Category: Outdoors

. . . Unless we give ourselves over unquestioningly to the bloated bureaucracy of the environmentalists, which will lead us to the Promised Land of Kyoto; flowing with the milk and honey of granola-grindin’ Gaia-goodness.

So speaketh the High Priests of The Environment and all their apostles; with one voice, for apostasy against Kyotology will not be tolerated. And don’t fool yourselves, this shit really has become one hell of a lot like some loopy cult. As Pale, over at IAM(also)CANADIAN, put it a few days ago [links added]:

The Church of Kyotology reminds me of Scientology (without the cool alien thing!)

Kyotology attacks free speech. Any questioning of the god Kyoto results in cries of “Global Warming” denier!

Kyotology says that public statements against Kyotology such as writing anti-Kyotology letters to the papers and in blogs is a “Suppressive Act” – a high crime, according to “Introduction to Kyotology Ethics.”

In accordance with this policy (and others like it), Kyotology has tried to silence all criticism.

Kyotology betrays the trust of well-intentioned people by falsely claiming to have a scientifically-proven technology to save the world.

Couldn’t have said it better myself (which, of course, is why I plagiarized Pale). The maniacal, rabid reaction of the enviro-Left to anyone that doesn’t unquestioningly bow down before whatever the latest prophecy of doom happens to be is downright alarming. You don’t even need to outright argue with them to get yourself branded a heretic, either. Just asking for clarification or, Goddess forbid, proof 😯 of their wild claims is enough to earn you the kind of contempt usually reserved for twitchy loners parked near playgrounds with cars full of candy.

Before we go any further, let’s get a few things straight, shall we? I like the outdoors, Bambi’s mom is pretty damned tasty (especially as sausages) and when I go fishing, I have this funny habit of wanting to actually eat what I pull out of the water. Hell, I even used to work for Greenpeace, for cryin’ out loud.  So yes, I do give a shit about the environment, just not for the same reasons as the Cultists of Kyoto. So, you ask; if I’m such an environmentally-friendly guy, why do I have a problem with Kyoto?

Actually, I don’t have a problem with Kyoto, I have a lot of problems with Kyoto. AND with the whole “global warming” thing in general. Going into each and every damned one of them here and now would make for one hell of a bulky posting — and likely give me carpal tunnel syndrome in the process — so what I’m going to do, just for a start, is to list a few of the things about “global warming” that get on my nerves. I’ll get into each one in more detail in later rants but for now, here are the the beefs that just pop off the top of my head:

1. They’re bullshitting me.
   “Global warming,” as in the human-cause-only scenario that’s being shrieked about so much now, is only a theory and is NOT scientifically proven as a fact like we keep being told.
2. Ad Hominem cuts no ice with me.
   And that’s the method of choice for the EnviroNazis that come up against anyone that questions them. As Orwell once said: “Some things are true even if The Daily Telegraph says they are true.”
3. Environmental science has been hijacked by political agendas.
   This has been happening since the fall of the Soviet Union left an assortment of Marxists and other miscellaneous malcontents adrift in the sea of their failed ideas, looking for someplace to put in to port.
4. Their story keeps changing.
   Their mid-range prediction for temperature rise in the next 100 years has dropped by more than a third and they chopped the mean sea-level rise prediction by more than 50% — just since the last IPCC report in 2001. I have yet to find any number that isn’t constantly getting fudged. Who’s running these figures? The guys at Enron??
5. I’ve heard all this before.
   All the same different dire predictions, the same rhetoric against critics, all of it. Just with a different boogeyman. None of the predictions came true.
6. They are fanatics.
   As Churchill once observed, “a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” And, like true fanatics, they adamantly refuse to listen to any explanation not approved for their consumption by the high priests of their “movement,” no matter how sound the reasoning may be.
7. They misrepresent themselves.
   They claim a “consensus” amongst experts even when those same experts — like Dr. Christopher Landsea, a leading expert in the field of hurricanes and tropical storms, who resigned as an author of the IPCC 2007 report because the IPCC was “motivated by pre-conceived agendas” and was “scientifically unsound” — have no such unanimity whatsoever.
8. Even if they DID have it, consensus does NOT equal truth.
   Once upon a time, consensus was that the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the earth and Milli Vanilli were singers. And we know how those turned out.
9. They attempt to silence those who disagree with them.
   This, more than anything else, is a sure indication that there’s something rotten in Denmark. You don’t need to read Nineteen Eighty Four to know that anybody that wants their side to be the only one heard has only their interests in mind. Truth is a funny thing; it doesn’t need to be the only voice heard in order for it to survive. It does just fine without any suppression of dissent being needed.

Not a bad list for stuff just off the top of my head. Keep an eye open for the next few days or so while I address each one separately.

It just keeps getting dumber and dumberer out there these days, doesn’t it? As if the idea of banning the game of tag wasn’t stucking fupid enough, some pointy head from the University of Asshat — presumably someplace near Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump — is starting to burble away about the idea of legislation requiring kids (and yes, adults too) 🙄 to wear helmets while tobogganing… Naturally, this is all being done in the proper, politically correct, Chicken Little fashion:

Brain injury and safety experts from around the country say that it may be a foolish move for Canadians not to take the issue of playing safely on their sleds more seriously.

“There (are) probably, across this country . . . thousands of kids that are permanently brain-injured as a result of toboggan injuries that you won’t know about because they are hidden in long-term care facilities or they are being taken care of at home,” said Louis Francescutti, an emergency room physician and child injury expert from Edmonton.

Yup, that’s right. Literally THOUSANDS — hell, why not say TENS of thousands? — of presumably vegetative kids all across Canada, all hidden away where no one can see them. It’s all a part of the massive coverup by Big Oil Toboggan!!

Give me a God damned break. Seriously now, just how God damned stoopid do they think we are? I tobogganed for pretty much my entire childhood and nothing more than a busted arm; maybe two. And that’s a bigass maybe. Every time I come across another one of these ejaculations of asshattery, I’m reminded of an email that shows up in my inbox from some friend or another from time to time. It seems to pop up about once every 18 months or so. Here it is…

• First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
• They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
• Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
• We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets; not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking…
• As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags and riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
• We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
• We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
• We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
• We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
• We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem .
• We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
• We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
• Some of the dumber ones ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in them forever.
• We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
• We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
• Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
• The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU Lived! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

If you’re anything like me, you probably have quite a few fond memories of playing hockey with friends, or even just skating around in the waning light, on a frozen pond somewhere.  I think most of us — or at least those of us that grew up in the country or small towns — have such recollections.  For us it was a pond in the middle of a farmer’s field on the northeast edge of town.

Most folks my age will tell you that the winters were quite a bit colder back then, and they were.  I can remember a time in my life when storms like the one that dumped about 3 feet of white stuff on London recently were expected at least once or twice a year.  So, to make a long story short, skating on frozen ponds was just something that we did, every chance we got.

But along with all that fun came constant warnings from the grownups, delivered with the kind of tone that made it damn clear that any screwing around would be dealt with immediately, and harshly:

• Stay away from ponds if there had been any kind of a thaw, no matter how brief, within the last week.
• “Thick and blue is tried and true; thin or crispy, way too risky.”
• Don’t trust ice that has a milky colour to it.
• Don’t go out on any ice until somebody — or, more likely, somebody’s dad — has augered it to make sure exactly how thick it is.
• Don’t trust ice that’s covered in a layer of snow.  Snow doesn’t just obscure ice, it also has an insulating effect and inhibits good ice formation.
• Never trust the ice on a river or a stream; it can be a foot thick in one spot but paper thin just a few yards away.
• Always have a lifeline nearby, just in case the worst happens.
• Finally, no matter how well you think you know the ice: never, never, EVER go out on the ice alone.

I was reminded of all this today as I heard the news of the tragic death of 11-year Brunthan Nadarajah in Scarborough, who died trying to rescue a friend who had fallen through the ice on a drainage pond.  The other kid, a 15-year old, is currently in critical condition at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.

Winter in Canada is a wonderful time, and peppered with innumerable traditions but, for God’s sake, make sure your children know what to do, and what not to do, to keep themselves safe.  No parent ever wants to read something like this about their own children:

The older boy plunged through the thin ice that covered the pond. The younger boy tried to pull his friend from the water, only to break through himself.

“He was the only person who went and tried to rescue him,” Nadarah said of his son, adding that the sixth-grade student was trying to save a high-school student.

“I miss him so much. We miss him so much.”

Rescue attempts

One man rushed to the scene with a long electrical cord and tried to throw it to the boys. His rescue attempt was almost successful.

“I threw it out again (and) he finally got a hold of it,” Phil Hall said.

“I tried pulling him up and he couldn’t hold on to it. I guess his hands were freezing, he couldn’t hold on to it.”

Hall then crawled out on the thin ice, inching his way towards the boys in an effort to get closer.

“As I got close towards them, the ice gave way,” he said.

Hall, who cannot swim, and a police officer still had the extension cord and were able to get back to safety.

Four police officers in total attempted to rescue the boys, but were not successful.