alberta

If you have ever been to the Athabasca Glacier and taken the bus tour, you know the huge buses that drive up and down the Glacier for 9 hours a day.  There about 10 buses that are constantly shuttling people all day long.  Another tour departs every half hour.  Its a busy place.

A huge Snow Bus

The lodge is where tickets are sold.  Its a grand looking building with a restaurant and lodgings and an interesting interpretive center.  Its closed in the winter because roads are impassible.  There are also no power lines to the lodge, so without diesel the whole operation has to shut down.


The entire Athabasca Glacier experience is fueled by the Alberta Oil Sands.  The fleet of giant buses runs on diesel.  The lodge is powered by diesel generators.  There is no part of this operation isn't fueled by the oil sands at all times.

A Giant Bus waits for fuel.  6 other buses deliver passengers to the ice field in the background.

During my trip up the Glacier in one of these buses the driver who also playing tour guide felt the need to misinform us that the "tar" sands used ten barrels of pure Athabasca melt water to make one barrel of oil.  A complete lie.  I checked Wikipedia (a pretty progressive knowledge base to begin with) and the Oil Sands use 2 - 4 barrels of water to make one ex-situ barrel of oil and its getting better all the time.  Half of that water is recycled.  The various in-situ recovery techniques that are the future of oil sands production only use 0.2 barrels of water and its 95% recycled.

What you see and hear from eco-nuts are lies and exaggerations about problems that have already been solved.

Of course this pissed me off.  I could see other passengers holding their tongues too.  I wrote a scathing comment in their customer survey.   For all I know it was crumpled up and thrown away.  What business does a thirsty consumer of Alberta Oil have with trashing the oil sands?  -Not just trashing oil sands, but trashing Alberta to people visiting Alberta.

If Alberta tourism wants to fight the various attacks on Alberta and tourism it should start by cleaning up its own house.  Infiltrators should not be allowed  to spread their own twisted message to visitors.  If you ever come across this sort of thing, film it.  You don't have to cause a scene.  Film it and ask questions.  I'll be taking this tour again soon and I'll be watching for more lies.  I won't be filling out a little suggestion card either, you'll see the video here.

Stand up to these people where ever you find them.  Be polite but firm.  You are just a citizen fighting propaganda.  You have every right to speak and you should do so with out fear.  Don't forget the boycott on Bed Bath and Beyond.  Fight back with every weapon you have.  Fight with your wallet.  Fight with your words.  Fight with your minds.

We aren't going to let champagne socialists from the hypocritical left coast USA push us around.