Attention liberals: Not all your critics are religious extremists

Attention liberals: Not all your critics are religious extremists

You don't have to be the Pope to oppose abortion

Kelly McParland, National Post

Areader emailed recently to suggest I must be a religious fanatic, because I don't support abortion.

He explained that the vast majority of people who oppose abortion are fundamentalist religious wackos who believe there's a "spirit" in the fetus, and that's why they object to aborting it.

News to me. I told him I hadn't been to church in years, and religion had nothing to do with it. I just think it's wrong to take someone else's life without their consent. And I can't convince myself that the roundish tendency you'll notice among pregnant women results from something other than a life growing inside them. You don't have to be the Pope to believe a person's life is his own, and the rest of us should keep our hands off.

He wasn't buying. He'd convinced himself anyone opposed to abortion is a religious nut, and that's all there was to it.

I got the same sense from reading John Moore's Tuesday column on the recent Ontario climb-down on sex education ( "Hide your kids. The liberals are coming").

The Ontario government was planning to introduce a program that would expose grade school pupils to more explicit sexual references. Grade 1 students would be taught the correct names for body parts; Grade 3 students would learn about sexual identity and orientation, while kids in Grades 6 and 7 would deal with terms like "anal intercourse" and "vaginal lubrication."

The changes had been available on a government website for several months, but no one noticed until recently. When a sudden outcry resulted, Premier Dalton McGuinty quickly reversed course, embarrassing some of his Cabinet members who had been dutifully defending the changes. Now he's being attacked from the opposite direction, for caving in to fundamentalist nutbars. Because if you get a bit queasy at the notion of Grade 6 kids being tutored on masturbation, you must be a fundamentalist nutbar, right?

"Religious conservatives came out swinging," wrote Moore.

"The message was ... that the policy had been developed by activists with an agenda and with no consultation. None of this was true, but that doesn't matter in a political world that now runs not on a daily news cycle but on one that goes hour by hour.... The premier was defeated by talk radio, sound bites, Twitter and Facebook."

I'm a bit puzzled by that last line. Mr. Moore makes his living as a talk radio host, so why is he disparaging opinions formed from listening to talk radio? Is he saying that if we hear him on the radio we should disregard anything he has to say, but if he writes it in the paper, that makes it legit?

But mainly what bothers me is the notion that, once again, anyone who opposes programs favoured by liberals and their friends must be religious extremists bent on imposing fundamentalist views on the nation. The Canadian Taliban, in action. It's true that opposition to the sex program originated with some conservative religious groups that were first to notice it, but why assume every parent who subsequently expressed alarm must therefore be a card-carrying member of the lunatic fringe?

I don't particularly care about grade school kids being taught the realities of sex and their bodies at a young age. Most of them will learn all about it from the Internet anyway, well before a teacher raises the subject in class. But I can understand that many parents would prefer to handle the subject themselves, and don't want to be usurped by some bureaucrat at Queen's Park working to an artificial schedule that assumes every kid hits the same maturity level at the same magic moment.

Maybe it makes liberals feel better to write off opponents as religious nuts. That way they don't have to give serious thought to any opinions that differ from their own. It's a lot easier on the brain, and leaves more time for listening to talk radio.

http://www.nationalpost.com/story-printer.html?id=2963380

Right Green

 Right Green


      In Ontario’s race to “go green”, the government has turned to wind power as one of their alternatives for “clean and free” sources of electricity. The promotion and construction of these vast wind farms gives private companies generous subsidies and regulatory support through the “Green Energy Act”. On the surface, wind turbines appear to be a viable solution to the problems related to greenhouse emissions and radioactive waste produced by conventional electricity plants. Some of the wind power advantages cited by organizations such as Canwea.ca, Biofuelswatch.com, and whywind.org are that wind turbines:
1.      Provide sustainable income for local farmers who receive substantial royalty income for hosting them on their property;
2.      Provide jobs in the procurement of material and services during construction;
3.      Improve infrastructure like roads because they are upgraded to facilitate construction;
4.      Provide clean energy without generating pollution like CO 2 and SO 2 or radioactive waste;
5.      Can be used to produce electricity to homes as well as for the power grid, and
6.      Do not consume any non-renewable resources, like coal, natural gas, or oil.
The promoters of green energy alternatives present a strong case, but are wind turbines without their own set of problems?

The Cost of Going Green
     Looking to countries who have been utilizing wind turbines for over a decade, one might argue that wind power does not live up to the claims made by its proponents.
Norway commissioned a study of Denmark’s wind power project (which includes 6000 turbines that produced electricity equal to 19% of what the country used in 2002) and concluded that wind power has “serious environmental effects, insufficient production, and high production costs.” Because wind power is varying and intermittent, no conventional power plants had been shut down. (The explanation for that is when the wind dies down or rises, most plants cannot be simply ramped up or down to offset the wind turbines.) When the wind was blowing adequately for the turbines, the power they generated was surplus and had to be sold off to other countries at a discounted price or the wind turbine itself was turned off.
     The subsequent years of study on Denmark touted similar findings. In 2003, 84% of wind-generated electricity was exported at a net revenue loss and only provided 3.3% of Denmark’s electricity (David J. White, The Utilities Journal, July 2004). And in 2004, Denmark exported 70.3% of its wind production.
     Across much of Europe and the U.S., the findings are similar. The wind turbines generally underperform unless ideal conditions exist (winds at 50 km/h). In high winds, turbines must be turned off because they are easily damaged. Dead bugs, salt and dirt build-up tend to reduce the average power generated by 20-30%.
     Therefore, as wind turbines become less efficient, emissions from conventional power systems increase. For example, “a coal plant will be part-loaded such that the loss of a generating unit can swiftly be replaced bringing other units on to full load. In addition, to increased costs of holding reserve in this manner, it has been estimated that the entire benefit of reduced emissions from the renewable's programme has been negated by the increased emissions from part-loaded plants under NETA (New Electricity Trading Arrangements—the U. K.’s deregulated power market)” (David Tolley, Head of Networks and Ancillary Services, Innogy—keynote address, January 15, 2003). Furthermore, “Wind farms capital, maintenance and operating costs are their only contribution to electricity supply” (Richard S. Courtney, www.aweo.org). A German study released in 2005 concluded that lower emissions could be economically achieved by affixing filters on existing conventional power plants. Given these statements, it should be no surprise that Denmark’s electricity costs are the highest in Europe.

Environmental Concerns
     Besides the economic concerns, there are environmental concerns to contend with as well. The improved infrastructure required for construction may be a benefit in some areas, but consider the impact of fortified roads in heavily treed areas, mountainous areas, or fortifications in lakebeds. FPL Energy (Florida Power and Light) has said, “although construction is temporary, it will require heavy equipment, including bulldozers, graders, trenching machines, concrete trucks, flatbed trucks, and large cranes”.
     In the case of the Essex County Pigeon Bay wind turbine controversy, this project has the potential to affect the Union Water System intake during and after construction due to the placement of deep foundations required in the lake bed and porous limestone bedrock. The release of pollutants and sulfur water could adversely affect the quality and safety of our drinking water (John Kehoe, Manager, Union Water System).
    Guidelines from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service state that wind towers should not be near wetlands or other known bird or bat concentration areas or in areas with high incidence of fog or low cloud ceilings, especially during spring and fall migrations. A 2002 study in Spain estimated that 11,200 birds of prey, 350,000 bats, and 3,000,000 small birds are killed by their wind turbines and power lines each year.
     Closer to home, one of our own bald eagles has succumbed to the intrusion of a wind turbine in Norfolk County. As well, Peter Meisenheimer of the Ontario Commercial Fishing Industry Association has stated that wind turbines placed in the water will adversely affect the growth, maturity, and abundance of perch and pickerel in Pigeon Bay and the rest of Lake Erie.

 Local Concerns taken to Action
     For many of the reasons stated above and many more, different groups across Ontario have formed to petition the government to place a moratorium on wind turbines to no avail.
     In Essex County, many municipalities have pledged to contribute to a research fund (totaling $250,000). ERCA has been contracted to produce the scientific data to allay or support their concerns about wind turbines being placed in Pigeon Bay.
    CALEWT (Citizens Against Lake Erie Wind Turbines), a local group who supports the proper location of wind turbines (NOT in Pigeon Bay), has already initiated a concerned citizens pledge system to raise the necessary funds to take their case to court if necessary. Other groups from across Ontario protested the Liberal government at Queen’s Park on Wednesday, April 28, 2010. This is no small movement and deserves attention.

 Still More to Consider
     This article highlights only some of the data available on wind turbines, their advantages and their disadvantages. The initial costs, their continuous maintenance, their tendency to be struck by lightning, the thousands of litres of hydraulic fluid housed inside of them, the blinking beacons, noise and vibrations concerns have not been addressed.
     When searching for green alternatives, it is paramount to get on board with the right green bandwagon, to use common sense, and to proceed wisely for the sake of all of us who share space on this planet. When considering wind turbines, there is much more to consider than what meets the eye.

Cheryl Brooks Ford                    

                                                                                                      

Windsor's Chris Vander Doelen: Harper eyes party subsidy ban

It's time to indulge in a few I-told-you-sos.
You may remember a prediction made in this space on Jan. 5 about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to end subsidies for federal political parties. It's not dead, contrary to widespread media opinion.
Harper appeared to back down from the proposal more than a year ago, after the opposition parties -- but mostly their spear carriers in the media -- went screaming gaga crazy over the idea.
They were so hysterical, you would have thought Harper had proposed the end of the world.
And for politicians with so few friends they can't raise enough money from legitimate donors to run a decent election campaign, it would have been. And good riddance.
Each political party in Parliament receives $1.78 per vote cast in their favour, quarterly. The money can be used to fight elections, hire office staff and pay annual operating expenses between elections.
The annual tab runs taxpayers about $150 million. Peanuts, really.
But the beneficiaries include the Bloc Quebecois, whose raison d'etre is to leave Canada. Taxpayers in the rest of the country actually pay to keep separatist dreams alive -- which has to be the most masochistic political funding arrangement anywhere in the world.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien introduced the funding as one of his final acts as Liberal leader. Under his watch, his own party went from being able to raise tens of millions in corporate donations to having to steal campaign funds through such illegal schemes as the Adscam kickback scandal.
Forcing taxpayers to fund the activities of all political parties was Chretien's solution to curing his own party's addiction to financial skullduggery.
Harper backed off his plan to kill the funding when the three opposition parties formed a coalition to topple his minority Conservative government. The Governor General turned down their offer to govern and gave Harper another kick at the can.
My Jan. 5 column said that far from being dead, Harper's plan to scupper election financing was going to be a major campaign plank for the Conservatives in the next election. The media might scream blue murder, but internal Tory polls show voters love the idea.
Longtime Ottawa political columnist Lawrence Martin confirmed Harper's plan this week in a column that ran in Metronews in Edmonton and elsewhere.
"Remember (Harper's) election-finance manoeuvre of some time ago, the one that stank the joint out, almost toppling his government?" Martin writes. (A Chretien confidant and biographer, Martin is a longtime Liberal spear carrier, formerly of the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star before that).
"It's back. The Conservatives have confirmed that the measure, which would eliminate the per-vote subsidy that political parties receive, will be part of their next election platform."
Martin, who doesn't cite any sources, says the plan is part of "Harper's determination to cripple the Liberals." What a meanie compared to Chretien, who preferred punching or strangling his opponents.
The Liberals will survive the loss of the funding, and may be the better for it if they have to start actually listening to what taxpayers want.
The NDP will be pretty much unaffected by the loss of funding, since its supporters are almost as committed and generous in donations to their party as Conservatives.
If cancelling the funding cripples or even kills off the BQ, it will be worth it, in my view. But Canadians may have to dig a little deeper to support their favourite parties if Harper follows through.


http://www.windsorstar.com/story_print.html?id=2750888&sponsor=true 
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