The Heritage Report

I came across the following quotes recently, and thought it definitely worth posting here. I know I’m giving away my age when I say that I actually remember some of these predictions when I was in school in the ’70’s. Expecially the dire warnings about us all freezing to death in the coming Ice Age because of the excessive use of fossil fuels.

Anywhere, here they are. (I thought of putting this post in the humour section, but then I remembered how serious these ‘experts’ are, so I didn’t!)

Spectacularly wrong predictions made on the occasion of Earth Day 1970.

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

(Source)

On Tuesday, May 12th the voters of B.C will head to the polls to elect a new government for our province.
One thing you can always predict about elections in B.C. is that they are, well, interesting you might say. For years it was a running battle between the Socreds and NDP. After the Socreds fell from their virtual stranglehold on power for decades in the province the Liberals emerged as the NDP’s opponents. The two parties have faced each other without much outside interference for the last 4 elections.
But if Wilf Hanni has his way, those days are over. The leader of the B.C. Conservatives has been quietly, but busily assembling a party that he says will bring about (to use his party’s slogan), “change you can trust”. Hanni is no novice to the provincial political scene. He was involved with the Socreds in the ‘70’s, and has stayed active one way or another since then. He was involved with Reform BC in the 1990’s, running as a candidate for the Party in 1996 and becoming Party Leader in 1997.
Hanni, a member of the BC Conservatives since 2004, became Party Leader in 2005. Since then the Party has taken on a new look, not only with Hanni as Party Leader, but also with a new Board of Directors, a new Constitution and new of Policies. Hanni does not mind admitting that he helped the BC Conservative Party “steal” many ideas from Reform BC, including its emphasis on open and accountable government which includes “Free votes in the Legislature”, “Effective Recall Legislation” and “Preferential Balloting” to ensure that every MLA is elected only with the support of at least 50% of those who vote in his or her constituency. He also promised to introduce “Ethics” legislation to guide our MLA’s activity .
The BC Conservatives also have big plans for the economy, especially in the Interior and the North where successive NDP and Liberal governements have tended to overlook the needs of the area in favour of big spending initiatives in the Lower Mainland. Hanni says the Party will encourage the development of processing plants to turn beetle killed trees in bio-diesel while also developing new mines, opening up the Nechako Basin and Offshore to Oil & Gas Exploration and developing the province’s immense potential to produce hydro-electric power for export.
Hanni does not expect his party to form the government this time around since they do not yet have enough candidates running, but he believes they have a very good chance of forming the Balance of Power in a Minority Government, if, as expected, the vote is close between the Liberals and NDP. Hanni said he is getting very encouraged by the apparent surge of support away from the Liberals to the BC Conservative Party in the last few weeks, including some former Liberal Candidates who now wish to run for the BC Conservatives instead. According to Hanni, a good number of candidates have put their name forward in recent weeks and the surge in support for the BC Conservative Party seems to be gaining momentum.
He says he also does not expect to “split the vote” and elect the NDP, as the Liberals claim will happen because many voters who voted Liberal in the last election are telling him they will not do so this time and that they would rather vote for a real Conservative Party, but that if there is no Conservative Candidate to vote for, they will vote NDP. Hanni says that means the Conservatives can expect to take votes away from both the Liberals and NDP and will therefore not “split the vote”. Besides, he says if that is the only reason the Liberals can give you to vote for them because they have nothing else to offer, you really should not consider wasting your vote on them anyway.
Hanni says if you vote for the BC Conservative Party, you will get “Change you can Trust”

In what has to be some of the most backward logic and sheer liberal idealogy, Nancy Pelosi in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, stated that the Democrats huge spending increases to stimulate the economy includes measures that will actually save the country money.

Pelosi’s logic is simply astounding.  More funding for family planning measures (read contraception and abortions) will save money because of the cost of kids to the state and federal governments.

Totally apart from the very serious moral issue (like killing innocent human beings) involved in this topic, is the ignorance that ignores who is going to pay for the extra spending of trillions of dollars.  In the brave new world of the Democratics we can ramp up spending today, while at the same time prevent and kill the kids who could pay it back tomorrow!

Why is it that the liberal mind-set cannot function without a double standard?  Pelosi is quite willing to have a larger than average family herself (she’s a mother of five), but for the sake of our economy, everyone else must not.  If it’s O.K. for her what’s the problem with others?  There isn’t.  And no parent should listen to this drivel coming from these ‘experts’.

 One wonders just how far it is to the next step when the liberals in the U.S. or Canada decide to adopt the Chinese plan of 1 child per family.  We all know how unsuccessful that experiment has been.

A record number of private jets were flown into Washington for the inauguration of a president who wants his country to “go green”.  The hypocrisy of these Obama-ites is truly staggering.  I wonder where the “moral imperative” that the Obama / Gore / Hollywood crowd (Travolta, Redford, etc.) has gone?

Though I am going to print the article in its entirety below, you can read it here.

January 20, 2009
Obama Inauguration Sets Record for Private Jets
For the wealthy, Tuesday’s inauguration is the dream party: a chance to rub elbows with the similarly rich and powerful, to become part of a historic moment, and (most importantly), to get access to the man of the moment.
It also is a chance to drown their financial sorrows in an emotional wave of optimism.
Yet it may come as a surprise that at a time of financial crisis and Green correctness, many of the wealthy are choosing to arrive by private jet.
According to an article in Bloomberg, as many as 600 private jets were expected to touch down in D.C. for the inauguration. The runway at Washington Dulles was closed Saturday to allow as many as 100 small planes to park. And the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said it expected a total of 500 small jets to land from Jan. 16 through Jan 21.
“That would set a record, topping the 300 the airport accommodated for President George W. Bush’s 2004 inaugural,” an Airports Authority says in the article.
Of course, flying private to a celebration of a populist, pro-environment President is a bit like the Detroit execs jetting to Washington for bailout money. How do you call for social responsibility after touching down in a $40 million, gas-guzzling Gulfstream? (Maybe travelers will buy carbon credits).
Of course, as the jet industry will remind me, jets save time, they are important business tools and they are ideal for fliers with special needs. And just because the next president has vowed to raise their taxes doesn’t mean the wealthy can’t join the fun.
Many of the jets are probably filled with lobbyist-funded junkets, corporate groups and wealthy politicos taking along their friends. It is a chance for that Boca Raton, Fla., health-care entrepreneur who bundled donations for Barack to impress his friends and clients with an all-expense paid trip to the real party of change. It is a chance for that Hollywood producer to fly in some actor friends and bask in true celebrity, or the trial lawyer from Texas to get his “Barack-and-me” photo.
At a time when stuff is no longer cool, the best way to show status among the wealthy is through access. And nothing will turn heads at dinner parties like the line “When I met Barack at the inaugural ball….”
The presence of so many wealthy and their jets also underscores a stark reality of Mr. Obama’s election and presidency. As much as some people wish that Mr. Obama–the face that launched millions of grass-roots Internet donors–will eliminate the influence and impact of the wealthy on politics, the wealthy will always have a center table in Washington. And, of course, a prime spot to park their Gulfstreams.

40 BILLION dollars.  That’s not the total.  That’s the number that’s being bandied about as the deficit for the  coming year in our upcoming federal budget.  The deficit is the amount of spending OVER the amount of income in a given year.  In one year the Harper Conservatives are planning to spend FORTY BILLION dollars more than they take in.

All those who worked to build the Reform party and then watch it morph into the Alliance and then merge with the Progressive Conservatives, must be in shock.  I have no doubt that the government MP’s will be out on the trail explaining that this was necessary for now, but we’ll get back to fiscal responsibility in short order.  Hogwash.  This deficit will take years and years to clear off.  And that’s at the current low interest rates.  What’s going to happen when those rates start to soar again?

Every voter who placed an ‘X’ beside a CPC candidate in the last election should be disgusted.  During the recent shakedown on Parliament hill by the 3 opposition parties, the Prime Minister and his government’s defenders said, quite correctly, that no one voted for the coalition, and therefore they should go to the polls to seek a mandate.

Well, I’ve got news for Mr. Harper.  I can almost guarantee that the vote for the Conservatives was not a vote for $40 BILLION deficits.  He has about as much authority to stick that one on to the people of Canada as the Three Stooges had to foist their package on us.

If you have spent the most minimal of time on the Canadian blogosphere, you will know that there is a concerted effort to shut down many political and/or social conservative websites and blogs.  It seems that it’s O.K. to say anything you want against males, caucasians (especially English ones), Christians and heterosexuals, but woe to that person who says a negative thing - even if it is a fact - about any of the favorites of the liberal-dominated thinkers (is that an oxymoron or what?).  To do so will bring about the wrath of politcal-correctness gone mad, and if you are really (un)fortunate, maybe even a lawsuit to try scare you into keeping quiet.

My long-time interest in personal freedoms as a citizen of this country, became even more intense with the recent issues surrounding Ezra Levant, and through reading his blog, the plight of the owners of Free Dominion (a ‘conservative’ forum).  Others as well have been the targets of nuisance lawsuits, and actions that, in my opinion, are tantalizingly close to harrassment.

I spent some time recently looking at these sites and others, and was particularly interested in some of the comments being posted there … even posted a few myself.  That was an education worth the price of admission - the proverbial “baptism by fire”!  There appears to be a fearful attitude that is so pervasive, that if you are a ‘newcomer’ to the site and post a comment, you may find yourself under immediate suspicion as a “troll”, someone who is trying to “entice” others to make a comment so you can go after them.

While I understand that people may feel a bit tentative on this all, it is a sad, sad commentary on the state of things political in our country, when those few remaining who would try to defend of our rights and freedoms feel so threatened they have to do it under a pseudonym and under the cloak of obscurity of the internet just to protect themselves.  At that point, dear friends, WE HAVE LOST THE BATTLE!!

Can you imagine what would happen if even 100 good people stood up behind their real names, and said, “This is where we stand on this issue.  And we’re not going to back down.”  Those who are trying to scare away any who wish to exercise their rights and freedoms of expression, are doing so as bullies.  They are hiding behind beauracracies like the HRC, and the only language they understand is lack of fear in those they are trying to brow-beat into submission.

The full value of the internet fight in this battle will not be known for awhile.  For now,  I truly wish them well, and encourage everyone to do their part in the struggle, but where even good men and women are motivated by fear, they have already lost the battle, and they don’t even know it.  How sad.

If we really want to make a difference, it’s time to come out from hiding.  Comments here are welcome!

Every once in awhile you wonder about how your tax dollars are being spent.  You don’t?  Then you won’t want to read the rest of this post.  Come to think of it, you probably won’t want to read much of anything posted here!  However…

If you’re still reading, here’s what’s happening down at the good old CBC.  This taxpayer, funded self-help group which has made a career out of American bashing, is literally obsessed with president-elect B. H. Obama.  They’re doing a count-down of the days to his inauguration. And they’re taking nominations on songs we’d like the next American president to listen to that will give him an idea of what Canadians are like.  For the life of me, I can’t think of how this list of 49 Songs from North of the 49th Parallel, will help anybody - let alone Obama - get a better grasp of the Canadian psyche.

But I guess the really good news must be this: the tax-suckers at CBC aren’t really anti-american after all.  They’re just anti-republican/conservative/right-wing/nationalistic american.  That’s a relief.  I thought they hated them all. Now I know it’s just the ones that think like conservative-minded folks everywhere.

This has got to be the ultimate nail in the coffin for the Lib/NDP/Bloc coalition. The Communist Party of Canada has issued a press release - get this - in favour of the coalition.   You can read it here.  This, of course on the heels of a statement from that great “Defender of Canada”, Jaques Parizeau, where he used all the glowing terms he could to say how good this deal was for Quebec.

So, the radical separatists say this is a good deal.  The Communists say it is a good deal.  And Canadians are supposed to accept this as a good deal?  This is sheer lunacy. Idiocy in its lowest manifestation.  And these guys are going to fix the economy?  It’ll be fixed alright.  The fix has been in for some time by these treachorous leaders.  And the rest of Canada (read ‘western Canada’) will have to pay the piper.

Now let’s just get this in perspective.

A Coalition government that wants to remove the current government that was returned to Ottawa just 6 weeks ago with an increase in the number of seats over its previous term.

A Coalition government that will be led by a man who the Canadian voters rejected overwhelmingly just 6 weeks ago.

A Coalition government that was cobbled together by a socialist whose party finished fourth of the four elected … last place!

A Coalition government that gives veto power to a separatist party whose only raison d’etre is to break up the country, and whose leader says this coalition will help them toward their goals.

A Coalition government that is praised by the most radical element of the separatists in Quebec.

A Coalition government that is supported by the Communist Party of Canada.

And they wonder why Canadians are angry, the financial markets are ‘jittery’, and the premiers of the country are mostly opposed?

One thing the political upheaval has done in the past few days is bring out the debate of the question of electoral reform.  In British Columbia, the citizens have voted on the issue once, and although it received a majority in sheer numbers of voters, it fell just short of what was required to make the change.

A government panel travelled the province looking at the various options, and settled on what is called the Single Transferable Vote (STV).  The proponents are saying that it will bring in true representation in our governments, create more voter interest in our elections, be more efficient, and pretty much everything else that is needed for democratic utopia.  Others are not quite so sure.

I have looked at this issue quite a bit, and at first I was swayed by the argument in favour of STV.  I am now solidly in the camp of “not so sure” it is as good for our province as many would have us believe.  For one thing, we would be stuck with the kind of political wrangling that is now going on in Ottawa … for a very long, long time.  And whether people are pro-Conservative or pro-coalition in the heated debates going on, I haven’t heard one person from either side saying this is a great way for parliament to operate - in a state of confusion and chaos.

The more I look at the STV system of elections, the less appealing it appears to me.  I will be do some in-depth analysis of the issue, and would certainly invite your comments.

You can post your comments below or email me directly at editor@heritagereport.org

While I know we do not know all that is still to be played out by the political opportunists currently sitting in opposition benches in Ottawa, I have been reading the comments posted by many, many disillusioned, disheartened, and even angry citizens.

And there is an alarming theme.  Western separatism is becoming more and more the resort of those who are feeling disenfranchised by the political power-mongerers in the Liberal, NDP and Bloc parties. For instance … just one of literally hundreds of similar type sentiments. It was posted by ‘Raebo’ on the web site of the National Post, Dec. 1, 2008.

As a 51 year old Albertan who has voted in every election and paid taxes since I was 16.
If this coalition takes place. Symbolically I will never ever vote again in a Federal election.
I don’t mind loosing (sic). But not like this.
For the better part of my adult life the Liberals have run this country, and I accepted that fact.
I am retiring in Jan/09 and will spend my spare time working for a party who’s sole ambition is to really take Alberta out of this broken confederation.
Our ten billion in yearly transfer payments will go along way in paying for high fences, border guards ,and what ever else we need to be our own country.
I see now there is no hope for my vision of a democratic Canada.
The inmates can run what’s left of Canada.
Good luck to those that will be left behind.
Hope it someday works out for you.
Don’t hold your breath though you will pass out.

So while the 3 musketeers have found a way to bring their parties together, they may have just also found a way to split the country up.  Who’d have ever thought that Alberta and B.C. would secede from Canada before Quebec?